Linux & Windows maintenance

Created; 14/12/2013, Changed; 14/04/2025 – 16/04/2025

Back to; Windows and Linux operating systems

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

Windows 10 is now mature and runs nicely but is cluttered with programmes, toys, games and tries to be helpful, so it is necessary to second-guess what might be happening or what the problem is.  By comparison Linux distributions, and Windows 7 are comparatively predictable.  Unfortunately, Windows 7 and 10 programs are not supported or soon will cease to run, though both OS's receive security updates.  Of the web access programs, Firefox and Thunderbird will continue to run for a few more years yet and MegaSync and Dropbox might continue longer, though Google programs are generally the first to stop running long before the security updates cease. 

Ubuntu is one of the easiest Operating Systems to install;

• Be careful with the partition setting part of any installation - particularly with manual, advanced settings, 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 need to use these settings, then;  

    • You need to set the mount partition to EXT4 (but other Linux partition types can be selected), 

    • Mount; "/" 

    • And tick format.

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

  • Warning Windows installation - Windows is not so forgiving and can easily destroy a Linux or another Windows installation, regardless of the care you have taken.  Install Windows first, leaving space or use Windows - Disk Manager (Partition_format_create) tool to shrink the Windows partition so that at least 35 GB (but less for some of the much lighter distributions) for the Linux distribution at the far end of the hard disk (or let Linux installation take care of this later). 

    • You do not need to have completed Windows installation which in any case takes weeks, when a point has come where installation restarts then replace the installation media with the Linux installation media and install that. 

    • If you chose to compress the Windows partition, then set compressed in drive properties early before the installation has got big, in order to save time later. 

Secure boot or legacy bios PC; 

A Secure Boot type of PC can be difficult to install or clone an operating system to; 

• If you are running a secure boot PC, turn off the security, but even so this may not fully make the PC work in legacy boot mode. 

• Install Windows first, then install Linux.  Depending on the PC, you may need to select USB UEFI boot from the PCs boot menu, this maybe function key F12 at startup to ensure Linux installs UEFI boot. 

• Leave space on the hard disk to be able to install another Linux temporarily in order to restore the Grub bootloader.  That is because a boot repair USB does not seem to be able to fix UEFI boot PC.

• Depending on the PC, a Boot repair disk does not seem to be able to repair UEFI Linux grub boot.  Different versions of this tool may or may not work with legacy boot or all secure boot PCs. 

More detail see; Secure boot PC 

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If you need to use the installation advanced configuration;

Ubuntu and most other Linux distributions including by default use one or two partitions, that is swap partition is not always included;

    Mounting point /

    + Swap

If you are using an SSD, then use the manual or advance setting to prevent a swap partition being created.

There may be options on how many partitions with some Linux's.  You don't need to be concerned with those options.

Lubuntu by default uses one partition, and you can add a swap partition at installation time or add and configure it to be turned on subsequently. 

Swap space is also used for hibernation, and in that case more than the available DRAM should be allocated.  But swap space should not be included if an SSD is used*.  See the distribution's wiki for swap space required for hibernation to function.  It has become a complicated process to enable hibernation in some Linux's. 

* Different advice on the Web sounds more plausible, have Swap space on an SSD if you need Hibernation.  Extra wear warning is not a serious issue, I read. 

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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 Linuxes 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 they become unavailable to other Linuxes installed, but those other Linuxes can be configured again to use the swap partition(s).

A particularly old PC

Generally, adding memory speeds up an operating system a lot, particularly increasing from 1 GB to 2 GB, 2 GB to 4 GB (64bit OS) of DDR. 

The Toshiba T1350 laptop pictured, has a very new at the time, about 2005, SATA interface and a hard disk.  Unlike computers which are a year or two newer than this, the hard disk interface is not much faster than an IDE interface, although the computer is fast and well-made.  Picture taken in 2023 fully working except for two keys on the keyboard that have stopped working but slow partly due to reduced air ventilation quality. 

