I'm looking for a user-friendly LinuxOS variant

[fefenc]

...No, Ubuntu is not an option here, the installation via USB flash drive is sh*tty and too hard for an average user due to an infernal error: "unable to find a medium containing a live file system". Since I don't have a DvD player, then USB is my only way to install an OS, hence Ubuntu isn't an option.

 

I wanna use a LinuxOS, but I need something easy to install and user friendly rather than forcing the user to become an advanced programmer and messing up with the entire BIOS (other than organising the boot order) with the objective of doing something too over-complicated that's easy as hell to do with windows... Yeah, I tried it and I'm quite frustrated and upset with its difficulty level of installation.

 

Does someone have a suggestion of an easy to install and user-friendly LinuxOS variant?

Edited December 18, 2015 by fefenc

[Red Hat]

I think every Linux messes up with the boot loader, replacing it with GRUB. I like Zorin OS.

Edited December 18, 2015 by Kevin3014

[Sombra]

Ubuntu really isn't hard to install at all. "unable to find a medium containing a live file system" either A. you f*cked up the install or B. it's not detecting the USB drive (may be broke, faulty port or a USB 2.0 drive in a 3.0 port). Also try changing SATA controller type in BIOS from IDE to AHCI.

 

Some of the Ubuntu variants like Mint or Kubuntu look nice and are quite user friendly. I stuck a slimmed down version of Mint on my Mum's aging netbook (Atom n270, 1GB RAM & 80GB Hard Drive) about a year ago and she's had no problems with it, just roughly setup the UI to look somewhat like Windows and there's been no problems yet and it runs alot faster than the old XP that was installed.

[sivispacem]

I think every Linux messes up with the BIOS, replacing it with GRUB. I like Zorin OS.

Grub is a boot loader, it's closer to the equivalent of the MBR in a standard Windows filesystem. One thing it won't do is mess with your BIOS, though you can currently pwn certain versions if it by pressing backspace 28 times.

 

I'm a big fan of Mint as a do-anything, no-bullsh*t Linux distro for general use. But if you can't install Ubuntu, which is by far the most nearly packaged, I can't imagine you're going to have much luck with other distros.

[Red Hat]

My bad, I posted that in a hurry.

[dice]

Ubuntu has a windows installer if you're running 7 or older or if you upgraded from 7 to newer. It doesnt work with fresh 8 and 10 installs. Other than that I suggest using unetbootin or something similar to create a bootable USB

Edited December 18, 2015 by dice

[DEALUX]

If you installed Windows or whatever operating system you are using right now from a USB drive before then the problem isn't with Ubuntu.

 

I wouldn't really recommend Ubuntu though. It's kind of bloated with stuff you don't need. I've used Lubuntu and LXDE in the past and I was reasonably satisfied with both, well, by Linux standards anyway. I can't imagine going back to Linux now. I did it more of a necessity since I had a crappy system. Windows seems more intuitive and easy to use to me for the most part and the number of programs and games available for Linux is infinitesimal compared to Windows.

[dice]

Well to be fair all these -buntu systems are more or less the same for your average user, using the same core and repositories, with the only major change being desktop enviorements. If you feel Ubuntu runs slow then you just slap xfce on top of it to get rid of that resource hogging gnome

[fefenc]

Thanks for the suggestion m8s.

 

The BIOS was already set up to AHCI. Good thing that I managed to boot with Mint, it's quite cool and user-friendly to boot, unlike Urubutumbu. The only problem here is I can't figure out a way to dual-boot with my windows 10 (SSD) while installing because it doesn't have the option "install alongside windows". Is there a way to avoid losing my windows 10 installation while installing Mint or a way to make Mint detect my Win10 installation m8s?

 

I use an 128GB SSD and an 1TB HD.

Edited December 19, 2015 by fefenc

[sivispacem]

If you want to dual boot with Windows without issues, you need to install that first and then have Linux installed separately onto the boot partition created from inside Windows. Much easier.

[fefenc]

If you want to dual boot with Windows without issues, you need to install that first and then have Linux installed separately onto the boot partition created from inside Windows. Much easier.

Do you mean I should keep windows in the SSD and install Linux in the HDD? Well, because I have an empty partition (300 gigs) in my HD and an useless 50MB SSD partition (system reserved) I'd like to use for Mint, but it's too small :0

Edited December 20, 2015 by fefenc

[sivispacem]

No, I mean that if you want to dual boot, I.E have separate partitions for Windows and Linux, you need to install Windows first and then Linux, because doing the inverse typically upsets both- something to do with how Windows writes the Master Boot Record I think.

 

Basically, install W10 onto an NTFS partition only occupying part of your HDD, create a separate NTFS or FAT32 (depending on how brave your feeling and how good your chosen distro's NTFS drivers are) partition for any data you want to share between the two OS', then install your chosen Linux distro into the remaining unoccupied space on that drive.

