Linux?
Loopysue
ProFantasy 🖼️ 40 images Cartographer
Hi everyone 
I've just discovered that the reason my laptop is performing so horribly is that its incompatible with the recent Creator's Update to Windows 10.
This is causing so many problems for me that I'm investigating the possibility of turning to Linux.
I've been told that PF software runs fine on WINE, but If I do go Linux, will I have to buy all my Profantasy software all over again?
I've just discovered that the reason my laptop is performing so horribly is that its incompatible with the recent Creator's Update to Windows 10.
This is causing so many problems for me that I'm investigating the possibility of turning to Linux.
I've been told that PF software runs fine on WINE, but If I do go Linux, will I have to buy all my Profantasy software all over again?
Comments
Note that while it does run on Wine, it is an unsupported platform and you may run into technical hurdles not normally encountered under Windows. The main issue I've run into myself is font sizes, they are simply not the same size under Wine as under Windows, which means that mapping under Wine is just fine, but sharing an .fcw file with someone using Windows may mean that you/them doesn't see the map the way it was intended.
Edit: Too slow! This is [one reason] why I hate replying to the forum from a mobile device.
I was a bit slow getting back to you because my mobile device (mobile broadband) cut out for a while - part of the incompatibility issue - the OS manages things in a very weird fashion, so things keep getting shut down like they don't matter, and the prioritisation of what is more important than what is just NUTS!
That's comforting to know - about not having to buy everything all over again. It seems that if I want to carry on using other software I may have to buy it again!
I'm not too worried about the font size issue, since most of the time I'm sharing the exported jpeg/png files.
Its not all of them, but apparently some HP laptops are incompatible with the Creator's Update, and mine is one of them.
Unfortunately, Win 10 isn't clever enough to figure out that that it should never have automatically downloaded and installed an incompatible update. So much for hi-tech software!
Uh-oh! Krita is about to autosave! Have to go - my browser shuts down when Krita autosaves!
-Install both Windows and Linux (ie. dual boot), and use Windows only for stuff you can't do in Linux
-Install Windows under a Virtual Machine (make sure you can give it at least 4GB RAM); this may run a bit slower than native, but it should still work.
My machine only has 4 GB RAM, so it looks like its one or the other, and since Windows is behaving like one giant virus on my machine right now (CC3+ is functioning fine, but other apps I use just as much, like GIMP and Krita, freeze, crash, and cause other apps to shut down without warning when I use flood fills, drop shadows or blurs, which is proving to be quite stressful), I guess it has to be Linux.
On a brighter note, I might be able to use my 20 year old copy of Corel again!
When I get a better machine I might have a dual system, since I have apps like Office that I purchased for this machine, but right now and for the foreseeable future I have no money to get a better one.
Its waaaaaaay faster than Windows 10. GIMP is.... well its just incredible when its running in Linux - something which may interest those of you who make your own symbols
Has anyone ever tried to run Wilbur in WINE?
(its just one of the many questions I have to answer before I make a more permanent commitment to Linux)
I'm not so sure. I think I need to learn how to create a dual boot system myself, since there are a few apps I have that are purely Windows, and which I would like to keep - at least for a while. I have MS Office, you see, and that's what most businesses use. Being an out of work administrator, I'd rather like to be able to work from home if I'm allowed to do that by a new employer, and I can only do that if I still have Windows and Office.
I acquired a Windows 10 PC with the intention of using this just to run Profantasy software. I disliked it so much I returned the PC and tried again with Linux, with reasonable success. I don't know which desktop you are using with Mint, but I actually prefer the Mate variety which has the bonus of running a little faster.
The Open Office/Libre Office software which comes with most Linux distributions will read and write most MS Office documents. There are a few features that are not compatible but all the standard functionality is provided. I have found the main thing from the MS world that can't readily be manipulated in Linux are Publisher and full Adobe Acrobat formats. (Reading PDF and Postcript files are OK it is editing the files original files that is problematic).
