Mastodawn

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

The fun of Saturday morning science is over, so it's on to the business of the day #EndOf10 and the opportunity to convert the teenager's laptop to linux mint. Follow along with my no doubt enraging journey through the #Windows10 minefield here. (or mute if you don't want to hear it).
First task is to find a flash drive with enough space and or disposable files on it...

The first irritant persistent message from Microsoft to log in to family functions. cannot log in, cannot remove it from desktop. It keeps popping up.
Ominous. 2/n

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

OK this may be my first encounter with the enshittification of OneDrive - I know it only from the online cloud storage that you have to actually acitively save stuff too.
Appears that microsoft has it as default storgae so everything saved on hard drive of laptop is also backed up to their cloud.

And this onedrive storage is "full" after we downloaded full google photos* backup yesterday. So I can't do anything here even though the laptop itslef has a goood 150 Gb free on the hard drive.

Swearing is starting to happen. 3/n

*another world of pain I won't go into here.

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

Also slightly annoyed with both myself and husband for 1) allowing this situation to occur in first place 2) not being fully aware of the implications of the hasty decision to buy a windows based laptop in first place.

OTOH, we're reasonably knowledgeable on IT issues. What chance does average member of public stand?

4/n

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

Windows laptop is so gummed up it's taking minutes to react to simple search in the directories. And I can only conclude onedrive is the issue here, possibly also #EndOf10? I have disconnected the wifi while I try to run the backup.

So far the linux mint download to USB drive from danish hosted mirror site has been the easy part! 5/n

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

Update, disconnecting wifi connection has not made windows laptop run faster. The "Fast access" part of windows filefinder is now running even slower...

I only want to check my backup to an external hard drive has worked!

6/n

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

Proper backup finally seems to be running. Will report back in half an hour if it has succeeded...

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

Well backup went faster than expected but looks like mint download did not. Trying that again now...
AT least I'm being productive in between times...

8/n

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

Ok the second time worked - and the file has been verified. Thank heavens I have my own linux machine. Would be a nightmare to do this on Windows I suspect...
Now to make the bootable drive.

It's at least 6 years since I did this last time. Crumbs.

9/n

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

Ok, resolved some etcher problems - ubuntu is fast with this stuff - seems to be flashing the bootable driver now.. 🤞

Also found some very cool photos from a trip 10 years ago and some ideas for new projects, also about 7 yeasr old on the USB stick - so that's a win.
10/n

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

Moment of truth time - I have a bootable usb stick. Etcher was veyr fast I'm pretty sure the backup of the laptop worked. But teenager may be about to hate me forever.

Let's see... 🤞

11/n

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

Well I'm in the BIOS finally. Man I'd almost forgotten this existed...

An LM logo has appeared, but now it's all gone dark... 😬

Oh wait I do believe we are live...

It's time to Install linux mint

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

Teenager has just suggested some of the programs, which I was under the impression were via the browser, may need to be on desktop.
This might mean Wine I guess?
And probably some kind of microsoft office install? I was hoping to get away with libreoffice..

Anybody have any experience with wine?
I will in any case have to contact the IT support at the school I think. I hope I am not the only parent doing so with the #EndOf10 .

Meanwhile, over on the laptop, the Linux Mint is installed (in danish even) and seems to be restarting without the USB
holding breath here...
🤞

13/n

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

Right tea break time - then we can start optimising the desktop and all the programs as well as moving over the files.

I guess that is where we will start to run into different problems.

This linux install is taking a lot longer than I'd hoped (which was probably unrealistic to be fair), but has been pretty smooth so far (once we left microsoft world at least)

14/n

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

WELL.
We have a newly installed @linuxmint version on an old #EndoOf10 laptop.

All user files have been moved across (will require some organisation still, and that alone will be a shock to a GenZ used to just dumping stuff on the cloud - honestly the desktop looked like my parents... 😱 ).

Most important programs are there (I had to explain difference between program and app along the way too).

And overall it's been a pretty positive learning experience for both of us. I have had to compromise on a few things and teenager has a few programs installed that I'd rather not - but let's see this as a gateway out of #BigTech if at all possible...

There will be a few more follow up points I suspect but thanks all for your friendly encouragement and helpful hints so far

15/n

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

And that's a wrap - the newly refreshed laptop has been handed over to teen with most of the packages functional. Thanks for following along on this @linuxmint installation journey with me and thanks to all #linux maintainers, forum contributors and FOSS advocates around keeping the system running.

