Debian hardware: coping with Windows

[Will Mengarini]

I need to buy a new desktop tower, which means
it'll have Windows installed. I haven't used
Windows since the 90s, so need some guidance.

A special complication is that I just had a computer
apocalypse in which a Power Surge From Hell nuked
*everything*, so trivial tasks like writing netinst to
a flash drive or CD-ROM are suddenly nontrivial: I need
to get Debian's netinst using Windows, with whatever
browser is there, then write it with Windows tools. So:

(1) Will an HTTPS download in Windows
suffice to get me an uncorrupted netinst?
(Anything I need to know about "binary mode"?)

(2) What Windows tool will write that netinst to flash?
Does Windows 10 Home have that tool? Pro? Windows 11?
(I don't know yet what Windows I'll end up with.)

(3) What Windows tool will write that netinst to CD-ROM?
Does Windows 10 Home have that tool? Pro? Windows 11?
(I have ancient beige boxes that might boot from CD-ROM
but not flash; they'd be useful as failsafes.)

(4) Will the latest Mordorsoft dual-boot fsckup prevent
maintaining the Windows installation in its own partition,
so I have to nuke the only working OS before installing
Debian? Will that be true of Windows 10 as well as 11?
(This question MIGHT be really important, because I might
have the option of buying something with Windows 10
instead of 11; maybe that'd be a major win.)

(5) If I can keep a Windows partition, how big must it be?

(6) Can/should I do the repartitioning from Windows
before installing Debian, & with what tool?

(7) I like the strategy of having /home in a separate
partition, so I can easily upgrade by doing a fresh
install. What's the minimum size you'd recommend
for a partition containing / but excluding /home
and intended to remain usable for the life of an
SDD, so presumably spanning many Debian releases?
(Remember I can't now look at an existing installation
for comparison; everything I had is toast.)

(8) I've heard that the initial Windows setup process
has hair and takes an hour. People who buy towers
from Walmart have written that they needed Walmart
customer support to get their Windows "activated",
whatever that means. Any tips to avoid Windows
doing updates that'll bork dual-boot, or otherwise
just waste time? Remember that this will initially
be my only working computer. (I'm typing now on
the virtual keyboard of an ancient smartphone.)

(9) Does Windows have, or can it easily get, an
SSH client that'll let me shell in to my ISP
(Eskimo North) before I have Debian running?

I expect to read all of the Debian GNU/Linux Installation
Guide at https://www.debian.org/releases/bookworm/amd64/
eventually, but only the hardware-compatibility
stuff before making the hardware purchase.

[David Christensen]

Post by Will Mengarini
I need to buy a new desktop tower, which means
it'll have Windows installed. I haven't used
Windows since the 90s, so need some guidance.
A special complication is that I just had a computer
apocalypse in which a Power Surge From Hell nuked
*everything*,

I suggest hiring a qualified electrician verify the electrical grounding
system in your facility. Ask for a recommendation and a quote to
install surge arresters and/or lightning arresters at your electrical
service panel or other suitable location(s).


Consider getting a good power conditioner/ UPS for your computers and/or
electronics.

Post by Will Mengarini
so trivial tasks like writing netinst to
a flash drive or CD-ROM are suddenly nontrivial: I need
to get Debian's netinst using Windows, with whatever
(1) Will an HTTPS download in Windows
suffice to get me an uncorrupted netinst?
(Anything I need to know about "binary mode"?)
(2) What Windows tool will write that netinst to flash?
Does Windows 10 Home have that tool? Pro? Windows 11?
(I don't know yet what Windows I'll end up with.)
(3) What Windows tool will write that netinst to CD-ROM?
Does Windows 10 Home have that tool? Pro? Windows 11?
(I have ancient beige boxes that might boot from CD-ROM
but not flash; they'd be useful as failsafes.)

I suggest buying Debian installation media from a vendor:

https://www.debian.org/CD/vendors/

Post by Will Mengarini
(4) Will the latest Mordorsoft dual-boot fsckup prevent
maintaining the Windows installation in its own partition,
so I have to nuke the only working OS before installing
Debian? Will that be true of Windows 10 as well as 11?
(This question MIGHT be really important, because I might
have the option of buying something with Windows 10
instead of 11; maybe that'd be a major win.)
(5) If I can keep a Windows partition, how big must it be?
(6) Can/should I do the repartitioning from Windows
before installing Debian, & with what tool?

