Why must I shift to Linux? What's the user-friendliest distrib?

[ukb008]

Hi.

At the risk of sounding like a bluenose, I'm asking this question (why must I shift to Linux?) because it appears to be the most geekish thing to do at the current time.

And, while we are at it, I'd ike to find out what could be the majority opinion regarding which Linux distribution is currently the most user-friendly.

Regards.

[KpeX]

There are a variety of reasons for switching to a linux based OS. Despite what many zealots would have you think there are merits to both windows and linux based operating systems and although linux is extremely flexible it may not be right for your needs.

Many people switch to linux because they like the higher degree of control of your operating system. You can control every kernel option, every boot servce, every program, and choose from a vast variety of desktop environments, and every other configuration you can imagine. However with the ability to tinker comes a higher required level of technical prowess (dependent on the distribution, of course). Thanks to this flexibility linux can be everything from a server operating system to a desktop / multimedia / office OS.

I personally enjoy linux because of the degree of control mentioned above and that it is a faster operating system on my hardware. The cost is a nice plus too. Additionally I have the ability to run almost any software written for linux or windows thanks to open source alternatives like wine.

The traditionally most user friendly distributions are Fedora Core (the successor to red hat) and mandrake linux. A 'new kid on the block' in user-friendly distributions is Ubuntu linux, which has gained massive popularity recently. The best place to start picking a distribution is usually www.distrowatch.com . Good luck and hth,

[stax76]

before making the shift you could first test a couple of systems e.g. Ubuntu, Novell, Fedora, Mandrake (The list is endless ;)) or maybe a Mac is what you are looking for. Iirc Linux runs on Mac hardware as well. Detailed reviews are all over the net!

[shevegen]

Yikes, this goes lengthy!

i wanted to give linux a serious try when almost all developers in a project used different linux/bsd flavours.
plus i was unhappy of being dependant on one OS.

That is, I think, a huge benefit. I mean, that you have choices.
Sure, the choices may suck (heheheh), but still - in some situations, choice A is better than B C and D.
(Note, I never had a mac, and frankly, i dont want to pay extra money. IMO, apply things are rather expensive)

I still have a laptop with windows xp on it, and i happily can natively tap the xp world with it (yesterday vobcopy had an error at 4300 copied MBs, i used dvd decrypter on the xp laptop, it worked, i moved the files on an external harddisc, and am now modifying them on my linux box using transcode and mplayer)

ULTIMATELY, let me answer your questions from my point of view.


"Why must I shift to Linux?"
* Efficiency. I dont know why this is rarely mentioned. Using my console, i just type in few chars, and a program is popping up. THAT is great, no more cluttering the desktop with countless shortcuts, or searching with my mouse - few chars typed in, enter, loading. (One day I want to enhance it to a voice based opening - yes, i am extremely lazy, maybe this already exists, I have no idea - problem with Linux is that there is so much to learn, and my time available is only so high).
Efficiency extends down to other programs - in general I dare to say that two results of something will go faster on a linux box.
And definitely it beats ANY other OS on the older PCs!
(I must also say, I have heard some high things about NetBSD and FreeBSD. I am personally very happy with Linux and too lazy to change. This would only change if there would be a huge difference in favor of the *BSDs)

Sure it depends on settings and other stuff, but an optimized linux box will always be faster than an optimized windows box (if you have comparable applications on them - like console vs console, or GUI based vs GUI based.)

* Being able to tap multiple words. I dont know why, but there is no implicit need to ditch the windows world. Just use what you find to your liking. In my case, i very rarely use something for windows. (One other example is, when an USB stick was badly formatted. Windows didnt complain at all, Linux did. I stored the data on the windows box, reformatted the usb stick, noone complains anymore. )

* SCRIPTING LANGUAGES
Be it python perl ruby or simple shell scripts.
They kick ass, seriously.



"What's the user-friendliest distrib?"
Kanotix , debian based
ftp://debian.tu-bs.de/kanotix/KANOTIX-2005-01/KANOTIX-2005-01.iso
But I am biased ;)

[Joe Fenton]

Originally posted by stax
before making the shift you could first test a couple of systems e.g. Ubuntu, Novell, Fedora, Mandrake (The list is endless ;)) or maybe a Mac is what you are looking for. Iirc Linux runs on Mac hardware as well. Detailed reviews are all over the net!

I use Ubuntu on my iMac... it's set to dual-boot that and OSX 10.3.

I use Linux (Fedora Core 3) on my AMD64 for a couple reasons: it's a nice 64bit OS, and I use IP Masquerading on it so my other computers (especially the Windows boxes) are protected when accessing the net.

Recent studies show that a Windows box is compromised after an average of 20 minutes when just connected to the net (without a firewall). Windows machines average 200 port attacks per hour. I've occasionally sat on the status window for my linux firewall and watched all the attacks. You can't be too careful these days, so I find it much easier to make a local network with all my other computers (and my PS2) and have them go through the linux box to get to the net.

[ukb008]

Yes, vulnerability is a big issue.

I am a little confused by two assumptions about Linux, both of which are probably true:

1. Linux is relatively immune to prying/virus attack. Why will that be so? Is it because the virus developers are not interested enough about Linux because of its current tiny installed base? Or is that because it is impossible to develop virii against Linux for some reason? (this last one somehow doesn't ring true).

2. Linux is more keyboard-based, as opposed to Windows which is more mouse-based. Sounds a bit corny; what, I suppose, is meant is that one can move about in windows with a mouse more than in Linux. Is that really true?