👏 WE REALLY APPRECIATE YOU!👏

The final judgement won't be clear until Monday when the first log in at school happens but hopefully it will be successful, or the IT support is going to have to deal with some very salty comments (from me).
16/16

FIN

CryptoMoose Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram @linuxmint my teen was Linux mint for the last 2 years of secondary school, sixth form and all through university and onwards his career.... I hope it goes well for your teen..

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

@cryptomoose well that's encouraging ! Thanks! @linuxmint

Neville Park Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram wait, there's a difference between "program" and "app"? I've been using them interchangeably

(Admittedly "program" isn't really used for programs that run on smartphones, or for web applications, but they are still totally programs)

El Duvelle Oct 18

@nev @Ruth_Mottram
Yes I would like to know about this too. All the programs on my Win 10 desktops are called "apps" by the system. Is there really a difference?

CryptoMoose Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram Libra office is fine. After you get over the "where is the thing I need to click on" to do the thing that I used to do in Microsoft..

Joakim Fors Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram Bottles via Flatpak/Flathub is a pretty easy way to manage generic WINE environments

https://flathub.org/en/apps/com.usebottles.bottles

Install Bottles on Linux | Flathub

Run Windows software

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

@joakimfors thanks - will check it out..

Knud Jahnke Oct 18

@joakimfors @Ruth_Mottram

How good is Wine by now? A few years back it was mostly very disappointing and nothing I tried really ran properly. Did that change?

Joakim Fors Oct 18

@knud @Ruth_Mottram I suppose it depends (boring answer). I only use it for games... and have run some small tools/utils. Valve has done a lot of work these last years on wine and all the games I own run fine with some proton flavored wine. The few utils/tools I've tried have also worked without problems. Can't say anything about the larger Windows only software packages (think Office, Photoshop etc).

Knud Jahnke Oct 19

@joakimfors @Ruth_Mottram

Thanks - I don't need the large packages, they have pretty good comparable native Linux equivalents. More niche applications. I'll have a look at wine again.

@Ruth_Mottram
OnlyOffice straddles the void between LibreOffice and Microsoft Office fairly well. It is much more functional than LibreOffice (particularly Impress). I use all 3 and have found OnlyOffice to be my favorite.

I do my Wine tasks mostly from within Lutris, I find the GUI friendlier while still exposing most settings.

Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝Oct 18

As far as I can tell, unless you're a professional accountant LibreOffice can do anything that Microsoft Office can do. The school's IT support will probably say that you need Microsoft Office, but if you ask them why it may turn out that you really don't.

Classes have "Apps" now. -_-

I don't know more than that. Don't have any children.

CC: @[email protected]

Wolfgang Maier Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram regarding office, LibreOffice should just be fine for school stuff (my own kids are complaining a bit, but in the end it lets them do what they want).
One good idea is to install MS font packages though to minimize differences to MS Office.

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

@zerodivision hah cool - that's a good idea. where do you find those?

Wolfgang Maier Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram on mint you can install lots of fonts directly from the software center. Ttf-mscorefonts-installer covers the classical MS fonts.

Wolfgang Maier Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram calibri is not among those. I forgot where I obtained it, but it was quite discoverable on the internet.

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

@zerodivision awesome suggestion thanks, just found them. Hope that keeps a few things easier, still looking for the Teams stuff

Albert Cardona Oct 18

@zerodivision @Ruth_Mottram

MS office works on a browser too, and so does MS Teams. So that they can keep as web apps. Not different than Google Docs. Even Zoom works well on a browser, I'd say even better (more stable) than via the app.

My own choices are rather very different, like Signal instead of Zoom, ViM with LaTeX instead of LibreOffice, and so on. But these apps come in handy for interacting with all the admins that don't know or aren't allowed to use anything else.

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

@albertcardona @zerodivision I have installed zoom, suspect snapchat will be quickly installed when I actually handover too, but that will be left as an exercise for the reader....

JWcph, Radicalized By Decency Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram I'm just now starting to try out some Linuxes in virtual machines & part of it was looking into Wine - I found something called Bottles, which is apparently a frontend for Wine, and have managed to install my first Windows app with it 😁

Veronica Olsen Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram I mainly have experience with running Windows games on Linux via Wine. (I don't often need Windows software.) There's an application that simplifies this called Lutris.

It doesn't always work because the Windows game developers don't generally care that people are running their games on Linux, and it sometimes takes a while before the community finds a workaround.

Mark Burton Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram
I used it some years ago. It never ran big programmes well but good enough for the odd small thing. However I don't miss it and although my machines are dual boot, I never need to use Windows. The one thing was bulk replacing page breaks in a mailmerged document but eventually I found a way in libre office.

kim_harding ✅Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram Just use LibreOffice, the files are fully interchangeable with MS Office...

