Installing Linux for X-Plane

[jarmstro 2,403]

I have created an install DVD from an iso and am about to press the button to be able to dual boot Ubuntu with Windows. The purpose is to get greatly increased performance running X-Plane. The first thing I have noticed is that I am unable to choose an external USB drive on which to install it? I have to install it on my Windows SSD drive which isn't ideal. I hope this isn't going to end in tears!

Right, it's installed. How do I run X-Plane?

Edited February 19, 2021 by jarmstro

[mSparks 2,086]

1 hour ago, jarmstro said:

How do I run X-Plane?

run the installer

https://www.x-plane.com/update/installers11/X-Plane11InstallerLinux.zip

[Humpty 751]

Why have you made a DVD ? 

Download Rufus , and then burn that on a USB stick.

Once that is done , just boot from the USB and install it on the other SSD that you mentioned , it's as simple as that.

Well , download the XP Linux installer first , remember what i had mentioned in that thread ? If you have a high speed connection the base install should be fast for you , though the CDN would also fluctuate (CDN of XP install).

Which distro btw ?

First install your GPU drivers .

You can install LInux on the same SSD as your windows install and if later you want to remove then just restore the bootrecord of windows and you should be fine.

Most of the distros now have an option to install it alongside windows

Edited February 19, 2021 by HumptyDumpty

[jarmstro 2,403]

43 minutes ago, HumptyDumpty said:

Why have you made a DVD ? 

Download Rufus , and then burn that on a USB stick.

Once that is done , just boot from the USB and install it on the other SSD that you mentioned , it's as simple as that.

Well , download the XP Linux installer first , remember what i had mentioned in that thread ? If you have a high speed connection the base install should be fast for you , though the CDN would also fluctuate (CDN of XP install).

Which distro btw ?

First install your GPU drivers .

You can install LInux on the same SSD as your windows install and if later you want to remove then just restore the bootrecord of windows and you should be fine.

Most of the distros now have an option to install it alongside windows

I made a DVD from the iso image file? There was no option to install it to my external usb drive.  Well it's installed and running. I went with Ubuntu as recommended. It boots up fine. And Its installed its own boot loader so I can still run Windows. I need to know how to run X-Plane please?  It won't load it from my existing X-Plane exe although I have no idea how to execute and load a program?  The sound is popping and clicking which isn't good. PS it appears to be running the latest Linux Nvidia drivers.

Edited February 19, 2021 by jarmstro

[jarmstro 2,403]

51 minutes ago, mSparks said:

run the installer

https://www.x-plane.com/update/installers11/X-Plane11InstallerLinux.zip

How do you download and run it? Sorry, but I've used nothing but MS operating systems. Will it know I've already got a licence? I note I've got Firefox installed.

Edited February 19, 2021 by jarmstro

[Humpty 751]

11 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

I made a DVD from the iso image file? There was no option to install it to my external usb drive.  Well it's installed and running. I went with Ubuntu as recommended. It boots up fine. And Its installed its own boot loader so I can still run Windows. I need to know how to run X-Plane please?  It won't load it from my existing X-Plane exe although I have no idea how to execute and load a program?  The sound is popping and clicking which isn't good. PS it appears to be running the latest Linux Nvidia drivers.

Have you downloaded XP Linux version ?  Where is the sound popping ?

If yes then just go that folder / drive (if the drive / partition ) if it ain't mounted , which you can mount from the file manager "Other Locations" , once in XP folder just run the 86_64 binary.

The latest Nvidia drivers are probably open source but I can't confirm as I have an AMD card , ofc do have a Nvidia on the laptop but I haven't bothered installing one from Geforce.

 

[Humpty 751]

1 minute ago, jarmstro said:

How do you download and run it? Sorry, but I've used nothing but MS operating systems. Will it know I've already got a licence? I note I've got Firefox installed.

just click on it and it from firefox and it should be downloaded in the Downloads folder and then to make it simple for open file manager , goto downloads and then right click that zip file and say extract here. 

I can't confirm if that will run straight from the GUI as it's been awhile since i have used XP in linux , so press "WINDOWS KEY" and a different window should open up and at the top you should see "Search"  type "terminal" and press enter , that should take you to the shell , here just cd to DOwnloads and then run "./X-Plane-xxxxxx" 

[jarmstro 2,403]

10 minutes ago, HumptyDumpty said:

Have you downloaded XP Linux version ?  Where is the sound popping ?

If yes then just go that folder / drive (if the drive / partition ) if it ain't mounted , which you can mount from the file manager "Other Locations" , once in XP folder just run the 86_64 binary.

The latest Nvidia drivers are probably open source but I can't confirm as I have an AMD card , ofc do have a Nvidia on the laptop but I haven't bothered installing one from Geforce.

