Posted: 1/2/2011 5:00:59 PM EDT
| I had an old machine that had an expired copy of the WIN7 RC installed laying around. Finally decided to get it working and I've always been interested in Linux, sooo......here we are. Any tips for a newb? The installation was different to say the least. Took the help of another machine to find a guide to manually setting up the partitions to get it running. |
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If you can install ubuntu, you can probably also install Mint (it is based on ubuntu) - Mint comes with a lot more stuff already installed, so it's even more usable right out of the starting gate (not that there's anything wrong with straight ubuntu)... Mint is sweet. I have been running it for quite a while now. I have tried Ubuntu, PCLOS2010 and Fedora recently. I liked PCLOS until I installed Mint. Its about the slickest distro I've seen yet. Based on Ubuntu but IMO much nicer looking. I also have Win7 installed and I boot to it occasionally to sync my stupid iphone. |
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Mint *used* to include a ton of stuff that Ubuntu didn't.. but really, that shouldn't be a deal breaker. Everything Mint included that Ubuntu did not, could be installed on Ubuntu in about 5min. As for Multimedia codecs, etc.. On all the newer versions(since 10.04 I think), when you install... there's a box to check if you want to include all the non-free stuff that Mint installs by default.
Personally, I hate Mint's interface. Yeah, it can be tweaked, etc.. but if you're going to say Mint is great because you don't want to spend 5min installing packages, then I'm gonna say it sucks cuz I don't want to spend 10min tweaking the interface. Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of Ubuntu either... but if you're gonna learn Linux, Ubuntu is where to do it. I'm assuming the OP is using Ubuntu 10.04 or 10.10... If so, this is a good thing to have. It says its for 10.04, but it should be entirely compatible with 10.10 http://ubuntu-manual.org/ IGF |
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I think putting /home, /boot, etc.. on different partitions, is way over-rated. I've always just used a /swap and a / and thats it. Never had a problem, no matter what distro I've used. Same. That was overwhelming for me at first when I started dicking around with Redhat 5.2, 13 some odd years ago. I can see from a commercial/backup standpoint where making images of entire partitions makes sense for recovery, but it really doesn't matter on a workstation. |
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I run Debian Stable on my personal workstations/lap tops and servers. It takes a while to get all of the "non-free" stuff setup (nvidia drivers, flash, java, etc) but Ive done it so many times now I've got it down pretty well. I always had monitor resolution issues with the various *buntu's and never found anything special there I couldn't have with Debian. "But" Linux Mint (a *buntu variant) is working on a version based on Debian Stable now so I'll be checking that out after it matures a little. I can honestly say that if I wasn't a gamer I wouldn't need a windows machine, everything I need can be had with Linux (browser, email, multimedia, etc). I dont really have any pointers for you at this point, just use it and see how it is. |
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What about a separate partition for data? Doesn't dumping everything under / open up the possibility that you can lose data if you have issues with the OS?
The plan is to transfer a few gigs of music and movies to this new linux machine and hopefully use it to stream to my PS3.... if there's an app for that. 
