The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

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I don't think you understand. I have 2 entirely separate drives. I didn't want anything Linux related on the windows drive. I'm not doing any partitioning and I didn't have this problem with manjaro or Kubuntu

By default GRUB will install in main boot sector which is on Windows disk drive. You would need to manually install GRUB on 2nd disk drive because as I said it is by default installed where Windows is stored. If you would install any other distro for more experienced user (like Manjaro or Arch) you would need to manually select where GRUB will be stored and what /sda partition contains Linux installation.

Now you need to repair Windows boot sector with /bootrec /fixboot command for EFI and make new installation or play around with GRUB autodetecting Linux on 2nd drive.

Best way is to deactivate Windows disk drive from BIOS/UEFI during Linux installation so it wont even bother looking for any other disk.
 
By default GRUB will install in main boot sector which is on Windows disk drive. You would need to manually install GRUB on 2nd disk drive because as I said it is by default installed where Windows is stored. If you would install any other distro for more experienced user (like Manjaro or Arch) you would need to manually select wehere GRUB will be stored.

Now you need to repair Windows boot sector with /bootrec /fixboot command for EFI and make new installation or play around with GRUB autodetecting Linux on 2nd drive.

Best way is to deactivate Windows disk drive from BIOS/UEFI during Linux installation so it wont even bother looking for any other disk.
I think I just won't touch Mint ever again then. Already replaced it with Kubuntu
 
I think I just won't touch Mint ever again then. Already replaced it with Kubuntu
I had a weird issue in Kubuntu where after an update of the Linux kernal, the bootloader or something related to that would screw up preventing it from booting into the main os. Curious to know if you have or will experience this. I was on Kubuntu 21.04 when that happened.
 
So honest question: should I be as salty as I am that Mint decided to I stall GRUB on my windows drive when I didn't tell it to? I'm already paranoid enough about my computer's stability and don't need external shit messing with it.
Does Mint's Calamares installer not allow you to set up mount points on different partitions? I usually always make a separate /boot partition and put GRUB on that so it still stays away from anything Windows.
 
With EFI the kernel can be recognized and loaded directly if placed appropriately in a partition the firmware of the computer can read, no bootloader necessary. Don't ask me what windows does.


Anyone here autistic enough to try and build an LFS system (hardmode: build an LFS system and set up X11 with a proper DE)? It's a project I've always been tempted by, but I almost always end up settling for Gentoo instead because dependency hell is something I'm not capable of dealing with in the current year
No, and for your named reasons: dependency hell. Linux and it's software environment is quite fat-assed if you walk away from simple software. Also don't forget that runtime dependencies and build time dependencies aren't necessarily the same thing. It's hilarious/sad to me how some distributions seem to give up and just use flatpaks/appimages. That's uh, not the right way. Stick to gentoo, it's easy to override retarded maintainer decisions and patch source code of packages.

Not saying a build-from-scratch system couldn't have it's uses but the packages need to be very carefully selected and have a low amount of dependencies else you need a package manager if you hope to ever keep things updated. (which maybe you don't, it's not strictly necessary)
 
I had a weird issue in Kubuntu where after an update of the Linux kernal, the bootloader or something related to that would screw up preventing it from booting into the main os. Curious to know if you have or will experience this. I was on Kubuntu 21.04 when that happened
I'm on 21.10 and honestly I haven't used this install long enough get any issues. Only issue I've had that also happened with a previous install was that the windows (super, meta I don't give a shit) stopped showing the start menu, so I had to redo the shortcut for it.

It's annoying how every distro I try never really feels stable.

Does Mint's Calamares installer not allow you to set up mount points on different partitions? I usually always make a separate /boot partition and put GRUB on that so it still stays away from anything Windows.
I can't tell you at this point, but I told the install to stay on the disk I assigned it.
 
So honest question: should I be as salty as I am that Mint decided to I stall GRUB on my windows drive when I didn't tell it to?
No? Mint has always been one of the Linux distributions most aimed at newcomers. Their decision to hide which drive GRUB gets installed to rather than asking their presumed-clueless newbie userbase if it's okay to "install GRUB to the MBR of /dev/sda" is understandable.

I think I just won't touch Mint ever again then.
Good idea (not even being snarky). Your use case of "I want to control exactly what goes where on my drives but I'm not autistic enough for partitioning yet" is just something that Mint isn't catering toward. It's fine.
 
Good idea (not even being snarky). Your use case of "I want to control exactly what goes where on my drives but I'm not autistic enough for partitioning yet" is just something that Mint isn't catering toward. It's fine.
Even then, if I recall correctly, Mint still provides the option to set up a custom partitioning scheme which would allow you to set up a boot point elsewhere. It's a relatively easy thing to get working if you want to make sure all you need to do to remove your Linux installation is to nuke the partitions assigned expressly for it rather than fiddle around with a now-modified Windows boot partition.

