Windows Won't Open Created ISO Made From Folders

[schmidtp]

Hi,

I've recently got back into ripping my DVD collection after a long time and tidying up my existing DVDs ripped. While I've been ripping DVDs, I've also been trying to create ISOs from rips I did years ago. I can't remember the program I used to rip them, but they were ripped to a folder and VIDEO_TS & VOB files (probably WinX DVD Ripper or similar). Now I wanted to create an ISO of it to store on my NAS instead (which I should have done in the first place). And I could play them from the NAS as well (until I have time to encode them).

However when I use the Build option, select the Source folder and a Destination folder and click on the button to start, the ISO is created however it can't be mounted in Windows as a virtual drive (Right click Mount). There were some different options that generally came up (Create Layer Break Position) and I tried a few of those which didn't seem to make much difference. I even uninstalled Imgburn and started again, just incase I changed something. When I first installed Imgburn, it was working. And BTW, I did have DVDFab decrypter installed while I was ripping DVDs that needed it. And yes I read the spiel about Imgburn not being able to verify ISO if that was running, although you don't have many options when you're dealing with those types of discs.

I've only just been accepted to join the forum after waiting about 2-3 weeks or so. In between then, I've reinstalled Windows as there was some other unrelated issues, so I don't have the old log files of Imgburn. But as I said previously, it did create the ISO files, just couldn't mount them. I haven't installed DVDFab decrypter either (yet). I've tried Imgburn again using it exactly as I was doing and it now works again?

So my question is, maybe it was DVDFab Decrypter that was the issue (even though it wasn't running at the time). Have others had similar issues like this?

And while I'm on it, when the "Create Layers" options come up will it matter what option I choose? Preferably I should pick an Excellent option and move on down the list - Very Good, Good, Average? I don't want to create all these ISOs and no be able to burn them back onto a disc later if need be (not that I probably will)

Thanks Pete

[dbminter]

DVDFab Decrypter being resident while creating an ISO shouldn't affect the outcome of the ISO.  Those types of programs only affect the Verify portion of a disc burn.  Although, AnyDVD used to affect the burning of DVD+RW negatively, forcing a reformat of the disc.

 

The layer break should have no effect on attempting to play an ISO file natively.  Those generally only matter when burning the data to double layer DVD.

 

It sounds like the ISO's are definitely not compliant in some variety.  I don't natively mount ISO's in Windows.  I use a program called Virtual CloneDrive.  It's free so if you feel like experimenting with it, you could give it a try and see if that works.  If it does work, what you could try if you want to get native ISO mounting in Windows to work is to mount a DVD Video ISO you have and create a new ISO in ImgBurn with Build mode by pointing to the mounted drive's VIDEO_TS file.

 

It could be something wrong with Windows native support for mounting ISO files.  I would create an ISO in ImgBurn, just using any old data you have lying around.  Preferably not a VIDEO_TS folder as you're trying to isolate variables.  Make it as simple as possible.  Then, attempt to mount that ISO you just created.  If it doesn't mount, then there appears to be something wrong with the native ISO subsystem support.  Although that seems highly unlikely as I believe you said you reinstalled Windows at some point.

[ThaCrip]

So the gist of it is the OP is trying to create a ISO from the VIDEO_TS folder so then he can mount the ISO through Windows with right click etc. but like dbminter said, "It sounds like the ISO's are definitely not compliant in some variety" which I imagine is the issue.

it's been a long time since I played with that sort of stuff, and while I suspect there is easier ways with other windows software (but if there is, it's probably old software at this point), it appears one can create a ISO through terminal etc using something like... https://superuser.com/a/109223 & https://askubuntu.com/a/28071 etc

[schmidtp]

Thanks for the replies

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DVDFab Decrypter being resident while creating an ISO shouldn't affect the outcome of the ISO.  Those types of programs only affect the Verify portion of a disc burn.  Although, AnyDVD used to affect the burning of DVD+RW negatively, forcing a reformat of the disc.

That was what I believed as well. But I also had the newer version of DVDFab Decrypter insert something into the Windows registry and stop the DVD ROM from being recognized. I fixed that and went back to an older version.

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It sounds like the ISO's are definitely not compliant in some variety.  I don't natively mount ISO's in Windows.  I use a program called Virtual CloneDrive.  It's free so if you feel like experimenting with it, you could give it a try and see if that works.  If it does work, what you could try if you want to get native ISO mounting in Windows to work is to mount a DVD Video ISO you have and create a new ISO in ImgBurn with Build mode by pointing to the mounted drive's VIDEO_TS file.

I actually did install Virtual CloneDrive and Daemon Tools Lite as at the time, I was playing around with backing up CDs creating Bin files and needed something to mount them with (other than Imgburn). Then when I went back to trying to create an ISO from VIDEO_TS folders, noticing Windows now wouldn't mount them. And neither would Virtual CloneDrive or Daemon tools. Which would lead me to suspect that they weren't compliment also. Unless one of those apps corrupted Windows ISO support? I thought it might have something to do with the NAS they were on and transferred the files locally and made the ISOs there. But still had issues. It was lucky actually, as the only reason I was mounting them was to check the ISO was correct before archiving them and deleting the original folders.

In the end, I decided there were too many variables backing up audio CDs to Bin files. So decided either WAV/CUE or FLAC/CUE would be a better alternative as you can't just make a disc copy of a CD as you can with DVDs. And I could sort the DVD ISO issue later.

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It could be something wrong with Windows native support for mounting ISO files.  I would create an ISO in ImgBurn, just using any old data you have lying around.  Preferably not a VIDEO_TS folder as you're trying to isolate variables.  Make it as simple as possible.  Then, attempt to mount that ISO you just created.  If it doesn't mount, then there appears to be something wrong with the native ISO subsystem support.  Although that seems highly unlikely as I believe you said you reinstalled Windows at some point.

