Time for OS re-install: Win 7 vs 8 + Ubuntu

[BrooksyX]

So its come to that time of year where I need to reinstall my Windows operating system. Currently I am running Windows 7 on the rig in my specs and it has slowed down a bit and there is some crapware that I would rather just wipe instead of trying to remove.

Windows 7 is working great for me but I do have a couple legit Windows 8 pro keys I could use if it is worth the jump. I havent tried windows 8 since the original developer preview and I ended up nuking it after about 5 minutes because of the lack of drivers a the time. Stuff that is working good for me is my SAMBA share folder on my Home Server that run XBMCBuntu 11.10 (Eden) as the OS but will be switching to 12.10 Frodo when its final. I also want to look into running rsync backups from windows to my home server. So what OS is best here.

Also I have been learning linux a lot lately and am starting to become a huge fan. Just can't give up windows because of the games I play on steam (maybe fixed soon) and I play starcraft II as well. Along with MS office and such so I can't make a complete jump.

Anyways I plan on installing Minimal ubuntu 12.10 x64 on a spare 100gb laptop drive I have. Will use LXDE + LXDM as the UI. I prefer the less is more approach. I want to dual boot using the windows boot manager instead of grub with windows as the default choice. I know I can virtualize ubuntu but would prefer a dual boot I guess. Will probably do both. Is there a better ubuntu/debian OS setup suggestion to go along with windows? I want to keep the OS drives seperate to avoid accidentally damaging each other but they will share the data drive.

So I guess I am not asking a specific question but am wondering what your thoughts are on this?


edit: Note the purpose of this thread isnt supposed to be a Windows 7 vs Windows 8 debate. I know there are tons of those. More of a what would work best with Ubuntu and my situation thread.

[Jetster]

Its purely a personal decision. I have both W7 and W8 running on separate systems and I could live with ether. Im not a big fan of apps but I an learning. Actually W8 is a little faster to get around once you get the hang if it but its a big change at first

[theonedub]

I used to run Win7 and Ubuntu on my secondary and now run Win7 and Win8 in tandem instead. Win8 is growing on me but Win7+Ubuntu was a much more enjoyable setup. I can't imagine running Win8 and Ubuntu though

[AphexDreamer]

I just installed Win 8.

Its super fun, smooth, elegant, quick and makes sense once you get to learn it.

I didn't know what to think and was totally against the Metro UI the moment I first heard about it. Now I love it.

Things to note.

UAC can't be turned off and if you do the registry trick to turn it off you can't use apps. However, you can turn off the annoying notifications but it doesn't disable it.

Think of the Metro UI as the Start>all programs (which is essentially what it is). The fact that it takes up the whole screen is actually a good thing. They've replaced buttons that lead to menus with side screens that pop out when you go to the side of the screen and metro apps close when you drag em down which isn't bad but can be frustrating when your used to hitting a red x your whole life.

Its well worth learning Win 8 IMO.

[BrooksyX]

Originally Posted by AphexDreamer

Things to note.

UAC can't be turned off and if you do the registry trick to turn it off you can't use apps. However, you can turn off the annoying notifications but it doesn't disable it.

...

Its well worth learning Win 8 IMO.

You can't turn off UAC?! I hate UAC! Don't if I would actually use any of the apps though. Not to keen on the MetroUI.

Originally Posted by theonedub

I used to run Win7 and Ubuntu on my secondary and now run Win7 and Win8 in tandem instead. Win8 is growing on me but Win7+Ubuntu was a much more enjoyable setup. I can't imagine running Win8 and Ubuntu though

Thats what I am leaning towards (win7 + ubuntu). Did you dual boot or use some kind of unity setup?

[erocker]

Originally Posted by BrooksyX

You can't turn off UAC?! I hate UAC! Don't if I would actually use any of the apps though. Not to keen on the MetroUI.

Yes, you can turn off UAC no problem just like with Windows 7. There's plenty of apps out there to get your computer to boot up just like it is Windows 7 too, so you don't have to learn the ridiculous (not made for desktop PC) Metro UI. Aside from getting Windows 8 to behave at first, it's been a good, stable O/S.

[Frick]

Originally Posted by BrooksyX

You can't turn off UAC?! I hate UAC!