Ensure that the partitions are numbered consecutively by placing them in the order, left to right, you wish them to be, or else Windows is likely to delete some of them arbitrarily.  In addition, by adding temporary partitions, to ensure the extended partition is No. 4 will make partition work later is easier.  In any case, Windows Disk Manager is likely to delete any or all partitions, it is a poor tool to use. 

Windows Disk Manager shrink Windows partition tool seems to be the only tool that will do that reliably, though.  That is because it will not try to shrink a Windows partition that it can't handle easily. 

Grub Rescue  

This helped, see; https://askubuntu.com/questions/232215/stuck-in-grub-rescue-mode Which I have copied below, but I did not use step 4, but it also works.

• It is most unlikely that a secure boot PC, will allow this to work if Windows repair disk start up repair has been used because this deletes the Grub boot utility. 

• Similarly, if Windows has been installed on any PC, grub will have been removed. 

• A BIOS boot PC will be fine even if Windows repair disk has been used. 

1. Command: 

ls

It will list all your drives and partitions, like:

 (hd0) (hd0,msdos2) (hd0,msdos1)

2. If you don't know your Ubuntu boot partition, check them one by one: 

ls (hd0,msdos2)/

ls (hd0,msdos1)/ When you hit the right one, you'll get a line mentioning lost+found, more importantly, boot, and so on.

3. Assuming (hd0,msdos2) is the right partition: 

set prefix=(hd0,2)/boot/grub

set root=(hd0,2)

insmod normal

normal

4. Now you'll be able to boot into which Linux. Once you do, execute the following terminal commands: 

Note the commands are as below for Ubuntu, but for Debian preceded the command with "su -" in order to enter the root terminal.  You then do not begin "sudo" for each line.

sudo update-grub

sudo grub-install /dev/sda

5. Extra step if necessary, take care - Edit the boot/grub/*.cfg file to add "noapic".  I have not carried out this, but you need to use the root terminal or terminal logged in as an admin or sudo command using a text editor such as gedit.

You might be able to carry out the grub repair using Terminal in a Live USB.  You can also use Gparted on the Live disk to copy partitions, resize them and configure boot as described above.  Depending on the PCs, boot will permit.

Take care with Windows partitioning tools both those with Windows and third-party Windows tools may delete Linux or Windows partitions, but Linux GParted is much safer to use by comparison.  Just use the Windows tools to resize a partition but not create or delete partitions, particularly if you have any Linux partitions on your hard disk.  Some of the Windows third-party tools are more careful with Linux Partitions, can copy but not paste any partition type safely?  So if you need to clone a Linux least risk is to clone to an otherwise empty USB stick then use GParted to clone to the target PC.

If you do lose a Linux partition where Grub boots from and there is not another Linux to recover, see above, then there is nothing that Grub can boot.  So here is how to get back to Windows boot by restoring the MBR; https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/news/win7-windows-7-mbr,10036.html But do use gparted, such as from the boot repair, disk or Linux installation disk to ensure that the boot flag is marked on the boot partition usually the first partition before using the Windows install or recovery disk.

Editing the GRUB configuration file - remember the last used OS;

I do not know how to edit the GRUB configuration file to add NOAPIC?  But this is how to edit a Debian GRUB configuration file so that the computer remembers the last boot operating system used.  This is useful with Windows, which often needs to restart in order to complete updates.  There are differences for Debian to the Ubuntu version link;

Note;

• The commands are as below for Ubuntu, but for Debian preceded the command with the extra command line "su -" in order to enter the root terminal.  You then do not include "sudo" to each line.

• Use the text editor provided, such as gedit or nano.  Therefore, you might need to swap "gedit" for "nano", "vim" or another. 

Start terminal

enter; sudo gedit admin:///etc/default/grub # "admin:/" does not seem to be required?