Yeah I'm probably going to chalk this one down to Windows self destructing. It wouldn't update past 20H2 for some reason and had been that way for a while (was probably due to a debloating tool I used). And then when search failed to work any more (wouldn't even pull up normal windows functions like Control Panel, Device Manager etc). As I said, seems to be working again doing nothing different other than having re-installed windows (that was a nightmare in itself). I could have installed 40 different Linux distros in less time 😁

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it's been a long time since I played with that sort of stuff, and while I suspect there is easier ways with other windows software (but if there is, it's probably old software at this point), it appears one can create a ISO through terminal etc using something like... https://superuser.com/a/109223 & https://askubuntu.com/a/28071 etc

Yeah I don't think Virtual DiskClone has been updated in a while either, much like Imgburn. Thats sort of why I didn't go with BIN files for audio CDs as I was worried about opening them up in 10-20 years and not being able to. And I only had 20-30 DVD rips I'd done previously I wanted to convert to ISO anyway. At the moment I have three PCs ripping the DVD collection and only one has Linux on it too. So I thought it was easier to just stay with Windows for this particular task. I can use Window or Linux for encoding for streaming. Although I did have a little look into various app's available on Linux for ripping DVDs. K3B looks to be a good alternative as it also supports libdvdcss I believe once installed.

[ThaCrip]

13 hours ago, schmidtp said:

Although I did have a little look into various app's available on Linux for ripping DVDs. K3B looks to be a good alternative as it also supports libdvdcss I believe once installed

I did play around with that libdvdcss not all that long ago (roughly a year or two ago) and it did work for removing copy protection from a older movie DVD I had when playing around with it. I think I used it in combination with 'Devede' software when converting to standard 4.7GB DVD if I recall correctly.

that Devede (apt install devede) is decent software but the only real problem I had with it is... when converting actual movie DVD's it worked as expected, but when converting from 720p/1080p x264 (h264) video files, while it worked, the final video on the DVD side of things had a bit of stutter in the final DVD output during playback and I could never figure out how to fix it (the source 720p/1080p x264 files worked perfectly (no stutter) as expected. so the stutter on the DVD side must have been some weird glitch during conversion).

not that it was a big deal, since I don't use DVD for video playback anymore in general (maybe rarely), but it would have been nice to figure out just in case since while the final disc is watchable, there is consistent stutter throughout the video. like it plays fine, slight stutter, plays fine, stutter and continues to end of video file. off the top of my head, I want to say the very slight stutter occurred once every few seconds or so. but I suspect some people it might not bother, but that sort of stuff bothers me as it's noticeable instead of working perfectly like it's supposed to (like I say, the DVD9 to DVD5 worked perfectly though with no stutter).

sort of that stutter issue I was happy with Devede as it even creates a ISO for you to burn/use. but if you are converting from say DVD9 (8.5GB) to DVD5 (4.7GB), I think Devede will work well for you, as like I said, when I converted from a real DVD, there was no stutter in the final video output by Devede. I just used the main movie file with a basic menu created by Devede in my testing.

a moment ago (on Mint 21.1-Xfce which is based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS) when issuing 'apt install libdvdcss' it shows (as I already installed it a while ago)...

Note, selecting 'libdvdcss2' instead of 'libdvdcss'
libdvdcss2 is already the newest version (1.4.2-dmo1).

 

p.s. I use ImgBurn on Linux for all my general CD/DVD burning. it works once setup properly as you have to tweak a couple of things for it to work on Linux. like it has to run in WinXP mode on Wine and, off the top of my head, I think on Wine versions newer than v4 series or so, you have to change from ImgBurn's default ASPI driver to SPTI etc in ImgBurn's options otherwise it won't see your CD/DVD drives. but once you do this, it works well.

 

13 hours ago, schmidtp said:

I decided there were too many variables backing up audio CDs to Bin files. So decided either WAV/CUE or FLAC/CUE would be a better alternative as you can't just make a disc copy of a CD

I would avoid storing WAV for long term storage as FLAC is better and is about half of the storage space with identical sound quality since it's a lossless audio format.

personally I don't worry too much about super precise audio CD backup, like people get with 'Exact Audio Copy' software (it's good software, as I am not dissing it, but it's probably a little overkill for most people), as the main thing is getting the song data from original CD (which is basically WAV) to FLAC format and then from there one always has a high quality source to convert to lossy formats (MP3/AAC/Opus etc) when needed.

because the way I see it... as long as there is no obvious read errors when getting the basic song (WAV) data from the CD to ones hard drive, even if 'Exact Audio Copy' is technically a tiny bit better, in the real world, I highly doubt a person would be able to audibly detect any differences. like for example (especially if your audio CD don't have any obvious scratches etc)... Exact Audio Copy vs just copying the audio file(s) from ones file manager to hard drive. I am willing to bet they are pretty much the same in real world sound quality (assuming no obvious read errors).

because CD audio already exceeds human hearing. because even decent bit rate lossy files people struggle to notice the difference between the lossless and lossy file and after a certain point they basically can't tell the difference and if they can't tell the difference between lossy to lossless it's pretty much guaranteed they ain't going to notice anything from Exact Audio Copy vs a standard copy/paste of WAV files from ones CD to hard drive (assuming no obvious read errors occur).

so while I don't fault people using programs like Exact Audio Copy, as it's still good stuff at the end of the day, I think it's almost a obsession with people after a certain point with sound quality etc. like for example... standard audio CD's vs "HD" audio. it's totally pointless to waste space with HD audio because us humans can't tell the difference outright since standard Audio CD's that have been around since the 1980's already exceed our hearing ability. point being, it's basically impossible to improve on sound quality of standard Audio CD's to a difference that would actually matter to us humans.