Rather than dual-boot, I put trayless mobile racks in my computers and
put each OS on its own 2.5" SATA SSD:

https://www.startech.com/en-us/hdd/s25slotr

https://www.startech.com/en-us/hdd/hsb220sat25b

https://www.startech.com/en-us/hdd/bracketfdbk

Post by Will Mengarini
(7) I like the strategy of having /home in a separate
partition, so I can easily upgrade by doing a fresh
install. What's the minimum size you'd recommend
for a partition containing / but excluding /home
and intended to remain usable for the life of an
SDD, so presumably spanning many Debian releases?
(Remember I can't now look at an existing installation
for comparison; everything I had is toast.)

I put the vast majority of my data on a file server (FreeBSD, ZFS),
which allows me to keep my OS installations small enough to fit on "16
GB" drives (USB, SSD, HDD). This also facilitates taking images
regularly for disaster recovery.

Post by Will Mengarini
(8) I've heard that the initial Windows setup process
has hair and takes an hour. People who buy towers
from Walmart have written that they needed Walmart
customer support to get their Windows "activated",
whatever that means. Any tips to avoid Windows
doing updates that'll bork dual-boot, or otherwise
just waste time? Remember that this will initially
be my only working computer. (I'm typing now on
the virtual keyboard of an ancient smartphone.)
(9) Does Windows have, or can it easily get, an
SSH client that'll let me shell in to my ISP
(Eskimo North) before I have Debian running?
I expect to read all of the Debian GNU/Linux Installation
Guide at https://www.debian.org/releases/bookworm/amd64/
eventually, but only the hardware-compatibility
stuff before making the hardware purchase.

Installing, activating, configuring, maintaining, etc., a Windows 10
computer is non-trivial. I found "Windows 10 Inside Out", 4th Edition,
to be very helpful:

https://www.microsoftpressstore.com/store/windows-10-inside-out-9780136784159


That said -- I suggest buying or building a computer with no operating
system or with some distribution of Linux.


As new computers can have chips that are too new for Debian Stable, and
therefore unsupported, I suggest buying or building a computer with
parts that are at least a few years old (2+ years?). Off-lease
corporate workstations and servers can be a very good value.


David

[ghe2001]

Post by Will Mengarini
I need to buy a new desktop tower, which means
it'll have Windows installed. I haven't used
Windows since the 90s, so need some guidance.

There are a number of desktop towers available without Windows. I get inexpensive server types from Dell or SuperMicro -- they tend to have well built power supplies and Xeon CPUs, they definitely aren't gamer boxes but they're faster than I am and they work good and last a long time, and mine've all needed civilized graphics cards.

When one does come infected (just laptops, so far), I DBAN the disk and install from a Debian CD/DVD installer. That quickly and painlessly fixes the problem.

--
Glenn English

[Michel Verdier]

Post by Will Mengarini
(1) Will an HTTPS download in Windows
suffice to get me an uncorrupted netinst?
(Anything I need to know about "binary mode"?)

yes

Post by Will Mengarini
(2) What Windows tool will write that netinst to flash?
Does Windows 10 Home have that tool? Pro? Windows 11?
(I don't know yet what Windows I'll end up with.)

I don't remember but I could do that. If you don't find a way you could
install cygwin and get unix commands.

Post by Will Mengarini
(3) What Windows tool will write that netinst to CD-ROM?
Does Windows 10 Home have that tool? Pro? Windows 11?
(I have ancient beige boxes that might boot from CD-ROM
but not flash; they'd be useful as failsafes.)

windows is shipped with a cd burner

Post by Will Mengarini
(4) Will the latest Mordorsoft dual-boot fsckup prevent
maintaining the Windows installation in its own partition,
so I have to nuke the only working OS before installing
Debian? Will that be true of Windows 10 as well as 11?

you will have to install windows as it usually comes with oem image. You
would be able to format a separate partition for your linux and another
for /home if you want

Post by Will Mengarini
(5) If I can keep a Windows partition, how big must it be?

depends on your applications from 100Mo to 100To

Post by Will Mengarini
(7) I like the strategy of having /home in a separate
partition, so I can easily upgrade by doing a fresh
install. What's the minimum size you'd recommend
for a partition containing / but excluding /home
and intended to remain usable for the life of an
SDD, so presumably spanning many Debian releases?

again depends on your applications. remember there is logs, mail/news
spool, etc

Post by Will Mengarini
(9) Does Windows have, or can it easily get, an
SSH client that'll let me shell in to my ISP
(Eskimo North) before I have Debian running?

cygwin will save you :)
Or get a live debian and do ssh from it

[jeremy ardley]

Post by Michel Verdier

Post by Will Mengarini
(2) What Windows tool will write that netinst to flash?
Does Windows 10 Home have that tool? Pro? Windows 11?
(I don't know yet what Windows I'll end up with.)