Regards.

[stax76]

I use Ubuntu on my iMac... it's set to dual-boot that and OSX 10.3.

I use Linux (Fedora Core 3) on my AMD64 for a couple reasons: it's a nice 64bit OS, and I use IP Masquerading on it so my other computers (especially the Windows boxes) are protected when accessing the net.

Recent studies show that a Windows box is compromised after an average of 20 minutes when just connected to the net (without a firewall). Windows machines average 200 port attacks per hour. I've occasionally sat on the status window for my linux firewall and watched all the attacks. You can't be too careful these days, so I find it much easier to make a local network with all my other computers (and my PS2) and have them go through the linux box to get to the net.


the last OS I've installed is Win XP, iirc that was October 2003, needles to say by now it's crippled but it runs :D. Never noticed a virus in my live, almost never used a AntiVirus program or a firewall, didn't even had Win XP service packs until two weeks ago because before the first time I've installed SP2 when it came out got arbitrary freezes because of it, sometimes after two hours, sometimes after two days so it had to go. The problem is still there but It's much better now, (nothing compared to W9x :o ). What's worst is I have little knowledge about networks including security. At least I used Firefox and Thunderbird and obviously I had a lot luck.

I think Linux is great if you know how to use it, unfortunatelly I don't but I plan to buy me a Asus Pundit-R system as it has very good reviews and checkout Ubuntu, NDL or Mandrake. I don't try to be a geek though, being a programmer, I just like open source and to be educated...


2. Linux is more keyboard-based, as opposed to Windows which is more mouse-based. Sounds a bit corny; what, I suppose, is meant is that one can move about in windows with a mouse more than in Linux. Is that really true?


traditionally linux folks like to work with the console. I think there are GUI's for pretty much everything depending on the distro but you've certainly have more fun with Linux if you like the console and config files.

[KpeX]

Originally posted by ukb008
Yes, vulnerability is a big issue.

I am a little confused by two assumptions about Linux, both of which are probably true:

1. Linux is relatively immune to prying/virus attack. Why will that be so? Is it because the virus developers are not interested enough about Linux because of its current tiny installed base? Or is that because it is impossible to develop virii against Linux for some reason? (this last one somehow doesn't ring true). Linux at this time is vulnerable to virtually zero viruses and spyware. There is debate among the open source community as to whether this is more due to linux's excellent security or the fact that few virus writers are attacking linux. In reality it is probably a combination of both. Linux is very security oriented and can be extremely secure (depending on your distro and configuration). However even if there were virus writers attacking linux, linux is run (by all intelligent users) from a non-administrator level, meaning linux virii would be limited to wiping out your personal documents and config files and would be unable to modify or gain admin access to your system.

Originally posted by ukb008
2. Linux is more keyboard-based, as opposed to Windows which is more mouse-based. Sounds a bit corny; what, I suppose, is meant is that one can move about in windows with a mouse more than in Linux. Is that really true? Linux can be either, depending on your distribution and your preferences (some distros include more GUI configuration tools than others). Once your linux distribution is up and running X your desktop environment can be just as versatile as windows. linux tends to encourages the use of commandline utilities due to the fact that it ships with more user-friendly shells and scripting languages (such as bash, perl, or python) and the prevalence of text config files as opposed to binary GUI configuration tools.

[Razorblade2000]

I'd go for Ubuntu or Kubuntu (depending on how much you like KDE / Gnome)

good distribution :D

[Joe Fenton]

Originally posted by KpeX
Linux at this time is vulnerable to virtually zero viruses and spyware. There is debate among the open source community as to whether this is more due to linux's excellent security or the fact that few virus writers are attacking linux. In reality it is probably a combination of both. Linux is very security oriented and can be extremely secure (depending on your distro and configuration). However even if there were virus writers attacking linux, linux is run (by all intelligent users) from a non-administrator level, meaning linux virii would be limited to wiping out your personal documents and config files and would be unable to modify or gain admin access to your system.

Linux can be either, depending on your distribution and your preferences (some distros include more GUI configuration tools than others). Once your linux distribution is up and running X your desktop environment can be just as versatile as windows. linux tends to encourages the use of commandline utilities due to the fact that it ships with more user-friendly shells and scripting languages (such as bash, perl, or python) and the prevalence of text config files as opposed to binary GUI configuration tools.

As to the first, I always run at user level. In fact, the user isn't set for sudo privileges. This means I have to switch to superuser mode to do anything affecting the system, but I know the admin password since it's my system, plus it's safer to not give the user sudo privileges as someone who manages to take remote control of the box finds no ability to sudo anything. This is the default for Fedora Core. Ubuntu defaults to doing everything in the system via sudo, which is easier, but a mistake in my opinion. If you use Ubuntu, create a separate admin account and kill sudo.

As to the second, nearly all modern distros have GUIs for everything for people who prefer GUIs, but you can ALWAYS just pop into a shell and do it by hand if you prefer. It's all the user's choice... which is pretty much the linux philosophy.

[albertgasset]

Originally posted by Joe Fenton
Ubuntu defaults to doing everything in the system via sudo, which is easier, but a mistake in my opinion. If you use Ubuntu, create a separate admin account and kill sudo.

In Ubuntu "Hoary Hedgehog" only users in the "admin" group can use sudo. So you can create a user to access your system remotely, and forbid users in the "admin" group to access remotely.