[dbminter]

I know ConvertXToDVD, the software I use to convert container files to DVD, chokes on h264/265 files in its current iteration.  VSO is working on a 64 bit version of the application which will address this.  In the meantime, they have a conversion software to convert h264/265 files into something compliant with CXD.

[schmidtp]

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that Devede (apt install devede) is decent software but the only real problem I had with it is... when converting actual movie DVD's it worked as expected, but when converting from 720p/1080p x264 (h264) video files, while it worked, the final video on the DVD side of things had a bit of stutter in the final DVD output during playback and I could never figure out how to fix it (the source 720p/1080p x264 files worked perfectly (no stutter) as expected. so the stutter on the DVD side must have been some weird glitch during conversion)

Thanks for the suggestion - I'll check it out.

So let me wrap my head around this - you're ripping from a 8.5GB DVD and directly converting to X264? Then burning back to 4.7GB DVDs? I've always had issues trying to rip and convert from a DVD directly in Handbrake. The results can be hit and miss. Thats why I prefer to rip the DVD to an ISO first, mount it and do whatever I'm going to do with it. If using Handbrake you can also check the frame rate used in the conversion and it might have had something to do with constant frames vs variable? But I also think that x264 by its nature produces stuttering artefacts, it's just not noticeable when using a device that has x264/x265 decoding.

Much like yourself, I don't really author new DVDs anymore (unless the original disk deteriorated or was trashed). Moneywise per GB, it makes more sense to keep a backup on a HDD or two (and much less physical space).

And while looking for solutions for my own problem, I did see a few posts of others running Imgburn on Linux through Wine (which is cool). Probably the only thing I really miss from Windows when I'm using Linux is Mp3Tag. You can run it in Wine, but doesn't integrate very well (accessing drives and what not). A few AURs have it, but I've never found one that works. And most of MP3 tag software on Linux isn't very intuitive.

[ThaCrip]

23 hours ago, schmidtp said:

So let me wrap my head around this - you're ripping from a 8.5GB DVD and directly converting to X264?

No. but ill make it clearer (and with much less words)...

-DVD9(8.5GB) to DVD5(4.7GB) (movies) using Devede works as expected (no stutter. works well) (with the libdvdcss2 installed of course).

-720p/1080p x264 (movies) using Devede to convert to standard DVD (4.7GB) video format has a little stutter like I was saying.

p.s. the original 720p/1080p x264 movies I have work perfect (no stutter). so the stutter issue occurs during the conversion with Devede (source file being 720p/1080p x264) to standard DVD format.

 

23 hours ago, schmidtp said:

Probably the only thing I really miss from Windows when I'm using Linux is Mp3Tag. You can run it in Wine, but doesn't integrate very well (accessing drives and what not).

For all of my general audio playback/conversion I use Foobar2000 (paired with the Encoder Pack... https://www.foobar2000.org/encoderpack ) on Linux as that's simply better than any native Linux program.

I heard of Mp3Tag but I never bothered with software like that since once I setup my FLAC files, which I can do in Foobar2000, everything works well after that during say FLAC to MP3 etc conversions (with a little tweaking in Foobar2000 itself depending on how you like things setup with file names it creates etc).

but I noticed occasionally, in regards to 'accessing drives and what not', you may have to tweak things. like on a game (Windows game running on Linux) I am running a graphics enhancement mode on, in the ini configuration files, it has Windows drive letters (say D:\Games\GameNameHere\ etc) and by default it won't be setup correctly. so I open 'Configure Wine (or winecfg from terminal) > Drives' section as this can be corrected here (along with some tweaks in the ini so it's looking for the mod files in the proper directory).

even in regards to my save state in Foobar2000 with all of my music loaded with different tabs etc, like even if I backup that data, say format my system (or wipe the wine profile to start clean) etc, and restore the Foobar2000 profile save state, since drive letters will likely change in Wine, if you try playing music (from the previous profile data that you restored) it will probably fail since the drive letter won't match, but this can be corrected on that 'Drives' tab in Wine basically and then all of your tabs in Foobar2000 that you restored from your profile are working once again as expected.

I got my additional hard drives mounted to the same point upon boot up (through '/etc/fstab' file using UUID etc)... like say '/media/1TBHDD' for example. so if my music is in some general folder on that hard drive and Foobar2000 can't see it, I just go to Wine's 'Drives' tab and select the proper drive letter Foobar2000 is expecting to see that music on (which you will know the drive letter that's needed by the error screen Foobar2000 shows when you try to play the music and it's not in the location Foobar2000 expects). so say Foobar2000 after profile restoration expects some music you are trying to play in a tab at D:\ etc etc, on the Configure Wine section on 'Drives', for 'Letter' you put "D:" and for target folder I put something like "/media/1TBHDD" (so to Wine it see's that 1TB HDD as the 'D' drive now) and then apply and now all of the tabs/music folder I had previously configured work well once again instead of having to redo it from scratch which can be a little time consuming.

I setup the limited amount of Windows programs I use on Linux through PlayOnLinux as this keeps things separated from the standard system installed wine which I generally use for games. basically the system installed wine stores stuff in the default ".wine" folder in ones Home directory. with PlayOnLinux all of it's stuff goes to a different location... in ones home folder it's more easily accessed through 'PlayOnLinux's virtual drives' shortcut it creates. but it's basically stored more precisely at "~/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/"

p.s. that Foobar2000 'encoder pack' is only needed if you plan on converting from say FLAC to MP3/AAC/Opus etc. but for proper Apple AAC conversion through Foobar2000 (which is the best AAC (AAC-LC)) you need to take additional steps for it to work (you need additional files) as it won't work simply by installing Foobar2000 and the Encoders Pack. but if you don't use AAC (AAC-LC) and just MP3 etc, a default install of Foobar2000 and the Encoders Pack will work.