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My setup is:
sda1: Win7 - 50g sda2: Data - 200g sda unallocated - 200g sdb1: Ubuntu - 95g sdb3: Debian - 95g sdb4 Mint - 95g sdb5: swap - 8g sdb6: pclinuxos - 100g sdc1: Data_backup 300g What a fucking mess. I should go clean up some day I guess. I started playing around with distros and then just left all my toys lying in the floor. At any rate I just use / and swap. No reason to break them out into /, /var, /home etc any more really. The only exception would be if you had actual users then you definitely want to isolate /home and or set quotas. |
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My setup is: sda1: Win7 - 50g sda2: Data - 200g sda unallocated - 200g sdb1: Ubuntu - 95g sdb3: Debian - 95g sdb4 Mint - 95g sdb5: swap - 8g sdb6: pclinuxos - 100g sdc1: Data_backup 300g What a fucking mess. I should go clean up some day I guess. I started playing around with distros and then just left all my toys lying in the floor. At any rate I just use / and swap. No reason to break them out into /, /var, /home etc any more really. The only exception would be if you had actual users then you definitely want to isolate /home and or set quotas. good lord, 1.5TB HDD? For those of you with just / and /swap, how did you all handle the install? Use the selection where it says "use entire disk"? |
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My setup is: sda1: Win7 - 50g sda2: Data - 200g sda unallocated - 200g sdb1: Ubuntu - 95g sdb3: Debian - 95g sdb4 Mint - 95g sdb5: swap - 8g sdb6: pclinuxos - 100g sdc1: Data_backup 300g What a fucking mess. I should go clean up some day I guess. I started playing around with distros and then just left all my toys lying in the floor. At any rate I just use / and swap. No reason to break them out into /, /var, /home etc any more really. The only exception would be if you had actual users then you definitely want to isolate /home and or set quotas. good lord, 1.5TB HDD? For those of you with just / and /swap, how did you all handle the install? Use the selection where it says "use entire disk"? You can still partition the drive however you want.. just because you only have / and /swap, really means nothing. |
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My setup is: sda1: Win7 - 50g sda2: Data - 200g sda unallocated - 200g sdb1: Ubuntu - 95g sdb3: Debian - 95g sdb4 Mint - 95g sdb5: swap - 8g sdb6: pclinuxos - 100g sdc1: Data_backup 300g What a fucking mess. I should go clean up some day I guess. I started playing around with distros and then just left all my toys lying in the floor. At any rate I just use / and swap. No reason to break them out into /, /var, /home etc any more really. The only exception would be if you had actual users then you definitely want to isolate /home and or set quotas. good lord, 1.5TB HDD? For those of you with just / and /swap, how did you all handle the install? Use the selection where it says "use entire disk"? You can still partition the drive however you want.. just because you only have / and /swap, really means nothing. I didn't realize you were talking about logical partitions.
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My setup is: sda1: Win7 - 50g sda2: Data - 200g sda unallocated - 200g sdb1: Ubuntu - 95g sdb3: Debian - 95g sdb4 Mint - 95g sdb5: swap - 8g sdb6: pclinuxos - 100g sdc1: Data_backup 300g What a fucking mess. I should go clean up some day I guess. I started playing around with distros and then just left all my toys lying in the floor. At any rate I just use / and swap. No reason to break them out into /, /var, /home etc any more really. The only exception would be if you had actual users then you definitely want to isolate /home and or set quotas. good lord, 1.5TB HDD? For those of you with just / and /swap, how did you all handle the install? Use the selection where it says "use entire disk"? You can still partition the drive however you want.. just because you only have / and /swap, really means nothing. I didn't realize you were talking about logical partitions. I still don't understand the question... I only have primary partitions, my only partitions are /, and /swap... I've never used a logical partition on any of my machines (but did on another machine, because it had to many primary partitions)... Whether you just have / and /swap, or /home, /boot /etc, /whatever... has no bearing on whether you need logical or primary partitions (well, unless you have more than 4 primary). |
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My setup is: sda1: Win7 - 50g sda2: Data - 200g sda unallocated - 200g sdb1: Ubuntu - 95g sdb3: Debian - 95g sdb4 Mint - 95g sdb5: swap - 8g sdb6: pclinuxos - 100g sdc1: Data_backup 300g What a fucking mess. I should go clean up some day I guess. I started playing around with distros and then just left all my toys lying in the floor. At any rate I just use / and swap. No reason to break them out into /, /var, /home etc any more really. The only exception would be if you had actual users then you definitely want to isolate /home and or set quotas. good lord, 1.5TB HDD? For those of you with just / and /swap, how did you all handle the install? Use the selection where it says "use entire disk"? You can still partition the drive however you want.. just because you only have / and /swap, really means nothing. I didn't realize you were talking about logical partitions. I still don't understand the question... I only have primary partitions, my only partitions are /, and /swap... I've never used a logical partition on any of my machines (but did on another machine, because it had to many primary partitions)... Whether you just have / and /swap, or /home, /boot /etc, /whatever... has no bearing on whether you need logical or primary partitions (well, unless you have more than 4 primary). I've read some tutorials on setting up Ubuntu, and more than a few have pointed out the use of /home /lib /user /etc... I may have misconstrued the instructions as I thought that all the directories were required. For instance, I forgot to specify a /lib directory, and I get a Fatal Error about /lib if I restart my machine, but it still boots. I guess I'm still thinking like a windows user. |