Where to get a Laptop can run dual operating systems in BKK?

[waxpro]

Hey guys

Looking to buy a new laptop that can dual operating systems: windows and Linux,

The device (laptop) will be used as a regular work station,

for graphic designs, video editing, FTP uploads and all other related functions,
the whole job will be done mainly with Windows 7 or 10, then Linux will be used for learning, and practicing (newbie stage)

some friend advise me to look at: HP 15-bc207TX , this available at panthip plaza actually,
Any recommendations / comments about this tech guys?
have anyone used / using one machine installed with Linux and windows?
how stable and efficient the machine's performance with dual or multiple operating systems installed?
Kindly advise accordingly, any precise recommendations will be highly appreciated and considered,
Many thanks in advance!

[RKASA]

Just get 8gb of ram or more and a good laptop - then install vertualbox on windows 10 and then install linux mint in virtualbox and then you can run both at the same time.  You can start linux anytime you want it or script it to start after windows is completed booting.  You can do this yourself easy enough - all you need for linux is the iso file you don't even have to burn it to a cd and virtualbox will mount it - it will never bother your windows install it runs as a file and only sees its own vitual drive unless you take steps to force it to see the other - you can even set up copy paste sharing between the two OS's as well as file shares etc. and in bridge mode (recommended) your local network just sees it as another PC complete with own IP address.  Its all free for personnel use - all of it.

[waxpro]

6 hours ago, RKASA said:

Just get 8gb of ram or more and a good laptop - then install vertualbox on windows 10 and then install linux mint in virtualbox and then you can run both at the same time.  You can start linux anytime you want it or script it to start after windows is completed booting.  You can do this yourself easy enough - all you need for linux is the iso file you don't even have to burn it to a cd and virtualbox will mount it - it will never bother your windows install it runs as a file and only sees its own vitual drive unless you take steps to force it to see the other - you can even set up copy paste sharing between the two OS's as well as file shares etc. and in bridge mode (recommended) your local network just sees it as another PC complete with own IP address.  Its all free for personnel use - all of it.

It looks so interesting to run both at the same time as operating 2 separate machines!

I still not clear enough about this practically, however, will try and see how it goes, thanks brother!

[RKASA]

You can follow this it should help alot

 

[jerome1976]

all the computers and laptop can boot on Linux and Windows and have dual boot.

But for maximum compatibility for all material on the laptop, there is Clevo (and some others).

Also, you should install a bootloader like Grub (or some others), then use it to boot on what evere OS you've installed.

 

The virtualization is something who will eat some CPU load and RAM memory, but also you will loose GPU... or you need to passthrough his PCI port to get direct access of your GPU from your virtual guest system(so if you are noob... it will be difficult for you). It works perfectly and i use it for windows-7 running under Qemu/kvm with Nvidia and USB-3.. PCI card direct access.

 

If you don't know to do it yourself there is two choices (maybe more, the other i don't know them):

1/ take time to learn it by read articles online, go to suscribe with a Linux club and practice/share

2/ paid a specialist (it should have in Thailand... but... not sure, i never see)

 

or

 

"man pain araiii " (big smile)

 

chock dii

[rwdrwdrwd]

Windows 10 now has WSL (Windows Subystem Linux) which enables Linux within Windows itself - https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/askpfeplat/2018/04/09/windows-subsystem-for-linux-and-bash-shell-2018-update/

I shifted back to Windows after 10 years on Mac recently (because the new MBPs are shoddy) and use WSL extensively, have all my microservices, git, node, go, java running under Linux and then normal Windows apps running alongside, also Docker running under Windows with Linux mapped to it - it's actually a really nice dev setup.

That said, it certainly required decent Linux knowledge and research skills to get it all working nicely, if you want to 'play' with Linux in isolation, a VM is probably the way (you can still have VMs alongside WSL though)

Edited November 11, 2018 by rwdrwdrwd

[jmd8800]

I use Linux as a host and another Linux distribution as a host. After I installed Guest Additions I noticed I had options for 3D acceleration and 2D video acceleration. I haven't tried them.

