Linux?

[onelegout]

Thanks for your help!
Im going to go install it now, I hope that it all goes well!
By the way, it took me 13 minutes to download the installable image! six-hundred-and-somethingkbps

[archmaille]

Linux is great for things such as web design, office work, etc. But it is HORRIBLE for games, and why I came back to primarily using Windows. OpenOffice.org is available for Windows as well, so if you're impressed with it it's on Windows too. I used Suse which is great! Much like Unbuntu it's easy to get started, but unlike Unbuntu it's got tons of power user tools that if you get more into the linux community are more advanced. Linux doesn't display very well for me though, the highest refresh rate my monitor will ever hit running linux is 70mhz which makes me feel like I'm going blind the flashing gives me headaches, but that's just me.

anyways, enjoy what you've got! Linux works good for a lot of stuff but isn't the perfect solution for several reasons that I don't have room to get into here. I'd suggest trying out Suse, you can dual boot both suse and Windows that's what I do.

[xmastree]

How does it work partition wise? does it need to create a new partition?

For dual booting the best thing is to create a blank space on your disk. In other words, reduce the size of your current windows partition. Apparently the installer can do this, but I haven't tried that. I satrted with a blank disk.
Ubuntu will offer to either erase the whole disk or use the available space.
How big is your disk?
If you want to share data between the filesystems, be aware that linux can read but not write to ntfs. FAT32 is no problem.
One partition for Windows, one FAT32 shared for data, and the rest for linux would be a neat solution.

I have, one 40GB (primary master) split 20/20 between Windows and linux. Two 80GB drives, both FAT32 for data.

Oh, and join the forums. Any questions you have will probably have been answered there. There's even one for absolute beginners.

And yes, I'm xmastree over there too.

[xmastree]

One thing... Are you planning to install the 64 bit version? I haven't, since the benefits aren't all that much, and not all appliactions are available so some messing around is required to run them. I'm using the regular intel 386 version, with a K7 kernel.

[OvRiDe]

I must say I didn't really care for Suse.. We were a big Novell shop (who aquired Suse). So they sent it to us hoping to sell a few copies, and I checked it out. I found YAST to be a bit restrictive. Especially when it came to packages that weren't included in the distro. The disto that really taught me the most and probably runs the fastest would be (IMO) Gentoo. The install process really taught me alot about how the os is put together. But I will warn you that its not for the faint of heart, heh. The install is completely interactive, there is no fancy gui and it requires alot of typing at the shell. They have a great step by step guide on how to install it, written at a level that a beginner could get it done. The reason it runs fast is everything is compiled from source, which of course is a double edge sword. It takes alot longer to install an application because it has to compile it, but when its done it will run faster then a generic-precompiled binary. They have done an excellent job with Portage, their package management system. It makes it extremely easy to install software. basically you just type "emerge <software package name>. It will go out to a central repository on the internet, determine the dependancies, download them, and then compile them in order. It really is pretty nice. Of course Debian has been doing that for a while and now Fedora is adopted apt and yum which will do about the same thing, only they use rpm or other binary packages. I don't use Gentoo as much as I used to mainly because I am usually under the gun to get stuff install in short order, so its easier and faster to use a binary based install system. Example when you finish installing for the first time you pretty much have a shell prompt and the core os. There is no Xwindows, KDE, etc. I finished an install about midnight on a Sunday. Typed in "emerge kde". It determined it needed to install 77 dependancies and started going to town. It finished about 7:30 on Tuesday.. heh.. of course the pc was only a 750mhz with 256Mb of RAM. Modern pc's will do much better.. heh .. Damn I turned yet another post into a mini rant.. heh

[onelegout]

OveRiDe - a lot of that made sense to me - some of it didnt yet!
I have installed it and WOW its speedy. I like the whole integrated IM thing also where you can have all of your different IM clients bundled into one! (I know you can do this using windows but it seems a lot easier and more efficient this way!

[Cevinzol]

Has anyone setup a Beowolf cluster?
I run SETI@Home and I would love to see how fast I could crank out the work units with a bunch of old junker computers. I've heard the wireing is much easier now, you don't have to use a hypercube configuration.

The big thing holding me back is the lack of comercial games. I had redhat on my machine once but once it was up. I was thinking "now what" I wasn't about to convert years worth of files so I just went back to win98 (at the time). I guess I just didn't want to comit the time and effort to effectively re-learn the wheel.

I'm glad to hear the community has grown alot. I like to think that it keeps Bill Gates up at night

[OvRiDe]

Never done the cluster thing yet, but it has always interested me some.

The big thing holding me back is the lack of comercial games.

I hear ya there.. I tried to convert over to linux full time, using Wine (actually codeweavers Crossover Office) and VMWare for the things that I just couldn't find a linux substitute for. Gaming was the big stopper for me. WineX, I think they call it Transgaming now just wasn't cutting it. Even the games that it did support didn't really perform well. I was able to squeek it out for about a month, but that was only because Unreal Tournament 2004 and America's Army Ops both had linux versions.

I like to think that it keeps Bill Gates up at night

Me too!! but i doubt it.

Oh yah..

I like the whole integrated IM thing also where you can have all of your different IM clients bundled into one!

I think that would be GAIM that your using. There is a windows port of that if you (God forbid) decide that linux isnt for you.. I use Trillian in Windows works great as well..

EDIT: Holy Cow post 300..

[xmastree]

I have installed it and WOW its speedy.

There's so much you can do with it in regards to eye candy. Check out 3d desktop...

First thing you have to do (if you haven't already) is enable the extra repositories and download all the good stuff. The easy way is to use automatix, but you don't have to. Plenty of advice on the forums.
Check out the gallery to see screenshots and what can be acheived.

Here's mine:
http://ubuntuforums.org/gallery/show...113&original=1

[DaveW]

On a side note, i got Red Hat for dummies, including Red Hat & software, for &#163;10 ($15 roughly). Not bad for a book with a &#163;50 RRP, and it's pretty concise. I only bought it for the part about setting up Apache on Fedora.

I'm a man for good deals.

-Dave