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Posted: 1/25/2006 5:20:29 PM EDT
I just got a job working for a local ISP and they're teaching me linux becuz all their servers are linux. Seems pretty cool and they have a lot of new stuff since the last time I glanced at it years back.  Would this be worth looking into as a serious replacement for all the Windoze pcs in the house? I have a Mac but I wouldnt mind converting everything else to something other than Wintrash. What has been your experience in the different builds/flavors as well as Desktop managers?
Link Posted: 1/25/2006 5:25:38 PM EDT
[#1]

Quoted:
I just got a job working for a local ISP and they're teaching me linux becuz all their servers are linux. Seems pretty cool and they have a lot of new stuff since the last time I glanced at it years back.  Would this be worth looking into as a serious replacement for all the Windoze pcs in the house? I have a Mac but I wouldnt mind converting everything else to something other than Wintrash. What has been your experience in the different builds/flavors as well as Desktop managers?



YES.

And run linux on the mac as well.

I personally like Ubuntu 5.10 breezy badger.  I run two versions of it on my PC, Ubuntu and Kubuntu.  Ubuntu has the GNOME desktop, and the kubuntu has KDE.  Ubuntu is very user friendly, and runs pretty much anything without a hitch.  Also is based on Debian.

Fedora Core 4 is also an exellent build.

Avoid Slackware like the plague.

Madrake is the suxxor as well.

Link Posted: 1/25/2006 5:26:31 PM EDT
[#2]
I'd take a look at what you have to run.  There are a lot of things that work well in Linux, but you might still have applications that require windoze.  I am in this boat...  

What might be a good idea is a box at home running windoze and a box running Linux.  I use Fedora Core 4 currently, and it works great, however, it's set up on a box with a dual boot to XP.  When I build a new machine, the box will then be a dedicated Linux machine, and I'll run all the normal stuff I have open... email, IM clients, web browsing, MP3 player, etc etc... and I'll probably also throw Myth TV on it since I dropped some coin on a TV tuner.

Link Posted: 1/25/2006 5:29:35 PM EDT
[#3]
Sweet thanks guys. Im currently downloading the DVD live of Knoppix to try on the Wincrap pc. If it works it'll go totally linux with one of the builds yall recommended. Might have to dual boot 2 flavors ehehe . Thatll leave one more, the new one on wincrap.
Link Posted: 1/25/2006 5:32:51 PM EDT
[#4]
What applications do you usually run? If you're working with other people who use Office that drives you towards keeping Windows on the Intel boxes. If you just want to do some web browsing and email, Linux can work. I think it's clunkier than Widows on the desktop, and it's well behind OS X, but it's workable for some people.
Link Posted: 1/25/2006 5:38:48 PM EDT
[#5]
Link Posted: 1/25/2006 5:43:56 PM EDT
[#6]
Fedora was so fucking bloated it ran MUCH slower than with Win XP installed on my machine, at least.  Weird.
Link Posted: 1/25/2006 5:47:55 PM EDT
[#7]
Mandrake is now Mandriva, and I use it on three different machines, but without xfree86 and a GUI front end. They are servers, so I went with a basic minimal install, and added the bits I needed later. SSH, samba, and proftpd.

I also use a Kubuntu box for email, IM, and web browsing.

My PVR has KnoppMyth on it.
Link Posted: 1/25/2006 6:26:16 PM EDT
[#8]
I got both!   Don't use the linux box that much other than running Apache web server and having it act as my firewall.  My Windows box has to go thru the linux box to get to the internet.  Windows has all the best apps IMHO.
Link Posted: 1/25/2006 6:33:06 PM EDT
[#9]
I'd run whatever distribution you run at work so you only have to learn one way to do things.z
Link Posted: 1/25/2006 6:35:40 PM EDT
[#10]
i run fedora core 4 on my home and work pc.   dual boot of xp pro of course
Link Posted: 1/25/2006 7:28:08 PM EDT
[#11]

Quoted:
Sweet thanks guys. Im currently downloading the DVD live of Knoppix to try on the Wincrap pc. If it works it'll go totally linux with one of the builds yall recommended. Might have to dual boot 2 flavors ehehe . Thatll leave one more, the new one on wincrap.