 

Once your guest operating system is installed and you've installed Guest Additions you can find the options in the setting menu of the guest OS under the 'Display' tab.

[gunghang]

I prefer to run Linux in native mode and leave Windows out of it. Instead of more resources, you use fewer resources. Linux can be a lifeboat should Windows fail to start. You never see a blue screen if you stay out of Windows.

 

I assume you have a UEFI drive.  I've found that using Rufus, which means using WIndows, will create a bootable USB drive that will boot a UEFI computer. There's a boot repair utility. Install it on your USB drive.  After you install, you'll get a GRUB menu. If the computer doesn't start, boot from the USB drive and run the repair utility.

[wgdanson]

Sorry to sound thick, but can anyone tell me what Linux can do which Windows 10 doesn't, please. And vice versa.

Edited November 26, 2018 by wgdanson

[gunghang]

Two indicators as to which OS is better:

 

Apple and Android are both based on Linux.

 

Windows rescue programs are Linux programs.

 

some specifics:

 

Linux uses less memory and less storage.

 

It runs faster.

 

Linux file systems don't require defrag.

 

You don't get blue screens such as "windows is updating . . ."

 

You don't get infected.

 

You don't get involuntary updates.

 

It's free.

 

You don't worry about "activation"

 

You choose how it looks. You're not stuck with what Redmond chooses.  Imagine being able to switch between Windows 8 and Windows XP desktops.

[Stocky]

3 hours ago, wgdanson said:

Sorry to sound thick, but can anyone tell me what Linux can do which Windows 10 doesn't, please. And vice versa.

It's more a case of what Linux doesn't do.

 

It doesn't crash and burn and it doesn't get infected, it just works.  I use both Linux and Windows, my work laptops run Windows because I have software that only runs and is supported on Windows. My desktop and the children's desktop both run Linux. Having initially set the children up with Windows, after the second issue with viruses brought back with USB sticks from school, I dumped Windows for Linux - no problems since. They can't break it and it does all they need.

[wgdanson]

22 minutes ago, Stocky said:

It's more a case of what Linux doesn't do.

 

It doesn't crash and burn and it doesn't get infected, it just works.  I use both Linux and Windows, my work laptops run Windows because I have software that only runs and is supported on Windows. My desktop and the children's desktop both run Linux. Having initially set the children up with Windows, after the second issue with viruses brought back with USB sticks from school, I dumped Windows for Linux - no problems since. They can't break it and it does all they need.

Thank you for that, and I am partially in the same boat as you in that I do music production with programs which will only run on Windows, and secondly...............I don't have any kids !!!!!!  

[gunghang]

Another hint as to reliability: I've read that CERN uses it because it's stable. While living in China, a coworker told me that the nuclear facility nearby used Linux because it's reliable.

 

It can be a challenge at first. I'd start with Linux Mint or Lubuntu or Xubuntu or Mate. If you happen to have a Chromebook, you're already using Chrome OS, a Linux system and can add Xubuntu and other flavors as a "crouton." You can also run Gallium (Xubuntu tweaked for a Chromebook) from a USB drive.

 

And, of course, North Korea has its own Linux distro (Morning Star?). Run that one in a virtual box. There's no telling what that distro will send to Pyongyang.

Edited November 26, 2018 by gunghang

[jmd8800]

4 hours ago, wgdanson said:

Thank you for that, and I am partially in the same boat as you in that I do music production with programs which will only run on Windows, and secondly...............I don't have any kids !!!!!!  

You should look into Ubuntu Studio. The Ubuntu flavor is designed with multimedia professionals in mind.  https://ubuntustudio.org/

 

In the past the issue with music was a problem with latency in the kernel and a few years ago this flavor (distribution) was built to address that. It has been a community ever since. You'll find documentation and software support in Linux very different from the Windows world.

 

If it were me and I was a media pro testing Linux for the first time I would do a standalone machine. Virtual machines have problems that would just get in the way of a professional workflow and after all that is what you seek. So if you have a not so important computer laying around I'd go stand alone. Having said the I have VMs installed on my Linux computer and use it for fun and testing.