I have found one or two features in GIMP can't be accessed exactly as described in the documentation in Mint. They still work, just slightly differently. This seems to be Mint specific, I think it is something to do with the way the keyboard is mapped.
Andrew
I haven't done the partition yet. I'm still trying to work out how much of a 500GB disc to allocate to the partition.
Perhaps not surprisingly, all my MS software still works really quite well in Windows.
I'm still keeping most of my apps in Windows, so its only GIMP and Krita I'm really going to be using in Mint, since they really don't work at all well in Win 10 now that MS have updated it with the Creator's Update.
All my user files will still be in the Windows partition, where I can access them from either OS
For Mint I have 60GB for the root partition containing the system files. My system is currently using about 15GB of this and I suspect you will have less software to install. You will need a Linux swap file, a maximum of about 1.5 times your RAM is a rule of thumb, although my system rarely uses it as it has a fair amount if memory. I use a separate partition for "home" to contain the user files. You can use put them as part of the root partition if you wish but it is much easier to upgrade the operating system if they are a separate partition. Allow as much user space as you can, but it doesn't sound as though you will have too much of these under Linux although graphics files for GIMP and Krita may be quite large. I currently have about 75GB of user data, mostly photos and GIS mapping data. However I do have an external disc drive for occasionally used Clip Art libraries and more mapping data.
Good luck.
Andrew
I still haven't been brave enough. I think I will mull this over for a few days before I go ahead and do it.
I have to consider how much worse Windows will perform with even less disc to use, as well as how small I can get away with having the Mint partition.
I'm just hoping I can adjust the partitions after the installation if I make a mistake!
Don't know if that helps or just further confuses matters.
If you're new to linux, it may be an intermediate/advanced topic, but well worth reading/investigating
What I want to be able to do in Mint is use GIMP and Krita to modify the associated jpg backgrounds that I commonly use in my CC3+ maps. These background files tend to be the topography and forests etc, and because of my background as an oil on canvas landscape painter I find it easier to do that part of my maps as a bitmap in one or the other of those two bitmap editors. Some would say that's cheating, but I prefer to call myself a multi-media mapper. Its also proving to be a highly successful blend of media, since I've won 4 compasses over at the Guild in the last 6 months since I started doing things that way. My most recent win was a main challenge (gold compass) for a map that was a GIMP/CC3+/GIMP sandwich - GIMP background, CC3 village map, GIMP lighting effects on top of it all.
Back to business...
With the setup I have in mind there wouldn't be any user files stored in the Mint partition at all - only Mint itself, and the apps I want to use in Mint. Mint already comes with GIMP as part of the 'distribution'(?), and I can download Krita as a Linux app and install it in the Mint partition ready for use.
All the files I would be using in Mint would be created and saved in the Windows partition, using a much larger portion of the 4GB RAM than is currently accessible to me through Windows. I have been led to believe the Windows directory will be accessible from a proper Mint partition once its installed (even though I can't see the Windows system from the live boot stick I've made). Presumably things like autosaves would be saved alongside the parent file in the Windows partition, so they wouldn't clutter up the Mint partition at all.
I suppose a simple description of the Mint partition I envisage is *not* as a storage facility, but as a far less cumbersome OS tool for running apps like GIMP and Krita, which have become nearly impossible for me to run in Windows, thanks to the incompatibility issues between Windows and my HP Pavilion laptop architecture/software, and the fact that Win 10 + Creators Update consumes 1.5 GB RAM in a totally idle state (compared to just 780 MB for Mint). Though its not even a whole GB saved, its enough to make a heck of a lot of difference!
My theory is that if I figure it out properly before I do it so that I don't have any hazy areas in my own perception of things, then I have a much better chance of achieving that goal - hence all the pondering and questions
Its good to know that I can adjust them if necessary - thanks, but I'm still aiming to get it perfect the first time I do it.
