# Ubuntu 11 or Windows 7



## John95 (Sep 7, 2011)

I have a Netbook, and I want to know what is all around better to have from a tech person's point of view ; Windows 7 or Ubuntu 11.04. I'm not to "in love" with Microsoft and scams, but what is better for school and the benefits in the long run.


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## John95 (Sep 7, 2011)

Also give me a comparison of witch is more easy to use and what features are there.


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## saikee (Jun 11, 2004)

You can write book to answer your questions.

Why don't you install both and hop between the two? Isn't that the best way to find out? Linux can be accommodated in a 10Gb partition but I would recommend 20Gb. All you need is in Win7 use disk management to resize its partition to create 20Gb unallocated space.

Once you find out that you can do whatever you want with your documents, photos, video, files using either operating systems you will then form an informed view.

Remember Linux is free and there is no law against installing as many as you want.


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## dant22185 (Oct 5, 2009)

I am currently doing the same. There are various tasks I like to do in each. Although I am very inexperienced with Linux I still use it for small pactical tasks.

The windows 7 disk manager makes its super simple to allocate space to an alternate bootable image.


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## saikee (Jun 11, 2004)

dant22185 said:


> The windows 7 disk manager makes its super simple to allocate space to an alternate bootable image.


Think! Win7 only supports MS systems and so you can only create partitions in Fat32 or NTFS filing formats but these are not used by other operating systems.

With iInux it is designed to support 100+ partition types

```
01 FAT12                 50 OnTrack DM            AB Darwin boot
 02 XENIX root            51 OnTrack DM6 Aux1      AF HFS / HFS+
 03 XENIX usr             52 CP/M                  B7 BSDI fs
 04 FAT16 <32M            53 OnTrack DM6 Aux3      B8 BSDI swap
 05 Extended              54 OnTrackDM6            BB Boot Wizard hidden
 06 FAT16                 55 EZ-Drive              BE Solaris boot
[COLOR="Red"] 07 HPFS/NTFS[/COLOR]             56 Golden Bow            BF Solaris
 08 AIX                   5C Priam Edisk           C1 DRDOS/sec (FAT-12)
 09 AIX bootable          61 SpeedStor             C4 DRDOS/sec (FAT-16 <
 0A OS/2 Boot Manager     63 GNU HURD or SysV      C6 DRDOS/sec (FAT-16)
 0B W95 FAT32             64 Novell Netware 286    C7 Syrinx
[COLOR="Red"] 0C W95 FAT32 (LBA)[/COLOR]       65 Novell Netware 386    DA Non-FS data
 0E W95 FAT16 (LBA)       70 DiskSecure Multi-Boo  DB CP/M / CTOS / ...
 0F W95 Ext'd (LBA)       75 PC/IX                 DE Dell Utility
 10 OPUS                  80 Old Minix             DF BootIt
 11 Hidden FAT12          81 Minix / old Linux     E1 DOS access
 12 Compaq diagnostics    82 Linux swap / Solaris  E3 DOS R/O
 14 Hidden FAT16 <32M     83 Linux                 E4 SpeedStor
```
Linux also separate partitioning with formatting as the former is reversible while the latter is irreversible. This will be much appreciated in hard disk diagnostics.

The fact that a Linux user can write a couple lines of commands to create 128 partitions in a hard disk in a few minutes may be irrelevant to a PC user but when it comes to salvage a hard disk with corrupted files and unbootable operating system the true colour of Linux will shine.


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## John95 (Sep 7, 2011)

I like the idea of Ubuntu on my Netbook, because it is fast. But what is the best decision to make, because I don't want to dual boot and manage two systems and I don't want to make a mistake though I have a Windows 7 Starter disk. The only issue I have is that I cant connect to my wireless netgear router.


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## dant22185 (Oct 5, 2009)

Get another hard drive and install unbuntu on it. Keep the other one if you want to return it to windows.

I have plans on doing this as well once I can get a charger in the mail for my netbook.

I had also planned on putting in an SSD just a 32GB would be plenty for simply browsing within Unbuntu. Plus with an SSD it would greatly increase the speeds. I found one on newegg for cheap and with decent reviews:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227510

@saikee:

I was able to easily allocate space with the windows disk manager. I think if I can remember what it does is allocate the space into unpartitioned space and condenses the space for the OS down to what you want. I would have to double check exactally but I think that is what I did to create a simple dual boot instance.


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

A netbook with 2 GB RAM, dual core processor and Windows 7 Home Premium should be a fine machine. My daughter is very happy with hers.

Windows 7 Starter, 1 GB RAM, or single core processor each suggests that Windows XP or a Linux distribution is a better choice.