Why? It makes your computer safer.

And if you're going the Ubundu road you will have to type in your password every time you change stuff, which is quite often.

[BrooksyX]

Originally Posted by Frick

Why? It makes your computer safer.

And if you're going the Ubundu road you will have to type in your password every time you change stuff, which is quite often.

Oh thats right, I remember hearing that Windows 8 doesn't play nicely with other OS partitions. Is that still true?

[AphexDreamer]

Originally Posted by erocker

Yes, you can turn off UAC no problem just like with Windows 7. There's plenty of apps out there to get your computer to boot up just like it is Windows 7 too, so you don't have to learn the ridiculous (not made for desktop PC) Metro UI. Aside from getting Windows 8 to behave at first, it's been a good, stable O/S.

Well it stops the annoying UAC prompts but UAC itself is actually still on in the registry. At least this has been to my experience and knowledge.

I still get the UAC icon on applications and prompts to take ownership of folders. I tried to do the technique to disable UAC and enable Metro Apps but it didn't work.

Also if your using Win 8 the apps and the metro are a pretty big deal.

[erocker]

Originally Posted by AphexDreamer

Well it stops the annoying UAC prompts but UAC itself is actually still on in the registry. At least this has been to my experience and knowledge.

I still get the UAC icon on applications and prompts to take ownership of folders. I tried to do the technique to disable UAC and enable Metro Apps but it didn't work.

Also if your using Win 8 the apps and the metro are a pretty big deal.

I don't get UAC anything since I turned it off. Win 8 apps and metro are a big deal if you make it out to be. I find it annoying and counterproductive, but I may not even use Windows 7 like other folks either. Metro crap aside, I find Win 8 to be faster and I like the SSD features.

[AphexDreamer]

Originally Posted by erocker

I don't get UAC anything since I turned it off. Win 8 apps and metro are a big deal if you make it out to be. I find it annoying and counterproductive, but I may not even use Windows 7 like other folks either. Metro crap aside, I find Win 8 to be faster and I like the SSD features.

Did you just turn if off the normal way or via registry tweak?

This is what I'm taking about.

http://www.alltechtalk.net/forum/thr...-keeping-metro

and...

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/hyperyash/ar...windows-8.aspx

First comment reads. "this setting NO longer DISABLES UAC. UAC is STILL activated. To completely disable UAC you have to change the values in the registry. This was done becasue Metro apps on work with UAC being enabled."

[silkstone]

The thing that made me uninstall windows 8 was the fact that it wouldn't let me change my keyboard from UK to US, i would get quite a few crashes and i couldn't find the control panel (although i'm sure i could have found it with a little more patience).

If i were you i'd give it a shot as you are re-installing anyway and see if you like it or not.
Personally i'm gonna give it a 3rd shot and see how it goes this time.

[AphexDreamer]

Originally Posted by silkstone

The thing that made me uninstall windows 8 was the fact that it wouldn't let me change my keyboard from UK to US, i would get quite a few crashes and i couldn't find the control panel (although i'm sure i could have found it with a little more patience).

If i were you i'd give it a shot as you are re-installing anyway and see if you like it or not.
Personally i'm gonna give it a 3rd shot and see how it goes this time.

You know how with 7 or vista you hit start and you can start typing anything and it will automatically search for it?

Its the same in win 8 but better. Just go to the bottom left open up the metro UI and just start typing anything and it will search for it.

For the control panel you can access it via Start (Metro UI) or just hit Win+x and a popup menu with a few essentials including control panel pops up.

[Jstn7477]

Originally Posted by silkstone

The thing that made me uninstall windows 8 was the fact that it wouldn't let me change my keyboard from UK to US, i would get quite a few crashes and i couldn't find the control panel (although i'm sure i could have found it with a little more patience).

If i were you i'd give it a shot as you are re-installing anyway and see if you like it or not.
Personally i'm gonna give it a 3rd shot and see how it goes this time.

I used to have a lot of crashes as well until I installed the Intel AHCI driver and tried updating the USB 3.0 controller drivers. Don't believe I've had a Kernel-Power BSOD event ever since, and I originally thought it was my video card because it does some funky stuff sometimes when the computer is "sleeping" (monitor turned off due to inactivity).

