The next which one should i try thread? considering my vega64 and blaster z

primetime

Supreme [H]ardness
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I got plenty of hard drives and a little time off. Any suggestions these days? I know at one time the creative cards were not very well supported but i think things have changed a bit. Or is Linux still not ready for the rest of us mortals? Seems like in the past i had better results with Ubuntu sort off, but even then it then it wasn't really usable for a primary pc.
 
If the Z doesn't work, just don't use it.

Otherwise, try Ubuntu, Fedora, Manjaro, Solus... :)

As for the purpose of the experiment?
 
If the Z doesn't work, just don't use it.

Otherwise, try Ubuntu, Fedora, Manjaro, Solus... :)

As for the purpose of the experiment?
just to play around with.....i do think it be cool to have a fully working dual boot and play some games in Linux and some on windows. Are not some applications more efficiently done with Linux? I do know the Z can work but like most linux stuff it gets a bit confusing. This statement right of the get go:
Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: My sound isn't working!

A: First, make sure you have a kernel that supports your card.
What kernel is that lol?
 
Quite likely all of them, given the age of the card.

For 'latest' support, Manjaro is going to be your bet- for 'best' gaming-specific support, a distro called Pop! OS which is based on Ubuntu might be what you're looking for.

In general, these operating systems boot off of their install image with their running configs- meaning that they're likely to boot up with everything already supported. Recommend downloading a bunch, putting them on as many USB sticks as you can find, and giving them a shot.
 
Quite likely all of them, given the age of the card.

For 'latest' support, Manjaro is going to be your bet- for 'best' gaming-specific support, a distro called Pop! OS which is based on Ubuntu might be what you're looking for.

In general, these operating systems boot off of their install image with their running configs- meaning that they're likely to boot up with everything already supported. Recommend downloading a bunch, putting them on as many USB sticks as you can find, and giving them a shot.
cool i always like the latest lol ...manjaro sounds good and gives me a place to start
 
We still have to unhook all the other had drives before install?
 
We still have to unhook all the other had drives before install?

No as long as you know the difference between them.

If you want to 100% ensure you won't make a mistake then you can unhook them if you like. But keep in mind if you are planning to dual boot you will probably have to rebuild your grub after you plug your windows drives back in to let your boot loader find the windows partitions.

If you are fairly PC literate and your installing it on a second drive I wouldn't bother unplugging anything.

I second IIC... Manjaro is a great place to start. Its a rolling release with a lot of sanity checks in place. Its basically a windows 10 release model done properly. It will install with a very current kernel meaning hardware shouldn't be any issue. Although on your sound blaster 4.18 is a pretty old kernel now... 4.19 is a LTS kernel so even the distros using "older" kernels are probably using 4.19.

Once you have manjaro up and running.. you can go into the Manjaro settings and select kernel. From there you can install which ever kernel line you like. One thing I love about Manjaro for newer Linux users is you can easily go there switch to the latest kernel (5.3-1 I believe is up for Manjaro now) and leave the most recent LTS kernel installed. So you can have 4.19 and 5.3 running on the same machine... if you want at start up you can switch to the LTS kernel. You likely won't ever have reason too but its nice to have it there as a back up if something goes pear shaped.

Manjaro is based on Arch... with an extra layer of testing. Its been my go to for a long time now and is for sure one of the top 3 or 4 distros on almost anyone Linux lovers list these days. Unlike Ubuntu/Fedora/Suse its not a distro aimed at corporate sales, or a distro used as a test bed for a super solid server distro... its a distro built and maintained by Linux die hards. The Manjaro team does a really great job of putting together a user friendly distro. Obviously its not windows and many things are different. Manjaro though can be as simple or as advanced as you need it to be.