OTOH "school" may imply that you will be expected to be using Windows and may have difficulties with another OS.


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## dant22185 (Oct 5, 2009)

Some netbooks aren't quite as powerful. I have one that has the dual core atom processor and only 1GB of ram. My plans are boost it up to 2BG, SSD, Linux Ubuntu. Should be a blazing fast little netbook after that.


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## John95 (Sep 7, 2011)

TerryNet said:


> A netbook with 2 GB RAM, dual core processor and Windows 7 Home Premium should be a fine machine. My daughter is very happy with hers.
> 
> Windows 7 Starter, 1 GB RAM, or single core processor each suggests that Windows XP or a Linux distribution is a better choice.
> 
> OTOH "school" may imply that you will be expected to be using Windows and may have difficulties with another OS.


 I only use Ms Office at school, thats about it but I use Libre Office in Windows.


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## John95 (Sep 7, 2011)

Do most people dual boot or just install Ubuntu ??


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## 1002richards (Jan 29, 2006)

mrburton1776 said:


> Do most people dual boot or just install Ubuntu ??


A sweeping generalisation now follows! 

A common route is:
- try live CD (like it :up
- so then try Wubi ( https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide ) (like it :up
- go for a dual boot (like it :up

then it depends on whether you've got progs or games that just don't work with Linux - in that case a dual boot is a good choice.

Some people miss nothing from Windows and go for a full install.
Just my thoughts on the question !!

Richard


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

mrburton1776 said:


> Do most people dual boot or just install Ubuntu ??


I have never seen any data or survey on that question. Your best bet at this time is probably to install Ubuntu under Windows using Wubi, as advised above. You get the dual boot experience without the hassle of partitioning or of worrying about how to re-install Windows. After using that configuration you may decide to stick with it, go to a real (Ubuntu installed in a completely separate partition) dual boot or just have one of the OSes.

FWIW my first experience with Ubuntu was using Wubi with Vista and XP. I didn't like it on the Vista machine and discarded it, but on the other machine I now have a real dual boot.


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## JohnAlpha (Jul 11, 2009)

mrburton1776 said:


> I have a Netbook, and I want to know what is all around better to have from a tech person's point of view ; Windows 7 or Ubuntu 11.04. I'm not to "in love" with Microsoft and scams, but what is better for school and the benefits in the long run.


I think that what's better is highly dependent on what exactly you want to do with the netbook. If it's mainly going to be used for web browsing, email, and typing documents then it really won't make too much of a difference and comes down to preference. If you'll be needing specialized applications, though, then you'll want to see what options are available on each platform.


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## InterKnight (Oct 19, 2004)

My original intent was to dedicate my entire hard drive to Ubuntu. I am a Computer Information Systems student, however, and some of my classes required Windows programs that did not work under Wine (Windows Emulator), such as Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2). I used to run a copy of Windows XP under VirtualBox and do all of my homework through the virtualized Windows XP system; that worked wonderfully for me.

I had to purchase a new computer last year, and I could not use the virtualization technique described above because I only have an OEM version of Windows 7, and I do not believe that an OEM version of an OS can be installed in VirtualBox. So right now I dual boot Windows 7 and Linux Mint. I was using Ubuntu 11.04, but it has some accessibility issues which make it difficult for me (a blind user) to get things set up and going. I still prefer Ubuntu, and I will likely switch back when 11.10 is released next month.

If you have the RAM for it, you could probably just run Windows 7 as a virtual machine. I have no experience with this concerning Windows 7 (as I only did it with Windows XP), but maybe someone else here has done this and can give you some input. Personally, I think that the virtualization route is a good way to go if your machine is capable of doing it.

Depending on your major, Ubuntu may just do all that you need it to for your classes. As saikee mentioned in a prior post, you could literally write a book to describe the differences between Ubuntu/Linux and Windows.

I wish you all the best in this, and we are here to help if you need anything.


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## Hughv (Jul 22, 2006)

What JohnAlpha said.
My Dell Mini has always run Ubuntu and I used Netbook remix to replace the Dell customized version.
That said, it's solely used for web surfing and email, for which it is ideal.


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## jiml8 (Jul 3, 2005)

The comment about "tech person" (which is better for a tech person...) causes me to wonder. My answer would be "neither".

I don't like Ubuntu. There are distros that make more efficient use of your processor out of the box, and Ubuntu tries to hide things from you, just like Windows. I think a "tech person" wouldn't like to have those things hidden. Also, it seems that Ubuntu always has reversions going from version to version. People on this board seem to like it but I think there are much better choices.

