New
#280
Hello, fellow Insider chain-gang inmates!...;) Long time no see! What a motley crew...:really: Well, I've been busy with this or that so I haven't logged in here in a while, a fairly long while. I'm still active in the Insider's program, but I dropped back to slow with 17763.xxxx (present build .134), and I've had exactly zero problems with the build in my systems at home (got the wife's box on the same build, etc. too.) Oh, yes--I'm running on the hardware--can't see using a VM and haven't for sometime. I can't recall the last time I made an ISO for any reason--Win Update has been working flawlessly for me all year. I pop in here from time to time to look at what's percolating and think I may have some freer time on my hands for awhile to occasionally actually post now and then as time and interest permit...:party:
I see that some of folks seem to be having problems large and small with the 18xxx.xxx builds now being distributed via Fast. Honestly, there's no doubt for me that my present build is rock solid compared to any of the 18xxx.xxx builds--including the one I tried briefly before reverting to 17763 because of instabilities I encountered after only a few minutes of running the 18xxx.xxx build. The current 17763.134 build is much more stable than any of the 18xxx builds Microsoft has released--for my hardware and running my software--several hundred applications and games at installed @ home...! As far as stability and problems with a build are concerned, don't take my word for it. I'm just following Microsoft's instructions about which builds offer greater stability atm:
REMINDER: As is normal with builds early in the development cycle, builds may contain bugs that might be painful for some. If this makes you uncomfortable, you may want to consider switching to the Slow ring. Slow ring builds will continue to be higher quality.
Microsoft has included the above information in every build release of 18xxx.xxx, including the latest, build 18282 (19H1.) Following it has turned out to be a net positive! I will of course get back in the fast lane--just as soon as Microsoft releases an 18.xxx build stable enough to go to the slow lane, most likely.
Amen...! That was the way I did dual-booting for years before I dropped the secondary OS route--it was OS/2 for a while in the secondary OS slot, then Win x64 during the transition period when device-driver OEMs were moving to Winx64 drivers for their hardware. OS/2 was a bust, of course...and eventually I didn't need a 32-bit OS and its hardware drivers at all. Now it's all Win10x64--because with the number of applications I use even on a daily basis it isn't practical or desirable for me to manage two or more OSes anymore. But if I was going dual-boot I would certainly install each OS on its own, dedicated & bootable physical drive--and during boot I'd just hit the F11 key to bring up the UEFI bios boot menu for my motherboard (different mobo OEMs may use different keys for this)--select the device from the list--hit enter and boot away! I don't recall needing a boot manager in that situation as the bios is serving in that capacity, IIRC. Excellent advice!
Yep--got to install them first, aye?...;) With a customary FAT32 partition, Windows10x64 can boot from anywhere, too--but the disadvantage there for Windows is that the drive has to be of a certain capacity--otherwise "There's no boot for you, bub, from that device today!"...:( Almost everything except a low-capacity SD Micros disk, if it's big enough, it'll boot Win10x64, I'd imagine.At system install time you can select what disks to use and where you want to install the boot manager.
My personal ranking of the value of any OS commercially available these days is to judge it based on 1) how many applications it natively supports--without OS emulation, of course; 2) How many games it natively supports (nowadays that has become my hobby!); 3) How much hardware and driver support exists for that OS; and, 4) what is the quality and reputation of the IHVs and OEMs who maintain that driver and application support, etc. IE, an OS by itself, even Windows10x64, is of little value to me unless it does a good job supporting my needs & desires in both software and hardware. I've never been interested in running an OS for its own sake! (Obviously, eh?:cool:)Plenty of advice on 'Nix forums on how to do this -- as this is a Windows forum I won't go into details other than to say installing most distros of Linux is pretty straight forward these days -- but READ THE SCREEN PROMPTS before willy nilly pressing Enter.
For just testing / playing why not use a Live distro to see if you like it. I'd use one on an external SSD but a USB3 stick is also good -- Linux is tiny compare with windows if you just stick to a small GUI and don't install everything possible !!!
For the nearest equivalence to Windows a KDE desktop is probably a wise choice -- the UBUNTU default GUI looks pretty appalling - for KDE on UBUNTU add the kde-desktop after install (or use KUBUNTU). Linux mint has itself a decent GUI too. I like CENTOS as it's really stable but might not be leading edge for some people here. In any case there's loads of choices.