I have been using Windows XP for a long time. I have a strange habit: if I have a device for a longer time, I always start feeling a strange bond with it. For this reason I never want to get rid of old devices.
I tried Puppy Linux before, however, I never liked it. I was finding it difficult to make everything to work.
As I was learning PHP and Codeigniter, the problems started when PHP 7 came out – it did not work on Windows XP. I also tried to learn Node.js, but the newest version also did not work on Windows XP. The Windows 7 would have been very slow on my PC and I continued learning with old versions.
And then in August 2018 I decided to buy a new laptop. I purchased a used HP 8570p on Ebay. However, there was another problem – I realized my eyes were really sensitive for LED screen. After reading some forums I thought that I need to disable a thing called "temporal dithering" on the GPU. I tried to disable it by adding values to Windows registry. I also tried different versions of Windows. However, I did not feel any difference on my eyes. Maybe adding registry keys did not work? I also read on some German forum that it is possible to disable it in Linux by using some certain command in the terminal. Then my journey to Linux started.
I flashed USB with Ubuntu 18.04 with Linux Live USB Creator. Tried to disable the temporal dithering in the terminal, but also did not feel the difference. Also tried Ubuntu 16.04, 14.04 – still nothing worked. But since then I started liking Linux.
I installed Lubuntu (minimal version) 18.04 on my old laptop HP NX6110, 512 RAM. And then I had to overtake some headaches.
My resolved issues
1. Various 'dependancies' stuff. The common issue was when I installed one package, during the installation another packages were removed. At the beginning I installed Chrome 48 (This was the latest available 32 bit Chrome for Linux), then I installed a PHP editor Brackets. During installation Chrome was removed. I realized that there must be something wrong with the package "libpango1.0-0". I had to edit chrome.deb and brackets.deb packages. In each package, within the file "control" I had to change the entry "libpango1.0-0" to "libpango-1.0-0" (to add dash), then rebuild both .deb packages – then both Chrome and Brackets started working properly. So luckily I found out the cause of the issue.
2. I was unable to install R package with Ggplot2 without removing Chrome. Basically I wanted Ggplot2 because I need nice charts. The problem was the package "libcurl3". Chrome and Brackets used "libcurl3", and R package used "libcurl4", so during the installation it wanted to remove Chrome and Brackets. I had to edit the "control" file of the "chrome.deb" and "brackets.deb" like in step 1 – I had to change the "libcurl3" entry to "libcurl3|libcurl4". After doing this, Chrome, Brackets and R started working fine altogether.
3. I also experienced issues when I was removing packages. Many times some packages could not be removed because of various "dependencies" problems. So then I learned the most useful command:
Only then I was able to remove packages with no hassle.
4. On Windows I was using Xampp for PHP programming, but on Linux I decided to install Apache2 and Mysql. First I had to change in apache2.conf some lines from "AllowOverride None" to "AllowOverride All" (the same thing on Windows). However, after these changes my website still did not work. The Apache2 was not reading the .htaccess file. So I had to use the command:
Only then my localhost website started to work.
5. As I need to send Word files to people I am forced to use MS Office with Wine. I am doing so because I cannot be certain that Abiword or LibreOffice will not save the .doc file the right way and the users will not see them properly. Therefore on Abiword I experienced some issues when changing the row height - was unable to properly change the height of the row which contains some split rows. Also speaking about MS Office, some macros do not work on Excel (Wine). For example this macro worked on Windows, but does not work on Wine:
So I replaced everything with:
And it works now.
5. There was a Chrome issue: a few websites were not fully loaded. I had to enable "Experimental Javascript" in chrome://flags.
6. When I plugged earphones, the speakers where not muted. The sound was active both within speakers and headphones. Because of that I had to install gnome-alsamixer, and type "gnome-alsamixer" in the terminal, then check the "Headphone Jack Sense" button.
<new issues may be added later>
Unresolved issues
1. Once I was listening to music and on Volume Control I set the sound to almost maximum level (for the first time on Linux). Then the slight crackling started from the speaker and it does not go away up till now. I occurs only when I make the music louder, also on Windows. So most likely the sound volume control of Lubuntu 18.04 damaged my laptop speaker? So hey, new Linux users, never set your sound close to maximum level - you may damage your speakers!
2. I cannot activate MS Office 2007 on Wine, it says "This packet was already activated maximum number of times". I AM able to activate it on another partition on Windows, though.
Interesting statistics and the final word
On W3Schools OS statistics I found out that over the last 10 years the Linux usage went up from approximately 3.8% to 5.5%. Also I found out that during the summer months the Linux usage increases – most likely the students start holidays and want to try it out. However, in September the usage always goes back to the previous level. So most likely the new users experience some issues and no longer want to deal with them when the school starts. Probably they assume that trying to solve various Linux issues will interfere with their studies.