 

I'd want an absolute minimum partition size of about 15GB for Mint and 60GB for Windows 10 (you could get away with less on the Windows side if you run without a page file). Even though Mint itself doesn't have a huge footprint, you ideally want a swap file between one and a half and two times the RAM installed.

 

 

 

But to be honest the whole process could be massively simplified if you just installed Mint directly from Windows using the Mint4Win installer. If you'd installed a secondary Ubuntu partition in the same way, as used to be recommended by Canonical on their website and still widely recommended on forums using the community-supported versions of Wubi, you wouldn't have run into these issues in the first place.

[Saggy]

It's a really good idea to use a separate partition for your /home directory. This can get problematic with a dual boot though, because Windows insists on using two partitions as well, and so if you have a root partition and a home partition you won't be able to add any more on an MBR system... I don't even know anything about UEFI. Anyway if you actually need swap, you can use a file instead of a partition. This way you can format your root partition with a better filesystem, but still be able to format your home partition as ntfs or fat, allowing you to see the files from Windows. Plus having a separate home partition is great because all your personal data is stored in /home, so if you want to change the Linux OS you can do so without losing your files and even settings for a lot of various things.

 

I would also say 15 gb is pretty low. Depends if you actually find you like it. My Linux root partition is currently using a out 40 gigs, but I am pretty much soley a Linux user. I have a Windows dual boot just in case basically.

 

Oh but sivi is definitely right about installing Windows first. I managed to install Windows second, but not without strange behavior. I cannot boot it unless I started the computer with a Bootable CD, so strange. So I just keep the windows setup CD in and don't hit any key so it just boots grub, wherein I can boot Windows or Linux. Without the CD having been booted though, grub won't see the Windows partition. Strangest thing ever, I finally just gave up and simply remember to keep the CD in the drive lol Just an example of the oddness that can happen. I blame Windows not playing nice...

Edited December 21, 2015 by SagaciousKJB

[fefenc]

It's a really good idea to use a separate partition for your /home directory. This can get problematic with a dual boot though, because Windows insists on using two partitions as well, and so if you have a root partition and a home partition you won't be able to add any more on an MBR system... I don't even know anything about UEFI. Anyway if you actually need swap, you can use a file instead of a partition. This way you can format your root partition with a better filesystem, but still be able to format your home partition as ntfs or fat, allowing you to see the files from Windows. Plus having a separate home partition is great because all your personal data is stored in /home, so if you want to change the Linux OS you can do so without losing your files and even settings for a lot of various things.

 

I would also say 15 gb is pretty low. Depends if you actually find you like it. My Linux root partition is currently using a out 40 gigs, but I am pretty much soley a Linux user. I have a Windows dual boot just in case basically.

 

Oh but sivi is definitely right about installing Windows first. I managed to install Windows second, but not without strange behavior. I cannot boot it unless I started the computer with a Bootable CD, so strange. So I just keep the windows setup CD in and don't hit any key so it just boots grub, wherein I can boot Windows or Linux. Without the CD having been booted though, grub won't see the Windows partition. Strangest thing ever, I finally just gave up and simply remember to keep the CD in the drive lol Just an example of the oddness that can happen. I blame Windows not playing nice...

 

I re-installed windows some days ago, but I can't find an easy solution to dual-boot with mint without needing to overcomplicate things by risking my mobo for messing with the entire BIOS and risking my windows installation. I don't know what the heck UEFI, ntfs, sivi, fat are and I didn't needed to know all this stuff to install windows. This option below would simplify everything for me:

 

 

I tried to use the Gsomething program to mess with my SSD partition and I can't srink the 112GB free space in my SSD (windows is installed on it), it's greyed out, but another partition (reserved by the system I believe) can be dragged, but this would go to the something else option and this option is too complicated, so I'm not willing to risk my PC.

 

The first option in the image above is the option that's hidden for ???? reason and the "something else" option can be used as a workaround to do the dual-boot, but it's too overcomplicated for an average user since I don't know what are all of those stuff in the screen and there are no places that teaches this for non-programmers. I need a solution to make this option visible in an user-friendly way to understand what I will be doing with my PC.

 

If the first option in the image above were enabled, then I believe that the process would be basically next > next > install just like windows or even easier.

Edited December 23, 2015 by fefenc

[sivispacem]

To be honest Linux isn't really designed for people who don't know what they're doing. If you want user friendliness, just stick to Windows because even Mint isn't that user friendly once you start really getting involved with it.

[fefenc]

I'm really considering that. Messing with the working OS isn't so troublesome, I can live with the terminal stuff, but the hard installation methoods are killing me :<

Edited December 23, 2015 by fefenc

[sivispacem]

Installation is the easiest bit. Have you thought about just having a VMWare instance of VirtualBox instance rather than dual booting? That might be a bit easier for you to manage.

[Burbalade]

Mint is probably the most user friendly variant I've used but if you're not up relearning damn near everything, then you should probably just stick to Windows. Nothing is going to be as user friendly to you as software that you already know inside and out.