[Joe Fenton]

That's better. Can't be too careful these days. I have the various Ubuntu official Hoary release CDs downloading in bittorrent right now. I'm getting them all in case I want to switch on one of my other computers.

[mikeX]

The definition of user-friendly is also crucial. If you are refering to user-friendly in the Windows way, where everything is (more or less succesfuly) hidden from the user, then you are missing one of the big pros in GNU/Linux systems. Of course it's kinda easier to handle a Linux system this way in case you are just switching from an OS like Windows.
If however you take user-friendly as 'doing what the user wants', then you should try distros such as Debian or Slackware.

One other thing often overlooked is the philosophy of free software (the GNU (http://www.gnu.org) meaning), which can motivate some towards switching to a non-proprietary system such as Linux.

[shevegen]

Maybe we should try to compare the benefits of Windows (i neglect the disadvantages):



a)- Simple installation of applications via a GUI thing (you click click click on symbols and things get installed almost automagically, and in many cases that works!)
b)- A good GUI that eases your work a lot, for example automounting devices ( new users wont be bothered to type in mount ... in a console!)
or being able to drag and drop things.

I feel that a is rather easy to solve, and b is... well I think some distributions can behave to about 99% like Windows does. Sadly my experience is limited for when I started to read the woody debian book back then (i had a SuSE book too, but the content was not good), i mostly stopped to "do something and dont understand it" (well, i still dont understand many things, but i _want_ to)



It should be possible to make a Winux but I am not sure which Distribution would that be - KDE and Gnome for example are much different to the Windows GUI.
Okies, this was my last note, I am repeating myself and want to leave room for others to write more. Just give it a serious try, and calculate some time for this or that possible drawback (which may be solved at a later time) - and you wont regret it.

:)

[Razorblade2000]

For me, there's only 1 disadvantage with Linux: No RMVB Encoding :(

[ukb008]

Okay, here goes. Some say it is madness to want to have linux and windows together in the same machine. Perhaps one ought to have separate physical drives with their distinct data cables for that? Or can we use different partitions on the same physical drives?

I'm afraid now I'm talking about logistic issues which must have been answered many times before. Perhaps I can make do with some good links to read more...

Regards.

[KpeX]

Originally posted by shevegen
b)- A good GUI that eases your work a lot, for example automounting devices ( new users wont be bothered to type in mount ... in a console!)
or being able to drag and drop things. This is a bit OT but the automounting issue will be a thing of the past. Right now on my gentoo install I have dbus, hal, and ivman running at boot configured to auto mount all devices. This behavior is then pretty much just as easy as windows; I insert a CD, ivman automatically mounts it, and in KDE (3.4) an icon pops up on my desktop. When I press the eject button ivman unmounts & ejects the CD, couldn't be easier. Works for USB sticks & almost everything else too.

Originally posted by ukb008
Okay, here goes. Some say it is madness to want to have linux and windows together in the same machine. Perhaps one ought to have separate physical drives with their distinct data cables for that? Or can we use different partitions on the same physical drives?

I'm afraid now I'm talking about logistic issues which must have been answered many times before. Perhaps I can make do with some good links to read more... You can use separate partitions or separate physical drives for windows and linux, this is a very common procedure (to dual boot windows and linux). I thought this was clear from the FAQ, perhaps I should clarify it. Most linux installers will help you through automating this process, or you can use a disk partition tool such as PartitionMagic or qtparted.

For example I have a single 80GB hard drive on my main computer right now. I use a 10GB NTFS partition for windows, a 20GB ext3 partition for linux, and the remainder is a data FAT32 partition I can access from either OS. (FAT32 is the only windows-compatible filesystem that has good write support under linux).

[ukb008]

One can readily see your fervor for linux, and you are infectious.

Regards.

[Joe Fenton]

Setting up multiple OSes on your computer is no big deal these days. My laptop has Windows XP Pro, Fedora Core 3, AROS, and SkyOS - all on one 30G drive. :D

I've found that installing programs is easier in FC3 than in Windows. Most can be installed from a repository with a single command, or a single click (using something like synaptic). It'll download and install the software with no user intervention. Windows requires you to download it, run it, answer a bunch of license questions, chose where it installs, whether to create a start menu entry, whether to make a shortcut on the desktop, etc..

For example, let's say I want to install a third party media player. In Windows, I would hunt around the net to find BSPlayer and a bunch of codecs, then I would install each one, hoping that nothing conflicts. Codec conflicts are common in Windows. In FC3, I would type "yum install mplayer". Yum then finds mplayer, checks if any dependencies are needed, downloads them all, and installs them all. One "y" and no other intervention on my half needed.

I'm not saying Windows is hard to install on, just that a modern linux distro is now easier for more complex packages.

[ukb008]

Joe, you are plain awsome. With my awfully inadequate knowledge on this, I am one guy gathering courage to grapple with one distro in one partition in one hard drive in one machine. I am tempted to ask you: what does your awe-inspiring feat provide in terms of usefulness? Remember, I am asking only because, as I have already pointed out, my knowledge is awfully inadequate.

You have my regards, man.

[Joe Fenton]

Originally posted by ukb008
Joe, you are plain awsome. With my awfully inadequate knowledge on this, I am one guy gathering courage to grapple with one distro in one partition in one hard drive in one machine. I am tempted to ask you: what does your awe-inspiring feat provide in terms of usefulness? Remember, I am asking only because, as I have already pointed out, my knowledge is awfully inadequate.

You have my regards, man.

:D Sarcasm... gotta love it.

