Linux & Windows maintenance

There is a choice of Linux desktops that are smart or plain that is fairly straightforward to use;  

Windows tries to be helpful so it is necessary to second-guess what the problem is, unfortunately, a drawback of Windows helpfulness.  It is obstructive to find that the computer wants to do something else by comparison XP is comparatively predictable.  Still, icon-based Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) don't have a good equivalent to DOSKEY for Microsoft DOS this feature kept a record of your previous actions by scrolling back through text strings of commands using up/down keys.  If you like DOS-style, Linux Terminal which is a text command-driven interface behaves in a similar way as DOS including the ability to go back over what you have done before and if you wish to change or just repeat a previous command line.  You don't have to use the Linux GUI, even so, GUI's are good.  You may have to use a Linux terminal though where there is no GUI interface.  Some GUI's advise what commands to use in the terminal where the GUI does not support that feature.

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Installation of a Linux desktop

1. Download choice;

   • Full DVD installation for your computer - very little will need to be downloaded during installation.

   • The Live DVD installation - You can try the Linux desktop running it on a DVD or USB memory stick before you decide if to install it. 

   • Net install version CD. - Everything is downloaded during installation.

2. Flash your chosen .iso download using Refus 

   • Other CD burners or Flash utilises can be used.  Some of those create persistence on the USB stick so that you can save work, try the operating system a little running from a live USB memory stick.

   • I found Refus to be the most reliable but if there is a problem it is worth trying another .iso to CD, DVD or USB creator tool.

3. Plug the USB, CD or DVD into the target PC.  How the installation is set up depends on the Bios settings;

   • BIOS/MBR PC installation is straightforward.  Suitable for Windows prior to 7.

   • UEFI/GPT PC will require Boot security to be turned off.  This can be difficult depending on the PC.

   • BIOS/GPT Depends on the Bios if this combination of old no security makes boot and installation easy and new GPT allows many partitions can be created and removed easily.

4. Follow the instructions.

   • Start enjoying Linux. 

   • Start adding or removing programmes.  You also may need to add non-free and back-ports repositories and drivers (depending on the Linux you are using).

     • You will almost certainly need to turn off reference to the CD-ROM repositories, and you don't need the source code so untick that as well, those just use up disk space.

     • First see if the required program is in the Linux repositories,  Backports which work a bit differently or download the program if more features, that you would like are offered by doing that.

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Ubuntu is one of the easiest and safest Operating Systems to install;

• Be careful with any operating system partition part of installation or tool  - Ubuntu and variant distributions advanced option; Do something else option when changing partitions

  • Partition management and creation is the riskiest part of any installation or maintenance.

  • The meaning of the wording is strange.  If you don't tick format then it may not proceed to installation and if it does the installation may be untidy.  You need to set the mount partition to EXT? (but other Linux partition types are offered) and mount; "/"

  • You can go back or cancel before proceeding so do that if you are not sure about it.  

  • Warning Windows installation - Windows is not so forgiving and can easily destroy a Linux or another Windows installation even if you answer the questions properly.  This is not usually the case if you take care but can happen regardless of the care you have taken though.  If you have a choice install Windows first leaving 25GB for the Linux distribution at the far end of the hard disk (or let Linux installation take care of this later).

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If you need to use the installation advanced configuration;

Ubuntu and most other Linux distributions including Mageia 5 default to use two partitions; (like most Linux distributions)

    Mounting point /

    + Swap

There are options on how many partitions with some Linux's.  Mageia 4 default to use 3 partitions;

    Mounting point; /

    Mounting point; /home

    + Swap

Lubuntu by default uses one partition and you can add a swap partition subsequently. 

There are options at installation time to break the distribution up into many partitions.  I have not chosen to do that!

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Subsequent modifications can be made to use swap spaces but on other hard disks in order to make operation a little faster.    After installing multiple Linux's it is useful to review the swap partitions used in any case, for example, some of the faster Linux's do not set up any swap partitions but on a slow PC, it is very worthwhile to set them up.  Debian recreates swap partitions it finds and thereby makes them unavailable to other Linux's installed.

Desktops - the user interface style. 

These vary between distributions as well the version used varies between distributions. 

• Cinnamon If your PC's Graphics handles this desktop it can be fast and also full feature. Otherwise, it is very very slow if it needs to use software rendering (it calls it).  I run Mate or Debian Cinnamon on a Samsung R50 and a slightly newer Toshiba of about 2006 with 2GB of DRAM - it runs video full screen smoothly.  My much newer Windows 10 Toshiba is much faster but does not have the necessary graphics hardware but will perform comparably in this respect. 

• GNOME Is not like Windows but seems plain, simple, and different but it is a full feature.  Click the application and you will see all your applications running as small windows press one of them to select it. This desktop requires a higher-performance PC. 

• KDE Is like Windows but also like all the other Linux's put together.  This requires the highest-performance PC but the newer Plasma KDE does not require such a high-performance PC.  Is good-looking with fading effects, a preview of tasks running.  I found it to be too much a bit of everything so it can be a good start to see a bit of many desktops.  I do not use this for long.  This is a bit like Windows 10 can be all things to everyone but not a focussed single style.  A newer version is Plasma and it maybe Mageia 6's fastest desktop (December 2017)

• XFCE is like LXDE but looks a little different.  A good basic established Desktop.

• LXDE Is good for a lower specification PC or you want to run demanding applications or are just happy with a Windows 9x, 2000, XP-like style. It is fairly plain.  LXDE is being replaced by LxQt which is lighter, faster, and plainer.

• Mate Requires a moderate performance PC, Mint's implementation of Mate is popular.  It is not so plain, but it is nice to use and it is straightforward with in addition to Xfce like application search has a comprehensive application search that will suggest applications you may wish to install or look up information about.

• Unity This is a very plain straightforward and smart desktop and it is not like Windows.  The 64-bit version requires a surprisingly lot of processing power but the 32-bit version is not so slow on a PC without a lot of memory is as Ubuntu says on its website.  This is Ubuntu's own Desktop. It has the latest fastest Firefox making the web-browsing not so slow as otherwise would be expected.  Ubuntu has returned to Gnome, but looks like Unity, as its main desktop distribution (April 2018) - Ubuntu and Unity have been a great flagship for Linux for not very technical people - I think Windows 10 has many GNOME/Unity features but in a cluttered way.

• The relative speed and functionality also depend on the distribution.  In addition, the stated minimum and desirable PC specifications may be overstated or understated depending on the Desktop and distribution chosen.

• Fedora (19 & 20) Free of charge version of Redhat a US company.  It did not share with any other operating system when installing it and will damage any OS found. RedHat ceased making the distribution in its own name a number of years ago.  I tried this in 2013 and tried again in October 2016 both XFCE and Gnome but had issues that I chose not to pursue further but they are fast.

• Linux Lite The core is; Ubuntu.  (Possibly New Zealand based).  This did not recognise a SATA drive at the time I tried it but is fine, as of December 2017.  This is not a particularity fast XFCE distro but it does support Dropbox.

• Mageia XFCE - Is more technically orientated and also runs Dropbox properly.  It is not particularly fast now but is well finished off compared to Fedora.  Mageia uses the .rpm (Red Hat) format for installable programs.

  • • Mageia is Paris, Europe-based.  Shares particularly well with other operating systems.  The best combination of the speed, quality of presentation, and functional.  The installation is quite flexible but can also fail.  The installation may also fix things without resorting to a re-installation.

    • The issue I mentioned was with changing partitions on a computer such as deleting them or removing a hard disk that in turn prevented the desktop starting.  This happened during the life of version 4 but was resolved eventually in version 5 by that I had stopped using Mageia.  Like all Linux's I found it shares particularly well with other operating systems.