Edited June 19, 2023 by ThaCrip

[schmidtp]

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I heard of Mp3Tag but I never bothered with software like that

Its not a converter. It's just for updating ID tags in audio files - MP3 specifically but does other types as well - and really well! Very fast and efficient. Similar to Kid3, Easy Tag and puddletag.

I'll give it another run with the suggestions you've shown with Foobar and Wine. The problem is accessing various locations in a Linux system instead of Windows drives like it expects. As using it in windows, you could just right click a folder and you can open that location with the program easily. Running it in Wine I don't think there was that option, so you had to navigate in the program itself (which takes time). Great if it's only a directory to the side or down, but it's not always the case.

I'm sort of 50/50 ATM. I can do a lot of things in Linux, but when it comes to audio/video production a lot of things are still quicker in Windows unfortunately. Its just a matter of finding the equivalent software I'm happy with in Linux But I'm getting there. I'm going to try and give the native Linux apps a go first before I switch to running Windows apps in Wine if I can. I still run a lot of FOSS software on Windows as well, so swapping to Linux wasn't as much of a big deal as I was thinking.

TBH Once I settle on a distro, I was more thinking along the lines of running Windows in a virtual machine instead of dual booting. That might solve all my issues. I'm using a Fedora based distro ATM (Ultramarine) and most things are generally working well (except the occasional snag). I've got a slight issue ATM I can't solve with drives being corrupted occasionality when Linux writes to NTFS formatted partitions. Unfortunately my Files drive has to be formatted in a type that both Windows and Linux can read when I switch OS.

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I got my additional hard drives mounted to the same point upon boot up (through '/etc/fstab' file using UUID etc)

I haven't played around with FSTAB files since I was using Manjaro a few years back. With KDE, you can setup automount drives from the GUI and just have to input a password upon login which is easy enough. Saves storing passwords in files and someone coming along snooping if they gain access (although unlikely). It's probably just updating the FSTAB file for me I gather. Never really bothered to look into it as it just works.

[ThaCrip]

19 minutes ago, schmidtp said:

As using it in windows, you could just right click a folder and you can open that location with the program easily. Running it in Wine I don't think there was that option, so you had to navigate in the program itself (which takes time).

Well when it comes to general audio playback, I just always have Foobar2000 open and you can change songs easily enough through it's GUI. as for playing back songs, I always load the main Foobar2000 and then drag-and-drop songs into whatever tab you want and play. even in regards to general playback, through Foobar2000's settings, I made it so you can rewind/fast forward with the arrow keys. spacebar is play/pause etc. but the Foobar2000 program needs to be the active window for it to work.

I even have the 'right click (like right click a file(s) in Foobar2000) > Convert' section setup with shortcuts which makes it easier to convert from FLAC to MP3 etc in the future. this is actually pretty easy once it's setup as you open Foobar2000, drag-and-drop files into it's own tab etc, then select them all (or whatever you want to convert, right click and select Convert etc.

also, after setting up Foobar2000 through PlayOnLinux, through my Mint 21.1-Xfce installation on the 'Keyboard > Application Shortcuts' section I setup a keyboard shortcut to load Foobar2000 by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+F. this is not straight forward/easy but it's not too difficult. but I just generally have PlayOnLinux create a desktop shortcut to whatever Windows program I want to use as then it's simple enough.

I noticed on some Wine installations, like through the standard system install itself, that sometimes it does not affiliate double clicking a exe to run it (so I got to use terminal etc) but I noticed installing it from the official Wine website (winehq.org) seems to automatically affiliate exe's with Wine to where it acts a bit more like Windows where you just double click to run a exe. but even with the official WineHQ site install, I also suggest installing the 'apt install wine-desktop-files' as this creates shortcuts on your start menu for easier access to 'Configure Wine' (instead of having to do 'winecfg' from terminal) etc.

so while Foobar2000 does not have a fancy looking interface, it's practical function is where it shines as it does the basics well (maybe some slight tweaking needed) if you don't mind loading up the program to play your music.

p.s. but with FSTAB I mainly did that so that hard drives are always mounted to the same location regardless of whether the /dev/sda changes or not (which it might on random reboots).

 

29 minutes ago, schmidtp said:

TBH Once I settle on a distro, I was more thinking along the lines of running Windows in a virtual machine instead of dual booting.

Yeah, I am not much of a fan of dual-booting in general as it's a safer bet to either run Windows or Linux exclusively.

even on the rare occasion I need to play with Windows on my Linux machine, I just run it through a virtual machine (QEMU/KVM etc)

but with virtual machine, while it will probably be okay, I suspect there are some instances where ones has to be running Windows on the actual machine for it to work. but I imagine this generally won't be the case (I have one thing that requires the real Windows though, but fortunately I rarely use that device that requires Windows).

p.s. the only dual-boot system I do have of the three computers I got is my backup desktop where Linux Mint runs from a 120GB SSD and Windows 7 is on a 80GB IDE. the Windows 7 I do have installed was installed from a custom/updated to Jan 2023 ISO I made with a 'Integrate7' script by a user on another forum called 'wkeller'. it's about 2.1GB larger than the official stock Win7 SP1 from Microsoft which I think was from 2011 or so. I know Windows 7 support was officially gone as of Jan 2020, but it did get updates until pretty much Jan 2023 but was not easy to do etc. but I only have that installed on what will likely be a rare use occasion where I have to run a very limited amount of Windows games on that old computer since, in short, they don't work on that computer since the Linux driver is using the older 'radeon' driver instead of what more modern gaming on Linux uses on the AMD side of things, which is 'amdgpu' driver. but those old games I got on that work fine on Linux on my primary PC but it's using a proper NVIDIA driver etc.