However, I am able to deal with them and I am not planning to go back to Windows. I hope I will use Linux forever!
I tried Puppy Linux before, however, I never liked it. I was finding it difficult to make everything to work.
As I was learning PHP and Codeigniter, the problems started when PHP 7 came out – it did not work on Windows XP. I also tried to learn Node.js, but the newest version also did not work on Windows XP. The Windows 7 would have been very slow on my PC and I continued learning with old versions.
And then in August 2018 I decided to buy a new laptop. I purchased a used HP 8570p on Ebay. However, there was another problem – I realized my eyes were really sensitive for LED screen. After reading some forums I thought that I need to disable a thing called "temporal dithering" on the GPU. I tried to disable it by adding values to Windows registry. I also tried different versions of Windows. However, I did not feel any difference on my eyes. Maybe adding registry keys did not work? I also read on some German forum that it is possible to disable it in Linux by using some certain command in the terminal. Then my journey to Linux started.
I flashed USB with Ubuntu 18.04 with Linux Live USB Creator. Tried to disable the temporal dithering in the terminal, but also did not feel the difference. Also tried Ubuntu 16.04, 14.04 – still nothing worked. But since then I started liking Linux.
I installed Lubuntu (minimal version) 18.04 on my old laptop HP NX6110, 512 RAM. And then I had to overtake some headaches.
My resolved issues
1. Various 'dependancies' stuff. The common issue was when I installed one package, during the installation another packages were removed. At the beginning I installed Chrome 48 (This was the latest available 32 bit Chrome for Linux), then I installed a PHP editor Brackets. During installation Chrome was removed. I realized that there must be something wrong with the package "libpango1.0-0". I had to edit chrome.deb and brackets.deb packages. In each package, within the file "control" I had to change the entry "libpango1.0-0" to "libpango-1.0-0" (to add dash), then rebuild both .deb packages – then both Chrome and Brackets started working properly. So luckily I found out the cause of the issue.
2. I was unable to install R package with Ggplot2 without removing Chrome. Basically I wanted Ggplot2 because I need nice charts. The problem was the package "libcurl3". Chrome and Brackets used "libcurl3", and R package used "libcurl4", so during the installation it wanted to remove Chrome and Brackets. I had to edit the "control" file of the "chrome.deb" and "brackets.deb" like in step 1 – I had to change the "libcurl3" entry to "libcurl3|libcurl4". After doing this, Chrome, Brackets and R started working fine altogether.
sudo dpkg --remove --force-remove-reinstreq package_name
Only then I was able to remove packages with no hassle.
4. On Windows I was using Xampp for PHP programming, but on Linux I decided to install Apache2 and Mysql. First I had to change in apache2.conf some lines from "AllowOverride None" to "AllowOverride All" (the same thing on Windows). However, after these changes my website still did not work. The Apache2 was not reading the .htaccess file. So I had to use the command:
sudo a2enmod rewrite
Only then my localhost website started to work.
5. As I need to send Word files to people I am forced to use MS Office with Wine. I am doing so because I cannot be certain that Abiword or LibreOffice will not save the .doc file the right way and the users will not see them properly. Therefore on Abiword I experienced some issues when changing the row height - was unable to properly change the height of the row which contains some split rows. Also speaking about MS Office, some macros do not work on Excel (Wine). For example this macro worked on Windows, but does not work on Wine:
Range("C1").Select
ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = TimeValue(Now)
So I replaced everything with:
Range("C1").Value = Now()
And it works now.
5. There was a Chrome issue: a few websites were not fully loaded. I had to enable "Experimental Javascript" in chrome://flags.
6. When I plugged earphones, the speakers where not muted. The sound was active both within speakers and headphones. Because of that I had to install gnome-alsamixer, and type "gnome-alsamixer" in the terminal, then check the "Headphone Jack Sense" button.
<new issues may be added later>
Unresolved issues
1. Once I was listening to music and on Volume Control I set the sound to almost maximum level (for the first time on Linux). Then the slight crackling started from the speaker and it does not go away up till now. I occurs only when I make the music louder, also on Windows. So most likely the sound volume control of Lubuntu 18.04 damaged my laptop speaker? So hey, new Linux users, never set your sound close to maximum level - you may damage your speakers!
2. I cannot activate MS Office 2007 on Wine, it says "This packet was already activated maximum number of times". I AM able to activate it on another partition on Windows, though.
Interesting statistics and the final word
On W3Schools OS statistics I found out that over the last 10 years the Linux usage went up from approximately 3.8% to 5.5%. Also I found out that during the summer months the Linux usage increases – most likely the students start holidays and want to try it out. However, in September the usage always goes back to the previous level. So most likely the new users experience some issues and no longer want to deal with them when the school starts. Probably they assume that trying to solve various Linux issues will interfere with their studies.
However, I am able to deal with them and I am not planning to go back to Windows. I hope I will use Linux forever!
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