Enter your password and change the lines to read so that one line is commented out, and two lines added, plus I chose to add a blank line;

# GRUB_DEFAULT=0  # Remember last choice

GRUB_DEFAULT=saved

GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT=true

Ensure that the following line is included if it is commented out, or else Grub will not search and include other OS's in the grub start up menu;
  GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER = false

Save and close the file and gedit. Then 

You are still in root terminal, so you do not need to enter; su - and your password. 

Enter; sudo update-grub # This line is also useful after cloning an OS to your HDD so that the added OS is included in the boot list and can be used the next time that the computer is started up. 

Click close on the terminal window. Or;

Exit

Exit 

Restart your PC to test the change and have boot repair disk handy in case it has not worked, Alternatively see above to repair grub manually.

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After Installation

Debian and Mageia Installations

Both Linuxes are quite different, but both can repair grub bootloader without your need to re-install the Linux.  They may do that repair when a Linux 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 necessary to disable the installation 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 repositories.  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 provided by the GUI.  After I did, there was a duplication, that can be disabled or removed.

Do lookup and if necessary ask for help 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 it is running on a conventional hard disk.  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.  It might seem like a good idea to run a swap partition for each Linux, so that you can put one Linux into hibernation and use another, but you will find that Grub will not handle wake up from hibernation in this case.

Over the years, these adjustments have become less important as PCs have got faster.

See Ubuntu help at;

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

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.  You can turn the swap on at this point to make the computer go faster, whilst you follow the other steps that will ensure swap is enabled when you subsequently start up Linux. 

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

Note - as before;

• The commands are as below for Ubuntu, but for Debian, preceded the command with the extra command line "su -" in order to enter the root terminal.  You then do not include "sudo" to each line.

• Use the text editor provided, such as gedit or nano.  Therefore, you might need to swap "gedit" for "nano", "vim" or another. 

In addition, the recommended changes to swappiness value to 10 was beneficial, but I have not used this setting change for many years.

When installing any Linux, you may not need an internet connection, but a wired or a Wi-Fi connection to ensure important drivers are installed even if you chose to not install the updates at the time of installation is a good plan.

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. 

Installation options

Most Linux desktop providers provide Live CDs, these allow you to try that Linux without committing to installing it on your PC.  Some also provide Persistence, if you use a memory stick.  Persistence allows you to set up and retain a limited amount of things (settings and Installations) after shutting down so that you can continue evaluating them another time.  Another option is to run the distribution in a virtual machine running on Windows or Linux, but the PC needs to be fast to do this.  I recommend using a live CD or USB you don't need the persistence option, although persistence adds more function.  Using a virtual machine such as Virtual Box is good if you want to run two operating systems concurrently, but it makes the PC slow.

Installation media creation tools;

Rufus works on Windows and does restore a USB stick quite well, I have not used the persistence option with this tool.  This seems to be the best Windows tool, is recommended by Mageia, and it is particularly good at erasing and recovering a badly formatted memory stick.  Rufus can make the USB boot in various DOS, Linux and other bootable ways, you need the ISO image usually. 

Here are some Windows tools for creating a live CD USB memory stick with persistence; 

http://www.linuxliveusb.com/  

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ 

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/

Be careful with these universal tools, they provide more features but do not work with all distributions.  You may find that some distributions of Linux don't work for you in any case.  Many distributions of Linux did not use to display properly during installation, but the installation turned okay.

The straight no features USB creation tools such as;

ImageWriter is most likely to work.  Many of these tools are unable or don't always prepare a previously used USB stick, such as by erasing or format satisfactory first.  When you have Linux running, you can somewhat recover a memory stick with tools provided within Linux.  But also use the Windows tools, format, and Check Disk. 

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.  Lower than XP of Windows probably clone, okay, to the same partition space and number? 

  • 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.  It will most likely require authentication, which can't be done now, so your installation will stop working in 30 days. 

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

  • Windows 10, is more difficult, particularly so when installed on a UEFI PC.  