I don't remember but I could do that. If you don't find a way you could
install cygwin and get unix commands.

The rufus for windows tool is recommended to write bootable devices for
linux applications.

https://rufus.ie/en/

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

Post by Will Mengarini
(2) What Windows tool will write that netinst to flash?

https://www.debian.org/CD/faq/#write-usb
proposes
https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/

Another possibility is a tool named Rufus. I would use its "dd" mode
rather than the other mode which unpacks the ISO into a FAT filesystem.
https://rufus.ie/en/

Post by Will Mengarini
(3) What Windows tool will write that netinst to CD-ROM?

https://www.debian.org/CD/faq/#record-windows
proposes
ImgBurn https://www.imgburn.com/
CDBurnerXP https://cdburnerxp.se/
Roxio https://www.roxio.com/en
Nero https://www.nero.com/eng
Cdburn.exe https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17657


There is also an installation path via running MS-Windows:
https://deb.debian.org/debian/tools/win32-loader/stable/win32-loader.txt

And (shudder) the possibility to run Debian software under MS-Windows:
https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Microsoft/Windows/SubsystemForLinux
Linux CD burn software will probably not work there. But dd probably will.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

[tv.debian]

Post by Thomas Schmitt
Hi,

Post by Will Mengarini
(2) What Windows tool will write that netinst to flash?

https://www.debian.org/CD/faq/#write-usb
proposes
https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/
Another possibility is a tool named Rufus. I would use its "dd" mode
rather than the other mode which unpacks the ISO into a FAT filesystem.
https://rufus.ie/en/

Post by Will Mengarini
(3) What Windows tool will write that netinst to CD-ROM?

https://www.debian.org/CD/faq/#record-windows
proposes
ImgBurn https://www.imgburn.com/
CDBurnerXP https://cdburnerxp.se/
Roxio https://www.roxio.com/en
Nero https://www.nero.com/eng
Cdburn.exe https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17657
https://deb.debian.org/debian/tools/win32-loader/stable/win32-loader.txt
https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Microsoft/Windows/SubsystemForLinux
Linux CD burn software will probably not work there. But dd probably will.
Have a nice day :)
Thomas

If you have a spare USB thumb drive, preferably a recent and fast one,
Ventoy can solve and replace the already mentioned utilities in most
cases. Just install Ventoy it on the USB drive, copy your downloaded ISO
files on it like regular file using a file explorer/manager, done.
At boot time you will be presented with the option to boot from any of
the ISO images, works for me with systems from Debian live, Clonezilla,
Windows install disks, any other Linux distro I could try.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated to Ventoy, I can't guaranty it'll work
for you, but it sure does for me ;-)

https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html

[Joe]

On Sun, 25 Aug 2024 20:39:52 -0700

Post by Will Mengarini
I need to buy a new desktop tower, which means
it'll have Windows installed. I haven't used
Windows since the 90s, so need some guidance.
A special complication is that I just had a computer
apocalypse in which a Power Surge From Hell nuked
*everything*, so trivial tasks like writing netinst to
a flash drive or CD-ROM are suddenly nontrivial: I need
to get Debian's netinst using Windows, with whatever
(1) Will an HTTPS download in Windows
suffice to get me an uncorrupted netinst?
(Anything I need to know about "binary mode"?)

Yes, should be no problem.

Post by Will Mengarini
(2) What Windows tool will write that netinst to flash?
Does Windows 10 Home have that tool? Pro? Windows 11?
(I don't know yet what Windows I'll end up with.)

https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/

This is recommended in the Debian CD guide:

https://www.debian.org/CD/faq/index.en.html#write-usb

Post by Will Mengarini
(3) What Windows tool will write that netinst to CD-ROM?
Does Windows 10 Home have that tool? Pro? Windows 11?
(I have ancient beige boxes that might boot from CD-ROM
but not flash; they'd be useful as failsafes.)

"To burn the .iso to a CD on Microsoft Windows use IMGBurn or, if using
Windows 10, the builtin "Burn to disc" option when right clicking an
ISO file. " I would assume Win11 would also have that, I don't have one
here.

This and more information which may help you is here:

https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstall

Post by Will Mengarini
(4) Will the latest Mordorsoft dual-boot fsckup prevent
maintaining the Windows installation in its own partition,
so I have to nuke the only working OS before installing
Debian? Will that be true of Windows 10 as well as 11?
(This question MIGHT be really important, because I might
have the option of buying something with Windows 10
instead of 11; maybe that'd be a major win.)

