MIcrosoft For Free?!

I was perusing the news last night and came to the story that their is a rumor that Microsoft might produce a “free” O/S. Of course Microsoft is silent at this point but it is a very intriguing idea to say the least.

Quite frankly, I never understood the rivalry between Microsoft and Linux. Some take a very mature opinions while others will go out of the way to add fuel to the fire.

My decision to use Ubuntu was based partially on the financial side, performance and security of Ubuntu. What of the people that are not technically or financially gifted? Who speak for them? I truly hope Microsoft can produce such a product. With the share of XP installations at about 25 percent and this O/S is on it’s last lap, Who is really going to abandon a perfectly healthy computer to invest in one just to upgrade the O/S Lean times call for lean measures so purchasing one may be too steep.

My only stumbling block with Ubuntu is the forum support. I understand we have lives to conduct so it makes it difficult to answer every request. It is also hard to follow thread if you are troubleshooting. When you are not in front of the machine, diagnostics is a bit tricky.To fair with both sides of the fence, I chose self education because I would not be a burden to the community and I would get my answers that much faster. I think you have to respect a person’s time and even if they are at rest, their time carries a value

For all of these reasons, I believe in a cooperative effort between the Linux and Microsoft communities. The free version could steer audience to either side depending on their needs and be compatible with each side.

Wake up, grab yourself some coffee and lets have a discussion.

Oh the waiting!

12.04 has served me well and very soon the new LTS arrives. I am not brave enough for the beta release but it has been said it is far more quicker than 13.10. The sad news is that Mir (replacement for X11) will be not standard in Trusty but it will be in the repos if you wish to give it a spin. I decided to further the cause of ubuntu by introducing a set of videos from my You Tube friend. “jthelinuxguy” has given his blessing to share these.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxQKHvKbmSzGMvUrVtJYnUA

Linux for Beginners is a great primer to the command line interface. There is other subjects are covered that might be just as interesting. Enough for now and my welcome to our new members.

test of win 8.1 and ubuntu 13.10 dualboot with UFEI and secure boot

Windows 8.1/Ubuntu13.10 UEFI, secure boot dual-boot installation instructions provided by wmack
Generic Box with MSIFM2-A75MA-E35 A75 FM2 R mother board
and a AMD A4-5300 3.4G CPU 4GB ram 500gb HDD

Prerequisites
System with an installed Windows 8.1
Boot is set to use UEFI and secure boot
Ubuntu 13.10 USB, created with startup disk creator in an Ubuntu 13.10 system

Procedure
Start up PC and boot into Windows 8.1
Shut down PC, using this procedure: use keyboard super-x combination to bring up menu. From there select to shut down. I was told that this does a complete shutdown, and not a half-baked one.
While shut down, insert Ubuntu USB
get into UEFI and select usb stick as the first item in the UEFI boot priority
have system booted
in Ubuntu menu select “Install Ubuntu”
Go through menus until you are at the “installation type” menu
in my case the Windows install was not recognized. Others have reported that there is a choice to “install ubuntu and windows side by side.” So if you see the side-by-side option you have to make a decision: continue with these instructions, or trust the ubuntu installer…
select “Something else” from the installation type menu, then
verify that the efi partition is mounted as “EFI boot partition”
shrink the largest partition (where Windows has its data – presumably)
I went from 481G to 150G
add 10G of swap partition
add remaining large free space as ext4, use as root dir. Make sure it is marked for formatting
Let Ubuntu installation take its course
After ubuntu install is complete, on reboot, break into UEFI
Make sure that Ubuntu is the first choice in the UEFI boot order
let boot up continue. You should see the grub screen with an option to boot into ubuntu, or into the Windows boot loader.