Moving back to Linux w/ 2 sest in stone requirements

So I am considering moving back to linux after a multi-year hiatus from CLI land.

There are 2 things that MUST happen for me to do this:

1. MS Outlook in wine with full connectivity to about 5 exchange servers. I cannot have any linux funkiness here. It has to operate exactly as it would in Windows. Period. I live and die (as does my paycheck) by my e-mail.

2. Flash support in browser. Yes, yes HTML5 is superior, flash needs to die. But the fact is most of the web is flash enabled and I like my flash games.

Ideally, I would like to convert my existing Windows 7 install into a .VDI file so I can use it in VirtualBox during the transition.

I am still distro shopping but something with either an LTS type approach or rolling upgrade is fine. I cannot be reloading Linux every few months. I've been using this Windws 7 install since it came out and it still runs just as smooth and snappy as the day I installed it. So I expect, let's say 2 years before I swap / upgrade / nuke whatever. I think that's a good time frame and will allow me to determine whether Linux and I can be good friends again.

Back in the day I used to run Suse 6.4 and I loved it. But work and school required Windows apps and WINE still blew chunks, so back to the land of the 4 colored flag I went. For years I have dual booted various distro's trying to find the one that could replace 7. I don't game anymore other than the aforementioned flash game (vega conflict).

So if I can easily remove Linux Mint 14 and GRUB (I can do this on my own) thus leaving 7 on the HD as the only OS, convert 7 to a .VDI file and have Outlook in WINE plus my flash game I can return to penguin world. If not I will look on and drool over the conkies, pine for the terminal power, and live vicariously though my linux brethren.

So help a brother out and get me out of this cage!

Thanks in advance.

 

You'll need to do some playing around with those things to see if they can work tolerably well for you.

You can check WineHQ to see how good Wine support is for Outlook: WineHQ - Microsoft Outlook. Not great. You could also try DavMail: Open Source Access to MS Exchange Server Using DavMail - LINUX For You. Or you might try running a W7 VM on your machine, that you'd only use for Outlook?

For Flash browser support, Adobe has actually dropped linux support for the flash player and the old one is buggy, but Chrome has built-in support for flash with its "Pepper API". https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/108086?hl=en (scroll down to the "Linux Users" section). So you could try that.

Here's a guy that successfully converted a W7 install to a VM: windows 7 - How to convert existing Win7 64 bit to virtual machine? - Super User

Good luck!

 

That link about converting the win 76 bit machine was exactly what I needed. I just so happen to have a spare HD I can try this with so if things fail I still have my existing working system. Now all I need is some free time....

 

I was curious how good the flash support is in Chrome so I played a little bit of that vega conflict game. Played through about 5-10 min of the tutorial with no issues (Chrome v 33.0 on Ubuntu 13.10). Thankfully I quit before I got addicted - that seems like a really cool game. Surprising how good the graphics are for a browser game.

You mentioned conky -- Rainmeter is pretty good in Windows if you're going to be stuck there for awhile. And if it's the shell you hate, try bb4win or litestep. I ran bb4win for a long time on w95, xp, and 7 succesfully. Few issues with w8. You might be stuck with a crap OS but at least you can dress it up a bit

 

Running Chromium with the old Adobe Flash plugin. Aww, this thing is so buggy...

 

One thing I noticed using Chromium; if your on a "stable" distro you don't get the browser updates/security fixes as frequent. Try installing Chrome right from google and it should update more frequently, ie: security and flash updates. Sometimes you have to manually update it though.

 

Litestep.

I ran that back in the day. Loved it.

Good to know you got Vega to work in Linux, I never could in Mint 14. This weeked i'll install a spare HD, load LM16 and give it a go. I'll either WINE Outlook or VM it. I'm actually pretty excited.

Any chance of converting my sticky notes to a linux sticky notes app? I use them alot and have 50+ notes. I use the built in Sticky Notes app in windows 7.

Well, I got linux mint installed in a dual boot setup for now.

Got WINE installed but I haven't configured MS Office for it yet. I totally forgot about a OneNote notebook that I use many times per week to store some info about a client's server rack. So I can either move all that to an Excel sheet or something. I also have some FileMaker Pro databases that I maintain. I haven't looked to see how FileMaker Pro 100 runs in WINE, but I have read reports of OneNote mis-behaving. So it looks like I just might be setting up a Windows 7 VM for those programs.