Don't know. It Worked For Me, but that was several years ago.

Post by Will Mengarini
(5) If I can keep a Windows partition, how big must it be?

All I know of that is that Win10 needed more than 32GB to do its first
update from new. I'd guess 64GB should be safe, unless you plan on
doing fairly heavyweight stuff or using virtual machines in Windows. I
have Windows on a dual boot in that original 32GB, but with as much
software installed on another partition as possible, and there's not
much spare space.

Post by Will Mengarini
(6) Can/should I do the repartitioning from Windows
before installing Debian, & with what tool?

No recent knowledge, but I just ran the Stretch installer (that's how
long ago it was) with a new empty drive added, and it just did the
whole thing itself. It wanted guidance as to what to put where, of
course, and whether to shrink the Windows installation (I didn't, I
just left it to its original drive, but that was quite small) but a
Debian installer can repartition if required.

Post by Will Mengarini
(7) I like the strategy of having /home in a separate
partition, so I can easily upgrade by doing a fresh
install. What's the minimum size you'd recommend
for a partition containing / but excluding /home
and intended to remain usable for the life of an
SDD, so presumably spanning many Debian releases?
(Remember I can't now look at an existing installation
for comparison; everything I had is toast.)

How long was your piece of string, again? I have a mature sid
installation with /usr and /var both around 12GB and another 4GB in
/opt. /rppt is half a gig, boot with two kernels a quarter gig. The
bits and pieces don't add up to much. I have lots of applications
installed, but no real monsters other than libreoffice. There's
obviously no typical Debian installation, Google will show you lots of
answers to that question, but there's no real consensus.

Post by Will Mengarini
(8) I've heard that the initial Windows setup process
has hair and takes an hour. People who buy towers
from Walmart have written that they needed Walmart
customer support to get their Windows "activated",
whatever that means. Any tips to avoid Windows
doing updates that'll bork dual-boot, or otherwise
just waste time? Remember that this will initially
be my only working computer. (I'm typing now on
the virtual keyboard of an ancient smartphone.)

A lot depends on how old the initial Windows installation is. It may
require several gigs of updates, and Windows updates take forever.

Should be no problem with activation, and if the computer is a
'corporate' one (e.g. HP, Dell etc.) it may be already registered. I've
never had any problems from Windows, which I don't use more than once a
month, if that. My sid desktop is also dual boot, but I've only ever
needed to run Windows on that because Microchip's 'cross-platform' IDE
written in Java is more full of bugs that the original libreoffice fork
was, and it doesn't work at all well in Linux. I don't think I've used
it in more than a year. God help me at update time next time I use it...

Post by Will Mengarini
(9) Does Windows have, or can it easily get, an
SSH client that'll let me shell in to my ISP
(Eskimo North) before I have Debian running?

I haven't done that for a while, but puTTY has been around for decades
and seems to do the job. I've no idea what facilities it has these days.
https://www.putty.org/
Last time I used it, it generated keys in a different form from
OpenSSH, I can't remember the details. That may have changed by now.

Post by Will Mengarini
I expect to read all of the Debian GNU/Linux Installation
Guide at https://www.debian.org/releases/bookworm/amd64/
eventually, but only the hardware-compatibility
stuff before making the hardware purchase.

You'll be lucky. By the time things get on the list, they're usually
unavailable. Avoid the very latest hardware, it takes a while for
drivers to appear. If at all possible, download and burn the latest
Debian Live and ask for it to be booted on the chosen machine. Knoppix
used to be the preferred distro for that, but the latest is now over
two years old and the project seems to be stopped.

Best of luck, and I might suggest getting hold of a very cheap
few-year-old ex-corporate computer for backup. It's amazing how much
easier life is with more than one computer. I wouldn't dare run sid if
I only had one.

[Charles Curley]

On Sun, 25 Aug 2024 20:39:52 -0700

Post by Will Mengarini
I need to buy a new desktop tower, which means
it'll have Windows installed. I haven't used
Windows since the 90s, so need some guidance.

Not necessarily; some vendors (Silent PC, e.g.) will sell you bare
metal. However, that won't solve your problems.

Post by Will Mengarini
A special complication is that I just had a computer
apocalypse in which a Power Surge From Hell nuked
*everything*, so trivial tasks like writing netinst to
a flash drive or CD-ROM are suddenly nontrivial: I need
to get Debian's netinst using Windows, with whatever
(1) Will an HTTPS download in Windows
suffice to get me an uncorrupted netinst?
(Anything I need to know about "binary mode"?)