Well, I have Windows XP Pro installed because there are still a few things that I occasionally use which are Windows only. A few games, a few video apps, yada yada yada... As much as I deplore Microsoft's business practices, Windows is a decent enough OS as long as you isolate it from the net pretty thoroughly.

I installed Fedora Core 3 because that's the latest stable Fedora out and my distro of choice for main use. Most of the games I play work on it (linux native or in WINE), and I have most of the other programs I need (FireFox, Thunderbird, Pan, Azureus, xine, etc.). Mainly, AROS is developed in linux. It has a linux hosted version, and a native version.

I installed AROS because I'm an old Amiga programmer. My first commercial work was on the Amiga, and it's still my favorite OS to use and program in, even today. I'm one of those folks working to make AROS better.

I installed SkyOS because I'm interested in SkyOS as well. This is another small OS that most folks would call a "hobby" OS. It's come quite a ways. I want to do some programs for it as well. I don't think anyone would use AROS or SkyOS on a full-time basis, but they're fun for programmers to play with in their spare time.

Having it all on the laptop means all my fun is in one single machine. Depending on what I want to do, I boot into one of the four OSes. Playing games, surfing the net, watching videos, listening to music, programming on hobby OSes... one little box gives me my fix for the moment. :cool:

[ukb008]

You say, I quote:

Windows is a decent enough OS as long as you isolate it from the net pretty thoroughly.

I suppose you mean that the net is safer on Linux; is that it?

For one thing, Linux has a small virus-exploitable interface. For another, use of a non-Microsoft browser (e.g., Firefox) actually multiplies this advantage.

It sounds logical, really. Work in windows, but surf on Linux.

And, Joe, my previous post was more in amazement and less in sarcasm. Only a fool would be sarcastic towards excellence in something, especially when he (the fool) himself knows pretty well that the feat is (at least currently) beyound him

Regards.

[Joe Fenton]

You can make Windows safe for direct connection to the net, but it's harder to do. Linux comes with a built-in firewall that is (in all distros I have seen so far) turned on by default. It also defaults to the strictest settings for blocking. Add in the fact that most virus writers, et. al., target Windows and you see why linux tends to be more secure. I installed FireStarter to give myself even more control over the firewall and local network. If you use linux, I highly recommend getting FireStarter as well.

http://www.fs-security.com/

Sorry about misinterpretting the amazement... most of the folks I deal with are pretty jaded and cynical, and sarcasm is the preferred choice of humor in that group. :D I didn't take any offense at what you said in any case. I just thought you were wondering why I put so much onto my laptop.

Anywho, running Windows through IP masquerading on a linux box with a nice firewall as well as using FireFox makes surfing from Windows reasonably safe. My setup looks like this:

cable modem
|
|
linux box with firewall and IP masquerading
|
|
ethernet hub
| | | |
| | | iMac DV+
| | Playstation 2
| laptop
dual-celeron tower

This is a similar setup used by many businesses and schools. One computer is setup with linux or unix to access the internet. It has really tight security. It then serves a local network which has a more relaxed security (depending on how large it is and who has access to it). Machines on the local net have to go through the higher security machine to get access to the net. Anyone trying to attack the system has to get through the higher security linux/unix box.

[Teegedeck]

A happy convert myself (1 year), I'd like to put in a word for SUSE (http://distrowatch.com/suse) as a 'big', user-friendly distro. Full installation DVD ISO as well as a net-installer ISO can be downloaded from ftp.suse.com. Installation is a blaze, stick with the defaults and be done in an hour. It automatically resizes your Windows-partition if there isn't enough space for Linux and incorporates Windows into a boot menu.

The only thing SUSE lacks is apt-get for easier software installation; SUSE's YAST frontend still makes it necessary to locate many installation packets (RPMs) manually. There is a good guide on getting apt-get to run on SUSE with apt4rpm, but it is written in German... Works great.

A good site for informing yourself thoroughly about the different distributions is www.distrowatch.com.

As a constant rival to the title of 'most user-friendly' distro, there has always been Mandriva (http://distrowatch.com/mandrake), formerly known as 'Mandrake'.

If you'd like to maintain an XP'ish look, ArkLinux (http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=ark) looks promising.

Linux is just a great thing to use. For example Novell's SUSE 9.3, due this month, will feature preconfigured virtualization (several instances of *nix OSes running at the same time as mere unprivileged clients ) through a Xen-kernel for better efficiency and security. Windows Virtual Server does that, too, but costs around 600 bucks.

Next year, Novell claims, its Linux distribution will get better and easier to use than Windows. What they got planned indeed sounds more like they want to compete with Apple, now - Novell Desktop 10 (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/infoworld/20050322/tc_infoworld/57912).

Personally I would not buy nor recommend a Windows system ever again, simply because the activation procedures more and more violate privacy, are complicated and - simply an impudence. Add to that the task of configuring and patching Windows to get it anywhere near safe, and you get my meaning. :)

[ukb008]

Tell me, if you remember, about the week when you had first installed Linux: what you experienced, what happened, etc, starting from two days before and five days after Day 0. I am asking, because I have been on windows all my life - right from Win 95. I feel the need to shift. And I am nervous.

Regards.

