What's Linux like?

[Sceptile_Master]

Well let's start with a little background info.

If I get into my college course I get a free laptop which I can customize to any way I like (software wise). I also get to keep it. Forever. So I was thinking, it would give me a chance to test Linux. I can't test it on my current computer as it's my parent's and they are grumpy old IE users who would get angry if I changed it (even though I am currently quite happy with Windows XP professional I'm always open to trying new things. I never would have found firefox if I didn't and I'm glad I did). Anyhoo I might give it a go to see if I like it when i get my new laptop. But to anyone who has tried it. Is it any good? What's the interface like and such?

[Jeff]

To put it in the words of one of my compsci professors, "in Linux, you don't see the blue screen of death nearly as much as in Windows, in fact, they don't even have a name for it in Linux".

A lot of it depends on what distribution you're using and whether it's a stable release or not. The best thing I'd reccomend would be searching and seeing what each distro is like and which one best fits your tasts/needs. Hope that helps.

[youdontknowme]

I wanna try out Linux myself but I'm in a situation like yours. I don't have my own computer (I share it with my brother) so... I'm saving up for a laptop. :-|

Anywho, I heard http://ubuntulinux.org is good and is extremely easy to install. (I've seen screenshots of the installation process and it does look easy). Yeah...

[Chris]

I now use Ubuntu, having converted from Fedora Core (which I've been using since version 2), and I must say that it's been a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

However, before even downloading any distro DVD images, I have three pieces of advice:

• If you're lazy, don't use Linux.
• If you don't have any patience, don't use Linux.
• If you don't want to learn or be taught, definitely don't use Linux.

[Sceptile_Master]

I don't quite understand all the different versions of Linux. How do they all differ?

And I don't come under any of those things in your list Chris so hopefully I should be OK.

[fat man with a monkey]

They differ pretty much by the following: Linux is a kernel. Distros are operating systems.

Wikipedia explains it better than I do-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_...ter_science%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distro

Long story short, the kernel is the core of the operating system, and the distro is the operating system. And why don't you guys without your own computers just buy another hard drive and have a dual boot system? I run Linux (Fedora Core 4) every now and again, but a majority of the time I run WinXP pro. I haven't had any real usability problems (sans my winmodem being a pile of winmodem) on Fedora Core.

[Lady Vulpix]

There are ways to try Linux without installing it. You can use a bootable CD like Knoppix and LiveCD and get a taste of it.

[MonsterOfTheLake]

I use Gentoo Linux. Like fat man with a monkey said, if you don't think you're ready to just go all out on a new operating system, just buy a new hard drive and dual boot (i.e. have more than 1 operating system at your computer). I pretty much use Linux all the time except when I have to do something with a Windows-only program which WINE can't handle.

Sidenote: WINE = WINE Is Not an Emulator. It's a program that allows you to run Windows programs in a Linux environment (not emulate, but run it in Linux). Check out Wine HQ. For example, I play Diablo 2 with WINE on Linux, even though it's a Windows program.

So you don't have to go full out Linux, which isn't smart to do if you have never used another operating system before. Also I'm assuming you'd want to use a desktop environment and not just a text-only shell. Click here for a screenshot of my Gentoo Linux distro with KDE Desktop Environment. The other major desktop environment is Gnome. There are several more but those 2 are the biggest. Basically a desktop environment is the gui that you interact with.

Hope that helps =P.

[Sceptile_Master]

I'v ehad my laptop for a few months now (meaning I made it into the course wh00tage). And have tried the knoppix livecd and I quite liked it. At the moment I have fedora core which I downloaded in 4 parts for 4 different CDs. The iso images look strangely like archives but it says they are ISOs in Nero (windows explorer can't burn ISOs properly right?) so onto burning. I've got the 4 CDs. I'm failing at trying to learn the this partitioning stuff but apparently the fedora core installer has an automator for that so I'm trying to use that. Well I would be if I can get the CD to boot. When my laptop is starting up I pressed f2 and set my boot order to CD/DVD/CD-RW first. Then when it tries to boot from the CD it just wait s about 10 seconds and then moves on to booting windows xp. Any help here? May I have made a mistake about burning the CDs or something? Thanks in advance for any helpers.

[Chris]

You didn't burn the ISOs properly. They're CD images, so you need to select "Burn Image" in Nero (I think so anyway, I haven't used Nero for years).

[Sceptile_Master]

Okay I'll try that. Thanks. Damn I knew should have got CD-RWs. This'll be another 4 CDs. But am I right in saying that it has the partitioning thing int he setup?

[Chris]

Okay I'll try that. Thanks. Damn I knew should have got CD-RWs. This'll be another 4 CDs. But am I right in saying that it has the partitioning thing int he setup?

Yes, like any OS installation procedure does. Defrag your Windows partition first (using Diskeeper, not the dumbed-down cute little Windows applet crap) and try to get as much data as close to the "beginning" of your hard drive as possible, then create your Linux partition after the last cluster of data in the Windows partition. This should minimise (or even eliminate, if you do it properly) any data loss on your existing partition - I managed to defrag my 40GB drive so all the Windows data on the hard drive was stored within the first 20GB, which then allowed me to create a new 20GB partition at the "end" of the drive with no data loss at all.

Back up before doing this though, obviously.

[Sceptile_Master]

Do I have to download diskeeper somewhere?

[Kyl3]

Google it. Free download.

[Sceptile_Master]

It's alright I managed to defrag it and then in my ubuntu installation I partitioned it. Here's my current case, copy and pasted from a topic I posted on Gamefaqs that no one replied too.

Ok last night I set up a dual boot system with windows xp and ubuntu linux. I have a 30GB hard drive and I partitioned it like the following. 17GB to windows XP, 8GB to ubuntu linux and a 4.9GB FAT32 logical partition. And some other small thing that was already there so I left it. But I don't know how to access the FAT32 logical partition, plus I realised I don't really want it anyways. So I want to know if I can find any partitioning software (that works on either linux or windows, I'm not fussed) that will allow me to delete the partition so I can give some more space to my operating systems? Also if I set the partitioning to 19.6GB for Windows, 10.5GB for linux and the leave the other small file to itself that would be fine for my computer. I don't need to take any other partitions into being for any other reason right? Thanks in advance for everything.

Of course that's a few days old though but yo get my situation.