 

35 minutes ago, schmidtp said:

I'm sort of 50/50 ATM. I can do a lot of things in Linux, but when it comes to audio/video production a lot of things are still quicker in Windows unfortunately. Its just a matter of finding the equivalent software I'm happy with in Linux But I'm getting there. I'm going to try and give the native Linux apps a go first before I switch to running Windows apps in Wine if I can.

Yeah, I see.

I don't use much Windows software, mainly just Foobar2000/ImgBurn and maybe a little bit beyond this (along with some games), but the Windows software I do use, there just ain't a good Linux equivalent (maybe with burning software on some level, but even with that ImgBurn is more optimal), especially with Foobar2000.

 

39 minutes ago, schmidtp said:

I'm using a Fedora based distro ATM (Ultramarine) and most things are generally working well (except the occasional snag). I've got a slight issue ATM I can't solve with drives being corrupted occasionality when Linux writes to NTFS formatted partitions. Unfortunately my Files drive has to be formatted in a type that both Windows and Linux can read when I switch OS.

I see. but since you are still fairly heavily using Windows, I totally understand with keeping NTFS. in fact, when I made the switch to Linux in Jan 2019 full-time I held off about 1 full year after that (so to around Jan 2020) before changing pretty much all of my hard drives from NTFS to EXT4 just to make sure I was going to stick with Linux in the long term.

but I did notice some issues on Linux with NTFS hard drives, like with torrents it would download to 100% but there was fairly often a tiny bit of that data I had to pause, do a 'force recheck' and then it would find a bit of missing data and then when I started download again it would finish and generally be okay. but on EXT4 I never experienced that issue once. so while I think 'NTFS' on Linux is 'mostly okay', there can potentially be weird quirks like this and what you experience etc.

anyways... while I get there is a lot of Linux distro's out there, so it might be difficult to find one to settle on for some people, I never had a real reason to dump Linux Mint as it's been around a long time, is based on Ubuntu (which is one of the more used Linux distros as while there might not be strictly any 'standard' when it comes to Linux, I would say Debian/Ubuntu (both can use '.deb' files) based ones are probably as close as it gets) and has support for nearly 5 years each major release as it seems a fair amount of others might be in the 2-3 years of support cycle. also, while I get many Linux OS's can claim to be 'stable', I would be willing to bet with Linux Mint things are more likely to just continue working vs some other variations.

[schmidtp]

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but with virtual machine, while it will probably be okay, I suspect there are some instances where ones has to be running Windows on the actual machine for it to work. but I imagine this generally won't be the case (I have one thing that requires the real Windows though, but fortunately I rarely use that device that requires Windows).

I'm sure I'll run into some issues with VMs as well. It just sucks that hardware manufacturers only make Windows/Mac software to update firmware and run apps for it (like audio interfaces, music stuff). I'm sure there's some work around, but it's not native in Linux.

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I know Windows 7 support was officially gone as of Jan 2020, but it did get updates until pretty much Jan 2023 but was not easy to do etc. but I only have that installed on what will likely be a rare use occasion

As long as you're not using it for day to day things (like banking) that need the security and you're not connecting it to the net, you should be fine. Besides, Win10 works well enough even on slightly dated PCs (except their constant telemetry which you need to opt out of). Not so well on much older machines unfortunately.

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I don't use much Windows software, mainly just Foobar2000/ImgBurn and maybe a little bit beyond this (along with some games), but the Windows software I do use, there just ain't a good Linux equivalent (maybe with burning software on some level, but even with that ImgBurn is more optimal), especially with Foobar2000.

Yeah it's like what I was saying about MP3Tag. There's some OK taggers in Linux, just not efficient as MP3Tag. But I've also found a lot of Linux software that smokes what I was using on Windows too. And I ended up installing that on Windows too when I need it (if they had a win version).

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but I did notice some issues on Linux with NTFS hard drives, like with torrents it would download to 100% but there was fairly often a tiny bit of that data I had to pause, do a 'force recheck' and then it would find a bit of missing data and then when I started download again it would finish and generally be okay. but on EXT4 I never experienced that issue once. so while I think 'NTFS' on Linux is 'mostly okay', there can potentially be weird quirks like this and what you experience etc

I noticed I was having issues with USB SSD's at first, and not being able to mount them as they needed to be file checked first (like when you pull it out instead of first unmounting it). Then it also started with the main NVME drive with my files on it. There must have been an update in Fedora at some point, although I'm buggered if I can fix the issue. And the bug fixers don't seem to be too interested in fixing the stuff-up. Its no wonder users get fed up reporting bugs to help with that sort of attitude and stop contributing at all.

But I hear what you're saying about just converting over entirely to Linux and their file formats. I do have one laptop that still has both, but is 95% Linux mostly. But I don't do any heavy lifting with it - mainly browsing, downloading, little bit of Libreoffice stuff, maybe Handbrake.