[Teegedeck]

Oh, you don't want to know... ;) I had a very messed-up system, with Win98 and Win2K + a third-party bootmanager. SUSE wouldn't boot till I configured my BIOS to 'look for other boot devices'. I still have no idea what really is wrong with this thang, but it works now. I never heard of anything similar from anyone else. I guess my own setup is just rare, don't let it frighten you... :)

But down to experiences that might actually be interesting for you. The following will give you some good laughs at my expense. Of course I cannot recall what happened day by day, so here are the things I remember most:

My biggest partitions were formatted using the NTFS filesystem and SUSE couldn't resize them, I had to empty them and delete them. As you use Windows 98 with its FAT32 filesytem you won't have that problem.

Then came the question about how to partition my HD. But the first decision I made was actually right. SUSE creates by default just the swap partition and one giant root partition. It is smarter to have a separate system (= "root" or "/" partition) and a "home" partition for your user data. That much I did right. SUSE's default choice of filesystem should be kept.

As you can see, I aimed to 'optimize' stuff, like seems typicial of no-nothing newbies. Well, that about describes the problem - I tried to be smart knowing next to nothing about Linux. Had I just not touched anything during setup it would have been fine! But then I made the fatal mistake; not knowing anything about 'runlevels' I thought, 'ummm, runlevel 3 seems about enough for me, judging from the description...' ... :lol: Runlevel 3 does, of course, have no graphical user interface! Bwahaha! How long do you think it took me to find that out? After my initial booting-problem I had thought the cause lay much, much deeper.

After these fatal newbie's mistakes, everything went quite nicely. Updating my system online via YAST was the first thing I did.

The printer was recognized correctly wihout problem. A scanner so old that there weren't any Win2K drivers for it available was suddenly usable, again. :)

The online update also offered me to install Windows truetype fonts and an nvidia driver. (A little hint: if you ever have to upgrade the xorg server on SUSE, you'll lose the nvidia driver and the 'fetchnvidia' script from SUSE won't install it, again. The driver still is there, though unused, the scrip finds the driver and comes to the conclusion that you already installed the driver and exits. You have to comment out the lines in the script that look for the installed driver. No problem registering the driver after that.)

The Windows machine in the other room connected without a problem. I used my new Linux machine as a firewall and router for the Windows box until I bought an actual hardware firewall. Meanwhile I mainly use Linux as a print server for Windows over a direct connection (crossover cable). No problem at all; Samba configuration in YAST prompts you to install Samba if you haven't already done so. I only assigned a different subnet to the direct connection (crossover cable) manually because otherwise internal traffic went over the modem/router instead!

This gets me down to a point of critique: YAST's network configuration offers lots of different services and could use a little context help that could pop up and tell you which services you need to do what. You have to look it up in the manual, which again takes time. Maybe SUSE 9.3 got better in this respect.

The general GUI of SUSE, KDE, I didn't like so much. Bloated with options and a bit on the slow side. Later I installed GNOME additionally but meanwhile went back to KDE 3.4 and liked it much better than upon my last encounter with it, strangely.

I had to download Firefox from a SUSE server manually, which quite bothered me. But Firefox is now default for the new SUSE 9.3. I had to install DVD-libraries and codecs, as well as Xine and Kaffeine (media player choice of SUSE) from a third-party site (http://packman.links2linux.org/) because SUSE shies away from integrating DVD and DivX playback. :(

OpenOffice had worked as my text processor of choice before, on Windows, so I was plainly happy with it. Cannot bare Word, anymore. Importing DOCs works fine here, I revised a thesis for someone and the result looked in Word just like it had been revised with Word itself. Nice. The headers of letters written in Word often had one line-break too many. Not so good. Bothered me a bit till I noticed that Word 97 does even stranger things to letters written in Word 2003.

amarok quickly became my favourite MP3 player of all times. Alas, you'll have to install it manually if you get SUSE 9.3 because it seems to have been replaced by RealPlayer 10! This gets me to the nice sidenote that watching video streams was no problem at all.

AviDemux I found no satisfying replacement for my Windows ripping chain; I never managed to get AviSynth and some other vital applications running under the Windows-'emulator' (I know that strictly speaking it isn't an emulator) WINE, and so I kept doing that on the Windows box.

The thing about SUSE that bothers me most is, again, some newbie problem, I suppose: when I changed the default media player from Kaffeine to mplayer and changed it back a while later, all I got were errors like 'kdeinit cannot start xyz.avi'. I simply declared mplayer my default media player again, after a while. It's more like averting the problem than like an actual solution.

As I care a lot about silence, I find the preconfigured energy profiles in SUSE handy. You can switch from a maximum performance to a silent profile quickly.

When my self-induced nightmare of booting-troubles was over, I was quickly taken by Linux after the first week.

As a machine for serious work, SUSE gets an 'A' from me, as a multimedia center only a 'C' - because of all the stuff that isn't included in the basic configuration. Still, its so nice to use that instead of being eager to switch the distro, I'm meditating SUSE 9.3 now, with the probably very flashy Novell Desktop 10 running as a client on it in 2006. ;)

If you have the time, why don't you try and install a couple of different distros and see which one you stick with in the end?

[Joe Fenton]

My suggestion to people who are new to linux and wish to try it is to get a separate drive to experiment on. That way you can leave your Windows drive alone until you see how linux will affect your system. You might even wish to remove the Windows drive temporarily to avoid even accidentally messing it up. If you don't, just be careful about which drive you mess with.

Get a couple different distros and try them for a few hours - install one and try it, then install another and try it. Do a clean install that erases the drive each time so you aren't mixing two different distros. Make notes on what you like and dislike about each distro - what worked or didn't work and what trouble you ran into.

