With Linux, you own your machine. With Windows your machine owns you 
Performance was the primary reason why I had switched to Linux. And now usage scenarios are even worse on Windows. I just hate when I need to do some work on my kid’s or wife’s PC.
I’m a Windows guys but like bash, vim, ssh, grep, find, etc… instead of powershell, and batch. So compromise on the up-date-able machine with cygwin. Older machine go Linux Mint. Linux Mint seem to doing so good, stable, and fast. I use it for general stuff around the house, and event for the kids, and wife.
Maybe 7 PM Thursday night I tried to have Linux Mint run an update. The fan started at full speed, blowing a lot of warm air, indicating to me that the processor was working “full tilt.” This might have been OK. After a few hours, the screen went dark (backlight still on) and the keyboard was non-functional. But I decided to let it run overnight. The following morning the laptop condition was unchanged and I forced a shutdown. This is about the 3rd or 4th crash in my first day of trying Linux Mint and I think that it is too unstable to be usable. I have not done anything yet but I think that in the next few days I will probably try uninstalling and re-installing Linux Mint and maybe KiCad if Linux Mint does not crash right away.
Yet another reason (for me) to (normally) do updates from the commandline.
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
is usually enough to update all programs, and also spits out lots of text of what it is doing, (and error messages).
As soon as nothing seems to be happening for 5 or so minutes, the chance of something happening if you wait longer is very small.
I was already frowning my brows when you wrote that there were differences between Installing KiCad from the terminal and with the GUI program, but it’s hard to diagnose from a distance.
If you re-install Mint, then after the install first change your repositories to a fast mirror with:
Update Manager / Edit / Software Sources and then click on the links for the mirrors:
Then fetch and install updates until the update manager says “your system is up to date”
And preferably do this before installing other programs.
This may require a few reboots the first time, as some updates have to be done in order and there has been a lot going on on the Linux kernel lately.
OK; thanks. I did a little bit of command line stuff (I think I copy pasted what you provided) and I think it was that activity which prompted pages of text scrolling rapidly. Of that text, I do not know what is meaningful and what is not. I get the idea that I need a manual for running Linux. Another guy I know was referring to doing something the same way that your turn off Linux Mint…but I do not yet know how to turn off Linux Mint. So far this is like worrying about how to turn off the engine of a car when the engine tends to stall (and will not restart) anyway. BTW the laptop in question has 2 GB RAM…in case that is my problem.
That’s Linux signature: Flood users with debug-level amount of text.
Why, (linux) developers, why?..
People do not normally care about a number of CPU cycles consumed by a dictionary lookup operation.
Are you sending your console output to teletype? Or are the pixels on your monitor wearing out?
Displaying that info (a) shows that something is happening and (b) lets users debug failures without needing to first look up how to enable debug output. Think about how often the song and dance of getting users to figure out their KiCAD version information takes place here.
I have re-installed Linux Mint and right now I am running the update manager. With hindsight, I think that previously my system probably crashed almost immediately after launching the update manager". This time around it appears to be running as it should. I will need to reinstall KiCad nightly after this is all done. I wish that I had an option to select a “lite” version and also select the nightly build; those choices are all available when installing the nightlies in Windows. I do not use all of the libraries, sample, and help files. I am beyond help anyway… 
I was going to write that there must have been something wrong with the original install, but I guess you have found that out.
I’ve been a bit slack recently with updates, so, after reading your earlier posts, I clicked on the update shield and timed the download and installation time.
16 minutes all up.
24 updates on Sunday afternoon at 4pm when every man and his dog are on netflix or whatever.
ADSL2 because we’re way out of town so the mongrel company won’t run fibre this far.
And a “nothing flash” desktop computer…10ish year old AMD processor and 8 gig ram.
I’m pretty happy with this result.
Oh, and one restart at the end to tuck everything in nicely.
I too run a Windows XP machine (quite a quick Acer with quad core processor) but was persuaded to upgrade my old laptop, running Vista, to Windows 10 - Arrgh ! I hate it. XP is fairly easy to use and relatively stable. My solution was to download Ubuntu (a linux desktop) and then burn it to CD (DVD ?) which I can then boot the machine from without destroying XP. I liked it that much that I decided to install it and one of the options it gave me was to “dual boot” so that when my machine is powered up I can choose between Windows XP or Ubuntu. The machine defaults to Ubuntu if you dont choose after a few seconds.
Another desktop I have since downloaded is “Plasma by KDE” and it “feels” a lot like Windows XP but it does need a fairly quick PC and a fair bit of memory. My machine has all of that so I am really happy with using Linux instead of Windows. All the FREE software that is available is another bonus - Libre office instead of MS Office, Dolphin replaces Windows Explorer and Firefox & Thunderbird (which can be "sync"ed to other machines so all of your bookmarks and emails are available on every machine you use - even “Windows” machines). There are still some programs that I need to run on WinXP because they won’t run on “Wine” simulator but overall, I am really pleased with Ubuntu and rarely need to use the Terminal window.