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anyways... while I get there is a lot of Linux distro's out there, so it might be difficult to find one to settle on for some people, I never had a real reason to dump Linux Mint as it's been around a long time, is based on Ubuntu (which is one of the more used Linux distros as while there might not be strictly any 'standard' when it comes to Linux, I would say Debian/Ubuntu (both can use '.deb' files) based ones are probably as close as it gets) and has support for nearly 5 years each major release as it seems a fair amount of others might be in the 2-3 years of support cycle. also, while I get many Linux OS's can claim to be 'stable', I would be willing to bet with Linux Mint things are more likely to just continue working vs some other variations

Yeah I tried LM years ago (with MATE, I think I tried Cinnamon as well). I didn't mind it, but there were a few things that didn't work for me and were annoying. They might have fixed those issue by now though. Personally, I prefer KDE but thats a personal choice. I just like Fedora as I've had less issues with it than I have on other bases like Arch and Debian. And trying to install OpenSUSE has never been my forte 😆. Even though Debian is technically more stable, IMO it's better for older hardware as everything isn't that up to date like in more rolling releases. And I'm running Linux on newer systems, so need newer kernels. But it's all good - Whatever works right?

Although I have been wanting to give the LM Debian version a whirl. I've heard some good things about it.

[ThaCrip]

18 minutes ago, schmidtp said:

And I'm running Linux on newer systems, so need newer kernels. But it's all good - Whatever works right?

Yeah, even on the newest Mint 21.x series, the default kernel is 5.15 which that kernel was released in Nov 2021 (first Mint 21.x series release was about mid-2022), so it's got a little age on it. but one can install a bit more recent kernels to it if needed. so I guess it depends on how new ones hardware is. but if one needs a bit newer kernel, the newest one I see available in it is 6.1 which appears to be from Dec 2022 ( apt install linux-oem-22.04c ), so roughly a half year ago.

 

24 minutes ago, schmidtp said:

I tried LM years ago (with MATE, I think I tried Cinnamon as well)

While 'Cinnamon' is sort of their main version, Cinnamon/MATE had a issue on at least two out of the three computers I have in regards to video playback (720p/1080p x264 and the like) with Celluloid paired with MPV for hardware accelerated video playback. but Xfce works without issue which is why at this point and for quite a while now I settled on Xfce. it's especially noticeable on a slower laptop I have etc. even my main PC has the issue but it's not as obvious and I can temporarily fix it by restarting Cinnamon, but then the issue returns roughly a day later (I generally leave my primary PC on all of the time). but with Xfce I simply don't have the issue, even after a lot of time passes. currently my system up time on my main PC running Mint 21.1-Xfce is 74 days and counting.

even in terms of basic interface... while the three offered by Mint (Cinnamon/MATE/Xfce) are similar, I never cared for MATE's interface as I think Cinnamon/Xfce are more similar/better, but ultimately I had to side with Xfce as I think it's a safer bet across a wider range of hardware.

but I suspect with Linux variations in general... there are probably quirks and preferences etc. so it's hard to definitely say one is 'the best', but I would guesstimate Mint (Xfce) is probably one of the better choices for users coming from Windows to Linux (assuming their hardware works on it).

but from what you say, it appears you prefer a interface that's a bit more fancy at the tradeoff of being more resource hungry. personally I think DE's like Xfce look good enough and are on the lighter side as it does the important stuff well enough with a simple/clean interface.

 

35 minutes ago, schmidtp said:

As long as you're not using it for day to day things (like banking) that need the security and you're not connecting it to the net, you should be fine. Besides, Win10 works well enough even on slightly dated PCs

I forgot to mention... on that backup computer with Mint/Win7, it cannot run any Windows newer than Windows 7 as while Win10 32-bit installs, it's unstable, and Win10 64-bit outright won't install as it complains about lack of nx-bit. but I am not too surprised as the motherboard is basically high-end tech from 2005 (I built it in early 2006).

 

53 minutes ago, schmidtp said:

But I hear what you're saying about just converting over entirely to Linux and their file formats.

Yeah, I already did over 3 years ago now at this point.

it was only some odd months ago I did the Linux(120GB SSD SATA)/Win7(on 80GB IDE HDD) on my backup computer setup. but it boots to Linux (Mint) by default.

[schmidtp]

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Yeah, even on the newest Mint 21.x series, the default kernel is 5.15 which that kernel was released in Nov 2021 (first Mint 21.x series release was about mid-2022), so it's got a little age on it. but one can install a bit more recent kernels to it if needed. so I guess it depends on how new ones hardware is. but if one needs a bit newer kernel, the newest one I see available in it is 6.1 which appears to be from Dec 2022

Yeah you can install new kernels, but it's really a mishmash sometimes (especially if you installed an LTS kernel previously). I've found it just opens up a can of worms for things to go wrong unless its a rolling release. Even that can be a little hit and miss depending on what distro you choose. Its sort of why I like Fedora based as they're more up to date for my hardware and you can get updates and fixes a bit sooner. The downside, if a bug slips through you can be in a world of hurt. But Fedora also keep the last few upgrades and is easy to roll back if need be. At the end of the day, I just want to be able to use it and not be fixing bugs all the time. And I know LM is a good stable base, just lot new enough for my hardware (laptops only 12 months old).

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but I suspect with Linux variations in general... there are probably quirks and preferences etc. so it's hard to definitely say one is 'the best', but I would guesstimate Mint (Xfce) is probably one of the better choices for users coming from Windows to Linux (assuming their hardware works on it).

There's so many variations between desktops, even with how a distro implements it. Can really be hit and miss. XFCE is a great light distro and I've put it on older hardware myself at times.

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but from what you say, it appears you prefer a interface that's a bit more fancy at the trade-off of being more resource hungry. personally I think DE's like Xfce look good enough and are on the lighter side as it does the important stuff well enough with a simple/clean interface.

Yes I do. What's the point in having RAM and power if you aren't going to use it? Most modern laptops can handle hungry desktop environments without blinking an eye these days. Although you'd be surprised how little KDE uses these days also (less than Gnome). But I'd still put a lower required DE on an older machine. That's the great thing about Linux - there's a distro out there for everyone.