I really like KDE 4.4, but I might just wipe this install and go for Arch. I've got it running in a VM and I like it so far. There is some other customizations I need to do so that window borders, widgets, etc. aren't garishly repulsive but in order to do that I need to settle on window manager I will be using.

This weekend I will be tackling converting my existing Windows 7 partition into a .VHD file so I can use my current setup in a VM.

 

Yeah, I like a pretty minimalist desktop too, and can't stand lots of bright colors and cartoonish icons and such. Fluxbox is great for that. I was worried I would have trouble with getting system tray applets like battery monitor, wifi widget, etc. but that was really easy. I also like that I can configure actions with keystroke combinations very easily so I don't need to use the mouse to launch my favorite applications. But I tried out XFCE, Gnome, KDE, and Enlightenment before settling on flux. Enlightenment 17 would probably be my 2nd choice. At some point I'll try a tiling wm like awesome but that seems like it would be a big adjustment.

It's kind of surprising that DEs like Gnome, Unity & KDE are optimized for making your first hour of use "intuitive" instead of trying to make the next 10,000 hours more efficient, and waste so much real estate. Anyway it's great to have so many choices!

You probably don't need MS Office unless you need VBA or something. LibreOffice is really good now and can read the M$ formats. I'm not familiar with Filemaker Pro or OneNote so no suggestions there. Good luck!

 

I've had Libre Office destroy so many Word and Excel files that I lost count. Sure they open fine and I can make changes. But then re-opening them in Windows and I see funkiness. Extra characters I didn't enter, cell formatting gone to hell, line spacing messed up. It may be "compatible" but it's no replacement for the real thing in a corporate environment. Also some of the excel sheets I work with rely on VB scripts and / or conditional formatting. Also I haven't found a good open source editor for gantt charts that is compatible with Project.

Damn these companies and their reliance on closed source enterprise applications!

 

Here's my 2 euro cents.

Ad. 1.
I'm not a big fan of Wine. I suggest to try those two alternatives:
a – Always try native first. From what I heard, Evolution has support for Exchange. I never used either Exchange nor Evolution, so I know nothing more.
b – run Outlook in a virtual machine. In seamless mode of VirtualBox running Windows guest, Outlook will look and work like just another native app, integrated with the rest of your chosen linux desktop environment.

Ad. 2.
Pepperflash plugin in Google Chrome, or Chromium browser. I think that's the best flash implementation on Linux to date. But open source (?) "flashplugin" is not too bad, either. Just a bit choppy if you are watching a HD stream in full screen mode.

You might try to convert existing Windows to VDI, but it might be just simpler and more efficient in the end to set up a new a lean install with just necessary windows programs, like Outlook. Takes maybe 15 minutes, and afterwards, you don't have to reconfigure and remove old system junk that is now just a ballast.

As for distro, I suggest Arch.
If you are taken aback by text-based install process (which takes about 10 minutes and is perfectly well explained in the most comprehensive linux wiki on the internet – Arch Wiki), you might want to look into Manjaro linux (an Arch derivative, still half-compatible with the original, and very beginner-friendly).

Why Arch, you might ask?
- Best.Wiki.Ever.
- access to virtually all linux programs in existence. Installed with one command.
- rolling release – never again have to do a system reinstall
- always the latest version of every piece of software (that includes latest security implementations)
- learn Linux inside out without sacrificing your social life
- only Gentoo might (in some rare, very specific cases) be faster. But not by more than 0,01%

Also:
Grub2 is ridiculous. Try syslinux/extlinux – much, much simpler to set up and manage.
For notes, I suggest Gnote.
Do not use Mint, or any Ubuntu derivative for that matter. If you are a power user, you will have to back out of it sooner than later.
LibreOffice is getting better by an hour. You can freely use MS Office in seamless mode in VirtualBox.
AlternativeTo - Social Software Recommendations
Look into OpenBox for DE. Amazing customisation, unobtrusiveness and lightness.

I think that's that.

 

Beat ya to it.

I have Linux Mint Petra setup right now as the primary OS. Windows 7 is running in a VM (clean install) while I migrate to Evolution. It has connected to my work Exchange so far so good.

I am still looking for an MS Project replacement app. I think I will have to keep the VM around as some of my clients use Excel sheets with VBA and I have to work with those sheets from time to time.

