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Moving from Windows 8 to Debian 7

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Cheddie Merai
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Moving from Windows 8 to Debian 7

#1 Post by Cheddie Merai »

Hi:

After much research, I have decided to use Debian 7 as my main OS. Still testing in Virtualbox on Win8, modeling the system I'll be installing as the Main. I'm planning on converting Windows 8 to a VM and Run it in Debian. What kind of performance can I expect to get in the Windows VM with Micfosoft Office, Illustrator, Photoshop and Games [Far Cry 4]?
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dasein
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Re: Moving from Windows 8 to Debian 7

#2 Post by dasein »

That would sort of depend on your hardware, huh?

emariz
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Re: Moving from Windows 8 to Debian 7

#3 Post by emariz »

Well, did your much research point you that Debian releases come during the spring of odd years? If it did, why are you playing with Wheezy instead of Jessie? Because of systemd?

You may want to test Debian 8, and install it once it is released as Stable.
And Debian 8 and Windows 7 seem like a happier couple.

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Re: Moving from Windows 8 to Debian 7

#4 Post by rhy7s »

I'd recommend keeping a drive for each, or at least a partition if you're gaming. Gaming in a virtual machine is certainly not an optimal use of your hardware. Saying that, see what you can run in Debian itself at Steam and GOG. Do you profile and calibrate your display for use with Illustrator and Photoshop? You've got to be a bit careful on that front running in a VM as well.

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Re: Moving from Windows 8 to Debian 7

#5 Post by keithpeter »

emariz wrote:Well, did your much research point you that Debian releases come during the spring of odd years? If it did, why are you playing with Wheezy instead of Jessie? Because of systemd?

You may want to test Debian 8, and install it once it is released as Stable.
And Debian 8 and Windows 7 seem like a happier couple.
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debi ... ng.en.html

Perhaps the OP read the FAQ and decided stable would be best for them. The OP is using a vm image of Wheezy and presumably finds the versions of the software available acceptable for their use cases.

I agree that OP might want to try a Jessie testing install in a second VM and compare.

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Re: Moving from Windows 8 to Debian 7

#6 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

If you want to play Windows games I would recommend dual-booting rather than a VM.
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Re: Moving from Windows 8 to Debian 7

#7 Post by steve_v »

A VirtualBox VM (with VT-x) will be just fine for everything but games or really GPU intensive applications and should run at near-native speeds.
Although the catalouge of commercial games for GNU/Linux is expanding, you will not find FarCry4... yet. :(
If you decide to go native :) you will probably want Steam. Steam on Wheezy is a little troublesome - there are ways, but Jessie/Sid may be a better bet.
If you want to play Windows-only games, check Wine/PlayOnLinux compatibility first or dual-boot.
If you have SLI, forget it. The only supported game engine on Linux is IDTech4.
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Cheddie Merai
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Re: Moving from Windows 8 to Debian 7

#8 Post by Cheddie Merai »

Thank you all for the contribution. I've read and understood what was explained and suggested. Based on the contributions received and rational of the situation, I have chosen to go Debian 8, because it looks like a better prospect in my quest for a Linux isolation. For Jessie, I want to do a minimal installation with;

1. Sound support (my debian 7 setup didn't have despite installing Pulse Audio and ALSA)
2. Good fonts and rendering (the fonts are small, flaky and fuzzy)

That's my main issues with setting up Deb8. Can anyone assist me with setting those 2 factors?
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Re: Moving from Windows 8 to Debian 7

#9 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

Cheddie Merai wrote:1. Sound support (my debian 7 setup didn't have despite installing Pulse Audio and ALSA)
2. Good fonts and rendering (the fonts are small, flaky and fuzzy)

That's my main issues with setting up Deb8. Can anyone assist me with setting those 2 factors?
Font rendering has improved greatly in GNU/Linux recently -- my current Debian jessie system has just the ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf example file from the Debian wiki and the fonts look great (better than Windows 10).
https://wiki.debian.org/Fonts#Subpixel- ... -smoothing

As for sound: good luck with that!

FWIW I find that a combination of Pulseaudio & pavucontrol usually works pretty well.

To maximise your chances of hardware compatibility, use the ISO images with the non-free firmware already included:
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unoff ... -firmware/
(Sorry RMS!)
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Re: Moving from Windows 8 to Debian 7

#10 Post by tomazzi »

Cheddie Merai wrote:Hi:
... I'm planning on converting Windows 8 to a VM and Run it in Debian. What kind of performance can I expect to get in the Windows VM with Micfosoft Office, Illustrator, Photoshop and Games [Far Cry 4]?
What You should really do, is to find open-source alternatives for the software You've mentioned.
Operating system is just an environment for launching applications.
It makes little sense to switch to Debian only to run windows in a VM (exluding the possibility to create snapshots, which are far better solution than winblows' recovery services).

Performance: applications which are not using DirectX will work flawlessly, and the whole system should work faster than in a "host mode". But forget about gaming - even with experimental directx driver for virtual box. This is not much different from running games in WINE, since in both cases directx calls have to be translated to opengl -> performance will be much lower than when running winblows as a host OS.

In fact WINE should be a lot faster in most cases, since it provides dedicated wrappers for most of directx components.

Regards.
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Re: Moving from Windows 8 to Debian 7

#11 Post by NFT5 »

Cheddie Merai wrote:I'm planning on converting Windows 8 to a VM and Run it in Debian. What kind of performance can I expect to get in the Windows VM with Micfosoft Office, Illustrator, Photoshop and Games
About 6 months ago I completed a changeover of all the PCs in my business from XP to Debian 7. Why 7 rather than 8? Stability - in a business you really don't want to be dealing with any kind of unstable OS. Plus security, of course, with Wheezy getting the best security support. I may move to Jessie later but I noticed improvements to Wheezy over the 8 months or so that I trialled Debian, before actually making the switch and that was long after Wheezy became the stable edition.