• Windows 7 or high (and probably lower than NT4, e.g. Windows 98) can be moved to a different drive number, but they behave quite differently and the older OS do not reassign drive letters in the same way.  That is, those very old Windows won't work if the drive letter becomes reassigned differently, for example D; instead of C:.

  • The PC's BIOS assigns numbers for the physical drives 0, 1 for floppy disks and 2, 3, 4 etc for hard disks then DVDs and CDs, then USB drives.  These are called physical names. 

  • The operating system DOS, CP/M, Windows and probably others then assign logic names to the physical devices.  So floppy disks are assigned letters A, B usually in the same order, then hard disks, DVDs are assigned the letters C, D, E.  So the letter might happen to coincide with the number, but necessarily.  Later in the startup sequence, the operating system will not be able to impose a preference which has been assigned earlier, and older operating systems were not tolerant and would fail to start up properly. 

• 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.  But it is likely that a modern computer is too different for them to run now.

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

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 to be installed on this second disk, with just this second hard-disk fitted. 

• Disconnect the second hard disk, connect the first disk, and install and update* Windows and install the other Linux. 

• Connect both hard disks, update* the other Linux to the first disk.   You may find, at some point after update Linux, all operating systems are found and listed at the startup menu.  

  • To add all operating systems, open terminal in one of the Linux and; (Or alternatively run boot repair disk or USB).

    • Enter; su # for Debian

    • Enter your password. Then 

    • Enter; sudo update-grub # a password will be asked for on Ubuntu.

• Note, an improvement in speed is achieved by only configuring the Linux swap on the other hard disk.  That is, each of the Linuxes uses the swap partition on the other hard disk.

* It is not essential to update Windows at first, but in that case it will very occasionally be necessary to remove the first hard disks in order to complete an update of the second Windows, on the second hard disk. 

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

In due course, it is likely that Windows 10 update will add Windows 7 to be listed in the boot options.  As long as the Windows 10 hard disk is the earliest disk in the system, then this is a good way to start up either Windows and allow some updates to complete. 

Note; cable swap, or use bios boot order switch, if you launch the wrong Windows loader from the grub menu, don't let it repair. 

You should not expect to need to use Linux boot repair USB subsequently. 

Repair 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 the 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 - Used to be an invaluable tool and could still be useful, 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 foul 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. 

• 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 have not used CloneZiller because I found the wording of instructions 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, using the Microsoft disk management tools, if your version of Windows has them, be careful.  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 but are slower.  The partitions need to be numbered in order 0, 1, 2, 3 ... one of these 3 is best then the extended partitions in order 4, 5, 6, ..... but it is better with GPT partitions rather than MBR partitions which it does not let you see and therefore move an extended partition.  Windows Microsoft tools easily loose partitions. 

Linux Gpart and Gparted has 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 the queue of partition jobs they set up.  The tool will just get on with it when you press Apply - 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 using them, but don't expect any issues to arrive with Gparted unless the HD is really broken.

• Disks (GUI for Linux) - also does partition editing is safe and quick but used to frightening, leaves you with what appears to be the whole of the extended partitions deleted, but they are fine.  After 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 to 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 is not so easy to use, its purpose is to recover partitions.  I have not used this extension to Gparted successfully to recover a partition discarded by Windows. 

• 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.  They are clearer to use, comparable to Gparted. 

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

  • Paragon repairs Windows boot if the Windows partition start is moved, so the Windows repair disk is not required to complete the task.  This feature is included, but not all features are included in the free version.

• 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,

  • The 32 bit version fits comfortably on a 1 GB stick.  You need to use the 32-bit version for a 32-bit machine. 

  • Recently, the 64 bit version got bigger and needs at least 2.5GB, but I found, unusually, that it did not work on a secure boot ThinkServer PC.  You do need to use the 64-bit version for a 64-bit machine. 

  • 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.  

 Quick Grub repair using Grub commands

If Boot Repair USB does not sort the choice and startup of all the operating systems available on the PC, 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 PCs 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. 