Regarding Arch: I have it set up in a 2nd VM while I familiarize myself with it. Once I get comfy, I'll export my Windows 7 VM, wipe the HD, load Arch, then import my VM.

With regards to flash, I got it working already with Chrome (no plugins needed). I just used apt-get to install the latest version and I am good to go.

Now with regards to Arch, I might have to run the initial setup via Ethernet as no linux distro so far has auto installed the driver for my Dell wireless card. Either that, or pony up the $20 for an Intel 2200 A/B/G card of some sort. As far as I know (and I read the entire thread for my machine) there is no BIOS white list for the Ethernet card.

I'd like to upgrade to an SSD in the future, would I be able do dd the install over to it and enable trim after, or would a re-install be required? As long as I have the Windows 7 VM and my external HD, I don't mind the re-install. I do mind re-installing every few months when a new release comes out which is what turned me off from Ubuntu and Linux Mint in the first place. I was going to go with SuSE, but after running it in a VM I found I didn't care for YaST. I also considered Fedora, but it just didn't sit well with me. I know it's a good distro, but decided against it. As far as Gentoo is concerned I still have painful memories of trying to get it installed a few years ago, so I won't be going down that road again.

Right now I am more concerned with a window manager that doesn't look like crap, or have garish color schemes or look like some fake matrix inspired UI. That's one thing I really do love about Windows 7. Aero is great and it get's out of my way, looks nice, and doesn't have too thin or overly fat window borders.

I'm sure i'll settle in well. I've never really lost any of my linux skills, but as I explained before I had to run Windows for work. Sometimes the idea of spending a few hours to come up with a nice UI, get all the programs and dependencies dialed in and getting everything tweaked how I like it does seem daunting as it is a lot of work. I have my own custom .bashrc file I use, and my conky configs that I have backed up so that's not too big of a deal there.

Thanks for the help so far guys, I'm sure I'll be posting more in this thread as new things come to light or I look for more work arounds or Linux equivalents / replacements for various Windows programs and utilities.

 

No need for slow and troublesome dd. Just do

Code:

rsync -aAXv /source/* /destination

change mount points in fstab, and reinstall bootloader.
Job done.

Also, consider using BTRFS. It is in its own league of filesystems.
For example:
- my 5400rmp data HDD went from 80MB/s with ext4, to 500MB/s with btrfs zlib.
- my SSD went from 280MB/s to 640MB/s with btrfs lzo. That's on SATA II, which is limited to 280MB/s!

And the speed is not even among main advantages of BTRFS. But of course, in case of BTRFS you do want to use the latest kernel/btrfs-tools possible, and that is not very feasible on something like Mint, or even Debian.

XFCE with Numix theme and icons.
Gnome with the above, if you are feeling lazy and don't care about lightness.
You can spicy things up with Compiz or Kwin to blow the minds of users of any other OS in terms of graphical awe.

 

When I redo my system I will give BTRFS a try.

I;ve got my old conky config up and running. Was wondering if anyone could help me with a few issues with it.

I'd like the cpu temps next to each cpu core. also underneath the date, i'd like a calendar.

I have attached a screenshot and a copy of my .conkyrc file

Code:

background yes
cpu_avg_samples 2
net_avg_samples 2
total_run_times 0
out_to_console no
use_xft yes
xftfont Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:size=10
xftalpha 0.8
update_interval 1
# Window Setting
own_window_argb_visual true
own_window_argb_value 0
own_window_type desktop
own_window yes
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_type normal
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
double_buffer yes
maximum_width 300
draw_shades no
draw_outline no
draw_borders no
border_margin 4
default_color yellow
default_shade_color white
default_outline_color white
gap_x 13
gap_y 13
alignment top_right
no_buffers yes
uppercase no
override_utf8_locale yes
text_buffer_size 4096
max_specials 1024

TEXT	
#Clock
${hr 2}
${alignc 19}${color orange}${font Arial Black:size=16}${time %H:%M}${font}
${voffset 2}${alignc}${font Arial Black:size=10}${time %A, %B %d %Y}
#Calendar
#Calender is not centered
#${alignc 35}			${color orange}${execpi 300 cal | sed -e 's/'`date | awk '{print $3}'`'/\$\{color F2E310}'`date | awk '{print $3}'`'\$\{color orange}/'}
${hr 2}
																									