...
I accidentally started something of a debate on this issue over at the Guild, and one of the latest comments on that thread has set me to being concerned about a different issue.
Selden pointed out that HP are renowned for having... shall we say 'eccentric' ways of doing things - that they have been known to install unique graphics cards that behave quite differently to other 'run of the mill' cards and that Mint drivers may not be able to operate them properly. In a worse case scenario the Mint partition has a black screen.
Since I only have 1 computer, and since Windows won't even be able to 'see' the new Mint partition, if that happens I've lost that part of my hard drive forever. This is perhaps the most important reason I need to do this as small as possible. I'm prepared to lose maybe 20 GB of my 500 GB hard disc if it all goes wrong, but not much more than that. I certainly don't want to lose 100GB, which is the recommended minimum, I believe. That recommendation is, however, based on user files being stored in the Mint partition... isn't it?
As for knowing if things work, don't they have a live version you can run from an USB? It is way slower than having it installed, but it lets you test the basic capabilites. I haven't used Mint myself (I am more of a CentOS guy, but then again, I am more concerned about the server side rather than the desktop side), but a lot of distros have live versions, either as a separate download, or part of their regular installer. This is a good way to test that everything works before doing anything to your computer. And if it works with the live version, it should work just as well with the installed version.
OMG! ROTFL!
How silly of me! Of course the drivers are ok! How could I have tested it otherwise? Honestly!!! *tuts at own stupidity*
Yes, I have already made a live boot stick by following the links and instructions that Redrobes gave me in this comment
(I had to mess around with the BIOS settings, but the following comments in that thread describe the process, including the mistakes I made and how they were corrected)
One of the demo apps in Mint live boot is GIMP, and it works like grease lightning - INFINITELY better than it has ever worked in Windows 10 - even before the Creators Update wrecked everything for me. Having experienced it I can't believe how much treacle I have to wade through when I'm using it in Win 10.
The live boot stick generates a desktop that has on it an installation app that will, if I use it, create the partition on my hard drive. Its just the notes that follow step 5 of the instructions that have got me all confused. And being confused I've ground to a halt.
However, now that you have pointed out the obvious proof that the graphics card drivers in Mint work perfectly well with my laptop's graphics card, this one little step in the installation procedure is the only thing that's holding me back - not knowing what numbers to put in all those little boxes there in the notes about doing a 'Something else' installation.
I claim no great expertise and am a bit of a Luddite as far as technology is concerned. I like the easiest solution that will achieve my needs. But maybe these observations will help.
As I understand it what you intend is
1/ To switch between Windows and Linux by rebooting, not run one of the operating systems in a virtual machine of the other
2/ As far as possible keep all your user data in the Windows partition.
My Mint operating systems uses about 10GB. I have more software installed than you intend but don't have Krita installed.
My user data occupies about 75 GB of data and growing but includes photos, GIS data etc.
You will need some user data under Linux (under Home/User name) even if you don't save any application data files there. This includes your user profile and software configuration settings for your user. I think it may also contain temporary working files generated as you use applications.
You will need a swap file. As the Mint documentation suggests space equal to your RAM is about right. You shouldn't need more than 1.5 times the RAM.
The default for the Mint partitioning is to include user data ( "Home") as part of the root (/) partition. You might want to consider a separate partition for user data as this means you can reinstall Mint or perform major system upgrades without overwriting the user data, although it is still good idea to back it up before you do ! A separate partition doesn't use that much more space.
Based on that I imagine something like 50GB in total would be enough. I would avoid going lower than, say, 30GB
If you want to print and scan direct from Linux you will also need to do a little of tweaking, particularly if you run a firewall on your PC, but again my experience is that it is fairly straightforward.
I don't know how effectively Mint accesses data on a Windows 10 partition. Last time I did this sharing dual booting to any extent was with XP, shortly before I totally abandoned Windows for personal use. As far as I know this will work but I don't know how much of a performance overhead there is so you might find it is better to make a temporary copy of the data from Windows to Mint to work on it then copy it back when you have done. In general autosave will be made to the same directory as the parent file.