    • Those earlier versions had been the best combination of speed, quality of presentation, and functionality.  I briefly tried Mageia 6 (Dec 2017) and did not find it to be a fast OS compared to others anymore but Plasma may be the fastest offered.  As before the classical installation is good and previously was best?

    • More recently the full installer does not install on a few of my computers as discussed before (Feb 2019).

Mageia 4 or higher

• Unlike other Linux distributions, this distribution does not tolerate a partition of any sort being removed.

• I do not know how Mageia 6 behaves but I think it may be better.  Mageia 7 and 8 are fine, as of Jan 2022.

• Manjaro (Xfce 0.8.9 & KDE 0.8.9) Based in Austria, France and Germany. (Its Kernel is; Arch Linux seems to be based in German, Canada and USA?). New and is not up to version 1 yet though the variant Xfce I tried briefly seems stable. Arch Linux claim almost absolute security. Does not share with any other operating system on the computer when installing it.

  • Uses the .arch (Arch) format for installable programs.

  • I looked at this again at Manjaro version 08.09.13-rc2 in June 2015 but found it to be less user friendly than others listed here and not faster than any. The advanced option does allow you to share multi-boot with other operating systems at installation.

• openSUSE (13.1) (June 2015) - I have not run this distribution for a number of years it now is a pay-for enterprise version.  It has been a subsidiary SUSE is based in Germany and Novel/Microsoft USA company. This is fast professional looking and a better implementation than most. SUSE recommend ImageUSB (June 2015) which is a good basic tool for creating an installer USB.  At the time I evaluated it did not run that well other Linux's were better.

  • Uses the .rpm (Red Hat) format for installable programs.

  • I looked at the website there appears to be an open version again.  A stepped releases or a rolling release version (4/2020).  I did not get far into installation due to requirement issues but the installation is very attractive but many things are not conventional.  The partition system could be converted to GPT which I have only seen Windows 10 installation offer. 

• Xubuntu 12.04, 13.10 and 14.04 is Ubuntu but with an Xfce desktop. The menu structure is uncluttered and well organised.   Although some of the older versions work on older computers for example 12.04 is now out of support but still can be downloaded and installed and for example, Lubuntu 16.xx will run on a 15 year Compaq N1020V but the highest version will run on an older model N1015V is 14.xx. 

  • Xubuntu - [and most likely any XFCE desktop] be careful with the save session option when turning the computer off. If you leave something running that needs authentication eg Gparted the desktop will not open after logging on next time.  I repeatedly tried to turn on the PC and the desktop eventually started after a wait but without the last working session - in other words, it sorted itself. Here follows another suggestion;

    • Close all the applications you have running except the ones you would like to start up next time with such as email only.

    • Close the computer down with the save session option ticked.

    • Next time you close the computer down ensure that the save session option is not ticked.

• Lubuntu there is an alternative installer that may run on older PC's.  There is no such alternative for the other ?ubuntu's. Lubuntu 16.? (LXDE desktop) is not much different to Xubuntu in speed and is very much slower than Lubuntu 18.? (LxQt desktop).  Neither version found a wireless driver automatically although it is in the non-free repositories.  

  • I used the warning messages from Debian because Lubuntu gave no warnings about missing drivers.  Consequently, I would not have easily known what was missing otherwise.

  • After updating from 16 to 18 many things stopped working during the process including the wireless so by comparison with Debian you could not carry on using the computer.  The installation needed restarting at completion many things did not work or only worked when called from Terminal or required installation again.  In conclusion, it is better to make a clean installation.

  • The LxQt version is now one of the fastest full feature desktops I've evaluated here.

• • The newer 20.? version of ?Ubuntu have fewer features to make the desktop look plain.  Those features can be found or installed. Adding Gdebi and Synaptic are two useful additions that help you install and remove programs that are not in Snap.  

    • Ctrl-H shows or hides hidden files and directories.

    • Creating a symbolic link requires looking up how on the internet.  You find complicated answers or just right-click on the file or directory whilst holding SHIFT+CTRL and a menu will give create a symbolic link.

------------- Linux Distributions that are fast or will run on old computers -----------

Debian all the desktops but LXDE is the fastest I have evaluated.  Lubuntu Alternative but this is one is competitively slow.

• Puppy Linux - Legacy OS Is a very lightweight fast Linux that may run on a PC built-in 1990 or later. Tried Feb 2019 on a Sony Vaio PCG-GRT996ZP Laptop.

  • The Sony Vaio Laptop has an out of date bios but the computer.  The PC does not appear to run any Linux Kernel high than 3.xx.xx although 4.xx.xx can function in some cases.   That includes puppy Linux.

  • Xenial Pup - The wireless did not work because no wireless device was found.

  • Slacko Pup - wireless did work.

    • Although there is no login I could not access my work from another Linux because the likely directory was locked.  So if the installation fails then your work might be locked to you compared to other distributions.

  • Tahr pup - I looked briefly but it did not get far starting.

There are other Linux's for very old PC's which are low spec. here is a link with some reviews and mentions;  https://hubpages.com/technology/Best-Linux-For-Old-Computer

These seem to operate at a lower level and you do most things by text command with some a minimal GUI called open box with little more than a web browser and file manager.  I have only looked at;

• Bunsen Labs - I tried this in VirtualBox and scripts run through that installs things including XFCE and many common programmes but I could not find out how to run XFCE or anything after that.  It may be okay installed on a PC rather than in a virtual machine but I did not pursue that further. (Dec 2017).

  • Version 5, 64 bit HP Laptop (April 2020).  This Linux distribution is slower than MX but smaller.  The desktop is plainer than XFCE or any other.

  • Took much longer than any other Linux to install and run a welcome script that installs many extras and some optional extras  (all day).  It would not install from a USB failing to find the USB stick during installation (this usually also occurs with Mageia) - I installed it from a DVD.

  • When installed there was notably no warning messages during start-up.  The desktop is very minimal with very few GUI's and very minimal menu options found by pressing the Windows key.  Most programs are found by pressing ALT-F3 and typing into the command search line. 

• Lubuntu 18.x is a fast LxQt desktop but Lubuntu 16.x is one of the slower implementations of LXDE desktop.  Described above.

• MX Linux - Is fast, light and full feature (Jan 2018). Slower than Debian but is more complete and works in Virtual Box.  This distribution will update to the next version when that version becomes stable but some aspects will need to be updated manually such as the kernel.

  • MX has many utilities to change boot GRUB, GPARTED pre-installed.  It does find hardware and deal with loading all the drivers automatically.

  • MX has boot repair and configuring tools be careful of them I found they are not as good as Ubuntu repair USB although the MX live CD may run on some computers that the Ubuntu boot repair USB won't run on.

  • MX also has comprehensive clean up tools that delete old files for example.  Other distributions have similar tools or scheduled clean up options.

  • Compared to AntiX this distribution is more finished off but if installed in Virtual Box does seem to fail at startup so I reinstalled it a few times.  The laptop pointing device is over sensitive and is set to single click making it over sensitive so untended things happen but using a mouse is better. 

• AntiX Linux - similar to MX Linux but with LXDE, has very lightweight features, very fast and application FireFox-ESR (Jan 2018).  This can be difficult to install on some computers.  It is untidy and unfinished by comparison with its sister MX.

 The Feature of Metamorphosis and Anti Linux above is that they don't use SystemD - because, they say, it is controversial.  All three above Distro's use Open Box window manager - I did not know what this is but it is fast.  Open Box is said to be very fast and seems to be like a very minimal themed screen (a picture and a toolbar) but you mostly drive it with text terminal commands, scripts plus File and Firefox mouse-driven GUI.

• By comparison, Debian and specifically LXDE are about the fastest and most well finished off of these but I have categorised it not as a lightweight.  See above.

