# Linux Preloaded



## LinuxCat (Mar 27, 2017)

Hi, everyone,
I have noticed a few people are interested in installing Linux but are a bit wary of the procedure.
So, I have compiled a short list of Organisations that supply Linux systems preloaded.

https://system76.com/https://system76.com/
https://zareason.com/https://zareason.com/
https://puri.sm/
http://www.linuxcertified.com/http://www.linuxcertified.com/
https://www.milol.com/https://www.milol.com/
https://endlessos.com/https://endlessos.com/
http://www.currentbuild.com/http://www.currentbuild.com/
https://thelinuxlaptop.com/https://thelinuxlaptop.com/
https://shop.libiquity.com/https://shop.libiquity.com/



These are all aimed at the American market. I will include one for the European market later:chocolate:


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## tnthomas (Apr 30, 2017)

Hi LinuxCat;_,  _I had read this post over a month ago, but I got so wrapped up in visiting your links, that I forgot to post a reply.   

I would love to buy a pre-loaded laptop, but vendors offering Linux installed do extract quite a premium, price-wise.

So, I went to Best Buy, and bought a Dell i5 gaming laptop, with a nice upscale nVidia graphics card, and 8GB  RAM.

The laptop had Windows 10 installed, which I detested, so I dual booted with Zorin-Linux.   

 Eventually, I just blew Windows 10 and Zorin off, and installed Ubuntu 17.04(MATE desktop).

Laptop  functions great, smoooth as warm butter!


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## Mike (May 1, 2017)

Do all Programmes run on Linux?

I understand that, in the past at least,
not all did run properly, if at all.

Mike.


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## Deucemoi (May 1, 2017)

no all programmes do not run on linux. Linux has a steep learning curve. although it may have a similar gui(graphical user interface) like windows which makes it somewhat easier to use. However that being said you may have to learn to program a bit inorder to get some equipment to function properly like if you install a new modem, ethernet or video card. Unless it comes with a linux install program you will have to create it yourself. Also not all internet providers support the use of linux. And if you were thinking linux might be hack proof well the hackers have taken aim at the linux system lately.


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## tnthomas (May 1, 2017)

Mike said:


> Do all Programmes run on Linux?
> 
> I understand that, in the past at least,
> not all did run properly, if at all.
> ...



Programs are designed to run in a specific 'platform"(EG: Windows or Linux or BSD or Apple's OS X); some programs have multiple versions for the different platforms(Adobe_Flash_Player, for one).

_Some_ Windows programs will run on Linux & BSD through use of an 'emulator' by software layer called WINE.



Deucemoi said:


> no all programmes do not run on linux. Linux has a steep learning curve. although it may have a similar gui(graphical user interface) like windows which makes it somewhat easier to use. However that being said you may have to learn to program a bit inorder to get some equipment to function properly like if you install a new modem, ethernet or video card. Unless it comes with a linux install program you will have to create it yourself. Also not all internet providers support the use of linux. And if you were thinking linux might be hack proof well the hackers have taken aim at the linux system lately.



I was not aware that some internet providers would not "support" Linux, I can't see any issues...?   The backbone of the world wide web runs mostly on Linux servers(Apache).

Linux is not hack proof by any means, it's just that Microsoft Windows operating systems are the "low hanging fruit", being wide open, security-wise by default.


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## LinuxCat (May 1, 2017)

Hello people,
I have been away from the forum to deal better with some personal stuff.
Linux works well on most machines which do not  _officially_  recognise it. Many of the issues people raise regarding linux originate from the days when Linux was first created by Linus Torvalds and when everything had to be installed by text.
Nowadays, most , but not all, Linux distro's have GUI's. which makes everything a lot simpler. A distro, by the way, is a version of Linux; there are over 300 and  they can be viewed on distrowatch. Many of these are specialist distributions ( distros ) tailor-made for a specific market, such as bio-informatics, forensic science, enterprise etc.
Oracle , for example is Linux-based.
Nasa uses Linux to run the Space-station, and, to emphasise the point, Lightweight Portable Security* is a Linux distribution designed for secure communication and it was designed by the U.S.A's Department of Defence. There is a version for the Military and a Home version for the public.
I have never heard of any  internet provider not supporting Linux. I have been using Linux for over twenty years now without a problem, and I would point out that Linux was designed for, and on. the Internet.
Linux is based upon unix code.
As for Graphics problems, yes, there can be issues with some cards, mainly nvidea, but most of these issues can be remedied by googling the problem.
Microsoft Office won't run natively on Linux but W.P.S. Office Suite will open and modify docx,.files. W.I.N.E. which is a Windows emulator is available for all linux distros and is a simple one-click download. It also has it's own website.
There is, likewise a suitable Linux alternative to most, if not all, Windows software.GIMP for Photoshop, for example.
There are thousands of free open-source linux programs covering every option and they are all free to download, and as tnthomas has pointed out you can keep your Windows Installation too if you want to dual-boot with Linux.