 

After you see what Linux has to offer you might find that you need to use Windows software and then using a VM or Play-On_Linux.

 

The only way to know is to get your feet wet. Good luck

[wgdanson]

2 minutes ago, jmd8800 said:

You should look into Ubuntu Studio. The Ubuntu flavor is designed with multimedia professionals in mind.  https://ubuntustudio.org/

 

In the past the issue with music was a problem with latency in the kernel and a few years ago this flavor (distribution) was built to address that. It has been a community ever since. You'll find documentation and software support in Linux very different from the Windows world.

 

If it were me and I was a media pro testing Linux for the first time I would do a standalone machine. Virtual machines have problems that would just get in the way of a professional workflow and after all that is what you seek. So if you have a not so important computer laying around I'd go stand alone. Having said the I have VMs installed on my Linux computer and use it for fun and testing.

 

After you see what Linux has to offer you might find that you need to use Windows software and then using a VM or Play-On_Linux.

 

The only way to know is to get your feet wet. Good luck

Thank you for the info. I do have an Intel i5 NUC 'spare' which I only use as a media centre, so will give it a go. I use Sonar Platinum so must look around for alternative. Cheers.

[jmd8800]

16 minutes ago, wgdanson said:

Thank you for the info. I do have an Intel i5 NUC 'spare' which I only use as a media centre, so will give it a go. I use Sonar Platinum so must look around for alternative. Cheers.

My main desktop is an i5 NUC. Easy to pack up and go when the itch arises.

 

Most Linux install instructions are pretty good these days but feel free to ask if you have issues.

[wgdanson]

5 minutes ago, jmd8800 said:

My main desktop is an i5 NUC. Easy to pack up and go when the itch arises.

 

Most Linux install instructions are pretty good these days but feel free to ask if you have issues.

Yeh, NUCs are really good. Wonder why I have a bloody great tower sitting on my desk. I guess they are the gubbins of a laptop in a small box. Thru my 60 inch Samsung telly and M-Audio speakers..........wow. I have Googled music production software, and it looks like there are loads out there. Only problem is that at my age,????, the learning curve has flattenned out a bit.

[jmd8800]

2 minutes ago, wgdanson said:

Yeh, NUCs are really good. Wonder why I have a bloody great tower sitting on my desk. I guess they are the gubbins of a laptop in a small box. Thru my 60 inch Samsung telly and M-Audio speakers..........wow. I have Googled music production software, and it looks like there are loads out there. Only problem is that at my age,????, the learning curve has flattenned out a bit.

There are loads of software out there in the Linux world. But for now stick with the better known applications. There is a lot of crap softare and sometimes ven decent software that has not been updated for years.

 

Accept the default install of the media apps on Ubuntu Studio. That would be a good place to start.

 

That is always the issue .... learning curve. You would find a similar learning curve going from Apple to Windows or Windows to Apple.

 

 

[marcusarelus]

I run linux on a flashdrive when I want it and Win 10 for most everything else. 

[bendejo]

I have my laptop dual boot.  It came with Win 10 and that's what I use 99% of the time.  I'd like to run Linux as my default but there are a few programs that I can't find Linux equivalents of that are part of my present day-to-day situation, and haven't looked lately either.  Not interested in emulators.  My professional background was in Unix, and now that I'm retired the thought of having to tinker with OS configurations makes me suddenly very, very tired.

 

This UEFI stuff is new to me, but I learned enough to repartition the drive and eventually go dual-boot.  Default on the grub selector is Win 10.  I don't get those quick boot times people say they get with Win 10 because whenever I boot grub has to access the drive, and WIndows, seeing the drive has been accessed since shutdown, forces a disk check, which usually takes the better part of a minute -- but, hey, I can live with that.  Sometimes the boot-up goes sideways and I have to shut down and do a cold boot, which I think is part of this issue.  Pain in the butt, I'm willing to live with that too.  Doing a restart from within Windows will usually fail in this way.  But of course I keep up-to-date backups of my Win boot drive in case the partition goes south, doesn't everybody?  

