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New Adding (at least) Linux onto a Windows laptop(1). How???
Just download any random(2) Linux distro, smack onto a USB stick, install from that and go with GRUB(2)?

Or... Something more advanced -- in stead of a main OS, boot into a hypervisor(ish thingy) and run several OSes in parallel? Because I'll probably want to run at least two at a time sometimes, and can't see which to run as the host, which as the guest OS. Neither feels right; they should be equals.

But in that case, what? KVM/QEMU, or the Microsoft hypervisor thingy (does that even work like this?), or what?

And do partitions even work like they used to, on these newfangled SSD thingies...? Feels like I'm from Barcelona; I know nothing.


---
1: This laptop.

2: Or perhaps not so random: Something non-SystemD. So therefore GRUB.
--

   Christian R. Conrad
The Man Who (used to think he) Knows Fucking Everything


Mail: Same username as at the top left of this post, at iki.fi
Expand Edited by CRConrad Oct. 21, 2019, 05:31:43 PM EDT
New if you have wintel 10 you need a pro license to do hypervisory stuff
home edition wont cut it. I have the pro license but have been too lazy to do the work
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman
New Yeah, I got W10 Pro.
Precisely for this kind of stuff. (And, IIRC, other settings that are locked away from Home users.)
--

   Christian R. Conrad
The Man Who (used to think he) Knows Fucking Everything


Mail: Same username as at the top left of this post, at iki.fi
New Got pigs on the roof?
Combine with your other post: for multiboot (running each OS on bare metal), Win 10 has to be installed first, as it insists it is the only thing worthy of being on the laptop and will destroy the GRUB boot sector.

Partitions have changed, but that is EUFI thing; the changes are not limited to SSDs. The old 4 partition limit is gone which does make installing multiple OSes side by side much easier.

Windows 10 can shrink itself, but even fresh out of the box, it will not go much below ~120 GB.

GRUB does not mean a SystemD free distro. Devuan is dedicated SystemD free and is quite usable (the unstable version is my daily driver on similar hardware. Unstable is needed to get around some wrinkles related to IRQ/GPIO differences with the new i7 CPUs. It primarily impacts the operation of some i2c bus trackpads.)

For VM operations, I've used the open source Xen hypervisor + QEMU without issues, but that was on server hardware and the guest OS as Windows Server (up to 2012.) If you want to try that, you can set up a classic dual boot with Win 10 native on one side (assuming that is what came with the laptop) and a Xen kernel on the other. The remaining drive space can be configured as "harddrives" to the guest OSes to do with as they please. (But as Box mentioned, Win 10 Home may not work, and for any edition of Windows, you'll need a non-OEM license key.)

The biggest immediate hurdle will probably be to get around the UEFI SecureBoot restrictions. Debian has a signed installer but I haven't looked into how that translates to Devuan.
New Somewhat like I thought, somewhat not. Very useful.
So, Windows (as usual) wants to be its own boss; all others can play nice under a common boss for all Windows cares. Why am I not surprised... Yup, got the ("OEM" or not? Gotta check) W10 Pro license precisely because I'd gathered that there are limitations like this.

Tried Devuan in a Virtual Box on this (work) machine once; some VB extensions or something were missing, so it couldn't go above some stone-age resolution, 800x600 or at the most 1024x768 or something... Tiny postage stamp in the center of the screen. Gotta do better on my little red beauty.

Thanks!
--

   Christian R. Conrad
The Man Who (used to think he) Knows Fucking Everything


Mail: Same username as at the top left of this post, at iki.fi
New Avoid multiboot. It's a pain.
Unless you have a pressing reason to run Linux natively, you're better off running it in a Hyper-V prison. If Hyper-V doesn't float your boat, there's always Virtualbox.

You can also run multiple VMs at once, and this is the "getting shit done, instead of getting your nerd on" way to do it.
New Hmm. Other voices to agree or disagree with Peter?
New I do agree.
But my host is Linux and I use VirtualBox for Winders 10 Pro/VS 2019/etc. Both at work and at home. No issues at all.
bcnu,
Mikem

It's mourning in America again.
Expand Edited by mmoffitt Oct. 22, 2019, 01:49:29 PM EDT
New As usual, it depends on whay you want to do.
Finally being able to have more than 4 partitions on a drive has taken a lot of the hassle out of dual boot installations. And you don't incur the double hit of having to pay for a retail Windows license.

I kept the native Windows install mainly because the proprietary NVidia driver for Linux occasionally ties the GPU in knots it can't undo.

VMs can have issues with pass through (as you ran into with your earlier VB experiment) and then it depends on your hardware and the drivers available for a particular hypervisor.