There are a couple of proprietary programs that we have to use and they run in XP or Win7 in Virtualbox. Hardware ranges from dual core Intel and AMD through to quad core AMD with 4-8GB RAM. In every single case Windows loads faster in the VMs and runs as well or faster. The VMs are on the network as separate machines and network performance is significantly better. Part of the trick is to give your VMs plenty of RAM, 2GB is an ideal minimum, more if you can afford it.

The one machine that ran Win8 we haven't ported over into a VM. Win8 is space hungry, resource heavy and slow, offering no advantage over Win7 or, in fact XP in the testing that I did. That machine runs Debian with an XP VM, more than satisfactorily.

From my experience, I'd echo the suggestions to move to Linux equivalents for other software. Apart from an expected learning curve we've had no problems with acceptance of Office equivalents and graphics programs. In fact, the more traditional interface is gaining more support from the users.

At home I've done the same and even my wife is happier using Linux applications which she finds more intuitive while she also appreciates the better performance.

For gaming, I can't help, but I'm sure others will offer comments.

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Re: Moving from Windows 8 to Debian 7

#12 Post by Ardouos »

If you want to use Windows applications and play games AND have Linux, I would recommend just dual booting. If you want a "isolated" Linux environment, I wouldn't even install Windows on a VM as you still will be depending on it (VMs still have a ways to go with graphical rendering anyway). Why not try Linux/ FLOSS alternative software? You might prefer it.
Edit: Spelling
Last edited by Ardouos on 2015-03-24 15:47, edited 2 times in total.
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Cheddie Merai
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Re: Moving from Windows 8 to Debian 7

#13 Post by Cheddie Merai »

NFT5 wrote:
Cheddie Merai wrote:I'm planning on converting Windows 8 to a VM and Run it in Debian. What kind of performance can I expect to get in the Windows VM with Micfosoft Office, Illustrator, Photoshop and Games
About 6 months ago I completed a changeover of all the PCs in my business from XP to Debian 7. Why 7 rather than 8? Stability - in a business you really don't want to be dealing with any kind of unstable OS. Plus security, of course, with Wheezy getting the best security support. I may move to Jessie later but I noticed improvements to Wheezy over the 8 months or so that I trialled Debian, before actually making the switch and that was long after Wheezy became the stable edition.

There are a couple of proprietary programs that we have to use and they run in XP or Win7 in Virtualbox. Hardware ranges from dual core Intel and AMD through to quad core AMD with 4-8GB RAM. In every single case Windows loads faster in the VMs and runs as well or faster. The VMs are on the network as separate machines and network performance is significantly better. Part of the trick is to give your VMs plenty of RAM, 2GB is an ideal minimum, more if you can afford it.

The one machine that ran Win8 we haven't ported over into a VM. Win8 is space hungry, resource heavy and slow, offering no advantage over Win7 or, in fact XP in the testing that I did. That machine runs Debian with an XP VM, more than satisfactorily.

From my experience, I'd echo the suggestions to move to Linux equivalents for other software. Apart from an expected learning curve we've had no problems with acceptance of Office equivalents and graphics programs. In fact, the more traditional interface is gaining more support from the users.

At home I've done the same and even my wife is happier using Linux applications which she finds more intuitive while she also appreciates the better performance.

For gaming, I can't help, but I'm sure others will offer comments.

I'm thinking about the Linux Alternatives. The thing is the features offered in the proprietary software on Windows is great. Which is why I want it. I'm not saying that for e.g. LibreOffice isn't all that. It's al that. It's all that and more. I use OneNote to document a alot of my work. I've grown very comfortable with it an the extended features that it offers.

When it comes to PC Specs, as I have mentioned, that's not a problem with my laptop. Here it is;

ASUS ROG GL551JM
Intel i7 4710HQ
Nvidia GEFORCE GTX 860M 2GB Video Memory
256SSD
16GB RAM

In windows, I never go beyond 8GB RAM consumptions, despite the most resource intensives Applications or Games.
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Cheddie Merai
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Re: Moving from Windows 8 to Debian 7

#14 Post by Cheddie Merai »

Ardouos wrote:If you want to use Windows applications and play games AND have Linux, I would recommend just duo booting. If you want a "isolated" Linux environment, I wouldn't even install Windows on a VM as you still will be depending on it (VMs still have a ways to go with graphical rendering anyway). Why not try Linux/ FLOSS alternative software? You might prefer it.

I'm thinking duo booting. I'll use a partion to try it out. soon.
A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor.

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Re: Moving from Windows 8 to Debian 7

#15 Post by Linadian »

I got the system sounds working in Wheezy Xfce, wut? :roll: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=115433

As for the font thing, I've never had a problem adjusting anti-aliasing, etc, in any DE on any distro. There's this nifty thing called trial and error, if it looks like $#1+, try something else. I will admit that I've installed and used alternative fonts because some distro's default fonts were ugly, incompatible across the board or just plain stupid.

I agree about the hardware too, trying to run an OS inside of another OS on something like an 8 year old dual core would be pretty retarded (I don't know what you have in the way of hardware and I really don't care, just making a point). You get what you pay for. I gradually learned to live without all those bloated and glossy Windows apps, or in most cases, I was able to find a Linux equivalent.

I laugh when people say distro or whatever "ran like $#1+" in VM, well duh, it's VM, like the holodeck on the NCC-1701-D, pull the plug and it's gone. :P

One more laugh, svchost.exe and systemd, what a lovely couple, the NSA can preside over the wedding. :lol:
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