Don't worry if it takes some time - remember that you're new to linux. No one (almost) has what it takes to be an instant expert. You'll get better with each time you install a distro and gain confidence about what you're doing. If you've installed Windows, I think you'll find installing most new linux distros to be no harder, and perhaps a little easier (depending on your system and the distro).

Most people think of linux as harder because they are comparing how they are in Windows NOW after YEARS of experience to how they are in linux with no experience. Keep that discrepancy in mind and allow yourself time to get used to the differences. I always love it when I hear:

"Linux sucks! It took me HALF A DAY to get it working! It only takes me 40 minutes to get Windows working."

"How many times have you installed Windows?"

"About a thousand times."

"And how many times have you installed linux?"

"I've never even seen linux before today."

:rolleyes: :D

[ukb008]

Now, finally, I've got enough motivation and subconscious support for the job.

(Deep breath) Here goes.

Regards.

[M7S]

When Windows crashed last week, I decided not to tuoch it again. I installed UbuntuLinux and it was love at first sight. Ofcource, I've only used Mandrake and Gentoo before, but the installation was easy, the hardwaredection worked perfectly and most of the programs I wanted to use were installed.

The fact that Ubuntu builds on Debian was probably the reason I choosed it in the first place. I thougt aptget seemed to be a good way of installing programs. Last time I had Linux installed it was GentooLinux, which was great exept the fact that I was too impatient to wait for every little program to compile, especialy when I suspected that my settings where bad so my compilations where slow. Aptget installs programs fast and painlessly, and I like the GUI version Synaptic Package Manager even better. The fact that Gnome 2.10 where used was another reason for me to choose Ubuntu. And I really like the ubuntufilosophy, too: Linux for human beeings.

From my n00bish perspective are Ubuntu a great distro, you might want to try it out.

Regards,
M7S

[outlyer]

After setting up (note not installing) a windows box yesterday I remembered one of the greatest advantages of linux: no need to restart the machine to install some crappy update or whatnot.

[KpeX]

Yep that's definitely an advantage of linux, AFAIK every part of a linux-based OS except the kernel can be upgraded/changed without reboot. Plus it doesn't really need 'periodic reboots' like some less stable windows installs tend to.

[Joe Fenton]

The last time my system was shutdown was because the UPS told it to. It's one of the things I like best about linux. Some people claim to be able to run Windows for weeks, but I personally could never get it to go more than 3 or 4 days between reboots. The reboots also usually came when you were actually trying to do something important. :rolleyes:

My brother is really bad with my computers. He'd come over and have Windows reboot 3 or 4 times in a two hour period. It's just silly. When he comes over to use the computer now, instead of Windows rebooting, he makes the panels in Gnome quit. They automatically restart just fine and it doesn't affect any running programs, so I don't worry about it. Given the alternative, it's not so bad. :D

[outlyer]

Another thing that amazed me was the few times in which I ran out of disk space. The last time, just a under a week ago, the system continued working normally for 16 hours (at which point I took action).
Linux rocks, bar none.

Originally posted by KpeX
AFAIK every part of a linux-based OS except the kernel can be upgraded/changed without rebootYep, what must be clear is that the reboot is not mandatory even in this case: you'll need to reboot to use the newer kernel but you don't MUST reboot, there's not much worse that a Win proggy that forces a reboot, yuck!

[*.mp4 guy]

One thing noone has mentioned is that if you have a radeon model after 9200 it will be absolute hell to get it to do anything in linux. I was unfortunate enough to experience this first hand during a linux foray, linux despite my best efforts seemed inclined to use none of my radeon 9600 pro's graphical goodness...I couldn't even watch a dvd in real time even after spending a day getting the needed software. So if your going to use linux definately make sure you have a compatible gfx card or it won't be any fun.

[KpeX]

Originally posted by *.mp4 guy
One thing noone has mentioned is that if you have a radeon model after 9200 it will be absolute hell to get it to do anything in linux. I was unfortunate enough to experience this first hand during a linux foray, linux despite my best efforts seemed inclined to use none of my radeon 9600 pro's graphical goodness...I couldn't even watch a dvd in real time even after spending a day getting the needed software. So if your going to use linux definately make sure you have a compatible gfx card or it won't be any fun. It's true that ATI has very poor drivers available for linux. But it's not linux's fault that ATI neither provides decent drivers nor opens their specification. Which is why I'm very happy to own an nvidia card - fairly frequent updates and supports all my card's features. As far as DVDs go, DVD playback performance shouldn't be that related to your graphics card performance - perhaps something else was misconfigured on your system (DMA?).

But this reminds me that I should probably add a note about this to the FAQ. ATI cards are definitely a pain to get working.

[outlyer]

Yup, ATI cards. The goddamned ATI and their attitude towards linux is the single reason why I won't be buying an ATI card for the years coming (well, that and nvidia's superb drivers/efforts).

In a more general note, there's some hardware you'll sweat to get working, It's a tiny little group of hardware, but it exists unfortunately, so before trying to switch, a bit of investigation on some hardware compatibility listings may be worth the time.

Originally posted by KpeX
DVD playback performance shouldn't be that related to your graphics card performance - perhaps something else was misconfigured on your system (DMA?).
In fact DVD playback without XVideo is quite painful, my mother's just-bought laptop (with a radeon card and as of today no xvideo) will struggle to play a dvd normally :|

[Joe Fenton]

You don't need hardware accelerated decoding for DVD's, but XVideo is almost a must. Having to convert the colorspace and scale each frame is a major hit on the CPU. You pretty much need a 2GHz CPU to play a DVD under those conditions.