• Peppermint Linux (I was recommended this in Feb 2017 - it is exceptionally slow for LDRE but is good in many other ways) - This is a full feature LDRE all things work well (including Dropbox which had been difficult 2016 to March 2017)  But the cost is that it is very slow.  Personally, I find the colour themes harsh - too intense. 

Distributions

Some if not all distributions do not install all drivers for the hardware and networking but invariably somewhere there is a way of scanning and adding those things or in some cases like Debian you need to read the support on the website.  With Debian therefore more than other distributions you need to get then add drivers from the non-free repository usually.   The drivers and setup are probably in the repository and using those usually turn out best. 

I have been corrected; openSUSE and Mageia are not Redhat (Fedora) based.  I should say that in all cases above these distributions don't behave as stand-alone or tangents of other things but are tightly controlled for compatibility and interchangeability.  So that if you want an Epson driver for a scanner or printer you can get a generic one from the source of your distribution or you can get the driver directly from Epson but in that case fortunately you should find that if your distribution uses the .deb (Debian) or .rpm (Redhat) formats.  There is also a raw .bin format in the same case (such as Dropbox) I have not used this.  That does not mean the distribution will permit you to use that Epson driver but if it does I found the Epson driver worked well. (I am also told printer drivers can be very difficult and it suggest I write about that) Setting up printers seem to use an established UNIX configuration and drivers But there are not the one-step fix it things that Windows is often better at.  Epson does not appear to have ArchLinux based drivers though, And I read of other Linux's such as o pen-PC that they were at one time a fork of another kernel such as Debian in this case but the Kernel is now open-PC so I don't know how easy they are to set up. 

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After Installation

Debian and Mageia Installations

Both Linux's are quite different but both can repair grub boot-loader without your need to re-install the Linux.  They may do that repair when Boot-repair-disk fails to do that.

Mageia installer also has a tool for restoring the Windows only Boot.  Boot repair USB can also restore Windows boot.

It is more convenient to Disable the install from CD-path from update libraries.  With Mageia, you then need to press Add, which starts an automatic process that sets up update libraries for you.

Additionally, Debian look at the website at the repository's necessary and add those including the non-free repository.  Look at an existing repository to see how the advice in the Debian Wiki is applied the single line URL is really entered as;  URL space DISTRIBUTION space ALL-ELSE these are entered in the three boxes.  After I did there was a duplication but I have left it that way it works and I will ask again about that in a Linux forum or Facebook group. 

How to speed up Ubuntu and other Debian or Ubuntu-based distributions 

I had noticed lots of disc activity which turned out to be because the swap partition had not been set up.  The swap space makes the computer run faster.  If you install more than one Linux you only need one swap partition so you can delete other swap partitions and re-size the remaining partitions.  Doing this you will find that the swap partition needs to be enabled.

See Ubuntu help at;

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwapFaq#How_do_I_add_more_swap.3F

You don't need to use Terminal to launch GParted.  But you may need to install GParted and a few other things first then launch GParted. It is also useful to turn the swapon at this point to make the computer go faster whilst you follow the other steps that will permanently enable the swap partition. 

You may find that your particular distribution does not have all the things and these needed to be installed which are in addition;

• ?Ubuntu used to offer "gksu" or "sudo" are not required with Debian.  The terminal command is;

  • In Debian "su" allows you to log into the route terminal instead.  Alternatively, you can open the route terminal in Debian then you do not require a leading command.  This is not permitted in any Ubuntu.

  • In ?Ubuntu "sudo" is put in front of the command required and the user enters his route password in order to proceed with the command.  Apparently gksu configures the graphical interface before also logging into route for the following command. 

• gedit ---- This also needed to be installed. There was no warning but nothing happened when I entered the command line. Use the Ubuntu Software Centre and install gedit,  ---- Alternatively use "nano" instead of "gedit".

Use the root terminal or type "su" and log in to the root from Terminal.

In addition, the recommended changes to swappiness value to 10 is beneficial.

When installing one of the Ubuntu's you don't need an internet connection but a wired connection even if you chose to not install the updates at the time of installation is a safer option.

By comparison, Mageia does not need an internet connection at the time of installation but you still need an internet connection and it needs to be a wire connection to allow updating.

Ubuntu community forum for help is particularly useful for Ubuntu-based distributions. You find some general help will be useful for any Debian based distribution.  But don't count on finding help on any Linux distribution unless the question and answer are very general.

Manjaro's Xfce desktop;- The Beta Graphical installation tool is smooth, easy and the one that works.  Manjaro is well implemented but it is a bit more technical orientated OS I chose not to pursue this far other than to create a maintenance tool installed on a memory stick.  It is not the fastest lightweight but it is fast.  I preferred Linux Lite or Xubuntu (long term support version). Uniquely Manjaro displays the text prologue and epilogue scripts rather than a graphical picture so presumably it does not use the problematic Plymouth.  Consequently, the display did not go bazerk but on the other hand setting up a printer did not work because it did not offer my computer's parallel port to me.  I found the style plain and a bit harder to get around.  KDE live USB did not work for me.  This distribution gave me no hassle about looking at partitions including system partitions and was the best in that respect.  Of all of those I tried was the one that installs and goes properly.

Some of these distributions somewhat recognised a new printer plugged in then searched for drivers though this feature was not anything like as good as Windows not surprisingly because other than for Epson most manufacturers only provide Windows drivers so the generic drivers you use you may have a choice of more than one so you may need to see which works best.  Epson and some others provide Linux drivers for newer printers and scanners that use the .deb (Debian) or .rpm (Redhat) formats.  The Printer has changed since I wrote this and these older drivers needed for older printers may not be so easily obtained (April 2020).

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Repair and Tools

Open source revolution (new name for a very old idea) - has spread out of software, perhaps since the fall of the former Soviet Union the idea that mutual benefit rather than self-interest brutal in tooth and claw (Victorian values or Neo-Darwinism) works better.  See; The Guardian Open-source-revolution-conquer-one-percent-cia-spy

Optional Tools that I have ready in order to prepare for trying Linux with least risk;

• • A tool for removing grub is not necessary but leaves the PC tidy if you completely remove Linux.  Boot repair tool can do all these things.

  • http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanagers.html - Invaluable tool put it on a floppy disk (using; Raw-Write-Win) to boot a USB stick it may also let you Boot from any partition found.  I found it necessary to eject the floppy disk soon after the Linux booted with Mageia (and Xubuntu) because installation would fowl up just after the installation created partitions but in any case ejecting the floppy disk is a good strategy.

  • Seagate (Maxtor, Weston Digital etc) Hard disk maintenance software - I did not need this.  I found these tools invaluable if a hard disk boot file (MBR) becomes corrupted which happened when I had a bad motherboard.  The disk appeared to become faulty and an internal flag (SMART) became set to warn that it was failing.  This flag cleared automatically after the bad sectors began to be marked so that bad sector arose less and less often, then not at all automatically by Linux.  These tools don't seem to be available now though but PartedMagic (mentioned above) does have a disk erase utility that will erase the MBR it has Gparted (with the Gpart add on) can then be used to restore the MBR and data that a new clean MBR is created.

Partition changing; (April 2017)

• You can clone Linux's quite easily (but it is better to move it so that the one you do not want is deleted - they can conflict but I think such issues have been overcome now and I have not observed the issue for many years [4/2020])

• Windows does not tolerate cloning by comparison well.  But may work if the Windows XP or lower is cloned is put on the same computer and the same partition place on the disk.

  • That is if Windows XP was installed as the first partition then the copy must be placed in the first partition. Then use Linux to sort the boot.

  • Windows 7 or higher will need to run a repair disk in advanced mode you may also need to read what to do from the web.

  • Windows 10, 1607 or lower does not tolerate the partition cloned from a primary to an extended partition but the more recent updates of Windows 10 does.  

