Unix

except me, I'm talking out of my ass.

what about AIX, specifically?

They are all very similar but obviously have key operational differences.

Trying but failing to look for perl modules in a directory where I haven't properly qualified the package names, i.e.

find . -name "*.pm" -exec grep -lP "^package /(?!Simu2)" {} \;

But I get a "event not found" error. Where's my error? Getting the grep to accept the negative lookahead is where I'm having trouble.

Finally getting tired of automatic, unannounced Windows updates throttling my creaky laptop (as well as the current BDS call to boycott MS), and my question is how I can switch over to Ubuntu or something without having to wipe my entire HD. I know dual boot is an option, but would I be able to move all my data into the Unix partition, then fully uninstall Windows? Or would I have to back everything up on external storage for a clean, MS-free system?

From what I remember I used to be able to access all my windows files from the linux os when i had dual installed, so don't see why you couldn't move to the unix partition? probably wait for someone with bit more exp tho

leee's 2011 problem is the ! in the command - the shell expects this to be followed with a number and will re-execute the command with that number in your bash history.

as for Ubuntu, there is an effort to move people from win11 to various Linux flavours here: https://endof10.org/

i use a completely separate disk for mine, just saves me having to resize the partition. BUT BACK YOUR DATA UP ANYWAY, it's very easy to accidentally nuke things.

(those instructions go for the full wipe your disks option, which isn't great. individual distributions may provide better instructions)

and yes, you'll have access to the windows files from within Linux. whether the software will open them is another thing... (because of proprietary formats)

backing up and going fresh will probably save a lot of headache.

In any case might want to give it a test drive by booting into the OS from the install USB or disc. I'm thinking mainly to ensure it detects all your hardware fine... though you can probably also mess with accessing your Windows files in this way

Thanks all. Downloading Cinnamon now, and figuring out my backup options.

i use a completely separate disk for mine

koogs i might be misunderstanding but are you saying that you installed Ubuntu on a separate disk (not the C drive)? I thought about doing this but read that it can hamper performance.

my laptop has an ssd drive which was c: and a larger hdd which was d:. the d drive is now / and /home and i use the bios settings to choose between Linux and windows.

(it's more complex than this because the laptop is from 2017 and I'm on about my 5th Linux version. i think some of Linux is on the sdd for speed, i have /home on the root partition but link to things on a large, shared /common partition which is all my documents, some dating back 15 years, 3 laptops ago)

yeah, the spinning disk is slower than the ssd, but it's 2025 and things are fast enough

right on, kewl!

I've booted from a USB drive and audio, video, USB mouse, and internet all seem to be working. I can't think of any other devices that I'd need to check, and I've backed up my data, so I should probably be good to do the full wipe and install, right?

i've been using linux since 2001 and still think nuking my windows partition is a step too far.

i'd use another option if you have one. how will you debug the linux install if it doesn't go as planned?

if the computer will take another disk, i'd add one. a new 1TB ssd is $50 or so. and then install on that.

i'm pro nuke, get rid of the trash already

when i switched to linux over a decade ago i did what koogs did: installed it on a separate drive and used the BIOS boot menu to switch operating systems instead of trying to dual-boot 2 OS's from different partitions of the same disk.
if you have that 2nd disk to spare then i agree with koogs, keep windows for a little longer as an emergency fallback if something unexpectedly goes haywire.

if not, i don't think it's worth the hassle to dual-boot or buy an extra disk.
ime, the windows install was just dead weight that i had to forcefully log into every month or so to keep it up to date on security patches and nothing else.
after a couple of years of that, and realising linux did everything i needed better and more easily, i nuked windows and turned that storage space into an extra online backup drive.

I don't need that much out of my PC, so my main concern is bricking it instead. I was already only using it to stream and download videos and hop on video conference calls, which was lately becoming more difficult because Windows updates were slowing down the laptop to an unusable state. I once even tried to pause updates and it just wouldn't let me until it was finished downloading and installing it. So keeping something that requires that kind of maintenance is the whole reason for this change.

i don't think it's even *possible* to brick hardware with linux. the worst that could happen is "bricking" your software, or rm -rf ./important_data, and needing to re-install and/or restore from backup.

as a tip, consider making /home a separate partition: most of your config files reside there, and if you "brick" your OS and need to re-install, you can tell the installer to not fully wipe the disk and after the installation is finished you can edit fstab on the new system to make it re-use your preserved /home partition without having to restore from backup. so your browser profile, etc will be just as they were before re-installation.

as an additional tip, keep your personal documents/media/any data files you care about segregated from everything else, either on a dedicated directory hierarchy under /home, or on its own dedicated partition/disk (that, again, would survive a re-install). this has the added bonus of simplifying your backups and it's not really a unix/linux-specific tip, just general good practice, regardless of operating system.

video conference calls

> So keeping something that requires that kind of maintenance is the whole reason for this change.

mint is currently telling me i have 157 updates outstanding, 1GB of downloads (i haven't done it for a while tbh).

do i want to update openjpeg from 2.5.0-2ubuntu0.2 to 2.5.0-2ubunto0.3? x 157

(openjpeg2, sorry)

I took the plunge and wiped the entire HD.

I figure big updates for any OS are unavoidable, but under Windows, it might take the better part of a day (and render my computer unusable). So far Mint updates have taken < 1 hour, and the latest one I downloaded took under 10 minutes (maybe 15 if you count the required restart). So while the new environment still isn't super responsive, it's already a better UX than what I was on before.

And yes, Zoom has worked fine with the new setup.