 

One of the convenient things about dual-boot is if something goes wrong and I have to determine if it's Windows or my hardware I can check if the problem is in Linux as well.  Case in point, I had some sound problems, wasn't sure if it was Windows device drivers or the hardware.  Of course, could have booted into Linux from a USB stick as well...

 

 

[jerome1976]

On 11/26/2018 at 2:34 AM, wgdanson said:

Sorry to sound thick, but can anyone tell me what Linux can do which Windows 10 doesn't, please. And vice versa.

Linux is a kind of kernel with added things around. You should look at wikipedia for understand and know the storry of linux and what is linux.

Around Linux Operator Systems, there is many distributions (a distribution is a system with many feature embeded, with it's own organisation and maintainer's. For each classification of distribution, there is a defined "package manager"... who is the way the distribution install applications).

What Linux can do that Windows 10 can not do ?

- Linux is much more secure than Windows due to his own open source applications

- Linux (there is some exception for some professional's distributions like Fedora) is free... no licence fees. (Windows want users to paid a licence cost)

- Linux is growing quickly because of his open source politic (you should look ayt licences optiosn devs can choose to dev applications)

- Linux is more able to well use multi-threads management and more stable because of his kernel way to separate thread for system basements and threads for user applications... this way if an application crash, the system stay up.

- Linux is more versatile than windows 10 is. That is not an advantage as long as users are not able to administrate and update system.

- Linux offer many free (and at free cost) solutions for everything. This is an advantage for people who doesn't want to paid for use there computer.

- Linux has a big community people growing... and then there is many documentations for each applications and for administrate the system.

- Linux has no virus... you will not have a kind of virus application who lock you for ask to update and paid for this or that other virus protection (who can not protect your computer well)

- Linux use and share libraries for many software installed (Windows can install many time the same libraries for many software, so the disk occupation is quickly full occuped by double libraries and other things). There is also some Linux distribution who choose to do the same due to stability request on particular applications (NixOS for example)

- Linux ask user to be more able to administrate system than Windows, because user should understand what is a computer and are responsable (Windows users are, most of the time, a "click-gamer end-user".

- There is not so ability on Linux to play game than on windows (choices are limited, because it is a commercial situation), but obviously, Linux has an application who can emulate windows and by the way, it is possible to make running windows applications with Linux (the limitation is to use GPU in this situation)

- Linux can not make running Autocad well (that is the only one big limitation for professionals).

- Linux systems are able to mount any (if not all) file systems. A hard drive (or any files systems supports) need to have a format to be able to share files. Than, linux has so many good file systems than Windows doesn't have (NTFS is also much more bad than any simple ext4 linux fs or other one from BSD or Apple). But i can not explain you why so easy if you doesn't understand what is a file system.

 

Also, there is some other systems... like Unix BSD like (Google OS, so... Android... are these inspired one's, like also apple who is originaly a Unix system. These one are more stable, so not so versatile (but in fact... Apple new politics is much more commercial killer than old Apple was, and then users has to paid many times to be able to use applications on new systems every 5 years). There is also some free Unix systems like FreeBSD or other... but these one is much more for advanced qualified end users (most of the time for create network servers due to his very high stability and secure things).

 

If i would resume, i would say that for 99% of applications, Linux can do what ever you want for free and with high level security. But you should NOT be lazy to understand what is a computer and what is an operator system. Linux users who want to install things and be on edge of technology should "be able to"... Windows user just paid and click.

It is not the same way of doing things and thinking. If you want to be free, then you need minimal knowledge (and that is not locked to this domain, it is a real true all around the world for what ever and anything else).

 

That make Linux feeling like a more "geek" system for normal users, and a more dev station for great users (the one who make applications or the one who can administrate everything).

 

I love Linux for my own home desktop on "PC station" and also for my laptop (i use archlinux because the idea is "KISS": Keep It Simple Stupid... that mean you choose to have a system very simple and a versatile distribution you will be able to administrate yourself).