I know it probably isn't the most ideal suggestion, @Dr. Geronimo, but I am still curious. Consider going through the install process just once for a "minimal" distro (i.e. pure Arch, or Artix with no DE) so you at least know how that process goes and you can get familiar with steps like partitioning. Ideally, you should have no problem afterwards applying that to the easier distro installers, since you'll know what options to look for then and how to get them working along the graphical route once you're familiar with them on the terminal route. I can't make any guarantees obviously, but I hope at least that that does end up helping somewhat.
 
By default GRUB will install in main boot sector which is on Windows disk drive. You would need to manually install GRUB on 2nd disk drive because as I said it is by default installed where Windows is stored. If you would install any other distro for more experienced user (like Manjaro or Arch) you would need to manually select where GRUB will be stored and what /sda partition contains Linux installation.

Now you need to repair Windows boot sector with /bootrec /fixboot command for EFI and make new installation or play around with GRUB autodetecting Linux on 2nd drive.

Best way is to deactivate Windows disk drive from BIOS/UEFI during Linux installation so it wont even bother looking for any other disk.
Just one point of contention based on my experience with Red Hat distro’s Anaconda installer and Ubuntu’s installer for Grub. If you removed the second drive, grub will not know you have a second disk until you edit the config file to tell it. So if you remove the window drive, Grub won’t know about it and probably won’t even bother with “Other operating system” option. Maybe different distros don’t have grub do it but in my experience that’s what happens.

Now the good news is, if you uninstall the Linux drive or change boot order in BIOS, windows boot loader will usually tell Grub to not bother and automatically boot windows. At least that’s my experience. I tend to avoid boot loader stuff beyond the installer and have been happy to treat it like deep magic.
 
If you removed the second drive, grub will not know you have a second disk until you edit the config file to tell it. So if you remove the window drive, Grub won’t know about it and probably won’t even bother with “Other operating system” option. Maybe different distros don’t have grub do it but in my experience that’s what happens.
I believe if you do use a separate /boot partition, GRUB just doesn't look at any other drives and partitions at all by default, since that comes with os-prober being disabled for use by GRUB until you explicitly tell it to use os-prober. Removing the Windows drive completely would be overkill in this case, but from what I've heard of others' experience of GRUB in general, I can understand why some might want to err on the side of caution.
 
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I'm on 21.10 and honestly I haven't used this install long enough get any issues. Only issue I've had that also happened with a previous install was that the windows (super, meta I don't give a shit) stopped showing the start menu, so I had to redo the shortcut for it.
Wonder if the Kubuntu devs fixed that issue with 21.10. For some reason the super key borking seems to be a common thing with KDE. If you want something that just works(TM) Popos has been stable for me on various hardware for a while now. Eventually distrohopping sucks and want to actually use your computer to do stuff.
 
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On dual-booting from separate partitions in general, I don't think it's as bad an idea as it used to be. I've done a few installations recently dual-booting Windows and Linux from the same drive and they play nicely with each other now. Even nuking the Linux partition and reinstalling another Linux distro into the blank space behaves properly.
I've only tried it installing Windows first though, haven't done it the other way around.
 
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No? Mint has always been one of the Linux distributions most aimed at newcomers. Their decision to hide which drive GRUB gets installed to rather than asking their presumed-clueless newbie userbase if it's okay to "install GRUB to the MBR of /dev/sda" is understandable.
I don't think it has to be that complicated, just an option that say 'limit my install to this drive'. I honestly like Mint the more I think about, just that my use case doesn't make it preferable.

Good idea (not even being snarky). Your use case of "I want to control exactly what goes where on my drives but I'm not autistic enough for partitioning yet" is just something that Mint isn't catering toward. It's fine.
I know you did the disclaimer, but I just want to say that I'm not trying to be intentionally obtuse. I just think that putting shit in the windows drive should be a no no.
Wonder if the Kubuntu devs fixed that issue with 21.10. For some reason the super key borking seems to be a common thing with KDE. If you want something that just works(TM) Popos has been stable for me on various hardware for a while now. Eventually distrohopping sucks and want to actually use your computer to do stuff.
I agree on the distrohopping, eventually I want to find something that makes me really happy. Right now my distro goals are something that's heavy on polish, stability, and has a desktop similar to windows. I'm not a big fan of GNOME so Cinnamon and KDE are really my current jam.
 
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I don't think you understand. I have 2 entirely separate drives. I didn't want anything Linux related on the windows drive. I'm not doing any partitioning and I didn't have this problem with manjaro or Kubuntu
I usually remove all other disks before installing a new OS for this very reason. I thankfully have not had to deal with this yet.
 
