Help: Sandbox for learning Linux in Win 7 Home Premium

Hi,

I'm sick of paying extra for Microsoft Windows OS when I buy a new computer. Right now I'm using a Lenovo desktop SFF PC H320 w/ Pentium i3 CPU & 4 GB RAM. OS is Windows 7 Home Premium.

I'm looking for a sandbox & Linux variant so that I can begin to learn Linux while weaning myself off of Windows. I've tried http://www.linuxliveusb.com/ , but difficulty in getting the app to work as described frustrated me. Less than happily I suffer from treatment resistant depression, and my hyperirritability prevented my getting Linuxlive running with Slackware.

Any and all help would be appreciated. I have no desire to *rebuild the wheel* when this forum has many, many 'wheel' experts.

Thanks in advance for your time and kindness

 

Vmware Player or Oracle Virtualbox.

I'd recommend Vmware myself.

 

Linux Mint is a good version, and it has many tools contained in the software right out of the box. I had Mint on VBox and uninstalled it, preferring to continue to test my irritability with Microsoft without any distractions...

 

I'd recommend VMware Player too but I always keep a Linux ISO on a bootable flash drive as well which I can either boot directly (via BIOS or F8) or indirectly via EasyBCD installed in Windows. Prefer Puppy Linux myself.

 

VMWare and VirtualBox are both good suggestions to install Linux in a sandbox environment. Personally, I prefer VirtualBox. Also Slackware is NOT a good choice for Linux newbies. I would suggest that Mint and Zorin (based on Ubuntu) are the two most user-friendly choices for Windows-migrators!

 

I only chose Slackware based on Linux-related PCWorld articles suggesting Slackware as the most popular Linux distro. But I can go with Mint.

Should I try KDE or GNOME desktop to start?

 

Truthfully, KDE versus Gnome really boils down to a personal preference. Both are good choices. With that said, if you're going to go with Mint, I'd choose the Cinammon desktop, which the Mint developers have created. Cinammon is the most popular Mint desktop and is based on Gnome.

I'm not familiar with the article you cite, but I don't know of any linux users who would suggest that Slackware is the most popular Linux distro. Bad information, IMO... The most popular distros are likely Ubuntu, Debian & Mint, based on number of overall users; with Mint being the most popular in the CURRENT environment. Funny thing is that Debian is one of the "big 3" parent distros, 'cuz its been around so long. Ubuntu is based on Debian, and Mint is based on Ubuntu. Mint is good for a linux newbie/windows migrator and resembles Windows; if you want the benefits of Linux, but want it to LOOK like good old familiar windows, then Zorin is probably what you're looking for. Zorin is also based on Ubuntu, but is almost a dead-ringer for Windows appearance. FYI...

 

The VMWare website [http://partnerweb.vmware.com/GOSIG/home.html#linux] suggests that it doesn't support Mint. I was just looking for guidance after having installed VMWare Player but before determining the procedure for installing Linux.

Where next? [Other facets of life & stress have me under the covers and full of valium. Otherwise, I hate sounding so 'needy'.]

 

You may be right. I just tried to install Mint in VMware Player 6 and get this message, and if I try to go on anyway I then run into further problems. It also failed to install in VirtualBox. I did verify the Mint download first. Might be better to try one of the distros supported by VMware.

 

With all due respect, you shouldn't let your VM software dictate your OS choice. Your choice of OS should drive your choice of VM software.

If there's a VMWare distro that interests you, Earthling's advice is good. However, I still maintain that Mint or Zorin are the best choices for a newbie, as they are the most likely to allow you to become a Linux user. It would be a shame if VMWare dictated your virgin Linux experience, and you became frustrated prematurely because VMWare didn't offer what you were looking for.

As an alternative solution, I would suggest that VirtualBox is an equally viable alternative to VMWare with a very similar feature set. I use VirtualBox and I have a Mint and a Zorin VM loaded into VirtualBox, so I can verify it works. If you're interested, here is a VirtualBox tutorial on how to install Ubuntu in a VirtualBox VM. However, substitute "Mint" or "Zorin" for the word Ubuntu and everything is the same.

Here is the tutorial link: http://********.com/2012/08/31/how-to-install-ubuntu-on-oracle-virtualbox/ (this link is not copying/pasting correctly. substitute "b e t a n e w s.com", without spaces, for "*****.com" in the pasted link)
in the prerequisites section, the VirtualBox download links to version 4.2.18. A new version came out recently (version 4.3.x) which may be a little buggy yet, IMO, so version 4.2.18 is probably preferable anyway.

Also, rather than downloading & installing Ubuntu, you will want Mint or Zorin. Mint can be downloaded here: http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

I would recommend the Cinnamon version with codecs (the first choice); choose the 32-bit or 64-bit that matches your current version of Windows. If you don't know which you have, choose 32-bit for universal compatibility.

I've also mentioned Zorin. Zorin can be downloaded here: http://zorin-os.com/free6.html

The same advice regarding 32-bit or 64-bit applies here also.

A few quick tips of advice, if I may:
1. download Mint AND Zorin; install BOTH in separate VMs; play with both to see which you prefer, as they are FREE!
2. when installing Mint or Zorin, use a 15GB hard disk, in case you want to update/upgrade in the future
3. when allocating RAM to a VM, never exceed 50% of what you have in the host system. If you have 4GB RAM, provide 2GB or LESS to the guest VM; anything close to 50% will be buggy and crash, if it runs at all. If you have 4GB to play with, I'd suggst that a ratio of 2.5GBhost/1.5GBguest is ideal. Anything in excess of 2GB for a linux system is probably wasted, especially in a VM. Conversely, most Linux systems will run quite satisfactorily on as little as 1GB-2GB; maybe even as little as 512MB.

Play with your VMs until you're satisfied it does everything you want an OS to do. If Mint or Zorin don't please you, there are literally hundreds of other choices. You WILL find something you like, eventually! Once you find something you like, let us know, and we'll teach you how to install in a dual-boot arrangement, choosing your Windows OR Linux OS at the time of computer boot-up. OR, we'll invert your computer OS and install Linux as the base system, install Virtualbox on the Linux host, and then install Windows as a VM guest on your rock-solid, stable, malware-free Linux OS. IMO, this is the best arrangement for a Windows-migrator, and this is how I have my machines setup.

I don't want to talk you into doing something you don't want to do, but I do want to let you know that there's an alternative to VMWare if you don't like the VMWare options. Choice is good! Do what works for you, and good luck!

 

I decided to d/l OpenSUSE and just registered to their forum [http://forums.opensuse.org/forum.php]. I was just about to check with them for further instructions.

 

In an earlier post I mentioned Puppy Linux. Puppy operates rather differently from the other Linux distros in that it does not need to be installed to your hard disk at all, neither directly nor in a virtiual machine. You can simply store the downloaded iso on a flash drive and, with the aid of a boot manager such as EasyBCD, boot it instead of booting Windows. So getting going is really a matter of a few minutes, no messing around at all. It runs entirely in RAM so is incredibly fast and, when you finish your session, it saves everything in a second file on the flash drive so next time you boot up it remembers all your settings.

I'm a Windows user who likes to play around with Linux, so I have at various times tried most of the big name distros in a VM. However after discovering Puppy I stopped experimenting with other distros as it is just a dream to use - hard to see how it could be significantly improved upon in fact. And it's always available should Windows develop problems or fail to boot as it can be used to recover your files and other information just so long as the hard disk is spinning.

I seriously recommend you forget about VMs etc for the time being and just give Puppy a whirl. It's the painless way quickly to start getting a feel for what Linux is all about.