I love Unix for his security and big stability (I use FreeBSD for my own network servers on a Virtual Private Server online.. without any graphic user interface who, in this situation, serve nothing).

I have sometime to use Windows (i don't like that.. but...) for work because of use of Autocad and because of some othzer who only "know" Windows (and Windows doesn't care about normalisations files... they want users to paid, so...). Many time i have to repair friends computers because of many thousand of virus and bugs... little by little, i arrive to make them understand that they can use Linux for free and no more have any problems with viruses.

I have to use sometimes Apple OSX because of friends (i had one 7 years ago but i stop because it was ugly the way they use users for make money... actually they doesn't want to make software with a long time life support... many people leave Apple because of that inb professional industries).

 

Every system can be "good". Depend of your target use and also of your way to concept freedom (and this is a political choice most of the time). But i have a high level of knowledge for administrate Linux and Unix systems, i also understand perfectly what is a computer and how it works deeply, i also do development in more than 20 langages of programmations and Linux offer so good efficient and slim tools for that (i3wm, tmux, vim, emacs, and all the langages libraries on top edge).

 

Actualy, Linux is more popular because everybody can be able to use it after it was well installed (this step is important for them... they should be in contact with a high end administrator for have exactly what they need i think).

My experience for other users is that:

My old tant (who is now dead) was able to use Antergos Linux for many years... she had a laptop with Windows 7 (who was better than Windows 10 in my opinion) and was able to use it very well, very easy because i do install everything she need. She said that her computer was never so fast, and her application never so stable, also she has more place on her hard drive than before. She was very happy.

I do install Linux for family and friends... all of them are very happy. The only one's not so much are gamers and high end users for architectures jobs.

 

Hope this will help computer users to well understand what can be an operator system and especially Linux.

[jerome1976]

On 11/26/2018 at 3:23 AM, gunghang said:

Two indicators as to which OS is better:

 

Apple and Android are both based on Linux.

 

Windows rescue programs are Linux programs.

 

some specifics:

 

Linux uses less memory and less storage.

 

It runs faster.

 

Linux file systems don't require defrag.

 

You don't get blue screens such as "windows is updating . . ."

 

You don't get infected.

 

You don't get involuntary updates.

 

It's free.

 

You don't worry about "activation"

 

You choose how it looks. You're not stuck with what Redmond chooses.  Imagine being able to switch between Windows 8 and Windows XP desktops.

For more precision, Apple OSX and android is not realy Linux, but Unix systems adapted.

The philosophy and way to do things around Linux vs Unix are different.

Unix is much more a "monolitic" system than Linux. Linux is kernel only with things around, but Unix is more close to material features and when Unix is updated, all is linked strongly (not Linux).

So Linux is perfect for versatility (but not so normalized than Unix). Unix is much more stable and conventional (normalized).

That is also why industries of "normal user" desktop end user choose to construct there own OS with Unix system.

The implementation of the Kernel in Unix has to be validate by Unix own system mainteners (not the Linux kernel one). So Unix offer a best suitable driver for materials they choose to follow. Linux has more drivers, but not the best one sometimes. And kernel evolution is quick... Linux users are more like 'testers' than Unix users.

Administrate Unix is more complicate than administrate Linux also.

But if you need high end sefe and stable system, you will go for Unix (but big work and good knowledge for do what you want at first install).

 

Ladies and gentlemen, please install a IRC chet client and let's go to ask for help on any "freenode" server at there thousand open channels if you want to install a distribution (Unix or Linux as well).

Let's go for have a look at distrowatch.com to see how many distributions there is... for free !

Freedom is big and ask you to be responsible and implicate with your own choices.

chock dii

[jerome1976]

On 12/17/2018 at 10:40 PM, bendejo said:

I have my laptop dual boot.  It came with Win 10 and that's what I use 99% of the time.  I'd like to run Linux as my default but there are a few programs that I can't find Linux equivalents of that are part of my present day-to-day situation, and haven't looked lately either.  Not interested in emulators.  My professional background was in Unix, and now that I'm retired the thought of having to tinker with OS configurations makes me suddenly very, very tired.