• Windows XP or high (but probably not lower, eg Windows 98) can be moved to a different drive number.  You will observe that the drive letter of the Windows that is not running will change (A, B, C etc are logic names not the physical names.  The physical names are 0, 1, 2 etc depending on the cable and jumper connection of the drive).

• I think, from my memory, the Windows version of 98/2000 or lower can be moved to another machine quite easily but they need to load the drivers they need from the installation CD.  Quite often people used to copy the installation CD onto the Hard disk so that drivers for new hardware/printers etc could be handled more easily.

I trialled Windows 8 in April 2017 but found that inserting Windows XP drive then using Linux tools use GRUB to multi-OS boot worked okay. BUT Windows 8 disk maintenance tools have corrupted Windows XP and itself Windows 8. I tested this again and the corruption which I think my be to change the permissions of very many files happened again.  The corruption of Windows has not occurred with Windows 7 (May - September 2017) 

Multi-boot with Windows XP and Windows 7 + Linux Distribution on the same hard disk;

• The two Windows XP installations must be installed on different partition numbers so if Windows was installed on the first partition it must remain on the first partition and the required other Windows be installed to another partition say the second and third partitions.

• After first installing or deciding to use an existing Windows installation, then use Boot repair USB, live CD's etc Gparted tool to turn off the Boot flag on the existing/first Windows installation.  You can use Gparted to reduce the Windows partition size but restart Windows and run ChKDsk after doing and manipulating a Windows partition.

• Install the second Windows, check that it runs and run ChkDsk.

• Install the Linux Distro of your choice.  You will end up with your multi-boot computer once the Linux Distro is installed.

• With Windows keep running ChkDsk periodically particularly after any major file additions and updates.  (Windows 10 partly takes care of this for you)

• Also, you can compress the drive for more speed and space - do this early in the installation stage before you have a lot of data on the drive. 

  • Additionally, run the Windows defragmenter periodically. 

If you install the two Windows but without turning off the boot flag before installing the second Windows then;

 - if they are the same (say XP) only one of the installations will have the key system files (COMMAND.COM, AUTOEXECUTE, BOOT.INI etc) so it will run but if you deleted this Windows partition the one left won't boot. 

 - If they are different versions of only one will boot. Windows Repair disk can only make it only the other booted OS instead.  The Windows repair disk for Win 7 or higher make fix the problem but you probably will need to look up the web to fix it?

Where Windows 10 was updated from an installation of Windows 7 and both were installed on different hard disks on the same PC;  Take don't copy a Cloud drive to another installation of Windows this will not synchronise more quickly with Dropbox or Google Drive.  In one case Google Drive used the wrong directory, that is it partly updates the directory in another installation of Windows instead.  Google Drive then starts losing files or duplicating files and directories.  Otherwise, I have not observed this problem with Google-drive or any other program but it could happen with any profile copied?

Multiboot;-  example grub menu (Grand Unified Linux Bootloader).

Windows 10 and Debian on the first disk.

Windows 7 and Lubuntu on the second disk.

• Install and update all operating systems with the second hard-disk fitted.

• Disconnect the second hard disk, Connect the first disk and install and update Windows.

• Connect both hard disks, install and update Linux to the first disk.

The boot menu should list at least all the possible operating systems whether one or both hard disks are fitted;

Note; cable swap if you launch the wrong Windows loader from the grub menu don't let it repair.

You should not need to use Linux boot repair USB.  

Windows and the partition boot flag (Jan2019)

To emphasise the point;  If you are installing or using a repair disk ensure that the boot flag is set on the Windows start-up partition for the Windows you are repairing or installing.

By comparison, Linux does not fuss about if or where partition boot flags are set.

Grub to select and boot the selected OS exist partly in the MBR and does not use the partition boot flags.

Startup and Hard-disk partition tools - Linux mostly but many are generally useful

• Parted-Magic This is one of a number of maintenance tools that are complete and use a very lightweight desktop.  Parted-Magic has many backup and repair tools although this distribution does not have a boot sector repair tool.   I also did not find out how CloneZiller works the wording of instructions is unclear although the tool is well regarded and looks robust.  [There is a paid-for version which I have not tried] - I did not find this tool more useful than using say a Xubuntu USB trial and install which has Gparted included.

If you are going to resize a Windows partition use the Microsoft disk management tools if your version of Windows has them.  Microsoft apparently does not publish all the details on NTFS so you would expect Microsoft tools will be faster and safer but the Linux tools are very safe and also a lot more careful about what they do.  Linux Gpart and Gparted is a very plain straightforward GUI to use and the user is very unlikely to make a mistake defining what they want to change, copy or create in their cue of partition jobs you want doing and the tool will just get on with it - it will stop gracefully on an error or by command.  But if you want to work on the Linux and Windows partition Paragon 14 or 16 for Windows is also good and there is a free version.  A good additional step is to set Windows to check and repair the partitions on the next startup - then use Linux Gparted - finally when Windows is next booted the partition will be fixed and Windows should start without issue.  All partition managing tools carry risks with them.

• Disks (GUI for Linux) - also does partition editing is safe and quick but frightening leaves you with what appears to be the whole extended partitions deleted but they are fine.  Restart Linux and run Disks and you will see that only what you intend occurred nothing bad has happened.

  • This tool is best used to set the HDD such as speed, sleep modes and examine S.M.A.R.T.

• Gpart & Gparted - is slower than Disks but you can be confident about what it is going to do.  I found that the Gpart added to the tool does not recover partitions discarded by Windows tools inadvertently.

• Paragon and EaseUS Partition tool for Windows; These are useful tools that run on Windows and allow you to resize delete, copy Windows and Linux partitions.  Linux tool Gparted is also very good and importantly clear.

  • Gparted comes with many Live CD installations, Partition Magic and usefully Boot Repair USB.

• Ubuntu Boot Repair disk - This is a very useful tool that does restore boot well.  The tool fixes GRUB boot so that the disk can be booted and it also has GParted and some other utilities.  It is best installed on a USB stick and fits comfortably on a 1GB stick.  As long as you have not encrypted your profile you may be able to read your home directory but not recover files depending on how permissions are set.   Therefore file browser is possible.  You do need the 64-bit version for a 64-bit machine and the 32-bit version for a 32-bit machine

 Quick Grub repair using Grub commands

If Boot Repair USB does not sort the boot loading, which it usually does sort, then there may be a utility on your Linux installation USB to fix it? Selecting a variant of Linux the computer Desktop (Graphical User Interface) you select;

• • • Note that some PC's won't start up with some installer or utility USB sticks in that case try;

    • Ubuntu other ?ubuntu's distributions also have advanced options at boot time one of those will update the bootloader with other operating systems such as if you were to fit another hard disk and then, therefore, add another operating system to the GRUB boot list.

    • MX Linux distribution installer has boot repair and partition editing tools.

    • Debian Linux distribution installer has some boot repair and partition editing tools.

I got very stuck with restoring Windows 7 boot.  XP can be fiddly but I have always sorted it in the end if it is possible. So here are some tips (I have not tried them) https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/grub  If you ask on a Windows discussion group you may be recommended to EasyBCD (BCD is not a format GRUB or Linux recognises, as of Jan 2018) it is different not better than GRUB and I would not recommend that tool.  If you are having problems with Boot Repair or the Linux installation USB probably will fix it - if one does not the other may. 

It is better to install Windows carry out update to a "higher" Windows before installing any Linux;

• Often there will be no problem with installing Windows second or last as long as you have space available for Windows to make partitions or you can make a Windows partition and select that for installation.  I have only ever done this with Linux installed as it would be normally at the far end of the hard disk.  Therefore because I wanted to re-install Windows.

• But Windows 10 creates a new partition boot allocation system called BCD.  This can make the Linux partition disappear or be deleted (amounts to the same) from GRUB and Linux. This problem may not happen but I have seen occur.