I use an nVidia GeForce FX5600 on my main machine. nVidia doesn't just keep the drivers up to date, but they also have nice 64bit drivers as well. I run Fedora Core 3 in 64bit mode. Games work rather well. DOOM3 gives me a nice playable 25 FPS at 1024x768 in HQ mode. Quake 3 level games are silky smooth - even in WINE. My favorite game is American McGee's Alice (uses FAKK2 code which was based on the Q3A code). I run it in WINE just peachy.

ATI's are nice cards... in a Mac. Their Windows drivers are only marginally better than their linux drivers. That's why I got the nVidia in the first place - I had an ATI Radeon AIW card and the thing was never quite stable. The FX5600 has been very good. When I upgrade, it'll be another nVidia.

[mikeX]

Well nvidia still has a long way to go in making it's drivers _freely_ available, as in open source and not freeware... Matrox cards have really good support in Linux without the need to download any extra drivers ; )...

[Joe Fenton]

True - the further back you go, the better the card support out of the box. For ATI's, you want a card somewhere between the Radeon 7000 and 9200. For VIA/S3, you want a Savage, ProSavage, or UniChrome chipset.

New cards are always going to be more of a hassle. In that area, nVidia is less of a hassle than some of the others. So in the new card arena, nVidia tends to be the card of choice.

[virus]

hi!

This thread is very useful I must say. Actually I have a question, since I intend to try some distro in the next weeks. It's really a bunch of time since my last Linux install on my secondary drive... time to put a remedy to that - I've regressed to the state of "Linux n00b" again :)

My problem is my crappy USB ADSL modem ("DataWay"... never heard of such brand before) which my provider gave me - no choice there, and they give it for free so I cannot really complain... the problem is that there are no drivers for Linux of course. Even the Windows one is kinda crappy :(

Some time ago, out of curiosity I looked into solutions to make it work under the 2.6 kernel and found some info with a series of steps one has to perform to get a "generic" (or "compatible") driver and try to get it to work under Linux. That's all fine and good, but I need the modem during the installation... several distros require it since they have some online steps or only come with a DVD image (and I have no DVD burner).

So what to do? FC3 comes with CD images but I really don't want to have my choice limited to just some distros and, frankly, Fedora's bootmanager scares me. Already it can b0rk WinXP (both in FC2 and FC3), what will it do with my Win98 nobody tests against anymore? :(
(and the way they've handled that critical issue - data loss definitely *is* critical - scares me even more... but we're digressing)

So what do you suggest? Should I wait for FC4 hoping grub won't kill Windows, or maybe there's a way to install a livecd version, try to get the modem working, and then "upgrade" it online to a full-featured version? Or maybe support for DSL modems is now better in recent distros? (last time I checked the modem issue there was 2.6.5 out, mind you)
I'd like to try to install Linux already knowing what's the right thing to do, don't want to experiment or waste time into something that won't work.

thanks,
virus

[mikeX]

virus,
some live cd distros (like Knoppix) can install on your hard disk. You can also install most distros with 1 cd and then install extra packages via internet. Ubuntu comes in 1 cd and also has a live cd alternative which you can try out to see how well it suits your system, if it can detect your adsl modem for example. If it goes well you could then use the installation cd.
Debian is very scalable as well. You can download any number of cds (testing comes with 10cds at the moment i think) and install from those. You can have a full featured graphical system (KDE/Gnome) with just the 1st cd. Of course you can add sources from the internet afterwards.

You could also order a DVD online and have it send to you : ).

[Joe Fenton]

Originally posted by virus
My problem is my crappy USB ADSL modem ("DataWay"... never heard of such brand before) which my provider gave me - no choice there, and they give it for free so I cannot really complain... the problem is that there are no drivers for Linux of course. Even the Windows one is kinda crappy :(

I don't know if you can get Zoom modems there, but they make the finest ADSL and cable modems you can get. The first thing I did when I got DSL (and later cable) was to toss the piece of junk they gave me in a corner and get a Zoom modem.

So what to do? FC3 comes with CD images but I really don't want to have my choice limited to just some distros and, frankly, Fedora's bootmanager scares me. Already it can b0rk WinXP (both in FC2 and FC3), what will it do with my Win98 nobody tests against anymore? :(
(and the way they've handled that critical issue - data loss definitely *is* critical - scares me even more... but we're digressing)

So what do you suggest? Should I wait for FC4 hoping grub won't kill Windows, or maybe there's a way to install a livecd version, try to get the modem working, and then "upgrade" it online to a full-featured version? Or maybe support for DSL modems is now better in recent distros? (last time I checked the modem issue there was 2.6.5 out, mind you)
I'd like to try to install Linux already knowing what's the right thing to do, don't want to experiment or waste time into something that won't work.

Fedora Core (and other distros with the same version GRUB) don't bork Windows. First, the problem is between the BIOS, GRUB, and the old lousy bootloader Windows still uses. IF you see a problem booting Windows after installing GRUB, just switch the drive into LBA mode in the BIOS setup (instead of AUTO). I had to do that with my system to get XP booting.