 

This UEFI stuff is new to me, but I learned enough to repartition the drive and eventually go dual-boot.  Default on the grub selector is Win 10.  I don't get those quick boot times people say they get with Win 10 because whenever I boot grub has to access the drive, and WIndows, seeing the drive has been accessed since shutdown, forces a disk check, which usually takes the better part of a minute -- but, hey, I can live with that.  Sometimes the boot-up goes sideways and I have to shut down and do a cold boot, which I think is part of this issue.  Pain in the butt, I'm willing to live with that too.  Doing a restart from within Windows will usually fail in this way.  But of course I keep up-to-date backups of my Win boot drive in case the partition goes south, doesn't everybody?  

 

One of the convenient things about dual-boot is if something goes wrong and I have to determine if it's Windows or my hardware I can check if the problem is in Linux as well.  Case in point, I had some sound problems, wasn't sure if it was Windows device drivers or the hardware.  Of course, could have booted into Linux from a USB stick as well...

 

 

provide a list of applications you use... i will give you back a Linux equivlent for all of them.If you are locked due to files format share... it is not the same.

[bendejo]

8 hours ago, jerome1976 said:

provide a list of applications you use... i will give you back a Linux equivlent for all of them.If you are locked due to files format share... it is not the same.

 

The main one I've had no luck substituting is IDM (Internet Download Manager).  I'm not particularly interested in the download accelerator (though it does come in handy).  What I need it for is video capture, and I'm not talking about youtube.

Here is an example of the sort of link I mean:

https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2018/07/making-breaking-west-africa-leaks-180707085021334.html

 

I'm not interested going with WINE, a VM, or anything of that sort.

 

 

[wgdanson]

11 hours ago, jerome1976 said:

provide a list of applications you use... i will give you back a Linux equivlent for all of them.If you are locked due to files format share... it is not the same.

I use Cakewalk Sonar Platunum for music production. Anything similar for Linux please.

[donim]

On 11/26/2018 at 9:23 AM, gunghang said:

You choose how it looks. You're not stuck with what Redmond chooses.  Imagine being able to switch between Windows 8 and Windows XP desktops.

I don't need to imagine, I can see it working.

I did run Dos 7 (CDU) , Linux, 95, 98 and XP on one computer and Haiku, XP and Win7 on another.

Redmond is not in my vocubilair ????

 

Multiboot, no virtual machine. Except that the Win7 does have some VM's images from my old computers.

Had linux running on my MAC's , which I left behind when moving to Thailand.

 

Linux is fantastic, stable and have a lot of programs (scientific and really great assortiment nowadays) but Windows 7 is my main system and up and running for 8 years now on my main computer. Has more flexibility for me.

 

Same goes for Windows XP, running on an computer for ''(HAM) radio signals''  it works better with the hardware (com-port related) and simple data processing. No worries for threaths, connected on an isolated network.

 

Rgds

[donim]

On 1/22/2018 at 9:52 PM, waxpro said:

It looks so interesting to run both at the same time as operating 2 separate machines!

I still not clear enough about this practically, however, will try and see how it goes, thanks brother!

With a second monitor you can place them next to each other, running Windows and linux as an virtual computer on top of windows.

Two for the price of one ????

[donim]

On 12/30/2018 at 7:42 AM, wgdanson said:

I use Cakewalk Sonar Platunum for music production. Anything similar for Linux please.

Maybe check LMMS on the web, look at the screenshots and reviews. Is it something you looking for?

 

https://alternativeto.net/software/lmms/

[wgdanson]

3 hours ago, donim said:

With a second monitor you can place them next to each other, running Windows and linux as an virtual computer on top of windows.

Two for the price of one ????

WHY?

[donim]

1 minute ago, wgdanson said:

WHY?

He said "It looks so interesting to run both at the same time as operating 2 separate machines! "