Migrating to Linux thread

[pudly]

Ah. That is something else- a security feature. As I said, Flash has a long/sad history of being abused by malware. It is being phased out over time and web sites are switching to HTML5 for animations instead. A while (a month?) ago, Firefox added a feature that by default would block Flash animations , but would ask you if you wanted to run them one-time or always allow that site to run Flash. The need will eventually disappear, but some will find it annoying. You can: (a) allow the Flash to be blocked if there isn't anything on the page that you can't live without (like an ad), (b) allow the Flash to run for that one visit, or (c) whitelist that site so that it can continue to display Flash without prompting you again. There is almost certainly a hidden setting to disable that feature entirely, but I don't recommend using that route. The fewer Flash animations that run in your browser, the less chance you will get hit by malware.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

Ah. That is something else- a security feature. As I said, Flash has a long/sad history of being abused by malware. It is being phased out over time and web sites are switching to HTML5 for animations instead. A while (a month?) ago, Firefox added a feature that by default would block Flash animations , but would ask you if you wanted to run them one-time or always allow that site to run Flash. The need will eventually disappear, but some will find it annoying. You can: (a) allow the Flash to be blocked if there isn't anything on the page that you can't live without (like an ad), (b) allow the Flash to run for that one visit, or (c) whitelist that site so that it can continue to display Flash without prompting you again. There is almost certainly a hidden setting to disable that feature entirely, but I don't recommend using that route.

Yes, that is exactly what's happening. I've tried "Allow" and "Continue Blocking" options and don't see any real difference between the two. I guess it sounds like something I don't need to be overly concerned about?

 

[pudly]

If you can live with it for now, then it will eventually disappear as sites get rid of Flash. In the meantime, you can allow it to run once or always run for a specific site. My personal experience is that 90% of Flash is unneeded and strictly eye-candy animations or advertisements that I can do without. I only know of one site (imgur.com for picture hosting) that uses Flash at one point as part of their picture uploading routine, so I allow that. I'm sure that some other sites require Flash for important features, but those are likely relatively rare. Allow only if really needed for best security.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

If you can live with it for now, then it will eventually disappear as sites get rid of Flash. In the meantime, you can allow it to run once or always run for a specific site. My personal experience is that 90% of Flash is unneeded and strictly eye-candy animations or advertisements that I can do without. I only know of one site (imgur.com for picture hosting) that uses Flash at one point as part of their picture uploading routine, so I allow that. I'm sure that some other sites require Flash for important features, but those are likely relatively rare. Allow only if really needed for best security.

Yep, it mostly seems to be related to animated ads, so I guess I'll just keep on keepin' on (blocking it) until it eventually goes away.

 

[Caleb]

Weird thing is, I reboot multiple times to no avail....but it just suddenly started working....

 

[pudly]

Hmmm... Does it at least work consistently now when you reboot? If so, it is just one of those things that isn't worth any more effort.

 

[Caleb]

It seem to be working just fine now....

Question...I got minecraft to work on linux, but how can I create an programs on my linux desktop to run a script to run the code to open the technic launcher?

 

[Caleb]

Any 5ghz wireless adaptor available for linux mint? I'm getting 5-12Mbps on my congested Wireless G, but plugged into the router, I get 45-50Mbps....

Other option is to run 100 feet of cat 5e or cat 6 cable

 

[pudly]

What kind of adapter are you considering- external USB, internal laptop or desktop? You might want to consider upgrading to Wireless N which starts at 150Mbps and has better range.

FYI- For most Linux questions, you will be better off Googling for answers. They usually aren't hard to find and you will get a quicker response. One thing to be aware of- Since you are using Linux Mint, then answers for Ubuntu and Debian (both closely related Linux distributions) will almost always work as well.

 

[Caleb]

Desktop, so either a usb or pci....my issue is the crowded 2.4Ghz frequency. Since I posted that post, I decided on getting a 100' cat 6 and run it around my baseboard....only $19.99 shipped

 

[pudly]

Desktop, so either a usb or pci....my issue is the crowded 2.4Ghz frequency. Since I posted that post, I decided on getting a 100' cat 6 and run it around my baseboard....only $19.99 shipped

Sounds good. Actually, that is better from security, reliability and throughput standpoints. With cat-6, you can run gigabit Ethernet (1000Mbps) if your local network card, router and other local devices support it. The network cards are cheap ($10-15/verify they work with Linux), and gigabit routers are fairly inexpensive ($50+). For about $100, you can get a major upgrade on your local network. Depending on the speed of your Internet connection, that might speed up considerably as well, though I'd be impressed if you have a Gigabit connection there.

 

[Caleb]

On board lan is suppose to be 1Gbps, the router is 100Mbps iirc...even so, my Internet is only suppose to be around 50Mbps and I really don't do file sharing between devices.