[virus]

@mikex:
thanks for your suggestions :)
I'll have a look at some livecds. I see most distros have one nowadays. I must admit, I'm currently eyeing SUSE. It's one of the distros I've never even seen running but I keep reading good things about it. Maybe I'll make Teegedeck happy and install it :D

Generally, I love the idea of downloading a base distro and then choose precisely what additional packages to download. So much less bloat and time. Look, I even have a line that allows me to download half a GB per hour... the problem is just to get that modem to work and nothing else. Done that, I'll be an happy man :)

@Joe:
naaaaaaa, why trashing a free modem that works... let's try a more friendly approach first :)
(and you can actually have problems, at least here, if you don't use a modem "approved" by your ISP - cases of incompatibilities are not unheard of)

IF you see a problem booting Windows after installing GRUB, just switch the drive into LBA mode in the BIOS setup (instead of AUTO). I had to do that with my system to get XP booting.
well, that could be a solution for WinXP, but there are no reports about Win98. Maybe because that only happens with XP, but most likely because nobody uses Win98 :D

Anyway, IIRC most people reported problems when fitting both OSs in the same drive, while I plan to install Linux on my secondary only... that means that, in case of unsolvable troubles while booting from primary, I can maybe try "fdisk /mbr" or simply reinstalling Win98 over my actual installation. That usually cleans the MBR while keeping everything absolutely intact. I've already used the latter method for getting rid of LILO when it failed to uninstall itself (that was a lot of time ago on a Mandrake system).

thx a lot for your answers,
virus

[stephanV]

FWIW, I have no problem using Grub with FC3 and WinXP dual-boot on one HD. The only thing that annoys me a bit is that when updating FC3, it rewrites the grub file to make FC3 booting as default... so i constantly have to edit the grub-file.

[mikeX]

virus,
I really doubt bootmanagers are gonna be a problem nowadays, at least not grub. Even if the installer fails to detect an existing win installation, that shouldn't be a problem, since it's only a matter of editing your menu entries once you boot into your GNU/Linux system. All windows (and dos) versions should boot with something like

#
# examples
#
title Windows 95/98/NT/2000
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

for grub (given that they occupy the first partition in the first hard disk). And of course, if you decide to delete the linux installation later on, you will still be able to boot into windows from grub.
What's usually a problem is installing windows after you 've installed linux, since they write on the MBR without asking (and even without actually completing the installation).
Another common problem is having only one partition and not wanting to erase it, in which case you will have to resize it, which can be troublesome (although some installers support it).

[Joe Fenton]

Originally posted by virus
naaaaaaa, why trashing a free modem that works... let's try a more friendly approach first :)
(and you can actually have problems, at least here, if you don't use a modem "approved" by your ISP - cases of incompatibilities are not unheard of)

I don't know how it is in Europe, but over here there are two standards: (A)DSL and Cable. I've never had a problem with compatibility with either.

Second, the phone/cable company is giving you the cheapest piece of cr@p they could find in a dumpster somewhere. They aren't concerned about the quality of your connection, only in how much money they can save on modems which they can then skim off the top.

For example, the DSL modem the phone company sent me would fail to transfer data after the connection got dropped and then re-established. It claimed the connection was good, but you couldn't get the damn thing to transfer data until you reset the modem. Well, two problems there - first, there was no reset button... or power button. You had to UNPLUG the thing, wait a moment, then plug it back in. All just to get your connection back. Second, the modem was cheap enough you couldn't adjust the line sensitivity, and the lines were cheap enough that the modem lost connection about every three to four hours. This meant I couldn't download/upload anything at night as I wasn't awake to reset the modem. Plus, it was a pain always unplugging and replugging the modem power line to reset the modem.

[outlyer]

Originally posted by mikeX
Debian is very scalable as well. You can download any number of cds (testing comes with 10cds at the moment i think) and install from those. You can have a full featured graphical system (KDE/Gnome) with just the 1st cd. Of course you can add sources from the internet afterwards.
In fact you don't even need a full CD to start the installation, only the base system which is like 30MB.
As long as you're on broadbang, network installations are much more efficient as you won't download what you won't install.
BTW Debian-Testing comes in 14 CDs :eek:

Originally posted by mikeX
What's usually a problem is installing windows after you 've installed linux, since they write on the MBR without asking (and even without actually completing the installation).
Not really, as long as you have a Linux Live CD or boot disk/CD, re-installing the boot manager is a matter of seconds. Well, maybe hours before you know how, but later it's really quick.

Originally posted by Joe Fenton
I don't know how it is in Europe, but over here there are two standards: (A)DSL and Cable. I've never had a problem with compatibility with either.
Well, I'm in Europe, don't how it's in Italy, but I've neither heard of "compatibility" problems. What is more likely is that the provider would be a pain in the ass if you ever come to have problems. "You're using an unsupported modem? Mua-ha-ha, you're going to bleed" (almost-literal technical support response).
At least here they'll even try to leave a rule in routers to allow them remote management.

Originally posted by Joe Fenton
Second, the phone/cable company is giving you the cheapest piece of cr@p they could find in a dumpster somewhere.
I have the theory they get paid by hardware companies to get rid of this crap.

[Joe Fenton]

Originally posted by outlyer
I have the theory they get paid by hardware companies to get rid of this crap.

Quite - getting a special "close-out" deal on discontinued equipment.

[Axed]

Originally posted by mikeX
All windows (and dos) versions should boot with something like

Hmm, for a bit more information if you have Windows 98 installed on a seperate hard drive, it needs to look something like this:

title=Windows 98 SE
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1


Otherwise, Windows 98 wont boot.

[mikeX]

I think all windows versions have this habit of assuming they are the only OS on a PC, not just win98... And of course they consider that a feature rather than a bug : P