Re: Before Dimdows 10 Goes EOL, I'm Testing Linux To Save My Laptop From The Landfill

On Thu, 6/26/2025 12:39 AM, rbowman wrote:

On Wed, 25 Jun 2025 19:02:00 -0700, T wrote:
 

On 6/25/25 5:46 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

Another daily-diary article, this time trying out a few Linux distros
that might offer a less painful transition for Windows users
<https://www.tomshardware.com/news/live/before-windows-10-goes-eol-im-

testing-three-alternative-linux-distros-to-save-my-6-year-old-laptop-from-
the-landfill>.

>
A lot of the time, it seems to me, the hardest step for a Windows user
is copying a bootable Linux image (either live OS or installer) onto a
USB stick. What would be a quick, easy job on Linux itself requires a
fair bit of faffing about with third-party tools on Windows.

>
https://fedoraproject.org/spins KDE, MATE, and Xfce are all great.
gnome is too weird to be usable.
>
>
There are two easy ways to burn a flash drive with a Linux ISO from
Windows:
>
Rufus Web Site:
>
     https://rufus.ie/ https://rufus.akeo.ie/
>
Fedora Media Write for Linux and Windows:
    https://fedoraproject.org/en/workstation/download
>
Fedora is less complicated.   You will notice when running that it calls
some libraries from Rufus

 
I don't remember the details but Fedora Media Write didn't work for me and
I wound up using rufus. I would not call it 'a fair bit of farfing
around'.
 

That's my experience. The topic of a Linux USB preparation will come up,
someone will say "Oh, just use XYZ", but the thing is, they haven't
tested XYZ themselves, and there is a bit of disappointment waiting for
you.

Basically, if you find any utilities at all, that even remotely work,
you latch onto that thing.

The good thing is, if the ISO is a hybrid, and you burn it to a DVD,
that generally preserves the hybrid nature of it. This is excellent
for training purposes, as you can show people a picture of what a
hybrid menu looks like in the BIOS screen. Whereas if you have your
(barely working, but hey I'm not complaining) USB stick preparation
tool, which only supports one mode, you might not see how the
choices in the BIOS are arranged.

I just installed Artix on the other machine, the Rufus failed to boot
for it, the DVD made from the ISO... booted. Cost me a 9GB DVD blank.

I even had one distro, where the name of something was too long (USB entry),
and it absolutely fucked up the BIOS display, and you could not
tell which entry was the UEFI and which was the CSM. Somewhere
deep on the Internet, I could hear <snickering> .

   Paul