Anyway my personal top 5 right now... Manjaro, Solus, PopOS, OpenSuse, MX. Manjaro is far away my favorite distro... Solus is solid and I quite like it draw backs though only one update server which at times can be a pain and the repos are not as big as some of the other larger (or based on larger) distro options... PopOS is system76s Ubuntu based spin and its basically Ubuntu but better worth considering if your looking for a reliable laptop option over a cutting edge gaming distro... OpenSuse is my personal go to for clients and family/friends looking for office type machines reliable high quality distro if not super cutting edge (tumbleweed is their cutting edge rolling distro but I can't really say its better then Manjaro for that use)... and MX is a distro I always have an eye on its fast simple and some Linux nerds love it as one of the last majorish distros to not be using SystemD.

If you do get Manjaro going... one tip, first thing I do when I install Manjaro is update the mirror list for the package manager. This just keeps me from being stuck downloading updates from default servers in the EU or something.

From the command line you can use this...
sudo pacman-mirrors --geoip && sudo pacman -Syyu
(if your newish to Linux... sudo gives the command elevated root permission.. pacman is the Manjaro package manager, pacman-mirrors is the tool to set repository mirrors. --geoip is what it sounds like it uses your IP to determine what Country your in and what servers it should be using, it will poll servers close to you and determine which are fastest. && run a second command. pacman -Syyu is telling it to update its database from your newly selected mirrors.

If you live in some far away land with no mirrors or you just want to specify which countries servers to use instead of using --geoip you can just type...
sudo pacman-mirrors --country Canada,United_States && sudo pacman -Syyu
This would tell pacman-mirrors to poll servers in the countries you specify.
 
Manjaro is pretty cool. Need to play with it more, but I like it so far.

You can't really go wrong with Ubuntu: sometimes random apps will only have .deb packages, and help is easy to find.

Was running Ubuntu for a daily driver for like 6 months recently (w/ a separate Window 10 machine for gaming).

Easier than dual booting, just had to press the HDMI switch rather than rebooting every time. Worked out okay.
 
I always install an OS (any OS) with all other drives unplugged. Once installed, plug all the drives back in and use the motherboard's BIOS to select the boot drive.
 
XFCE is pretty bare-bones in terms of the interface, good for older hardware or VMs but if you have a newer machine you can choose another option.

Gnome is okay but personally I think KDE is a little flashier. On the Manjaro website they have videos for each version to help you make a decision.
 
Algrim Yes, this is the best advice when starting out. I have made that mistake before and had to spend quite some time to get my machine booting right again.

However, this last time installing Ubuntu, I did not feel like unplugging drives (I have about 6 or 7 drives, and the main one is M.2 on the motherboard) so I did the Ubuntu "Something Else" install.

You have to be careful when you partition and select the bootloader, but it all works perfectly. I can use BIOS to select drive (Win 10 or Ubuntu) and boot into either without stopping on the GRUB menu.

But yeah, if it is your first time dual booting, best to unplug other drives to be on the safe side (or if installing an OS that does not give all the options like Ubuntu does).
 
But yeah, if it is your first time dual booting, best to unplug other drives to be on the safe side (or if installing an OS that does not give all the options like Ubuntu does).

Recently did some Linux installs on metal, some internal and some to an SSD through USB, and found that despite telling the installers to put the boot loader in a particular place, they repeatedly put it on the same drive that Windows was installed onto on that machine and not where I selected.

Repeatedly. This includes various Ubuntu distros.

Hard part is, that Windows drive is under the board in an M.2 slot.

No resolution so far.
 
Recently did some Linux installs on metal, some internal and some to an SSD through USB, and found that despite telling the installers to put the boot loader in a particular place, they repeatedly put it on the same drive that Windows was installed onto on that machine and not where I selected.

Repeatedly. This includes various Ubuntu distros.

Hard part is, that Windows drive is under the board in an M.2 slot.

No resolution so far.

Windows does the same thing, it sticks it's boot loader where ever it likes. Had me scratching my head when I removed my storage drive a few years ago and the machine refused to boot anymore.

I dunno, perhaps there's something about boot loaders we're missing here?
 
Windows does the same thing, it sticks it's boot loader where ever it likes.

This I'm used to -- however, most Linux installers allow you to tell it where the boot stuff should go, some more explicitly than others. All seemed to ignore those instructions.
 
Right. Windows definitely does whatever it wants. If you are installing Windows last (or have multiple Windows versions) then you probably need to unplug drives.