Binary/text modes are peculiar to FTP and irrelevant to HTTPS or
bittorrent.

Post by Will Mengarini
(2) What Windows tool will write that netinst to flash?
Does Windows 10 Home have that tool? Pro? Windows 11?
(I don't know yet what Windows I'll end up with.)
(3) What Windows tool will write that netinst to CD-ROM?
Does Windows 10 Home have that tool? Pro? Windows 11?
(I have ancient beige boxes that might boot from CD-ROM
but not flash; they'd be useful as failsafes.)
(4) Will the latest Mordorsoft dual-boot fsckup prevent
maintaining the Windows installation in its own partition,
so I have to nuke the only working OS before installing
Debian? Will that be true of Windows 10 as well as 11?
(This question MIGHT be really important, because I might
have the option of buying something with Windows 10
instead of 11; maybe that'd be a major win.)

I have not had that problem installing to create a dual boot system.

Post by Will Mengarini
(5) If I can keep a Windows partition, how big must it be?

My two recent Windows boxen came with 100M EFI, 16M Microsoft
Reserved, and 800M Microsoft recovery environment. I kept 60G for
Windows, and put Debian 12 on the remainder. Windows alone occupies
about 30G, leaving the rest for who knows what. Note that the Microsoft
recovery environment is at the end of the disk; I did not try to move
it to the beginning of the open space.

So, on a 256G device:

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 206847 204800 100M EFI System
/dev/sda2 206848 239615 32768 16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/sda3 239616 126068735 125829120 60G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda4 498479104 500117503 1638400 800M Windows recovery
environment /dev/sda5 126068736 127068159 999424 488M Linux
filesystem /dev/sda6 127068160 498479103 371410944 177.1G Linux
filesystem

Post by Will Mengarini
(6) Can/should I do the repartitioning from Windows
before installing Debian, & with what tool?

I used a dedicated parted USB stick. I wouldn't even want to try
resizing a mounted partition. Also consider using a live DVD.
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current-live/amd64/iso-hybrid/

Post by Will Mengarini
(7) I like the strategy of having /home in a separate
partition, so I can easily upgrade by doing a fresh
install. What's the minimum size you'd recommend
for a partition containing / but excluding /home
and intended to remain usable for the life of an
SDD, so presumably spanning many Debian releases?
(Remember I can't now look at an existing installation
for comparison; everything I had is toast.)

On my desktop (no Windows), I have a root partition and a separate
home:

***@hawk:~# df / /home
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/hawk2021vg-hawk2021root 105G 76G 25G 76% /
/dev/mapper/hawk2021vg-hawk2021home 80G 65G 11G 86% /home
***@hawk:~#

But your mileage will almost certainly vary.

Post by Will Mengarini
(8) I've heard that the initial Windows setup process
has hair and takes an hour. People who buy towers
from Walmart have written that they needed Walmart
customer support to get their Windows "activated",
whatever that means. Any tips to avoid Windows
doing updates that'll bork dual-boot, or otherwise
just waste time? Remember that this will initially
be my only working computer. (I'm typing now on
the virtual keyboard of an ancient smartphone.)

I did not have any such problem. Boot into Windows, and let it do its
thing. Remember that Windows will do updates whether you want it to or
not, and you dare not shut the thing down while it is doing them.

Post by Will Mengarini
(9) Does Windows have, or can it easily get, an
SSH client that'll let me shell in to my ISP
(Eskimo North) before I have Debian running?

I've heard good things about Putty, but don't use it myself.

Post by Will Mengarini
I expect to read all of the Debian GNU/Linux Installation
Guide at https://www.debian.org/releases/bookworm/amd64/
eventually, but only the hardware-compatibility
stuff before making the hardware purchase.

Good idea.

[Stefan Monnier]

Post by Will Mengarini
a flash drive or CD-ROM are suddenly nontrivial: I need
to get Debian's netinst using Windows, with whatever

In the past I've successfully used

https://www.goodbye-microsoft.com/

tho I'm not sure if it's still working (it doesn't look
well-maintained), or if there's a better replacement.


Stefan

[Franco Martelli]

Post by Will Mengarini
I need to buy a new desktop tower, which means
it'll have Windows installed. I haven't used
Windows since the 90s, so need some guidance.

There is Tuxedo Computers that sells PC with Linux preinstalled.

https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en

Cheers.