Everyday use of a Linux workstation is OK. You have to get used to a new desktop, just as Windows XP users had to deal with going to Windows Vista. Installing Linux for free saves you $199.99 over Windows 7 Home Premium, and Linux does some things that Windows workstation can't do, like various servers (Samba, NFS, DNS, etc.).

The Ubuntu 2011 Unity desktop, which was substituted for Gnome desktop, is a reach, though. Unity will probably be modified due to user feedback.

There are some things that a Windows user wants to do with Linux that turn out to be hard. This page documents an example, accessing a 30 gigabyte FAT partition that I set up on the SPIRAL computer to give a place for Windows to be installed to if I wanted to.

The following screen print shows the 160GB drive in SPIRAL, as seen in Ubuntu 12.04 Disk Utility.

At R, I clicked the 160GB drive, which is confirmed at S. I had also clicked on the 30GB FAT partition to get details about it. Just below S, it looks like this partition has a Master Boot Record, as would be expected for the first partition of a hard drive, and 30GB would be fine for installing Windows if I wished. At W, it says this drive is the older, parallel ATA style rather than the newer SATA. At T, we see the Linux nomenclature, the drive being in the Linux /device directory and called SCSI drive A. If you have seen this sort of nomenclature for Linux, it gives you some comfort that things are looking normal.

The lower half of the window shows that there are 11 partitions, some of them being ext3 or ext4 partitions for Linux. This was all set up when I installed Ubuntu 12.04. There is even 8.2GB free in the extended partition.

The 30GB FAT partition is gray since I had clicked on it. It's details are shown at the bottom of the window, particularly at U that this partition is sda1 in the /device directory. At V is an indication that it is mounted at the /windows directory. This is because the Ubuntu partitioner seemed to want to assign a DOS or Windows type to this first partition, and I let it be Windows.

The point about this web page is how I used Linux command line interface to mount /dev/sda1 so I could use it for some data storage of large video files, before I realized that it was already mounted at /windows. What happened is an example of how Linux sometimes requires learning and trying.

The following screen print summarizes the mount operation.

The Unity launcher bar is at the left. A is the disk utility, the upper screen print on this web page. B is the Dash Home button which I used to access Disk Utility in the first place. C gets a terminal window, which I copied and pasted as a Gedit document at the lower right--we will get to that.

E is a launcher for the file system, the left of the three windows shown. D is a tiny button to go up in the hierarchy; it ought to be bigger and more visible. The left window is the root of the Linux file system. If I had scrolled down, I would have seen /windows and the 30GB available, but I didn't realize that at the time. At F, I clicked /home and saw the upper right window, where I decided on a whim to mount sda1. I had known from earlier work (and reading Linux books) that you have to make a directory to mount a partition into, and I did that at H, using a sudo command to act as the root user and have all the privileges. That caused G to pop up. At J, I did a list command to be sure the new directory, fat_here, was really there. Then I did a mount --help command to review the syntax. Based on K, I tried sudo mount -t fat /dev/sda1 /home/fat_here , because the upper screen print said FAT. The next line in the terminal reported an error, but the author of this part of the bash shell gave me a hint at L, suggesting I try type vfat. Lacking this hint, I would have probably given up.

M is where the mount command worked, and I did a mount command to see if I saw sda1 mounted. This is confirmed at N. I was able to click at G and get into the 30GB, which was empty. I succeeded at my objective, making files in that space and copying large files to it.

When Linux gets shut down, the mount of sda1 is lost. To see into sda1, I would have to mount it again. I wouldn't have to mount it at /home/fat_here, I could mkdir another directory if I wanted.

The mount can be made an init script located in fstab.

This web page has been an example of how Linux is sometimes hard and sometimes requires the command line.

See also https://sites.google.com/site/solderandcircuits/home/the-networking-stack/getter-ubuntu-lvm-and-boot-problem-2017

A FlightGear enthusiast comments about Linux

http://gallinazo.flightgear.org/technology/build-your-own-hot-flightgear-pc/

What about Windows Software? Isn’t that expensive to buy when it doesn’t come bundled with your new 64bit PC?

This is a tough one for me to answer. Actually it’s easy. I run Linux. Go to your old PC, download the latest Fedora (or Ubuntu, or Suse, or your favorite distro) install ISO, burn it to a DVD and you are ready to install Linux on your new PC. Full 64 bit support for free!!! If you are a windows geek and insist on genuine MS proprietary software … well that’s tougher. A lot of people can get a free or discounted copy of Windows through work or school if they can show a work or school purpose for the machine. It doesn’t hurt to ask — unless your sys admins are psycho and black list you from this point on — not saying that would ever happen. But seriously, these days 75-95% of what you do is in your web browser anyway. Linux has open-office, firefox, google chrome, thunderbird, a full development system, flash, skype, gimp and all the tools you would want to use … and most of the time they are free. Come on! You are building your own system, you might as well go the whole way and install Linux on it. Games? They are just a waste of your time anyway, besides you are building this machine to run FlightGear which works really well in Linux. If you really want to spend money with Microsoft and really want to play games, get an Xbox360. Your remaining excuses are now weak and flimsy! Your wife or girl friend or grandmother doesn’t care; she just wants to get on facebook, play farmville, and look at cute kitty cat pictures, that is just as easy with Linux. Ok, QED, done deal … L I N U X 6 4 b i t ! ! !