On an entirely irrelevant note. I have found Mint one of most hardware friendly distributions. I haven't had any hardware compatibility problems with my HP 8560W laptop , although it does have a separate NVidia graphics card not an embedded graphics chip.
Good luck.
I have no idea if this is the right thing, but I have an "Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000". Is that the 'graphics card'
And... GIMP's performance was just out of this world on the live boot of MINT
Since I would expect an installed version of Mint to run faster than a live boot version on a usb stick GIMP must be really dire under Windows 10. :-0
So you can understand my enthusiasm for getting Mint installed :P
There is a project called Mesa3D that is an OpenGL work-alike (it can't be called OpenGL for legal reasons). It has reasonable performance on most graphics hardware, even on older Intel graphics. It also supports features for OpenGL versions that the vendor's own driver may not support. The Mesa3D project has been included by default on most Linux distributions that I've tried, but is carefully lacking on any Windows distribution. You can download it and it may make things work faster on your Windows machines, but very few users bother (or even know about it).
I was reading a commentary about games using the Unity game engine last week (it may have been an older discussion) and the important observation that was gleaned from an analysis of their user telemetry is that most user don't update their device drivers. Ever. What they're using is what shipped with the machine. That's unfortunate because what ships with the machine is often an early and unoptimized software build. At the very least, it's been optimized to be able to work, not to be fast. As time goes on. most vendors have at least one or two driver updates that fix bugs and may improve performance.
Once I've sorted out this Mint partition (which I'm hoping to do tonight or tomorrow morning), and if the apps I'm keeping in the Win 10 partition are still too sluggish to be worth using (which actually doesn't include CC3+, which is working splendidly without a care in the world), I'll have a look at the drivers
CC3+ has been the most stable of my graphics apps since the Fall Creators Update. At least it doesn't crash or groan for half an hour before doing it, unlike GIMP and Krita.
I'm currently looking at a more simple way of installing Mint 'alongside' Windows 10.
See the video here in these instructions
Ideal for PC idiots like me
I've already created the live boot memory stick, so I only have to do the installation bit. I just didn't know how big to make the new partition. This video shows how the simpler installation method defaults to the minimum size required to run Mint 18.3, which is a whole lot smaller than the recommended 100GB given by the other more complicated method.
There's also a tool that opens up as soon as you boot into Mint for the first time, which detects out of date drivers and locates the current version, so I'm hoping to be even more impressed by GIMP once I've installed Mint and its working with the proper drivers for everything.
Wouldn't recommend doing it yourself unless you've already done something like this before. I only managed to do it with a lot of guidance from other people - not least the guidance here in this thread.
Thank you for all your help - it is much appreciated
When attempting to open the old installation on my Windows drive from the Linux partition using Wine, most of the drivers won't run.
I have a list as long as 2 diary pages of all the affected drivers.
When I try to install CC3+ in a Playonlinux folder I get an error message saying something about CC+ for Windows not being found and suggesting that I use Windows installer to install the software.
I guess that means that as far as running CC3+ on linux goes, unless someone has already successfully done it, then it can't be done?
All other discussions where people speak of successfully running CC3+ on Wine, they are using a Mac, not an ordinary PC with a Linux OS.
I don't run CC3+ on Linux regularly though, I only do some tests for the Wine AppDB every now and then.
It can definitely be done on Mint 18.2 using Wine on my HP Elitebook. If you search this forum for Linux you should find an earlier thread with an attachment describing how I did this, which may help. I don't know if this approach will also works with Mint 18.3.
I reorganised my filestore and removed all the Profantasy software a while back as I am not doing anything that requires it at the moment. Maybe now is the time to upgrade my main PC to Mint 18.3 and try to reinstall CC3+ etc.