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I forgot to mention... on that backup computer with Mint/Win7, it cannot run any Windows newer than Windows 7 as while Win10 32-bit installs, it's unstable, and Win10 64-bit outright won't install as it complains about lack of nx-bit. but I am not too surprised as the motherboard is basically high-end tech from 2005 (I built it in early 2006)

Sounds like it's getting a little long in the tooth LOL. I've just setup my old A10 ASUS laptop for my daughter to use with the latest 22H2 windows 10 on it. Still running fine. That ones about 10 years old. But hardware does get to a point where it become pretty much obsolete as it can't keep up with data transfers - like using USB2.0 to transfer 100GB of files. You can do it, but is the time worth it? I generally just use older hardware for gaming machines etc so once they're setup, I don't have to touch them.

Edited June 20, 2023 by schmidtp

[ThaCrip]

17 hours ago, schmidtp said:

you can install new kernels, but it's really a mishmash sometimes (especially if you installed an LTS kernel previously)

I suspect if you try to install non-standard kernels in Mint it 'may' act up (which I would avoid as a general rule) but the stuff I mentioned is officially acknowledged by the Mint team (as I have seen mods there on their forums suggest that sort of stuff to people here and there with newer hardware). with 'apt install linux-oem-22.04c' and they even have a one with less support, which is newer than the LTS(5.15) but not as new as the one I mentioned(6.1), in the 'Update Manager > View > Linux Kernels' of 5.19 kernel, which they only support to Aug 2023. but soon they will probably have a newer one than 5.19 offered in the Update Manager for those who want it (it does not install by default as those who are on 5.15 will stay on that kernel series unless they install a newer kernel).

but I also heard the Mint team say that's it's best to stick with the LTS kernel unless you have a real reason to use a newer one, like you need it for support of newer hardware etc.

so I guess a 'safer bet' would be if your system is supported by 5.15 (Nov 2021 released) it's probably best. still, I would be confident newer kernels (the ones Mint supports) will be okay on Mint 21.x series to.

but like you said, 'there's a distro out there for everyone'.

 

17 hours ago, schmidtp said:

What's the point in having RAM and power if you aren't going to use it? Most modern laptops can handle hungry desktop environments without blinking an eye these days.

Fair enough. but one thing about lighter DE's, less stuff to act up, high end hardware or not, it will run well. I am more of the mindset once the interface looks 'good enough', which I feel Xfce and other similar ones are, I prefer to side with speed/reliability over a fancier interface. but I get there is no definitive answer here as it's still mostly preference.

but I guess with certain hardware, it might easily handle the more fancy interfaces. but what I like about Mint's DE's (Cinnamon/MATE/Xfce) is they have a traditional Windows like feel to them, which I think is always a safe bet.

but in terms of RAM... I suspect it's generally not much either way with DE's, at least in regards to Cinnamon/MATE/Xfce (or the like) variations. so it's pretty much a non-issue from the RAM aspect. but short of lighter users (who may be able to get by with 4GB of RAM), 8GB of RAM is pretty much a minimum nowadays. I got 16GB of RAM (I had 8GB from May 2012 until 2020 when I bought some used DDR3 ram (2x 8GB) for my main PC, which it's now at the limit of the motherboard). I would probably say 8GB or 16GB is the sweet-spot for most people (and probably makes up a large portion of computers still in use, with some 4GB of RAM PC's as PC's that don't have at least 4GB of RAM are probably straight up ancient) and more than 32GB of RAM is probably overkill for the vast majority of people.

 

17 hours ago, schmidtp said:

Sounds like it's getting a little long in the tooth LOL. I've just setup my old A10 ASUS laptop for my daughter to use with the latest 22H2 windows 10 on it. Still running fine. That ones about 10 years old. But hardware does get to a point where it become pretty much obsolete as it can't keep up with data transfers - like using USB2.0 to transfer 100GB of files. You can do it, but is the time worth it? I generally just use older hardware for gaming machines etc so once they're setup, I don't have to touch them.

Yep. it's showing it's age ; but it's still usable as I tend to roughly use a measuring stick of when doing fairly basic tasks if it's routinely pegging the CPU to 100% or thereabouts then you know it's truly ancient hardware and it's pretty much time to move on (like pretty much a underpowered laptop I have HP2000 with a AMD E-300, but I mainly use this (which has Mint 21.1-Xfce on it) for playing movies on TV's from .mkv files). but just browsing internet etc, CPU usage is not too high on that ASUS A8N32-SLI board. it's also limited to 4GB of RAM MAX, which is what's in it (4x 1GB DDR 400Mhz) as I would say the RAM would be more of a issue than CPU will be for general usage, 'if' I had to use that on a regular basis like I do my main PC. but I only use it once in a while, so it's still passable.

but with that motherboard I got in early 2006 (the high end 2005 tech) is a ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe (socket 939) and originally had a single core CPU in it but I upgraded it to a dual core back in 2010, which at the time was still my main PC until May 2012 (which is when I got my current main PC). that old 2006 board currently has a AMD Athlon X2 3600+ dual-core 2.0GHz, but I got it overclocked to 2.3GHz. but this setup is a backup desktop, which I generally don't use much but it's nice to hang around for older hardware as while it has SATA II ports, it does have some IDE connections to so I can use my old CD/DVD burners that have IDE connections on them (and a small amount of old IDE hard drives I got if I need to).