One more aspect of linux is that there are Linux distros specifically aimed at older low-resource computers, such as Antix, Puppy and Austrumi.
No need to throw out your old computer/laptop just because it can't handle the latest Windows.
Austrumi can run in Ram on your computer after the disc has been ejected and will wipe itself from Ram after shutdown. Also, most Linix distros can also be ran in a virtual machine within Windows10.
I will post some more info on Linux pre-loaded for the European market soon.

p.s. Lightweight Portable Security is now known as T.E.N.S Trusted End Node Security.


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## Grampa Don (May 1, 2017)

I've toyed with Linux off and on for many years.  I still have the install disks I bought for Caldera 2.4 and Mandrake 7.1.  I've done dual boot, and even had a separate PC dedicated to Linux.  Now, I have Oracle VM VirtualBox in Windows to try out interesting distributions.  It's fun to play with, but I've always kept Windows as my regular operating system.  Yes, there are many equivalent programs for Linux, but the free ones for Windows are usually as good or better.  With Linux, there was always something a little flaky that had to be monkeyed with. It's much much better now, but still not as simple as Windows, at least Windows 7.  I haven't tried 10.  One killer for me is that I have a perfectly good Canon scanner that Linux does not and never will support.

Don


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## tnthomas (May 1, 2017)

Here is an interesting article, I always thought that it was high time for:

The new Linux subsystem in Windows 10


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## WhatInThe (May 6, 2017)

I bought security software for a Window Vista computer several years ago the included a Linux install, 8 hours plus to load security software, closer to 12 actually.


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## LinuxCat (May 16, 2017)

A  Windows Vista computer  - what is that?
Up until the past few years Microsoft never  even made computers, they just had computers made for them.I am not sure what you are saying here but I do know Linux would not influence the time it takes to load security software unless you were trying to use Anti-virus made for windows on a linux partition.
Linux has it's own anti-virus software and most Linux distros don't even need it.
Linux is and always will be more secure than Windows, that is why Nasa and U.S. Military use it.
It is also why the majority of Enterprise - class servers are Linux.

The Windows Vista operating system was the most vulnerable of Windows systems , even more so than XP,  and Microsoft stopped offering security patches a long time ago.


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## Son_of_Perdition (May 16, 2017)

[h=2]E_xercise in futility!_[/h]Read the following, https://freedompenguin.com/articles/opinion/windows-power-users-break-linux/


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## Manatee (May 17, 2017)

When I lived in Arizona the community computer club wiped my old XP desktop clean and installed Linux.  They has disks and it took about a half hour.  It was no charge for members.  I hooked it up to display on the TV screen and connects to the net on wi-fi.  A cordless keyboard with a track ball makes it easy.


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## tnthomas (May 17, 2017)

Manatee said:


> When I lived in Arizona the community computer club wiped my old XP desktop clean and installed Linux.  They has disks and it took about a half hour.  It was no charge for members.  I hooked it up to display on the TV screen and connects to the net on wi-fi.  A cordless keyboard with a track ball makes it easy.



Yes, linux really does business the easy way.   Linux supports  the usual web browsers(Firefox, Chrome), and Office suites such as OpenOffice and Libreoffice, which are compatible with Microsoft Office programs.

Linux does everything best, that a computer can do.


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## Grampa Don (May 17, 2017)

Do the newer Linux distributions still suffer from dependency hell? 

Don


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## Son_of_Perdition (May 17, 2017)

Grampa Don said:


> Do the newer Linux distributions still suffer from dependency hell?
> 
> Don



*Nix fixes dependency hell on all Linux distributions*

       A next-generation package manager called Nix  provides a simple distribution-independent method for deploying a  binary or source package on different flavours of Linux, including  Ubuntu, Debian, SUSE, Fedora, and Red Hat. Even better, Nix does not  interfere with existing package managers. Unlike existing package  managers, Nix allows different versions of software to live side by  side, and permits sane rollbacks of software upgrades. Nix is a useful  system administration tool for heterogeneous environments and developers  who write software supported on different libraries, compilers, or  interpreters.


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## Grampa Don (May 17, 2017)

Nix sounds great.  The dependency problem is one of the things that have turned me off to Linux.  Another is the confusing directory structure.  Try as I might, I could never get my head around it; that and the way linux mounts hardware memory onto directories.   That always seemed bass ackward to me.

Don


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## tnthomas (May 17, 2017)

About dependencies-  I say this from the standpoint of a user, not an expert:   RPM** *based Linux distributions seem to have more dependency resolution conflict, than do distros with APT.



***Redhat package management

Laptop almost out of battery....gotta go / will be back.

O.K., back.

When you say: 





> way linux mounts hardware memory onto directories.


   are you talking about :



> *tmpfs *is a common name for a temporary file storage facility on many Unix-like operating systems. It is intended to appear as a mounted file system, but stored in volatile memory



?



> tmpfs is supported by the Linux kernel from version 2.4 and up.[SUP][4][/SUP] tmpfs (previously known as shmfs) is based on the ramfs code used during bootup and also uses the page cache, but unlike ramfs it supports swapping out less-used pages to swap space as well as filesystem size and inode limits to prevent out of memory situations (defaulting to half of physical RAM and half the number of RAM pages, respectively)*.[SUP][5][/SUP]*



source


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