Wine is more used for MS games these days 😉

Angela Scholder Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram Nah, just keep it to LibreOffice.....

@Ruth_Mottram re Office, I tend to either use the online version (it's a bit crap, but hey...), or if I really need stuff in a windows machine, we do have a terminal server that gives you access to a full Desktop. I only use this for long, multi organisation technical documents written by people who should frankly know better....

@Ruth_Mottram I think there's some math software that they use for high school physics mainly that you need to install? Maple! But I think that runs natively on Linux.

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

@drgroftehauge I am waiting for that kind of thing to crop up too..

jon saenz Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram I have used wine recently and it has improved a lot sin last time (about ten years ago). A virtual machine (virtualbox) inside linux would also work, I guess you habe a working windows license

kim_harding ✅Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram This could be useful, if you do find you need to run some Windows apps https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Windows-Applications-on-Linux-with-WinBoat-Running-Microsoft-Word-Photoshop-More-on-TUXEDO-OS.tuxedo

Windows Applications on Linux with WinBoat: Running Microsoft Word, Photoshop & More on TUXEDO OS - TUXEDO Computers

Windows Applications on Linux with WinBoat: Running Microsoft Word, Photoshop & More on TUXEDO OS: Many Linux newcomers repeatedly mention the same reasons for not giving the free operating system a chance: they need programs from the Adobe Creative ...

Wiebke Frey Oct 19

@Ruth_Mottram I did use wine for Irfan View. Some googling brings you to a 'how to install...' page, has so far worked fine.
There are apps/programms for lots of "windows stuff" like Teams (need it for work), I have zoom and slack installed as well. Actually, I nowadays don't really see why windows should be 'necessary'.

@Ruth_Mottram Go! Go! Go!!

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

@jgomezdans 🙌

Angela Scholder Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram LOL! Somehow I have the feeling I haven't made any bootable USB drive on my Linux (Ubuntu) machine, only using Rufus on Windooze. No idea why.

Wolfgang Maier Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram funny read so far. Switched my mother from windows 10 to mint two months ago and that went very well.

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

@zerodivision May well try this for my parent s- god knows what they are using...
Problem is they're not nearby and I'm not sure I can be a remote sysadmin for them as well.

Angela Scholder Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram BTW, Check out Total Commander.
It's an absolutely brilliant file handler, where Double Commander or Midnight Commander don't even come close.
One reason for me to still use Windooze.

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

@AngelaScholder Goodness I used to use Total commander - I had no idea it still existed!

Angela Scholder Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram I guess I started using it 20 years or so ago, and never looked back.
Paid for it.

Veronica Olsen Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram My real pain last time I converted a Windows PC to Linux was to create the actual bootable USB from Windows. I ended up doing it on another Linux PC instead in the end.

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

@veronica I'm doing that from my linux laptop!
SO happy to hear that was the right decision...

Morten Juhl-Johansen Oct 18

@veronica @Ruth_Mottram Ha! Same here.

bert hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram I find that it is unhelpful to blame 'the public' for any of this. It is the system that needs changing. Individually we can make all the right choices, and then our employers, governments & schools continue to make the wrong ones at a far larger scale. So don't sweat it too much personally!

Ruth Mottram Oct 18

@bert_hubert Yes I'm very much feeling this today! I'm switching kid's laptop over to linux. School does everythign in Teams, so I'm hoping it will all still work. But when I asked teacher before holiday I got a very blank look.

Kid is also worried about being only linux user in class. I'm hoping there will come a day when they see it as a cool thing. I'm also resigned to being sysadmin for the rest of my life...

Guillaume Gaullier Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram I occasionally need to use MS Teams for work, and the browser-based version works fine on Linux (at least to attend a call, I haven't tried hosting one).

If you don't want to be anybody else's sysadmin but your own (I understand the feeling!), then I suggest installing one of the atomic versions of Fedora!
This is as close as it gets to "set and forget". Auto-updates upon reboot (but without ever forcing a reboot like Windows infamously does), possibility to boot from the previous version of the system if anything is broken after an update, "App Store" like experience to install programs (powered by https://flathub.org ). I started using it recently, it's a delight.

You have a variety of desktop options: https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/
KDE is probably the one looking most familiar to people used to Windows.

Flashing a USB stick with a Fedora iso is also super easy with Fedora Media Writer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedora_Media_Writer

kim_harding ✅Oct 18

@Ruth_Mottram
There is an Unofficial Microsoft Teams client for Linux on both Snap and Flatpak, which I find works surprisingly well (much better than the Official Microsoft version) 😉

Also I agree with @bert_hubert that public bodies are far too willing to pay the Microsoft tax when procuring IT...