 

[pudly]

OK. Networking speed is always restricted to the slowest link in the chain. So, by switching to wired, you should at least get full use of the Internet speed you are paying for.

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

Every one I use a lot runs wired on my old CAT-5 network, but we have 1-3 WAPs running as well, so we can allocate our wireless bandwidth somewhat. My son seems to have hosed up the configuration of his wired interface somehow so he's stuck with wireless, but he's actually gone to win 10, so it serves him right. What is the nature of your wireless interface? If it's a PCI card, just replace that. File sharing between devices will proceed at the capability of the slower of the two devices, and wired lines including WAPs can pair off without interfering with each other, why we stopped using hubs years ago and went to switches. In other words, you can have two devices sharing something while soaking up all the internet with one PC. I just ran mine (admittedly low traffic):

Which is not too bad over a 15 year old CAT-5 network when I'm paying for 60 down. My son calls me bad names when he sees me do that.

Here I sit between two laptops running Kubuntu versions, one I've been using for months, the other I just replaced the drive and I'm configuring to take mobile. Its platform is an insane windoze laptop that I've been using for email. Only thing I've missed has been netflix, and I just haven't tried yet.

 

[flightsimmer]

I have a dual boot on my XP machine, that is, it will start on WIN, XP unless I intervene (F12) with my thumb drive which has Linux, Mint on it. It works great but it is slow running off of the thumb drive.

What I think I would like to do is install Linux on a clean machine, or, clean a machine of the previous OS and install Linux directly on the hard drive from my thumb drive.


Or, would I be able to run a dual boot on the XP machine? That is, install Linux, Mint from my thumb drive on to the XP hard drive so that Linux would respond faster?
How would I go about doing this.

I hope this isn't a repeat question.

 

[Caleb]

I've had pretty good luck with linux mint, but I've notice on a couple of occasions that the display messes up and I have to reboot to fix it.

 

[pudly]

@flightsimmer- Linux would definitely run faster from the hard drive. If you have enough disk space and want to stay on the same machine, then you can indeed install Linux Mint as a dual boot. Since your XP machine is likely old, if it is a secondary machine and you are happy with how Linux functions, then you might want to consider overwriting the disk. Either way, be sure to back up any important data before the install.

@Caleb- That sounds like a video driver problem. Do you know what type of video card you have? What driver you have installed?

 

[AngryRooster]

I have a dual boot on my XP machine, that is, it will start on WIN, XP unless I intervene (F12) with my thumb drive which has Linux, Mint on it. It works great but it is slow running off of the thumb drive.

What I think I would like to do is install Linux on a clean machine, or, clean a machine of the previous OS and install Linux directly on the hard drive from my thumb drive.


Or, would I be able to run a dual boot on the XP machine? That is, install Linux, Mint from my thumb drive on to the XP hard drive so that Linux would respond faster?
How would I go about doing this.

I hope this isn't a repeat question.

A few years ago I tried the dual boot setup like you are talking about. I wanted Windoze so I could still run my Steam games and learn Linux at the same time. I ran into trouble with the dual boot (from the same hard drive). After much frustration I decided to try a different way to dual boot. This works on a desktop and VERY limited laptops. I added a second hard drive. I unplugged the Windoze drive so it wasn't active at all then installed Linux on the other drive. Once done, I plugged them both back in and went into Windoze and disabled the second drive so it wouldn't think something was constantly wrong with it and try to "fix" it. When booting I would hit the appropriate function key and select which drive I wanted to boot from. This solved all the problems of either Linux or Windoze trying to alter the MBR or when Windoze would get a series of updates then all the sudden Linux would be gone.


I'm sure there are other or better ways to do it. It didn't take long before I was done with Windoze completely. I gave up on my Steam games, and gaming in general. The only thing I was doing with the Windoze system was gaming and not much of it. Maybe a couple hours a week, if that. The amount of security updates, virus checks, scans, direct X and driver updates that constantly demanded attention made it clear that I was done with Micro$haft. Once I noticed how much smoother Linux ran I dumped Windoze and reformatted that drive to EXT3 and used it for media storage.

 

[Caleb]

@Caleb- That sounds like a video driver problem. Do you know what type of video card you have? What driver you have installed?

not sure what driver, but I have an evga 8800gtx

 

[pudly]

not sure what driver, but I have an evga 8800gtx

OK. Run "Driver Manager" to check your driver. That card uses a nvidia chipset, so those are the drivers you need. You may have the open source "xserver-xorg-video-nouveau" driver active. I recommend switching to the proprietary "nvidia-###". I don't recall if I that was already available within Linux Mint or I had to download it from Geforce. (You will want Geforce 8 Series in the second drop-down).

You might also want to install "nvidia-settings" from the Software Manager for a nicer video control UI.

Good luck. The video performance on my laptop is actually crisper/faster on Linux than Windows.