10 minutes ago, HumptyDumpty said:

Have you downloaded XP Linux version ?  Where is the sound popping ?

If yes then just go that folder / drive (if the drive / partition ) if it ain't mounted , which you can mount from the file manager "Other Locations" , once in XP folder just run the 86_64 binary.

The latest Nvidia drivers are probably open source but I can't confirm as I have an AMD card , ofc do have a Nvidia on the laptop but I haven't bothered installing one from 

 

6 minutes ago, HumptyDumpty said:

just click on it and it from firefox and it should be downloaded in the Downloads folder and then to make it simple for open file manager , goto downloads and then right click that zip file and say extract here. 

I can't confirm if that will run straight from the GUI as it's been awhile since i have used XP in linux , so press "WINDOWS KEY" and a different window should open up and at the top you should see "Search"  type "terminal" and press enter , that should take you to the shell , here just cd to DOwnloads and then run "./X-Plane-xxxxxx" 

What I would like to be able to do, before I proceed, is to make my spare drive exclusive to Linux? So Windows and Linux are completely separate and use different storage space? I don't want either to be able to see each other's files? Is that possible?

Edited February 19, 2021 by jarmstro

[Humpty 751]

Windows will not be able to read your Linux drive , it doesn't support ext4 filesystem natively.  but in Linux one can still read the windows drives but that's only if you mount them.  

[jarmstro 2,403]

6 minutes ago, HumptyDumpty said:

Windows will not be able to read your Linux drive , it doesn't support ext4 filesystem natively.  but in Linux one can still read the windows drives but that's only if you mount them.  

OK thanks. I will continue to get things up and running tomorrow. Linux does seem to be able to read my X-Plane files. So once I get X-Plane installed in Linux can I just cut and paste my addons to it? ( I realise some do not work such as Traffic Global.)

[Humpty 751]

40 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

OK thanks. I will continue to get things up and running tomorrow. Linux does seem to be able to read my X-Plane files. So once I get X-Plane installed in Linux can I just cut and paste my addons to it? ( I realise some do not work such as Traffic Global.)

Yes you can, but all addons might not work, they usually want a linux plugin and i don't think all devs make one for linux. But scenery wise you shouldn't have much of a problem.

 

Edited February 19, 2021 by HumptyDumpty

[jarmstro 2,403]

2 minutes ago, HumptyDumpty said:

Yes you can, but all addons might now work, they usually want a linux plugin and i don't think all devs make one for linux. But scenery wise you shouldn't have much of a problem.

 

Fine with me. 

[mSparks 2,086]

1 hour ago, jarmstro said:

What I would like to be able to do, before I proceed, is to make my spare drive exclusive to Linux?

This is how I ended up without windows on my main machine back when windows 8 was released.....

I'd had dual boot before, but its a pain rebooting, so I had a nice win7 setup with a linux VM, but was finding myself in the VM more than windows (already had the PS3 for gaming).

After "upgrading" it to win 8 and using it for a week or so it was obvious it was a major regression, but rather than go through the whole reinstallation process, I went out and got a mid size SSD, put my win drive on a shelf and installed a clean Fedora on the new SSD, safe in the knowledge if it didn't work out and there were things I really wanted to go back to windows for all I had to do was swap the drives back and go through the win 7 downgrade.

never did, got word 2007 installed, and never looked back. These days I prefer libre office to microsoft office anyway, although it is still a little buggy, I do have a fully fledged office 2016 on the mac mini, which replaced the win 10 laptop tail end of last year (not an M1, but was still great value and a really nice backup machine).

Roll on 5 or so years, enough cash to burn getting my PPLH, did FSX on a win 10 laptop for some 300 hours, then found xplane,

now I have a win 7 VM, which is used pretty much exclusively for making win builds of things, that:

 

Edited February 19, 2021 by mSparks

[Humpty 751]

take your time. just curious , do you find the current Linux install much snappier ? 

Also best is to download the Nvidia drivers from Geforce and install it. It's not that tough 

[jarmstro 2,403]

10 hours ago, HumptyDumpty said:

take your time.

I've decided I'm going to play about and learn about it before I go any further. I just do not understand yet how to separate it from Windows? It seems to think it's got 1TB of free space but where is that space? All Windows shows is two small partitions, One of 11GB containing Linux and the other with the boot loader.

I can't risk it mucking with my Windows install. I have the following disks.

1 x 250 GB SSD with the main Windows files and now Linux. - 120 GB free space

1x 1TB SSD with MSFS - 600 GB free space

1x 1TB SSD with various stuff and games - 800 GB free space

1 x 3TB HDD with X-Plane - 500 GB free space

1 x 1TB external USB drive - unused.

The later is the drive I want to make exclusive to Linux and where I will install XP and to make all the others invisible to it?