${color orange}Uptime: $color $uptime 
${color orange}Battery:  $color $battery
${color orange}CPU Avg. Temp: $color $acpitemp °C
${hr 2}
#CPU TEMP
#${execi 1 sensors | grep "temp1:" | cut -d+ -f2 | cut -c1-7}
#${execi 1 sensors | grep "temp2:" | cut -d+ -f2 | cut -c1-7}
#I would like each core to show temps next to core 1 and core 2
${color orange}Core 1 $alignr Core 2
#Rectangle around core 2 chart is purple, not yellow like core 1. color code is the same
${color orange}${cpugraph cpu1 25,120 ff0000 21B431} ${color orange} $alignr${color ff0000 21B431}${cpugraph cpu2 25,120 ff0000 21B431}
${color orange}Average CPU Usage /${color orange} Avg. CPU Temp: $color $acpitemp °C
${cpugraph cpu0 ff0000 21B431}
${color yellow}${hr 2}
${color orange}RAM Usage:$color $mem/$memmax - $memperc% 
     $membar
#${color orange}Swap Use: $color $swap/$swapmax - $swapperc% 
#${swapbar}
#Drive Information
${color orange}Free space on /: ${fs_free /} / ${fs_size /}
#${color yellow}${fs_bar 3 /}$color
#Top 5 Running Process
# I would like these lined up in nice columns
${color orange}${hr 2}
${color orange}Processes:$color $processes  ${color orange}Running:$color $running_processes
${color orange}Name              PID   CPU%   MEM%
${color }${top name 1} ${top pid 1} ${top cpu 1} ${top mem 1}
${color }${top name 2} ${top pid 2} ${top cpu 2} ${top mem 2}
${color }${top name 3} ${top pid 3} ${top cpu 3} ${top mem 3}
${color }${top name 4} ${top pid 4} ${top cpu 4} ${top mem 4}
${color }${top name 5} ${top pid 5} ${top cpu 5} ${top mem 5}
#Network Info - Wifi
${color orange}${hr 2}
${color orange}Local Network Traffic Analysis:
${if_existing /proc/net/route wlan0}${color orange}Ip     ${color}${alignr}${addr wlan0}
${color orange}AP                 ${color}${alignr}${wireless_essid wlan0}
${color orange}Signal             ${color}${alignr}${wireless_link_qual_perc wlan0}${wireless_link_bar 10,100 wlan0}
${color orange}D/L Speed:${color}${downspeed wlan0} #${color orange}k/s${color orange}  
${color orange}D/L${color orange}Total:${color yellow}${totaldown wlan0}
${color orange}U/L ${color orange}Speed:${color}${upspeed wlan0} ${color orange}U/L${color orange}Total:${color yellow} ${totalup wlan0}
${color orange}${hr 2}

 

Also, that's a custom .bashrc file a threw together to show some basic info and a fortune quote.

 

Ok, I read over your post again and I have a silly question. How do I re-install the bootloader?

 

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/syslinux

 

Thanks, that looks interesting.

What I am planning is this for my 500GB HD:

1. Partition 1 -100MB - Windows Boot
2. Partition 2 - 100GB NTFS - Windows (still necessary for work as of this time)
3. Partition 3 - 300GB NTFS - Shares storage between Windows and Linux. If another partition type works better, let me know.
4. Partition 4 - 8GB - Linux Swap
5. Partition 5 - etx4 Linux Boot
6. Partition 6 90GB BTRFS - /home (arch)

I'll store all my shares stuff, pics, docs, movies, music, etc., on the 300GB partition. Windows on it's own which I still need for a while. Linux on the left over space for my primary OS.

 

If you can disable EFI, then screw windows boot partition.

You mad?

ext2, 150mb

separate / and /home
Also, check out recommended mount options for btrfs

If you absolutely have to have read/write access to it from windows, use NTFS. But that is a bit of a shame cause it's a perfect candidate for

Code:

/mnt/Data  btrfs rw,noatime,compress=zlib,autodefrag,nofail,x-systemd.automount

 

Everything else I get, but what do you mean about the swap partition. I am going by the old adage of double the RAM.

 

Yeah, old adage obsolete since 256MB of RAM became standard.
While many advocate no swap at all on linux, I would say that if you want hibernation and have less than 8GB RAM, then a 2-3GB swap partition is ok to have. Never more than that.

 

Right now I have 4GB of RAM, planning to go to 8.