Linux

[Lord Germano]

Yeah, I was thinking of converting out of the dark abyss that is windows and into the promising world of linux. I had a look-see at there website, and found out that I have no idea what to get.

So, I was wondering if you guys could advise me as to what to get. Ill be networking with an XP/2000 machine, and will prolly have to be the server for a couple of the said machines. I want one that is easiely accessable to a begginer of linux, but in the long run can be tweaked to my hearts content. Thanks.

[Blade Runner]

Ahh! I know nothing about it either but am planning to have it on the pc I will eventually build. Is there a linux Q&A anywhere??? Whats the best ver to use for beginners???

:confused:

[Jonbo298]

Good God! I dont know either!:errr: Lets all sit quietly and wait for sdt.:D

[Lord Germano]

where is pika anyways? :confused:

[Null]

pika should see this soon and have quite a lot to suggest/say.

From my Personal experience tho..

i'ved used 2 differnt linux's before.

Mandrake. and SuSE

i hated Mandrake. i couldnt get anything to work on it. i couldnt even get it on the internet.

i Got SuSE recently and love it. to get on the internet i simply went to setup. clicked Auto and it did it for me.

seems to run smoother also.


i hear Red Hat is nice. But i like SuSE best.

becareful when you intall tho. could mess up windows. or vice versa if you have linux installed and install windows 2nd.

[Lord Germano]

Screwing up windows shouldnt be a problem, as Ill have seperate partitions for each OS.

[Null]

and thats exactly my point.

they tend to want to take a certain spot sometimes. Or as in my case. the Boot loader for linux diddnt agree with windows. and i couldnt boot up anything. neither os.


sometimes when putting linux on first. windows wants to format every partition its way. thereby deleting linux.

etc. lots of possibilites.


and umm. what other way besides seperate partitions is there to put more OS's on??

[Xantar]

Separate hard drive? My comp at college has two hard drives, and I'm considering trying Linux for a spin. However, my hard drives only have 1.1 GB each, so I don't know if they're big enough. Anybody know how much space Linux needs?

[Null]

might, but i cculdnt get linux to work at all on a 2nd drive. it didnt like being on a slave drive. only the main one.

[sdtPikachu]

Aha! A linux thread!

Mandrake and SuSE are the best distros for newbies... I started out with Mandrake (which my *nix expert friend recommended me, since it has nice GUI's for almost everything), but SuSE is nice too. I'm soon gonna change to RedHat once they come out with v8.0.

Xantar, you can quite happily fit a cut-down-don't-install-all-the-apps version of Linux on a 1.1 GB HDD (my mandrake install takes up about 2.1 GB, and that's with Apache, Samba, KDE, GNOME, in fact almost everything), but you'll be pretty squished for space, no?

If you have a high speed connection, just download Mandrake 8.2 ISO'd from them... SuSE are bastards about this and won't put up a friggin' ISO image, which makes them tards IMO. If you'd rather buy it (and you do get more stuff with the bought versions, such as StarOffice), then either SuSE or Mandrake is a good bet.

ThatGuy, if you want to run it as a server you're going to have to make a tradeoff between ease of use and stability. Mandrake et al are the easiest to use in general (but if you want to network with Win machines you're gonna need to use Samba which means lots of command line stuff), but distros like Debian and Slackware offer the fastest and most reliable platforms... RedHat is a good compromise.

Null does seem to have had an odd time of things. Linux shouldn't really care what partition it's on; the Linux bootloader is not a fickle beast like the Windows one (which will only work if Windows is installed on hda1, or the primary IDE master, or the C drive as you know it). Also, installing Windows AFTER Linux has a tendency to fcuk Linux up terribly... windows overwrites the Linux bootloader (so you need a floppy to boot it), and XP has a tendency to "accidentally" reformat Linux partitions when you install it, as my friend Bongfish discovered (Windows can't read Linux partitions unless they're FAT32 (and what idiot would use FAT32, the most god-awful format there is?), and presumes that the Linux partitions are bad sectors, and "repairs" them). Install Windows, defrag (or run partition magic to create your Linux partitions - personally I recommed frmatting to ReiserFS when you install, alhough Ext3 is almost as good) and you should be OK.

BACK UP YOUR DATA FIRST! Partitioning is risky even at the best of times. If you can, move all your documents onto a seperate hard drive - if you make it FAT32 both Windows and Linux will be able to read and write to it - just in case.

Plug in all your hardware when you install. Installing new hardware in Linux can be a bitch, but it should autodetect and install all hardware when you install Linux. Check your distro's website for hardware support (there's shedloads of ****ty-ass hardware that won't work under Linux cos it need software emulation, which they only ever write for windows), but if you have nice hardware this shouldn't be a problem.

Is there a Linux Q&A anywhere? yep. In fact, there's probably more of them than there are for windows. Google is your friend, or failing that sites such as www.linux.org. Most of the distro sites also give a fairly good idea of what Linux is all about.

[Null]

stop picking on me!!!! i couldnt help it if its boot loader screwed my pc up!

*cries*

[sdtPikachu]

Not picking on you...!

Linux and windows are fickle beasts at the best of times.

[Lord Germano]

Thanks dude, will put all that info to use when I get my new box.

[sdtPikachu]

All you need know is for full linux compatibility is:

No ****ty soundcards (creative have the best *nix support, period)
No ****ty videocards (nVidia have the best *nix support, period)
No USB or internal software modems - they almost never have ANY non-Windows support

There is sometimes a bit of trouble with less commonly used accessories such as firewire and other exotic stuff, but like I said - just go to the site of your distro of choice, key in the hardware you're thinking of getting and it'll tell you whether it works or not.

If you want tips for hardware, tell us what kinda server you're going to be running (namely file, web, mail or the works?).

http://www.linux.org./info/images/officialpenguin.gif
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"Would you buy a car with the bonnet* welded shut?"
-choice quote form the RedHat Linux 7.3 installer


*commonly known as a hood to all you crazy yankees