• EasyBCD and booting from the Windows Boot loader probably won't help as it requires a part of GRUB within the Linux to be configured.  I am advised that EasyBCD will work though, such is the nature of advice on various forums the people advising may not have tried what they recommend in your situation or they managed eventually but not easily.

 Gparted for Linux

• This is a very good partitioning tool but can mess up Windows partitions.  You may be able to fix this situation by running Windows check disk with the fix and thorough options set. You may need to do this a few times.  Then Gparted checks this may sort it.  The common problem is the reported size is smaller than the partition size.

• Unlike Linux which is open, Microsoft doesn't let anyone know how Windows works but they provide tools like ChkDsk, Malicious virus removal tool, and many special wizards at no cost that can be run in order to fix or change things.  Consequently,  Linux Gparted or Paragon for Windows can not carry out a repair fully but must use the Microsoft tool.

• Gparted works more reliably if auto mounting and auto file exploring options are turned off in the desktop.  This is because whilst Gparted is working on a partition towards the completion of the operation Linux may mount the partition before Gparted is ready.

• Power interruption is particularly unlikely to be recoverable if Gparted is working on a Windows partition.  But this is also true of Paragon a very good and similar Windows tool - this may be partly because these tools can't repair a Windows partition such as NTFS because Microsoft does not share the technical detail of much of the operating system; You have to have a running Windows to run ChkDsk for example (this is a sort of catch 22 if Windows will not start - but a Windows installation disk may sort such cases - I observed in June 2015 using an XP installation CD.

• Gparted is well-reviewed with good reason it is particularly clear what it is going to do and then what the outcome was. It does what it does well.

GPART - For finding deleted partitions and restoring them (add-on for Gparted) -  I have not seen this tool work.  I have tried restoring a partition (Gpart add on to GPARTED) after the Windows Installation disk has deleted a partition unsuccessfully.

Operating systems improve;

Linux improves so that warnings I have made may not apply now.

Windows versions tend to cycle from bad to good to bad again.   Some parts improve though the operating system always gets slower and cluttered with incovenient features.

Reliability and support; 

There is no need to explicitly pay even a peppercorn for Linux so there is no beneficial contract between the user and supplier or a duty of care that comes with a contract.  Conversely, there is a good degree of protection due to the Linux approximate philanthropic culture and open-source philosophy.  You can buy support though and you are asked to donate to the projects you chose - this is different and still not a contract.

 I looked up the number of users on some of the Linux Forums; Ubuntu over 150,000 users, Mint over 100,000 users and Mageia over 4,500 users.  Although a different statistic the percentage of all Desktop computers are;  Windows about 90%, and XP is the second most popular.  Linux accounts for 1.5% of the total and it is growing fast I suspect (no figures found), whereas 98% of all the supercomputers run Linux, Linux having displaced Unix over the past decade.  {Update in 2021 there were 450 million Ubuntu and all Linux users 3 - 3.5 billion or nearly 2% of computers}.

Large servers for the past decade generally run Linux so they will have had all the computer virus in the world that have ever been created during that time, pass through them without any reported infection but of cause web pages and email does pass on computer viruses that harm Windows PCs. That is what I understand Linux community keep saying, not just spreading a myth but repeatedly testing and confirming the claim.

Technical Forums - Sometimes people do comment adversely about some other users and say they don't like using forums.  I have contributed to forums for a few decades, they are good.  Use the Linux support forums and indulge the request for all the relevant technical detail required and the helpers' quirkiness.  Do appreciate that it is very hard to analyse and fault find remotely.  Understand conversely that it is usually not possible to describe clearly something until you understand what went wrong.  The aha moment helps you see after the event what you could have described better initially - this can not be helped much, other than to be aware of it.

  Linux is different to DOS and Windows but not too different;

Office tools such as Libre Office for Windows or Linux is a good alternative to Microsoft Office there are alternatives to many popular programs but there are fewer alternatives to many specialist CAD tools.  Firefox also works fine running on many operating systems and has set standards for web browsers so that being faster as well as the better one to use.  In conclusion, the basic office things are covered by Linux.

Linux behaves as if the file extension defines the file type for example ".html", ".jpeg" that is often shorted to ".htm", ".jpg" for DOS in the same way as DOS/Windows consequently the user does not need to worry about file name differences generally.  Where a difference is apparent is that a Linux symbolic link looks as if it is the file that it is referencing.  This is very useful but you can not copy a Linux symbolic link to Windows or a mklink symbolic link (which there are different types of but you can not tell from the Windows properties) to Linux it won't work.  There are also a few file naming differences but mostly with Unix like operating systems but Linux has been made to work with Windows almost seamlessly.  The point is that Windows is much more primitive in the way it works even for the time when it was developed and Linux works with that.  But do take care capitalisation and duplicate files with the same name and some characters with other operating systems that share with Windows operating systems.

I change DOS/Windows file extensions ".htm", ".jpg" to ".html", ".jpeg"  I have found in these cases that usually the file format is close enough to be compatible and usually works without issue.

Neither Windows nor Linux hard disk can be taken out of one PC and put on another and expect it to run but they often do.  But I found that Ubuntu moved between two or three computers and started up successfully this is because Linux uses more generic drivers.  Windows uses proprietary drivers mostly and replaces the drivers on detecting differences.  But there are differences between Linux Distributions Mageia was less tolerant for example and MX Linux is very tolerant.

In conclusion though with Windows or Linux you might be able to move a hard disk to another PC and it works but with Windows now it might not find and replace with the correct drivers.  The Windows installation onto that PC would be fine though by comparison - as is true of any installation.  Some old computers give you few options other than to move the hard and there is a way to get them to work in Linux if you can ask for advice and have the interest and patents to do it.

File copy to Windows - Linux security does make things inconvenient occasionally

Copying files belonging to you from Linux to Windows; you may find when they are copied they are unreadable and undeletable by Windows depending on the device or application they came from.  The only way to do anything with those files is to use them with the installation of Linux that you copied from.  But you may or may not able to change the file permission using the properties option on file then right-click?

These sorts of problems have become less common since writing this (March 2017) - To revise that last point 1/2019 I have not observed any problem in any currently supported Linux Distribution. 

By comparison, The Zilog and Intel microprocessors in the 1970-80s may have also run micro-instructions internally to provide the comprehensive instruction set a chip user programmer would use.  Some alternatives to these microprocessors such as i8751/i8051 were made by other companies that ran comprehensive instructions directly without requiring many cycles but using hardware functions in the same way that the MC6800 Motorola and R6502 Rockwell did then and probably all microprocessors do now.  

The MC6800 may have started as a hybrid IC containing a number of chips before it was released commercially.  The two-phase clock input had to be correct and the MC6801 was much easier to use the embedded version.  The HD6301 Hitachi was a very much lower power and faster CMOS version used in battery-operated computers and dot-matrix printers and sold in very high volumes for 1 to 2 decades.

It was much superior to the late1970s i8748, which had 1K byte EPROM, 64 bytes of RAM and 256 address range but could access up to 4K bytes of memory using paging.  These embedded microcontrollers had mask ROM variants i8048. The MC6801 and HD6301 could alternatively run from external ROM.  They all had ports and timmers and were suitable for high volume production.  The EPROM variants were suitable for low volume manufacturers and prototype software development.  Compared to modern embedded microcontrollers these older parts made the bus available for programming and development.  Rare piggyback EPROM type microcontroller with the EPROM plugged into the top of the microcontroller Integrated Circuit.

By the 1990s embedded microcontrollers such as MC68HC12 included on-chip Flash and one wire programming and debug interface.  These microcontroller require compact therefore fast operating program.  Now, 9HCS12 is made by NXP in Europe instead of Motorola in the USA and is very well optimised for 8 and 16-bit operations, these are flexible powerful microcontrollers.   This has the one wire background debug plus a simple fast bootloader that monitors all serial communications ports then programs the flash if it has not already been programmed. 