OpenSUSE or Fedora, IMNSHO, are better choices for a "tech person". OpenSUSE particularly is very friendly, but it doesn't hide things and getting to root is straightforward (unlike Ubuntu which tries to hide root from you).

I've used Mandriva since Mandrake 7.2, I am a "tech person", and I frequently dig deep into the system. Mandriva is very friendly, but I can no longer recommend it because the company has had some serious problems. I'm starting to play with Mageia, a fork of Mandriva, but it is immature at this point. However, both of these distros are easy on the processor. Mandriva is using nepomuk, in the last few releases, which does suck processor, but it is easy to turn off.


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## monckywrench (Nov 29, 2007)

Whatever you do,* consider NOT conventionally "dual booting" because in many ways it's obsolete*.
I quit dual-booting years ago.

When I get a new machine that's preloaded I *make recovery DVD(s) immediately and save them. *If you don't need to reinstall on your own machine you may need to fix one of the same type with a valid COA for that Windows version. If you sell your machine it can be sold with a clean factory install which most customers prefer.

I agree with Interknight about the virtues of VMs. Students should inquire about deep student discounts on all MSFT software.
If you are working with PCs you really need a collection of (legal) retail install media or .isos.

[pirating advice removed by mod]

Some student purchase info:

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbPage.LearnMore/CustomPage

My personal preference is a Linux host with other OS virtual machines. I work with Windows so keeping a bunch of VMs handy is what to do.
I use a Ubuntu host because I'm lazy and want maximum package variety with minimal effort.

If I weren't lazy I'd run Debian (also easy nowadays).


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## John95 (Sep 7, 2011)

Thanks everyone for your input!! I think Ubuntu suits my needs, and speeds up my system so I may install it after a week or two of learning how it works. I would only return to Windows 7 when I get a more powerful computer like a desktop but if I get to involved, it will be Linux4Life. And by the way I'm a High School student.


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## monckywrench (Nov 29, 2007)

Good for you. Try MANY operating systems. As time passes your experience will be more and more useful.

Unix-ish operating systems will remain "familiar" for a very long time so start early.


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## InterKnight (Oct 19, 2004)

Hey, now. There's nothing wrong with "Linux4Life"! 

As stated by monckywrench, though, it is a great idea to become familiar with many different operating systems.

Best wishes to you, and take some time and enjoy your Linux system.


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## John95 (Sep 7, 2011)

Wow, I installed Ubuntu 11.04 and it is better than I expected!!!! It suits my needs, and it exceeds them too!!!! How can Windows hog the market, when the free Os is 10x better!!!! Before Ubuntu, Windows used 500MB of ram and now Ubuntu uses 200. I will refuse Micro$oft and choose Ubuntu for the rest of my computing life!!!! So yes it is "Linux4Life." I will try to spread the word of Ubuntu to Windows user's so they are not caught in Micro$oft's Matrix, and blind of the greatness of Ubuntu. I'm sad I did not switch earlier.


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## InterKnight (Oct 19, 2004)

Glad to hear that!

When I ran Windows XP, I always had to worry about how I could afford to purchase a $700 screen magnification software package made especially for blind individuals (as well as $50+ for upgrades to the package). It was nice to see that the 3D-accelerated applications in Ubuntu offered better magnification capabilities ran MUCH more smoothly, used a LOT less RAM, and cost.....absolutely nothing. It did cost the developers, however, in time, of which I am very sincerely appreciative.

Not to discourage you, but please keep in mind that no piece of software is without its bugs--Widnows, Mac, Android, and even Linux. I am really glad to hear that Ubuntu exceeded your expectations.

I wanted to post back sooner to tell you that, if you wanted to hold off on installation for just a short bit, Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneric Ocelot" is set to launch on October 13 (next month). I'm really excited about it!! I was not too hasty to adapt the Unity desktop, but now that it will be more accessible to blind users, I am excited to get a chance to test it out.

And if you ever need assistance with anything in your new Linux system, we'll be here to help (I say "we", but I include myself quite lightly, as there are many more people here on this forum who are MUCH more experienced than I am. I'd love to be able to have half of their knowledge and experience.)

Best wishes to you. 

Enjoy!


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## John95 (Sep 7, 2011)

Unity is a good interface on netbooks and laptops. And yes no software is the best, just like how you can never write the perfect paper. Once more, Ubuntu beats Windows by 2 miles. I can download a picture and type if I want jpeg or png as with Windows, it's only one choice of file type or save as all files. One day maybe, Ubuntu will own at least 30% of the market if people get the word out clear. When I first discovered Ubuntu, I thought it would be very hard to use and cause problems, thus I forgot about it until 11.04 and when all my favorite apps supported Linux; but now that I installed it, it is the best software I have used for free.


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