Once you are used to it, I think you will prefer a Linux machine, just persevere and you will get there.
Thank you for the encouragement. I have also installed “dual boot” for a couple of reasons:
I want to figure out how to uninstall the bulky KiCad portions which I never use; templates, examples, 3d and most of libraries. If you look at the size of the nightly Windows 10 downloads, the “lite” versions are ~150 MB compared to ~1 GB for the full downloads. I have never felt the need for more than the lite. (Preference in beer is a different matter; I will take a full blown IPA.) I guess these sizes are compressed; it seems that the full version takes up several GB on the HDD in the Linux installation.
I have been procrastinating; I still need to set up the 5.99 paths according to my Windows 10 example:
An 80GB HDD is quite small these days for a dual boot system.
I think Linux Mint can run from a system partition of somewhere between 10GB and 20GB without being too fussy about it, but to be comfortable enough to not have to fuss about for example installing both KiCad V5.1.8 and V5.99 then 50GB is a lot more comfortable.
A standard Linux Mint installs lots of programs you may or may not need. For example, very likely you have LibreOffice installed, Firefox, and 2 or 3 media players.
If you start the “Software Manager” and then click on the Hamburger Menu in the right top corner, the first item is “Show Installed Applications”.
In Linux, KiCad-Nightly is a few packages. You can for example remove the package “Kicad-nightly-packages3d” which will free 5.6GB on your HDD, but of course at the cost of loosing the 3D libraries.
If you uninstall programs, then at least keep a list of the programs you uninstall, to be able to put it back if you made a mistake.
I do not know how short on cash you are. Maybe it’s a good idea to update your laptop with a USD35 SSD (which gets you around 240GB), or maybe just buy some second hand laptop to play with. A quick search at the local market (Netherlands) suggest a laptop with an i5-3210M and a 180GB SSD for EUR160. For EUR10 extra it comes with Windows 7.
https://www.remarkt.nl/laptops.html?price=100-200
I went from XP to Win7 to Win10 and never felt that much difference aside from the feeling that I was using Microsoft’s computer, rather than I was using their OS on my computer. Since Win 2000 I have not had a big problem with crashes, etc. Win95 and Win98 were another matter.
Not short of cash but I do not want to invest money into this old laptop. It looks to me like my 25/55 partition will not be a problem. I think that the 80 GB HDD was competitive when this laptop was new.
I am curious as to whether you or anyone else running Linux finds the need to run antivirus/antimalware software?
Nope, never. This is why using Linux is fun. Security is a core part of Linux, coming from Unix era. Windows on the other hand, added it later. Also the people targeted by the malware mostly use Windows and a little bit of MacOSX.
Edit note: Don’t get me wrong, there are a few Linux malwares out there but you really have to make silly mistakes to get effected.
This is because Windows 2000+ versions use NT kernel.
Not yet.
Had to run Norton on windows, the other boss in the household still runs an online business and still runs windows with Norton.
BobZ, you could always get an external hard drive. It will still be of use when the old “lappy” becomes a boat anchor.
For years I have always run two hard drives… one for programmes and one for data. Kicad is no exception, all my work is on a different disc to the programme.
Also run external drives as backups. A mirror of C and a copy of D.
I think I ran a virus scanner once or twice on my Linux box, mostly out of curiosity if it was possible. That was years ago.
These day’s I only install programs I trust.
I trust any program that I can install via the program manager, and then a very limited amount of other big programs such as FreeCAD, or Opera (Web browser).
Linux is also not so eager to start running programs from any media that you stick into your PC. The way that “autorun” used to work with media on windows was completely bonkers. I never understood why people would want something like that.
A last word about the HDD / SSD thing.
It’s not just to get some more storage space. The speed bump you get from an SSD makes your laptop’s “feel” a lot snappier. Programs may start twice as fast. Reboots are a lot faster, and those are the slowest parts of an old computer where an upgrade matters the most. Your laptop may be too old to recognize a SSD though.
@BobZ, I don’t use any anti-virus or anti-malware. Stick with software and suppliers you recognise and you won’t have any problems. I pay for anti-virus for Win XP and it is forever finding some problem or other OR PERHAPS IT DOES THAT TO MAKE YOU FEEL IT IS DOING ITS JOB AND YOU KEEP PAYING ?
Ubuntu will auto-section your HDD if you choose “dual boot” at installation so even that is made easier for you. I too have an external 1TB HDD which is split 50:50, one part is for back-ups and the other for files I am working on. Plugged into a USB port it was the best thing I ever bought. I can unplug it and take it away with me using it on another Linux PC.
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