The low-cost 8-bit variant HC908 (HC08) has 8 pins or more and can be found in very cheap products such as a computer mouse.  Software development Cosmic HC08 and HCS08 Products (cosmicsoftware.com).  The cheapest most cut down variant that remains available RS08 datasheet page above is a subset of MC6800 core approximately but with the background debug interface and is available with as few as 6 pins note that even the control and debug/programming pins !RESET (or alternative input function) and BDGM (or alternative output function) can be used as ports in a limited way.

In traditional programming with few or no libraries and tools to help there is very little need for debugging, (setting breakpoints and monitoring variables) but just programming.  The only time where these things are more important is initially before you have developed much code and therefore you can arrange hardware implementation to not use the two pins until late in development and for the simplest things so that you keep the option to debug for as long as practical.  In any case, I have and would always avoid sharing debugging pins with other functions.

Running Windows or a DOS program on Linux;

There are options for running Windows programs on Linux but running a dual boot system is the easiest and best. Alternatively;

• Virtual Box,  For Linux or Windows, will then run another operating system that you install in the virtual environment created and it runs as a window within the host but everything runs much more slowly and you must have at least 2GB of DRAM.  There are others but this is the one I tried, it seems to be very well implemented and runs smoothly, which is what I would expect of Oracle being a Sun Microsystems company, but still, it can crash and sometimes badly.  To get an OS running in a virtual machine is straightforward and reliable but after that, there is a number of advanced detail is provided.  It runs Windows 2000 but does not install Linux well in one case the host would not log in subsequently and I reinstalled that host Xubuntu.  BUT DON'T RUN THE LINUX VERSION ON A WINDOWS PARTITION LIKE NTFS IT WILL SCREW UP THE NTFS FILING SYSTEM VERY BADLY (XP with version 5.02).

• I have one laptop in which a particular application (LTspice VIII) will not run, it is a known issue,  the workaround I have found is to run Windows 7 on Virtual box 5.2.44 which fortunately does not support that machine hardware difference and thereby resolves the issue. Unfortunately Virtualbox 6.xx does support the hardware feature so is not useful.

• Wine (WINdows Emulator), There website says it is not an emulator but a compatibility layer.  It does not run in its own window.  CADSTAR Express 14, National Instruments Labview 2013 (which there may also be Linux binary's for), 32 or 64-bit versions did not work.  It does seem to support all of OrCAD 16.6 (which there may also be Linux binary's for) although I did not try to do anything, all the programmes started up.  I found that I can not access a Windows Partition it is like a virtual machine in that respect as it evidently has boundaries set and compromises.  After installing Wine it is possible that its configuration could be screwed up in that case un-installing and also delete the .wine directory, although this method leaves things behind in Linux. I also found that if an application hooked up, the computer would never close down but switching the computer on and off again stopped that application.

• Installation information is good at; https://www.winehq.org/ Then go to Download [April 2018]

• The paid-for/trial version is good or go to the free version pick your distribution.

• There is a list of root terminal commands to run.  Make sure you have 2-3G free space in your Linux bearing in mind you are going to install things.  I ran this in Debian and used the development version.

• Clue the line "deb ............. DISTRO main" is a line you need to paste in to the page opened with gedit

• You therefore may need to install gedit first.  The word "DISTRO" in this case needs to be replaced with the word "debian"

• I first impression of a circuit modelling tool LTspice XVII is that runs better in Linux WINE than it runs in Windows 7 or 10.  Other attempts to install run and uninstall programmes did not work out.

• CodeWeavers,  Seems to just support 32 bit Windows applications is the paid for version of Wine and a bit different. Two of the examples that I tried on Wine that did not work did not on CodeWeavers either.  Similarly CADSTAR only seemed to worked until I first restarted the computer in both cases.  Labview did not complete installation properly with numerous warning and flagged during the process.  I did find parts of OrCAD 16.6 started up and I am told that some Windows picture editing tools work well.  Microsoft operating system attract periodically legal challenge for protective practice it is therefore probably that key knowledge about the OS are not shared making the job of creating WINE difficult, I speculate?

• If you have shared work, say on a dual boot computer, between Linux and Windows keep that work on a Windows formatted partition (FAT or NTFS) and then you can access it by both operating systems.  In any case virus pass though Linux so you need virus scanners for Windows.  Anything you put on a Windows partition via Linux should be virus-scanned before it is used.

UNIX is the basis of a lot of not DOS or Windows operating systems;

• • http://www.unix.org/ Since 1971 or 1973

  • http://www.vintage-computer.com/machines.php?dragon32  (A home computer with OS 9 [1979] which is an operating system like UNIX)

  • http://www.freebsd.org/ (UNIX all but in name, open source and is Linux compatible) Since 1993

  • http://www.linux.org/ Since 1991

IBMDOS (IBM DOS) or MSDOS (Microsoft DOS) and the older CP/M (Digital) distinctively used 8.3 format file names this is not true of other operating systems.  I used another OS in the 1970's and 80's at college called Flex which did not use that format.  Significantly Linux has been made somewhat Windows tolerant. Linux uses the .xxx extension to identify a file type whereas OS 9 does not you are in control of the name which can be mixed case and long.  UNIX has another file permission flag called executable which I am told Universities and Colleges like in order to limit what their students are permitted to do.

The Dog and the Dingo a Dog like Wallaby - which came first, patent and copyright - lawyers would probably make evolution not possible if a fee could be charged.

People have always made or written things and then given them away freely, even if to do so is not macho.  Companies may do that for a commercial benefit they may do it for no commercial or tax benefit but just philanthropically.  Companies of cause are about making money all the same before you think I am romanticising open sources software and there are big financial interest in and a lot of products sold using Linux. 

Linux or other open-source software in which the source code and/or the object code is free but the product may or may not have a cost to individual users

• • http://gb.redhat.com/products/ (open source and pay for)

  • http://www.oracle.com/us/downloads/index.html (Sun Microsystems Office and many other tools mostly at no cost)

• http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/product/lotus/lotus_symphony?productContext=1910256956 (Lotus office suite at no cost)

• http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/?s=1&utm_expid=71153379-33.Vg5laLSTSeCNVivO8llj8Q.1  (Many community projects for many operating systems not just Firefox at no cost)

If you use DOS then the penultimate version 6.21 is about the best the disc compression was the most robust in its time.

TIP; If you are using DOS and FAT partition you may be able to add the line "verify on" in the config.sys.  Microsoft does not publicly document how the NTFS filing system works so Linux can not fully respect privacy and other features.  By comparison, a PC is made to IBM PC open facto standard.

There were big court battles where Netscape lost the argument that Windows 95 was crippled so that Netscape Browser did not run efficiently.  If you run a Microsoft Windows Visual Basic program transferring data on a PC serial port (7 bit + parity or 8 bit) you will find bursts of data errors for a few minutes every half an hour this is not the case running a DOS program such as Quick Basic.  It was also not the case with VB on Windows 3.1, 98 or higher either.  In another court case, Microsoft was fined for applying the use of two File Allocation Tables (FAT) for robustness to disk compression in the same way that Stacker was already doing for disk compression even though using two FATs was the established way of making a disk filing system robust.  Double Space was replaced by Drive Space in the last version of DOS 6.22 so the very robust Double Space last appeared in DOS 6.21. 

DOS 4.x was the most unreliable version of any major disk operating system whereas DOS 6.x was the first professional and robust Microsoft product in many people's opinions.  Although supporters of Linux seem very confident about the robustness of Linux I am inclined to be careful I know I make mistakes then compound them with other mistakes and also find that the machine did not do what I expected resulting in things being deleted but knowing that I have lost very little.  The losses have been due to the filing system with old pictures that when found there was no backup of now.