AMD was better than Intel at the time (like early 2006), but shortly after I got that, Intel came out with the Core 2 Duo CPU's and, to my knowledge, Intel has been ahead of AMD ever since in terms of performance per core. but prior to that AMD was ahead of Intel for probably around 5 years (like with gaming etc). my primary PC has a i5-3550 (runs at 3.5GHz under full load) as that's 11 year old CPU tech (although I had a i3-2120 CPU (2-core/4-thread) in that from when I got it until the year 2020 when I got a near dirt cheap ($20) used i5-3550 (4-core/4-thread) which was a solid upgrade for barely any money). in fact, my current main PC (ASUS board etc) is the longest I ever owned a primary PC as it just crossed the 11 year mark last month (my previous record high was 6 years and 2 months (March 2006 until May 2012)) and still works well although the on-board sound on it died back in 2020 but I just got one of those cheap USB sound cards with a 3.5mm jack on it to restore the sound and then just disabled the on-board sound in the BIOS/UEFI. I plan on sticking with this setup for the foreseeable future since it does pretty much everything I need.

but I see your point with USB 2.0 given it's limited to about 30MB/s transfers where as a typical USB3 (or SATAII/III (probably even SATA I on some level)) will allow the hard drive to work at maximum speed which, unless one has a small capacity hard drive it can probably do around 80-100MB/s+ (even on smaller capacity HDD's 50-60MB/s or so)). I think the USB3 connection itself can do up to 300MB/s at least, or maybe up-to 500-600MB/s, as I know SATA II is limited to 300MB/s and SATA III can do up-to 500-600MB/s.

but good point about the older hardware for gaming machine as once they are setup you don't have to mess with them, especially if it's pretty much a offline machine.

[schmidtp]

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but I also heard the Mint team say that's it's best to stick with the LTS kernel unless you have a real reason to use a newer one, like you need it for support of newer hardware etc.

Yeah thats the thing. When you start installing newer kernels, there can also be some dependency issues and they're the ones that generally cause the problems. Probably why LM team suggest keeping with the LTS. Although my Fedora's on a pretty recent one - 6.3.8. Seems to update pretty regularly and don't seem to have many issues (other than that NTFS issue).

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Fair enough. but one thing about lighter DE's, less stuff to act up, high end hardware or not, it will run well. I am more of the mindset once the interface looks 'good enough', which I feel Xfce and other similar ones are, I prefer to side with speed/reliability over a fancier interface. but I get there is no definitive answer here as it's still mostly preference.

And in some instances thats fair enough too. If you're limited using older hardware running something like a KDE, Cinnamon or Gnome could slow it down enough to notice. Actually, I turn a lot of the fancy stuff off in KDE and just have a pretty plain desktop. After stuffing around with Windows installs for days, putting Linux back on beside it took me a total of 30 minutes (with updates) and I'd changed the layout to how I like it while it was updating! And when I got back into windows, there's always stuff I miss from LInux, so it's a good sign converting over.

7 hours ago, ThaCrip said:

but I guess with certain hardware, it might easily handle the more fancy interfaces. but what I like about Mint's DE's (Cinnamon/MATE/Xfce) is they have a traditional Windows like feel to them, which I think is always a safe bet.

but in terms of RAM... I suspect it's generally not much either way with DE's, at least in regards to Cinnamon/MATE/Xfce (or the like) variations. so it's pretty much a non-issue from the RAM aspect. but short of lighter users (who may be able to get by with 4GB of RAM), 8GB of RAM is pretty much a minimum nowadays. I got 16GB of RAM (I had 8GB from May 2012 until 2020 when I bought some used DDR3 ram (2x 8GB) for my main PC, which it's now at the limit of the motherboard). I would probably say 8GB or 16GB is the sweet-spot for most people (and probably makes up a large portion of computers still in use, with some 4GB of RAM PC's as PC's that don't have at least 4GB of RAM are probably straight up ancient) and more than 32GB of RAM is probably overkill for the vast majority of people

KDEs pretty much like Windows on steroids LOL. Sort of why I like it as every settings available to play around with. Gnome to me is more Mac like - which I've never been a fan of. And everythings a plugin for Gnome. DEs like XFCE and LXQT are very much built more for lighter resourced system and great on those older laptops with only 2-4GB or ram. I prefer 16GB myself as I find 8GB just a smidgen light. I tend to have a lot of browser windows open and that can chew memory fast. Although I've got KDE on the 8GB laptop too and runs great on an 11th Gen i5 4 core/8 thread. The newer laptop also has an 11th Gen, but i7 8core/16 thread. Rips through video movie encode in a matter of minutes 😁

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but I see your point with USB 2.0 given it's limited to about 30MB/s transfers where as a typical USB3 (or SATAII/III (probably even SATA I on some level)) will allow the hard drive to work at maximum speed which, unless one has a small capacity hard drive it can probably do around 80-100MB/s+ (even on smaller capacity HDD's 50-60MB/s or so)). I think the USB3 connection itself can do up to 300MB/s at least, or maybe up-to 500-600MB/s, as I know SATA II is limited to 300MB/s and SATA III can do up-to 500-600MB/s

Port speeds are definitely one thing that edges them closer to the tip. Older computers with IDE connectors just aren't worth doing anything with anymore. The 10yo laptop I was taking about came with a HDD and once swapped out with an SSD sata drive extended it's life significantly. I would probably have still be using it if microsoft hadn't of bricked the motherboard with a firmware update LOL. I still buy a few older Dell/Lenovo SFF and USFF desktops for various projects. The make great retro MAME machines. I was sent a larger computer by mistake off ebay with more RAM, SSD and a Gen 2 i7. I was going to send it back, but then thought "No bugger ya's, you made the mistake I'm keeping it". I fired it up when the laptop died and the i7 could still hang with the AMD A10 I had in the laptop (mainly because of the core speeds at around 4GHz ea). I could just set it up encoding videos all day and night and it just went on it's merry way.