Wiped my Win7 install (backed it up to an external) and went over to Ubuntu 21.10 - liking it a lot so far. Proton is pretty flexible when it comes to supporting most of the Windows games I would want to play on Steam. Gonna stick with it for a while and see how I like it, currently ahem...acquiring Bitwig Studio 4 to see if DAW'ing on Linux is any good.
 
I don't think it has to be that complicated, just an option that say 'limit my install to this drive'. I honestly like Mint the more I think about, just that my use case doesn't make it preferable.
the option is probably there, just not by default. windows pulls the same shit unless you tell it to (and even then it will generate a recovery partition via setup unless you partition the drive manually first).

I agree on the distrohopping, eventually I want to find something that makes me really happy. Right now my distro goals are something that's heavy on polish, stability, and has a desktop similar to windows. I'm not a big fan of GNOME so Cinnamon and KDE are really my current jam.
ever tried suse?
 
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I agree on the distrohopping, eventually I want to find something that makes me really happy. Right now my distro goals are something that's heavy on polish, stability, and has a desktop similar to windows. I'm not a big fan of GNOME so Cinnamon and KDE are really my current jam.
Look at KDE neon. It's an Ubuntu LTS base with the latest KDE on top of it, so you get a stable base system with all the newest features and bug fixes in KDE. It's a pretty minimal and bloat-free default install too. I've been playing around with it lately and I quite like it. My only concern is how the rolling KDE version will work with the LTS base. So far it's been solid but that's only the sort of thing that time can uncover.
 
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Regarding the future of Linux and tech in general, this makes for an interesting read: https://igurublog.wordpress.com/

It's an older blog, but a lot of things this guy said can raise some alarm. Especially what he says about systemD.
to be fair, that post is 6 years old, and quite a bit has changed since then. for example microsoft switched to become a service provider and gave away windows for free. they simply don't have the need or motivation to subvert linux when they make most of their money from their cloud business, doesn't really matter what client people use for their cloud office running on azure, the only part of windows really making money is OEM/corporate, and that's tied to services again.
heck there might come a time they do their own linux distribution like red hat to offload even more development costs and just sell services. or think android, same thing.

systemd.. well. I'm a blackpill fag, but every coin has 2 sides. the more they bloat it to take over the user space and make it un-maintainable on purpose, they have the same issue, their own development becomes more expensive and unmaintainable. which means major issues are not a matter of if but when, and afterwards they either have to clean up their own shit, or more likely there's a broad effort to get rid of the shit parts (call it wake up call, long over due trimming, whatever), it's still open source.
in the end all it takes is one dude saying "this is shit, I'm doing my own thing", that's how linux came to be after all.

also, unrelated but current woke culture won't exist forever. inevitably the pendulum is gonna swing back hard enough lot of projects get cleansed (or forked beforehand when they turn to shit due to incompetent maintainers and smothering CoC) and it's gonna take a lot of woke tech companies with them if they haven't already folded because their woke rot has chased out all competence. you can see this effect slowly happening in videogames, just look at blizzard, or AAA in general.

so I wouldn't throw in the towel just yet, but some vigilance is never a bad idea.
 
to be fair, that post is 6 years old, and quite a bit has changed since then. for example microsoft switched to become a service provider and gave away windows for free. they simply don't have the need or motivation to subvert linux when they make most of their money from their cloud business, doesn't really matter what client people use for their cloud office running on azure, the only part of windows really making money is OEM/corporate, and that's tied to services again.
heck there might come a time they do their own linux distribution like red hat to offload even more development costs and just sell services. or think android, same thing.

systemd.. well. I'm a blackpill fag, but every coin has 2 sides. the more they bloat it to take over the user space and make it un-maintainable on purpose, they have the same issue, their own development becomes more expensive and unmaintainable. which means major issues are not a matter of if but when, and afterwards they either have to clean up their own shit, or more likely there's a broad effort to get rid of the shit parts (call it wake up call, long over due trimming, whatever), it's still open source.
in the end all it takes is one dude saying "this is shit, I'm doing my own thing", that's how linux came to be after all.

also, unrelated but current woke culture won't exist forever. inevitably the pendulum is gonna swing back hard enough lot of projects get cleansed (or forked beforehand when they turn to shit due to incompetent maintainers and smothering CoC) and it's gonna take a lot of woke tech companies with them if they haven't already folded because their woke rot has chased out all competence. you can see this effect slowly happening in videogames, just look at blizzard, or AAA in general.

so I wouldn't throw in the towel just yet, but some vigilance is never a bad idea.
May your optimism bear fruits in this regard.
 
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