New Computer - I want some form of Linux with XP on the side...

[JWK]

I just can't give up my TubeCad. I have an old laptop from '07 that has XP on it that I use to run Tubecad, but this can't go on forever. I'm going to build a new desktop for myself and have decided to go with Ubuntu or Mint for my OS.

It's been about 10 years since I've really messed with computers, so I'm really in need of catching up. From what I gather, I would partition a certain amount for Linux and another for XP. I only need XP to run TubeCad, so I figure I can load my original (without service packs - it's that old!) on and make sure I'm offline whenever I need it. Seriously, I only need XP to run TubeCad... OK, *maybe* Word '07 if Libre can't read the files, but that's it.

Reasonable plan? Easy enough for me to learn how to? Any hints, suggestions, help?

Thanks for anything you can throw my way!

John

[soundguruman]

You are living in the stone age. Win 7 is the minimum for graphics, like CAD.
Otherwise, expect sub standard results, both in video and rendering quality.
Quad core processor, separate video card (not "on board" graphics) will give you the result that you really want.
Otherwise, spending your money, you are buying obsolete hardware / software, which is not a wise investment. Later you will regret that you spent you money on it.
FYI: win 7 will run old software, such as older office or older CAD programs. Windows 7 is running office 2000 and CAD 2000 on this computer with no difficulty.

DUAL operating systems on the same drive: expect problems.

[big_teee]

Sounds like you want a dual bootable system.
If you can reload XP, should be easy enough.
If you have to leave XP where it is, and put Linux on with it, it gets tricker.
Libre Office will save and read Word, and XP files in any format.
If your computer will boot off a flash drive?
Do Like I do and run linux from a 16-64GB flash.
My Laptop at the present has no hard drive, I just run different linux systems from flash.
Then when You want your XP, take the flash out and boot to windows from the hard drive.

[big_teee]

You are living in the stone age. Win 7 is the minimum for graphics, like CAD.
Otherwise, expect sub standard results, both in video and rendering quality.
Quad core processor, separate video card (not "on board" graphics) will give you the result that you really want.
Otherwise, spending your money, you are buying obsolete hardware / software, which is not a wise investment. Later you will regret that you spent you money on it.
FYI: win 7 will run old software, such as older office or older CAD programs. Windows 7 is running office 2000 and CAD 2000 on this computer with no difficulty.

DUAL operating systems on the same drive: expect problems.

Apparently you missed the part where he wanted Linux with a little Windows on the side.
He wasn't spending his money or trying to buy anything.
Sounds like he was trying to use what he has.

[JWK]

Yes big_teee, I guess I want a dual bootable system. I don't need to leave XP where it is. I'm building a new desktop. I'm starting fresh. I'm assuming new hardware will boot off of flash drives? I don't know if that matters for me. I would like Ubuntu or Mint to be what I use 99% of the time. Mostly internet surfing, email, etc. Nothing heavy duty. From what I've read, the Linux based OS fits the bill.

soundguruman, I'm talking about "TubeCad". That's the actual name of the program that was developed for Win95. It does not run on Win7. Yes, stone age but that's what I have and still find handy once in a while. I don't want to give it up if I don't have to.

So when I boot up XP in its own partition, does that mean the XP partition is (practically speaking) effectively isolated from the partition for the other OS? If so, then it seems like that is exactly what I would like to do. I would also assume that if I just have too much trouble with Linux (hopefully not) I can pony up the money for Win7 or Win8 and wipe that partition that had Linux on it and install the new OS. Is that correct or would I have to wipe the whole drive and do a whole new partition and load both OS again?

Thanks for the info.

[big_teee]

I have tried a lot of different Linux Distros in the past year.
Mint with Mate Desktop, IMO is the best and easiest for window migrants, like most of us are.
Then What I would do is put windows on first in its own partition.
Then load Mint.
Mint installation will walk you thru making it dual bootable, with the Grub boot program.
Main Page - Linux Mint
Distribution Release: Linux Mint 15 (DistroWatch.com News)
If loading on an old laptop, you will probably want to load the mint 32 bit, not the 64 bit.
Unless you know you have a 64 bit processor.

[Joe L]

Have you confirmed that TurboCad won't run in Wine/Linux? Most likely it will, then you have no reason for XP.

If you are not familiar with Wine, it is a Windows emulator for Linux that runs a lot of older stuff just fine.