Microsoft had a financial interest in Novell which is part of one of the best and long-established Linux distributions openSUSE.  The point I make is that selecting Linux is not a way of putting Microsoft out of business but it may be a way of avoiding virtual monopoly for a while. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novell

• Many Linux distributions can also be installed on a memory stick but they will, of cause, run more slowly and wear out your memory stick so just use that sort of installation for maintenance such as the recovery of data?  When using a memory stick or flash disk for Linux do not install a swap partition on the USB or flash drive in order to improve endurance.  You should disconnect all your hard disks or else you may find it not possible to boot anything without having all the hard disks and the memory stick plugged in as it was when you did the installation.  NOTE; older Windows only supports one partition on a USB stick and that has to be the first partition and must be No. 1.  This will be the only partition you will see in Windows Explorer but you can not run Windows from a memory stick.  You can see all partitions with Linux.  Special Windows tools such as Paragon can see and work on all partitions found on a USB memory stick. Newer Windows are less restrictive.

Up to about Windows 98 with drive letters being changed would stop the OS from running consequently.  I found problems do not arise if partition letters are changed such as moving a hard disk with Windows XP. Windows 7 is even more tolerant of partitions being moved and numbers changed.  Cloning Linux may or may not work but Linux Gparted and Boot Repair USB are good tools but there are no issues with the partition being moved and renumber consequently by comparison.   

• I also have a Windows XP SP3 installation disk.  This was invaluable for putting things back as they were.  The installation disks are not always available but one that you have no license number for works well enough and gives you a 30-day trial.

• If you are also running Windows here are some registry clean up tools, you can use in addition to Clean-up,  Defragment and Check Disk;  http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner it is free and reliable.

• Microsoft has tools, at no cost, for fixing a specific problem such as with the Windows registry.  I used one of these to fix the inability to uninstall Java 7 update 9 on XP.  Some people, like myself, have had this problem and I found the solution using a web search.  In that respect, Windows can be better than Linux.  For example, if you turn off or close Mageia (3 or 4) for example during updating there is no tool, you have to run some commands which have no meaning in plain English on the root terminal and it will all be sorted.  On the other hand, running the installation USB selecting update or install but without formatting a partition will straighten out the boot-loader more easily than trying anything like that on Windows with its Install CD.

The Implication of using an Old PC

The item that can appear to wear though not be broken is the hard disk.  When hard disks are made they have surface errors but these are marked bad, are not used and are hidden.  During the life of the hard disk more bad sectors are identified and marked bad these can be retested but are eventually hidden so they become removed. The full format or DOS ChkDsk (fsck is the Linux equivalent of ChkDsk) with options set keeps the hard disk in order.  Eventually, sectors become marked bad and removed then the hard disk speeds up again.  

I am told and observed that Windows 7 or higher looks after the hard disk quite well Windows 8 and 10 advise there is no need to run chkdisk unless advised to but defragment is still necessary.  

Linux Distros will check and fix things the next time the computer is turned on adding perhaps another 30 seconds to the start-up time and another minute to the closing down time.  That is Linux looks after the hard disk without slowing the computer as much as Windows disk maintance does. 

Modern filing sytems are much more robust but files do get destroyed and disk drives fail after a very high usage some sooner.

How much memory does a Operating System with GUI and all the office tools included;

Lots is the answer. In about 1980 when (Digital and IBM were similar size companies) CPM (the commonly used general business office operating system prior to DOS) would fit on a 80K single sided single density 8" or 5.25" floppy disk. Wordstar office suit would fit on one 300-400K double sided double density floppy disk or many lower capacity floppy disks and you had to swap them depending on the feature of Wordstar you were using eg for running spell check. 

Home computers had between 8K to 12K of firmware The Acorn BBC computer had 20K + up to 8x 8K sideways ROMs and 8 to 32K of RAM. Unix was a then staggering then 50MB which is very small by modern standards compared with Windows 3.1, office, CAD and other software with 10M of workspace all fitted on a 40MB hard disk.  Now computers have 10,000 that data and program space.

So a PC now has high-speed SRAM, moderate speed DRAM, hard disk or Flash plus the use of parallel processing of two instructions and piping which allows instructions to be processed simultaneously with instruction completing although some of those instructions processed may be abandoned depending on the outcome of earlier instructions.

Short cut keys universally used Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-F, Ctrl-R etc. are called as Wordstar Short-cut keys.

To create arrow keys four keys formed the Wordstar diamond of short-cuts. 

The shortcut for print Ctrl-P came from CPM but is universally recognised as well.

These shortcut keys don't work properly on Windows 7 or "higher" sadly. 

Be careful the outcome of using Ctrl-C varies with operating context and seems a bit inexplicable. 

Ctrl-C stops a running program in DOS but Ctrl-break can mean terminating a running program in any OS.

The MOSTEC or Rockwell R6502 processor-based BBC micro was faster than the first IBM PC's that despite on paper seeming to be slow.  Both were Comprehensive Instruction Set Microprocessors (CISC) performance.  Many electronic designers got caught out by spec. points v reality.  The problem is that you never really know until you have invested heavily in a chosen microprocessor development then you are stuck with it.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology

Speed and size of the program being run if it is in assembler (machine code) or optimized complied high level language can be very small and fast this is how the Acorn Atom with it's built-in assembler and highly efficient BBC Basic programming language got it's justly deserved excellent reputation for.  But Basic is an interpreted language meaning it is written in text interpreted character by character at a time of running that program.  The trick with the Acorn Atom and BBC was to convert the textual words to short tokens two bytes in size that are therefore much quicker to interpret than longer full English language spelt out words.  The BBC micro was faster still and this was achieved by placing line length code at the beginning of each program line so that the interpreter can calculate line lengths and skip along quickly to the required line.  There are a lot of scripting languages that work by interpreting text such as; Submit, Batch, Perl, Java, HTML.  The program running may not be aware of the precise detail of the computer it is running on but instead it could be running on a standard virtual machine environment is created for it such as; Pascal and p-code, Java to run Java script or basic interpreter.  The implication of this is that program does not need to be rewritten for every possibility but on the other hand the machine is running a program that is in turn running on another program and perhaps to run a third program that interprets text list of based tasks this of cause slows the computer and makes the code very large.  It is therefore possible to create a vastly powerful and wide range of applications with a vast number of software writers each adhering a set of rules, way beyond the capability of one person but the coding is necessarily not so efficient.  

After an installation;

In the main you can use a different web browser and email client programs to the ones integrated into the Desktop.  Firefox and Thunderbird are generally very highly regarded, work very well and have always been my preferred such as when they were Netscape.  By comparison for email I found Empathy and Kmail did not perform well the former Expunge Waste-basket did not work but the latter may be fine I was mislead by a problem with my Talk-Talk ISP.  The names of the drafts, waste-basket and the Spam folders etc. could be changed to tally with the names given by the email service providers which is important when using IMAP. Importing from Windows or another OS did not work.  You can either export and import your address book then set up all the other things or in the case of Thunderbird (Seamonkey, Netscape are somewhat interchangeable) you can find the dot Thunderbird folder hidden somewhere and copy it to somewhere else possibly to; home\you-profile-name. 

I changed all my email collection to IMAP method then moved all my local sub-directories to Archives on one of the providers.  That meant that after setting up my new email client all the archives were loaded from the ISP's copy, slowly.  This method you also need to export the address book from one email program then import address books to the other.

• I have tried out Mageia 3 KDE, Gnome and LDRE for at least a month early in 2014. Mageia installs with updates completed was the fastest KDE distribution Gnome was also fast.  You can install custom and select GNOME, KDE and LDRE so you can try them all but do not click restart when the installation is complete wait there may be some more software updates then do the restart as offered.  Mageia has a very professional feel characteristically French fast, functional and works well from installation.  Usefully you don't necessarily need to delete and recreate hard disk partitions during installation.  LDRE needs a little more refining but is good I like it but I have settled on XFCE on Mageia 4.  I recommend the current version 4 it was released well tested and debugged.

