Linux ruined my Windows experience

Would it be off topic to ask how to use Mint or Opensuse on a thumb drive?
I'd like to test drive one or both....before I get brave enough to do a partition.

I've tried many distro's in linux and there are only 2 that will go on my machine now, and some say pclinuxos is like mandriva. Well its actually better than it. Pclinuxos, is stable and wonderful. Its my first choice always, and also found Mint Linux to be the best debian had to offer. KDE for both.

As for windows, finally dual boot again, was pure linux for a while, but like to game with kids long distance, and find dual booting a good solution. I prefer windows 7 to all the other windows.

originally posted by: FormerlyConfused
Windows:
Install: Very easy using the 6 DVD disks but takes 1 hour to complete the disks, 4 hours to download and install updates, another 4 hours of updates after reboot and another hour to uninstall bloat ware and install anti-virus.
Setting up dual boot is difficult.

6 DVD disks?

a reply to: ArMaP

Yes.
The set of factory restore DVDs I burned for my HP Envy notebook is 6.

It takes about an hour to feed the disks then 4 hours of Microsoft updates, then reboot and another 4 hours of more updates.

Then Antivirus with its updates and setup, then removal of bloatware.

I choose the minimum factory restore but bloatware happens.

Then I spend another hour or so customizing the GUI and loading my programs.

9+hours to restore any OS is far beyond ridiculous.

Any of my favorite Linux distros take less than an hour. Unless I am setting up dual boot then it takes a lot longer.

The best application installation system I've seen on a computer is on Ubuntu. Tons of software for just about anything arranged in a Google Play Store or iStore type program.

I wish other distros would adopt it because I personally don't care for Ubuntu.

I am a Windows and Linux admin/dev, I use both tho i am not a fan of dual booting i generally create VMs. first, Windows 8.1 from an architectural point of view is another step in a direction of major cleanup and rework of windows under the hood.

that said, most people people who 'hate" windows 8* generally just dislike the boot to metro which is easily switched with starting in 8.1, the full screen start thing can also be tweaked to a different view. and there are more keyboard shortcuts which make things alot better.

for speed, 8.1 on decent hardware should fly, if it doesnt well i would look at your setup....

also, generally i find people who dont like 8.1, generally dont know it and have not taken the time to....

originally posted by: FormerlyConfused
a reply to: ArMaP

Yes.
The set of factory restore DVDs I burned for my HP Envy notebook is 6.

Then don't blame Microsoft for something HP made, Windows installation is just one DVD.

I have seen that in many notebooks, the maker fills the computer with useless software that only makes the computer slower than it should and sometimes even include an anti-virus that is harder to uninstall than a virus.

a reply to: Ghostinshell

I wouldn't mind booting to OpenSuse or mint then run Windows in a VM for the occasional use.

But certainly not the other way around.

Unfortunately that's not an option with my HP restore disks.
The last MS OS install disk I bought was XP. Too bad it's outdated and unsupported.

a reply to: FormerlyConfused

MY main work machine, is win 8.1 with VMware VMs, I find, running VMware in windows works better than the Linux version. in Linux if I virtualize I use KVM.

but, VMware is the most mature platform, video drivers and usb drivers are better than most of the others.

a reply to: ArMaP


I always do a clean install of windows from Microsoft media if I can. if I cant I spend the time to remove everything down to the Microsoft baseline. and then work up from their....

originally posted by: Ghostinshell
a reply to: FormerlyConfused

MY main work machine, is win 8.1 with VMware VMs, I find, running VMware in windows works better than the Linux version. in Linux if I virtualize I use KVM.

but, VMware is the most mature platform, video drivers and usb drivers are better than most of the others.

I agree, I also use Windows 8.1 with VMware machines for Android 4.4, CentOS, Chrome OS, OpenSuse and all other versions of Windows since XP.

originally posted by: DontTreadOnMe
Would it be off topic to ask how to use Mint or Opensuse on a thumb drive?
I'd like to test drive one or both....before I get brave enough to do a partition.

Run Linux Mint 9 from a USB...
How to install OpenSUSE...

a reply to: Klassified

Thanks...I forgot about this thread....the info is much appreciated.....