[big_teee]

I did a search and looks like it might run on wine.
WineHQ - Turbocad LE TurboCad LE
T
**edit
When I did a software search for wine, it says this version is available.
Version: 1.4.1-0ubuntu1

[JoeM]

Tubecad or turbocad?

[JWK]

Have you confirmed that TurboCad won't run in Wine/Linux? Most likely it will, then you have no reason for XP.

If you are not familiar with Wine, it is a Windows emulator for Linux that runs a lot of older stuff just fine.

It is "Tube CAD", not "Turbocad". Two differenct programs. However, doing some poking around finds me thinking it might work. Wine was developed just before Win95 and it works on stuff for that time period - Win95, Win98, Win2000. That would solve a lot of problems for me.

Thanks for the info!

[bob p]

DUAL operating systems on the same drive: expect problems.

I don't think that's quite fair. I've been running multiple boot systems since the 1980s (using programs like AutoMenu) and Linux-Windows multiple boot installations for well over a decade without problems. All that's necessary to succeed: RTFM.

[bob p]

Wine is an outdated kludge fix that was developed in the days before virtualization was as good as it is today.

What's the point of even bothering with WINE when you can just perform a virtualized installation of XP on any of the current linux distributions? With virtualization you're running the real thing -- a genuine Windows OS with all of it's plusses and minuses, and none of the problem inherent in trying to get apps to work under WINE. The beauty of a virtualized environment is that Windows doesn't even know that it isn't running on bare metal.

[Steve Conner]

Virtualisation really works. It used to be really slow, but newer processors have hardware to speed it up. VMWare and VirtualBox are the two big players.

For various purposes, I've used XP and Ubuntu virtual machines on host computers running Mac OS and Win7.

The dual boot approach also works OK. Despite what Soundguruman says, I've owned many machines over the years that dual booted Windows and Linux with no major issues. It's best to install Windows first: I don't think the Windows installer has ever supported installation as a second OS on a dual boot machine.

The biggest problem is with file sharing between the OSs. Murphy's law requires that when you need access to some file on a dual boot machine, it'll be on the disk belonging to the OS that you're not currently running. Windows has no idea what to do with a Linux formatted disk, and many flavours of Linux only allow read-only access to NTFS disks. (NTFS is the default file system used by Windows XP and later)

Nevertheless, with a bit of tweaking you can set it up so your files are on a separate partition that can be read by both OSs. If you use the FAT32 file system, pretty much any OS can understand that, though Linux will sometimes tie itself in knots as FAT32 doesn't understand the concept of file ownership and permissions.

You can also keep your files on a Linux formatted disk and install the Ext2IFS driver in Windows. This worked surprisingly well the last time I tried it. (Disclaimer: that was a long time ago when Linux still used ext2, we are now on to ext4)

VMWare and VirtualBox get round this by allowing folders to be shared between the guest and host OSs.

[tboy]

WineHQ maintains a database with entries that describe the performance of various windows programs under Wine. Here's the entry for Tube CAD 1.1.3:

WineHQ - Tube CAD 1.1.3

[bob p]

The biggest problem is with file sharing between the OSs. Murphy's law requires that when you're looking for a file on a dual boot machine, it'll be on the disk belonging to the OS that you're not currently running. Windows won't read a Linux formatted disk, although I remember using a third-party driver called Ext2IFS to get that working once. And many flavours of Linux can only read NTFS formatted disks, not write them.

^^^ Yes, Murphy's Law has that nasty habit of always getting in the way at the wrong time.

Just about any current Linux distribution can read/write NTFS, though the standard out of the box configuration might be read-only. It's easy to change that. NTFS read-write works pretty well under current Linux kernels. Windows won't read a Linux-formatted disk, unless you format the disk using a Windows-compatible file system, then it will read/write just fine. Some other OS are picky about disk formats too. For example: to run ZFS you can't be running Win or Lin; your BSD box running ZFS won't be able to mount an Ext4 partition to copy data from disk-to-disk (and maybe not even an Ext3 partition). So you'll have to transfer files over a LAN connection (which could take a week if we're talking about moving several TB).

There are ways around the file system incompatibility problems though -- I keep a fault-tolerant high-availability ZFS file server in a closet that hosts all of my files, and serves all of them up to any of the other boxes on my LAN using SMB. That way having an OS that's capable of reading/writing the media isn't even a consideration -- it's all about networking protocols and the file storage medium becomes transparent to the user.