As most modern systems, my boot drive is on an M.2 slot that would be really hard to get to without partially disassembling the system. So I took my chances with Ubuntu "Something Else" and it worked for me.
 
This I'm used to -- however, most Linux installers allow you to tell it where the boot stuff should go, some more explicitly than others. All seemed to ignore those instructions.

They allow you to flag a partition as bootable, they don't really specify just where the bootloader is going to be located however.
 
Yes, with Ubuntu (or probably other distros using the same installer) you can select "Something Else" and then create a /boot partition and also select the device for boot loader installation.

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I don't know how reliable it works. I'm just saying I did it on my last install a few weeks ago and it worked.
 

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Recently did some Linux installs on metal, some internal and some to an SSD through USB, and found that despite telling the installers to put the boot loader in a particular place, they repeatedly put it on the same drive that Windows was installed onto on that machine and not where I selected.

Repeatedly. This includes various Ubuntu distros.

Hard part is, that Windows drive is under the board in an M.2 slot.

No resolution so far.

i know I'm asking the obvious here, but does your mobo have an option to disable the M.2 slot? temporary disable to install Linux then re-enable? not really a resolution, I know...
 
i know I'm asking the obvious here, but does your mobo have an option to disable the M.2 slot? temporary disable to install Linux then re-enable? not really a resolution, I know...
i wish it was that easy for all our hard drives via bios options....but i dont think it possible in mine
 
Yes, with Ubuntu (or probably other distros using the same installer) you can select "Something Else" and then create a /boot partition and also select the device for boot loader installation.

View attachment 195316

I don't know how reliable it works. I'm just saying I did it on my last install a few weeks ago and it worked.

I am sure it works fine.

Even the distros going for ultra user friendly have an advanced install mode. Where of course selecting your /boot is there. I would assume the main issue new Linux users run into is understanding what is meant by /boot mount point. The jump from "auto" simple mode to advanced settings is jarring I supposed if your stilling thinking about C: drives. lol

I'm sure if you select "auto" in Ubuntu or Mint or any of distros that try to dumb things down too much I'm sure it picks the logical place to install the loader (the driver your installing your OS to) which if you intend some other drive (with windows or mac os on it) to retain boot priority you should probably select advanced mode and tell the installer that. Why would any installer assume your other operating system is your main. :p
 
Yup, I'm not sure.

It's worth a try next time I build up a distro SSD though.

Since you have multiple computers, I would recommend pulling the drive that has your windows install on it. Then installing your distro on whatever SSD you installed for it. That is what I have done, since I do not and have not dual booted in at least 7 years or so and it keeps my Windows install safe, if I want to swap it back in.
 
Which one of the Manjaro editions is best? XFCE, GNOME, KDE?

None are the best, it really depends on what you are wanting to do. GNome is what I prefer but that is just me and I have used them all over the years. However, if you are an uber programmer, I see i3 is the best desktop interface.
 
I always install an OS (any OS) with all other drives unplugged. Once installed, plug all the drives back in and use the motherboard's BIOS to select the boot drive.

That is always a good idea but, I have yet to need to do so in years. It could be that maybe the Asrock UEFI bios is the reason for that, maybe. I installed Ubuntu on a blank 120GB SSD and my other 4 drives in the machine were left alone.
 
Which one of the Manjaro editions is best? XFCE, GNOME, KDE?

They're just DE's and they all achieve the same end result, it all boils down to personal preference. Personally I prefer KDE as it's an attractive DE, it's a lean DE, it caters for those that want control by default without installing a truck load of extensions and it's got nothing to do with Gnome developers that want to lock down the Linux ecosystem.
 
I'm thinking that I like KDE for my advanced DE. Gnome is still nice, I don't mind it, and it's the default for Red Hat distros so it's not something I'd be able to get away from.

Otherwise, I've enjoyed MATE and Xfce, and I find Budgie to be quite nice as well.


I can't say that I've 'settled' on any, as I still go back to Windows for Lightroom and for gaming... and wind up wiping Linux installs to get the latest features.
 
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