(And with VirtualBox, watch out for the Extension Pack)
New Grafix should be OK, no NVidia.
Uses the integrated Intel UHD 630, AIUI. Yeah, everybody says it's shit for gaming, compared to NVidias and Radeons -- but I don't give a flying fuck. Not into that. I saw somewhere that it can drive not just one but two 4K displays; good enough for me. Acres to code and lay out UIs on.

Ah, typical fucking Oracle. Yeah, this last experiment popped up a message about that Extension Pack stuff. Could be that I never had that installed properly, as this was on that locked-down work box I mentioned elsewhere. Earlier, playing around with Debian on my 2011 T510 years ago (pre-SystemD), it worked better IIRC.

Gotta check my Windows license, but as it came with the box (laptop, not Virtual or Oxley), I suspect it's "OEM" as opposed to "retail".

Thanks again!
--

   Christian R. Conrad
The Man Who (used to think he) Knows Fucking Everything


Mail: Same username as at the top left of this post, at iki.fi
New Also, do you have a reason to avoid systemd, other than religion?
It seems to be part of every major distribution.

I know it gets a lot of hate - but I suspect that, as is so often the case, there's as much politics and psychodrama as there is technical merit to the debate.
New For one thing, I'm an atheist...
...so I have all my religion chips left to play at this table.

For another, yes, I do actually have grave technical doubts about it.

And on the gripping hand: Don't panic, but Linux's Systemd can be pwned via an evil DNS query, Create a user called '0day', get bonus root privs – thanks, Systemd!, You love Systemd – you just don't know it yet, wink Red Hat bods, The D in Systemd stands for 'Dammmmit!' A nasty DHCPv6 packet can pwn a vulnerable Linux box, The D in SystemD stands for Danger, Will Robinson! Defanged exploit code for security holes now out in the wild... Well, no, those were just what I found while looking for https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/31/systemd_exploit/ -- and once I found that, I realised it wasn't actually an El Reg article I was remembering. (Maybe it was this one: Systemd-Homed: Systemd Now Working to Improve Home Directory Handling.)

Anyway, TL;DR: This thing seems to be an ever-growing Kraken, getting its tentacles into anything and everything, and that in itself feels very non-Unixy. I was thinking to install the OS named for that Moomin guy -- you know, Linux? If this Kraut wants people to use his stuff in stead, let him start his own OS. He can call it Lennax or something, if he still wants to have people get it mixed it up with Linux.
--

   Christian R. Conrad
The Man Who (used to think he) Knows Fucking Everything


Mail: Same username as at the top left of this post, at iki.fi
Expand Edited by CRConrad Oct. 22, 2019, 04:40:52 PM EDT
Expand Edited by CRConrad March 14, 2020, 01:41:41 PM EDT
New I finally had to install a SystemD Linux . . .
. . Debian 10.0.0 "Buster" - because older versions cannot be installed on current PCs. Fortunately SystemD is able to launch System V init programs without problems (that I know of), or my client would have been royally screwed.
New Devuan runs peachy.
I've been switching all the machinery over since last year. Took some doing to get it going on Raspberry Pi but that hurdle was passed too. The only one left to go is my wife's laptop but that is not a technical issue.

I have been using Debian since the Hamm (2.0) days. It was a surprisingly tough choice but I haven't encountered a reason to regret it so far. Stretch "stable" in particular was not very stable compared to what that used to mean and the ever increasing usurpation of essential services* by systemd with total disregard for those not on the systemd bandwagon pretty much made the jump unavoidable.

* udev in particular was nasty. Poettering's changes made it impossible to safely use LUKS encrypted partitions without systemd as of Stretch.
New turn that ipv6 crap off
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman
New +10
bcnu,
Mikem

It's mourning in America again.
     Adding (at least) Linux onto a Windows laptop(1). How??? - (CRConrad) - (15)
         if you have wintel 10 you need a pro license to do hypervisory stuff - (boxley) - (1)
             Yeah, I got W10 Pro. - (CRConrad)
         Got pigs on the roof? - (scoenye) - (1)
             Somewhat like I thought, somewhat not. Very useful. - (CRConrad)
         Avoid multiboot. It's a pain. - (pwhysall) - (4)
             Hmm. Other voices to agree or disagree with Peter? -NT - (CRConrad) - (3)
                 I do agree. - (mmoffitt)
                 As usual, it depends on whay you want to do. - (scoenye) - (1)
                     Grafix should be OK, no NVidia. - (CRConrad)
         Also, do you have a reason to avoid systemd, other than religion? - (pwhysall) - (5)
             For one thing, I'm an atheist... - (CRConrad) - (4)
                 I finally had to install a SystemD Linux . . . - (Andrew Grygus) - (1)
                     Devuan runs peachy. - (scoenye)
                 turn that ipv6 crap off -NT - (boxley)
                 +10 -NT - (mmoffitt)

Carpe per diem.
104 ms