When trying another desktop in Mageia install the noarch, logout, login then in the new desktop you can then remove the noarch of the desktop of the one you are not going to use.  After that search for more things with the desktop name say "Mate" and add or remove them appropriately to make you desktop purely the one you desire plus anything you particularly want.

• I ran openSUSE 13.1, KDE (the default one) for 3 weeks it is good.  A fast implementation but I caught it at a point where the permissions and passwords are not running smoothly.  It was not an entirely stable release then.  A professional feel characteristically German and correct.  I would have liked to have bought this distribution along with the book but that is only available in German.  The disk access permission issue is also apparent to varying extent in other Redhat distributions such as Mageia as well. 

I also recommend any of the Linux Mint such as Mate which aim to be stable and straightforward which they are.  XFCE though a fast desktop is a slower than most but has a very good application search just type in what you are looking for and it will suggest an application.  Mate version of application search is similar but in addition search suggestions will include things you may wish to install or look up.  These are very good for beginners as well as anyone who is unlikely to be impressed by sparkle, fading effects and appearance.  This OS appears to work faster than a good fast minimal installation of Windows XP.  Installation seems not to be possible on a RAID SATA drives on my PC but is fine with an IDE drive.  I ran both versions of Mint for about a few weeks.

• • Also consider Ubuntu or Xubuntu they are well supported but differently to Mint so you can use the long term stable version or the one that has new features but is less stable.  Another is Linux Lite is a faster alternative to Xubuntu but still Debian based. 

 Windows 7, 8 and 10 Things that arise with multiboot (December 2017)

• Multi-boot with Linux and XP - no issues should arise and you can have a few copies of each.

• Multiboot with Windows 7 or 10 and XP - set Windows 7 or 10 Power fastboot option OFF or you won't be able to read the Windows partition from Linux.

• Windows 7 and Windows 10 - for one to see the other then you need to set a drive letter for the other. Also if you are running Google Drive you may need to disconnect and reconnect to the Windows it is installed on or it will start working in the other Windows if they are a duplicate of each other (but for specific OS).

• Windows 8 and XP - Windows 8 will screw itself and XP up if XP is present. I tried this twice and it occurred both times.

• Where Windows 10 was update from an installation of Windows 7 and both were installed on different hard disks on the same PC;  Then Google Drive may use the wrong directory, that is partly update the directory in another installation of Windows.  Google Drive then starts loosing files or duplicating files and directory's (5/2020).

Surveillance and viruses - I tried a virus scanner for Windows 98 called Panda in about 2000 the virus scanner was not important at that time, security updates and careful practices were adequate then but I kept the firewall when the trial period expired. Unusually you could turn off all the holes in the Firewall so I stopped the Windows Kernel from communicating with the Internet but doing that did not adversely affect anything and Microsoft updates worked fine. It appears that the communication from the Windows Kernel had no functional purpose of benefit to me or the good functioning of the operating system.

• Taking care don't even trust things posted on Facebook into your feed they are not solely friends and groups you chose to follow some are adverts loaded with viruses looking like a regular post. Such precautions are better than hoping a tool will protect you. Fools and there money are easily separated and in computing we can all be caught and nothing can protect us from our foolishness or the acts of deceitfulness by others. {As of June 2015 Facebook seems to suffer much less of this so people can make a fuss and a difference}

• It has been said to me that Microsoft FAT is not a robust filing system. Though I agree exFAT is not very robust so be careful with large memory sticks always use the eject or safe removal feature. Microsoft NTFS may be stronger and Linux users will advocate Linux formats. If you really want fast and robust using RAID server for example with 4 SATA drives can be configured so that they mirror each other or they improve the access time - I have not tried this. When using RAID to mirror or parity check and correcting across more than one drive you can unplug a drive and keep it somewhere else for safety (these may use multidimensional parity checking which does not help if all your data is on one disk and your computer is in an office fire). Otherwise for less private information consider using cloud computing such as; Ubuntu One drive, SkyDrive (Windows/Microsoft/Bing), Google Drive is promised to be Linux compatible in future.

Conclusion;

Linux Distributions share well with with Windows.  Windows can be a problem though its sharing policies and work around are strange and don't work consistently.  That is also between Windows and another version of Windows and Linux on multi-boot PC. 

At first I found Linux security not ideal, in that it crops up unnecessarily inviting a casual password entry to just get on with what you are doing, but this aspect has improved during the time I have been composing this study.  Password request occur when you need to update or do other system level things. The user could be blocked from backing up and restoring things by the security but as I say these things are being refined in all distributions.  Linux Lite, allowed me to login as an administrator to resolve this.  By comparison using Windows without administrator rights is difficult and Linux security is much better integrated.  Conversely Windows with administrator rights has the gates wide open but that makes Windows very usable and very insecure.

If you do just pull the plug or hold in the power switch to turn off the computer at next switch on the machine starts without fuss and I understand straightens things out again.  Best not done though and I have done that when occasionally the PC has locked up but Windows is much more tolerant of this behaviour.  I found if updating Linux freezes and all else fails you remove the power then there are things you have to do in the terminal command mode to straighten update system out again but this sort of issue has not occurred  recently as of July 2015 to December 2017.  By comparison Windows 7 or higher you live with failed updates and re-tries, I think it occurs much more often than it ever did with XP.  The priority of user tasks over background tasks is no better in that respect than Windows if you are copying a large file on your hard disk it will copy faster but you will have to wait in practice just like is the case with Windows.  Update of Linux all occurs whilst the user is logged in a discrete way there is no delay for configuring or installing at closing down or starting up time.

On the computer history that I have interspersed I had not mentioned Sinclair.  Sinclair had very exciting products that always turned out to be a big disappointment.  Scientific calculator that gave the wrong answer if it had taken too long to compute a trig function and that was documented in the manual.  A watch made with special black plastic called Black Watch.  A matchbox size radio.  An advanced computer with a MC68008 processor and solid state Micro-drives turned out to be a tape loop.  Portable flat screen TV may have been okay. Still the audacity of this company deserved an award which the Queen duly gave it.

Good stuff still comes from the United states and open source is quite refreshing mutual beneficial adaptation to commercial protection in a way that avoids everyone being stitched up by US style litigation culture.  But it is not the same as Oriental pure natural unprotected, fast moving, copy improve and copy again ways.  Linux is not typically bodged up quick sold then patched later but then not all American stuff is like the stereotype either.

The risk of continuing to use Windows XP without further updates may be negligible.  Many companies avoid updating Windows preferring to run a notchy but faster machine.  This is particularly so with companies using Mechanical CAD tools with 3D modelling.  So there would not be any difference for them anyway.  Dual boot Linux and Windows is a good option using Linux for email, web and office type things but retaining Windows for specific application programmes.

 note - the animations and cartoons do not belong to me if they belong to you and you would like to be acknowledged please tell me.

Unfortunately this Google hosted website does not allow the animations to run.

One page Linux guide  Basic Linux Commands youtube (These have been recommended I have not use them much)

To discussion this go to; blog.andrew-lohmann.me.uk

National Semiconductors used to make a microprocessor that appeared to run very primitive microinstructions in the 1970s and early 1980s.  One variant included a BASIC interpreter and was very slow but quite flexible DMA.  INS8060 and INS8070 SC/MP,  I do not know but this may still continue to be modified made but now know as PIC?  SC/MP (scamp) was one of the first microcontrollers to come into the country from the USA in 1976 and the evaluation kit was built into a good size suitcase.

Now, Computers are considerably faster but the software is much slowed by being written in scripting languages, run time systems and elaborate graphics plus some of the operating systems such as Windows grow in an untidy way with patches added.