[silkstone]

Originally Posted by AphexDreamer

You know how with 7 or vista you hit start and you can start typing anything and it will automatically search for it?

Its the same in win 8 but better. Just go to the bottom left open up the metro UI and just start typing anything and it will search for it.

For the control panel you can access it via Start (Metro UI) or just hit Win+x and a popup menu with a few essentials including control panel pops up.

Yea, i just had a search for it after writing my post. I really don;t like using my keyboard much when navigating as i sit quite far back from my kb most of the time, but there is another way. apparently you can get there from the desktop.

Originally Posted by Jstn7477

I used to have a lot of crashes as well until I installed the Intel AHCI driver and tried updating the USB 3.0 controller drivers. Don't believe I've had a Kernel-Power BSOD event ever since, and I originally thought it was my video card because it does some funky stuff sometimes when the computer is "sleeping" (monitor turned off due to inactivity).

The laptop i want to use it on is a couple of years old, but lightly upgraded. I'm gonna give it another try and this time have a look for the drivers from acer. If it continues to crash, i don;t think i'll touch it again. The problem wasn't just with the whole laptop crashing, but also a lot of programs i would use would crash. Things like Microsoft office 2007 which is essential to my work, would often crash at random points causing me to lose work.

It really feels like it would work well for tablets, but for desktops/laptops i'm not so confident about it. But, i paid for it so it's worth another shot.

[eidairaman1]

my view of 8 is like most and market share is abysmal for the OS compared to how 7 was. the GUI is clunky and impedes getting work done, having to buy a snippet just to give back some functionality is a money scheme.

Win 7 has been out for several years now so its more stable/compatible with programs now.

[v12dock]

I have installed W8 along with Linux mint I had zero headaches with installation of mint. I do like the W8 bootloader also.

[BrooksyX]

hmm sounds like I might just install windows 8 on a spare drive to play with but go with Windows 7 + Ubuntu for my everday setup.

Originally Posted by Frick

Why? It makes your computer safer.

And if you're going the Ubundu road you will have to type in your password every time you change stuff, which is quite often.

Safer, maybe but I dont do that much unsafe stuff. And sudo in terminal is much less annoying.

[lemonadesoda]

I do not like Metro and the annoying "shopping" apps designed to turn you into a 24/7 consumer. And the always-on internet bandwidth leeching. You can't even uninstall the shopping app! It's the attitude behind W8/metro that i hate more than W8 itself. The arrogance of MS and their "you will be force fed apps and news streams our way without choice" that is new to the windows experience. And it is -ve. However, once you ALT+f4 metro away, and install classic shell http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/ I find W8 rather nice. But I would still like to TOTALLY ZAP metro and those apps off the desktop and PC.

[Frick]

Originally Posted by BrooksyX

Safer, maybe but I dont do that much unsafe stuff. And sudo in terminal is much less annoying.

No matter how "safe" your habits are there will still be doors and openings to exploit your system. UAC helps a bit there.

And im not talking sudo in terminal, im talking stuff like changing network properties, use Synaptic etc. You're propmpted for passwords quite often.

And a short rant: i love how a lot of people (not targeted at specific persons) hail linux for being secure, but when windows implement one thing that helps security alot they moan and want to turn it off.

[eidairaman1]

Originally Posted by Frick

No matter how "safe" your habits are there will still be doors and openings to exploit your system. UAC helps a bit there.

And im not talking sudo in terminal, im talking stuff like changing network properties, use Synaptic etc. You're propmpted for passwords quite often.

And a short rant: i love how a lot of people (not targeted at specific persons) hail linux for being secure, but when windows implement one thing that helps security alot they moan and want to turn it off.

smart browsing practices- not using warez or torrent sites or not going to porn sites. Arming up with certain tools

[BrooksyX]

Originally Posted by Frick

No matter how "safe" your habits are there will still be doors and openings to exploit your system. UAC helps a bit there.

And im not talking sudo in terminal, im talking stuff like changing network properties, use Synaptic etc. You're propmpted for passwords quite often.

And a short rant: i love how a lot of people (not targeted at specific persons) hail linux for being secure, but when windows implement one thing that helps security alot they moan and want to turn it off.

Who uses synaptics? apt in console all the way