    • Also try one of the text based installers if the PC is particularly old.  Such as Debian, and other distributions, variants of LXDE and LXQt. 

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.  I had a link to advice on Grub, but it does not work now.  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 to carry out update to a "higher" Windows before installing any Linux;

• Often there will be no problem with installing Windows 7 or old version Windows 10 second or last with a legacy BIOS boot PC as long as you have space available for Windows to make partitions.  I have only ever done this with Linux installed at the far end of the hard disk.  Therefore, because I wanted to re-install Windows. 

• But Windows 10 can create 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 it occur many times with Windows own partition managing tools. 

• 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.

Do not expect any partition editing tool to recover a partition after a power failure or interruption whilst working on a partition. 

• Power interruption is particularly unlikely to be recoverable from.  But Gparted might be cancellable or recover a partition, but it is safer to never try to do those.

• You have to have a running Windows to run Check Disk, for example (this is a sort of catch 22 if Windows will not start) - but a Windows installation disk may sort such cases using command prompt - chkdsk.  Linux, live media or repair disk GParted Check to fix the Linux partitions. 

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Joking about Windows but even so it is used because there are many programs for it, and they are cheap, popular but consequently well-developed.  Microsoft have become more secretive about how to use the operating system, by comparison.  Conversely, there is a Microsoft tool or wizard to fix anything freely available.  DOS and Windows 3.1 and 95 for example were much more open, and the home computers like the BBC micro were very open and patches could be added to add features, I observe. 

Like engine management units made, cars less maintainable by the car's owners, who consequently become less aware of what could or was going wrong.  Secure Boot has done the same for PCs.

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

IBM PC DOS or MS-DOS (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 1970s and 80s 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 though for profit has become so the thing to do.  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.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 can add the line "verify on" in the config.sys.  DOS only runs on a FAT 12 filing system.  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 de-facto standard, although a PCs circuits and firmware are property of their makers.

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 Visual Basic 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.

At one time 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, and thereby improving the quality of software for a while. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novell

• Many Linux distributions can also be installed on a memory stick, but they will, of course, 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, doing so will shorten the flash devices' life.  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 licence 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.  This tool has become much less useful on newer than XP Windows.

• 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 bootloader more easily than trying anything like that on Windows with its Install CD.

How much memory does an 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 called Star Office would fit on one 300-400K double-sided double density floppy disk or many lower capacity floppy disks, and you had to swap the disks as instructed depending on the feature of Wordstar you were using, e.g. 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 but is now very small 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 time 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.

Shortcut 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.

But generally these Control and letter shortcuts still work and mean;

Ctrl-C is Copy. (highlighted block)

Ctrl-X is Cut.

Ctrl-V is Paste.

Ctrl-F is Find. (search).

Ctrl-R is Find and Replace.

After an installation;

Conclusion;

Linux Distributions share well with Windows and Linux Distributions.  Windows can be a problem, though, its sharing policies and work around are strange and don't work consistently.  That can be true between Windows and another instance of Windows on a multi-boot PC.  GRUB handles multi-boot PC well.  New issues have arisen with secure boot PCs and good legacy boot PCs made fast enough with solid state drives for any Windows, but Windows 11 can not be installed on a legacy boot PC. 

At first, I found Linux security not ideal, in that it cropped up unnecessarily inviting a casual password entry to just get on with what you are doing, but this aspect has been good for a long time.  Password request occur when you need to update or do other system level things.  By comparison, using Windows without administrator rights is difficult and Linux security is much better integrated and has worked just fine for many years.  Windows with administrator rights is also easy to use. 

If you do, just pull the plug or hold in the power switch to turn off the computer at the next switch on, the machine starts without fuss, straightening things out and starting up usually but not always.  This tolerance of misuse is quite good in Linux and Windows, provided you don't let it happen often.

 Basic Linux Commands

One page Linux guide   (These have been recommended, I have not used them much)

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. 

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