>put off installing Linux because I couldn't be bothered to create two copies of my files, one for each partition
>finally get round to installing it
>Linux recognises the Windows part of the partition and I can mount it
holy fuck i've been using windows my whole life, is this what freedom tastes like? Is it really that easy to get what you want in life if you just use Linux? Is it really that easy?
yes
>I couldn't be bothered to create two copies of my files, one for each partition
haha
dancing babie :D
I thought that I'd want to avoid switching between partitions as much as possible, because I thought it'd be slow
Feels like i've left Plato's cave
Why not just make a third partition for sharing data between the two?
I didn't think of that, but now there's no need anyway
how did you plan on making two copies of your data, if you didn't believe one of the OS's could read both partitions?
you just didn't think about this at all
Linux is a kernel. You may already use it in your Android.
I was going to copy all the files I needed to a USB stick, and then copy them over to the Linux partition once i'd finished with the install. Windows can't read the Linux part of my partition so I assumed the other way around would be the same too
This was the first time i'd partitioned anything, or used Linux outside of an office environment, cut me some slack
but what makes the usb stick special?
it too is a drive which would need to be accessible by both os's for that to work
arguably it's likely fat32 instead of ntfs, but both of those are microsoft formats, and so are equally not gauranteed to work anywhere but windows
not making fun of you or anything, just not sure what you were thinking
to add something positive: in addition to being able to access your ntfs/windows volumes from linux, it is also possible to run some of your windows software using wine from in linux, even directly from the windows volume
my logic was that I assumed I couldn't copy files between partitions, so I needed a middleman (USB stick) in order to move the files I needed. I hadn't thought about compatibility issues, in fact I had no idea compatibility would even be an issue
Neat!
So... why actually use Windows?
i see, you're just unfamiliar with what partitions are and how they work (perhaps you thought only one partition could be accessed at a time in general?)
>So... why actually use Windows?
still can't run /everything/ available for windows, plus there's some hardware that doesn't (yet) work with linux
but the reasons to use windows decrease every day, nowadays it's not hard to find compatible hardware, there's a fair amount of native commercial software, including games, and wine runs a considerable amount of windows programs well
all that coupled with the fact that a lot of commonly used things nowadays are now accessible using only a browser, of which all major ones are available on linux, this further reduces the barrier of switching
>i see, you're just unfamiliar with what partitions are and how they work (perhaps you thought only one partition could be accessed at a time in general?)
that's me
>still can't run /everything/ available for windows
actually you've reminded me that music creation seems a bit restricted in Linux, I read about a dedicated build for it, but that doesn't change the fact that I'd need some way to run my DAW of choice in order to access WIPs, etc. May eventually switch to solely Linux if I can bring myself to hide away all my old work and start with a clean slate and work in Linux. I read in particular that Ableton is not fun to try and work with through Wine
It is the best if you are working as a software developer in a non windows-cucked company
yea, often it boils down to a small handful of programs you can't do without
there's no easy solution for everyone
while i do mainly use linux myself, i have a windows partition still for running solidworks (and only solidworks).
there are ways to run windows in a VM with full graphics capability, but i'll need new hardware for that, and dualbooting isn't too bad in this case, as when i'm working, i should really just be working, not having any of my stuff available in windows means no distractions
I assume you dual boot with Win7? I asked to have this installed at my office instead of starting with Win10 and the IT guys laughed at me and called me a caveman because I've been coding in C and asked if they had a computer with a floppy disk drive, as I found a floppy filled with 90's BASIC code related to something I'm working on and needed to extract it
What's your favourite Linux distro?
yea, win7
i'd still be on xp x64 if not for the fact that solidworks 2014 requires 7 at a minimum
arch, tried plenty of distros, but arch suits my preferences well. it's a lazy distro, basically everything is at least available in the aur, packages ship with most stuff enabled/included, and rolling release means no troublesome dist-upgrades
while there's little gaurantee of stability, i've had very few issues in the 5 years i've used it, and i'm competent enough to sort them out quickly anyway. plus i just like trying out new features as they become available, it's fun
Arch is the best looking distro I've seen, but considering this thread has been about my basic misunderstanding of how partitions partitions work I should probably hold out for a bit before getting it (if ever)
setting up plain arch is certainly beyond your current scope
it's not terribly difficult, it depends on whether you want to put the time into learning how to do it
there's also the option of an arch-based distro that is pre-configured, such as antergos, which gives you the same thing, just set up for you
though you still need to be wary of the fact that arch in general in rolling-release, meaning software is updated whenever, as opposed to things like ubuntu, which have major updates every 6 months (or more for the LTS version), with updates only covering security and stability between those periods, making it more dependable