Do yourself a favor and try the UBUNTU live DVD or CD after you try KNOPPIX.

Also check out DistroWatch HERE
This is one of the best resources to find the Linux OS you want.

I had some trouble downloading from the UBUNTU site (could be on my end). If you have any trouble downloading it here is an alternate link.

LIVE & Installable DVD

ftp.ukc.mirrorservice.org/sites/cdimage.ubuntu.com/cdimage/releases/5.10/release/ubuntu-5.10-dvd-i386.iso

Link Posted: 1/25/2006 7:35:52 PM EDT
[#12]
Link Posted: 1/25/2006 7:39:53 PM EDT
[#13]

Quoted:
UBUNTU is so free that they dont even charge you for postage.

No reason not to have it!



haha yea i stopped the other download and i got this one downloading. We use Redhat Enterprise at EV1.
Link Posted: 1/25/2006 7:48:56 PM EDT
[#14]
If you're running Red Hat Enterprise, then Fedora Core will likely be the closest OS you can get to it.  Most of the packages and methodology will be the same.  FC uses up2date like RHEL.   You can download it for free and install it.  That's the good thing about most Linux distros... download it, and try it for free.  Heck, USE it for free!  

The only thing I think would be cool to add into FC would be apt-get.  yum kinda works, but apt-get seems to be more powerful.  
Link Posted: 1/25/2006 7:50:54 PM EDT
[#15]
I have used strictly Linux on my home PC for three years, and have not looked back.  Guess what, not a single case of malware, virus or BSOD since.  Almost all of the software I use now is free, and when I need a Windows app (tax software, etc) I use crossover office or vmware.  No dual booting for me.  I highly recommed the switch.  

The only alternative I would consider is OS X.


Open source software will set you free  

Link Posted: 1/25/2006 7:54:35 PM EDT
[#16]
I use Linux (Fedora Core, mostly) both at work and at home.  And have done so for ten or eleven years.  Since your new to it, I'd stick with whatever distro you use at work, just to make things easier.  Personally, I only boot Windows for specific applications:  games, Photoshop Elements, and the annual tax preparation software.  I do everything else under Linux.  Including writing and reading documents.  Open Office does a pretty good job of opening MS Office documents.  

adair_usmc:  Whatcha' mean avoid Slack?  That's what I started on and used for many years.  
Link Posted: 1/25/2006 7:56:31 PM EDT
[#17]
What ISP ya workin for? A hosting provider? Would it happen to be Rackspace/EV1 by chance?
Link Posted: 1/25/2006 8:11:54 PM EDT
[#18]
One thing you might want to watch out for is which "drive management system" (for want of a more official term) they use.

Knoppix 3.7 and earlier worked fine for me.  In 3.8, they switched to "UnionFS" for managing the mounting of flash drives and even hard drives (to some extent).  UFS blows chunks ("No, you don't understand, Chunks is my dog").  It's corrupted my drives (FAT32) twice (the only reason it's that few is because I quit using the more recent Knoppixes) and frequently had problems where it would get screwed up internally and refuse to mount any drives (caused by mounting and then unmounting drives more than two or three times before rebooting to clean everything out).

Supposedly "UnionFS" is a "unification file system" designed to handle whatever gets plugged in perfectly every time.  IMHO it's a load of worthless bug-ridden crap and whoever foisted it off on the Linux community should be flogged, dipped in alcohol, flogged again, and then left on a fire ant mound in the desert to die slowly and painfully.  But that's just my opinion.

If you plug in a flash drive and the directory created in /mnt begins with 'u', you're in for a world of shit.  The older and more reliable system would mount the flash drives as "sda1", "sdb1", and so on (basically pretending they were SCSI).

3.7 is getting hard to find on the mirrors;  better grab it while you still can.  JMHO.
Link Posted: 1/25/2006 8:16:26 PM EDT
[#19]
I run Suse 9.3 and Mac OSx at home, and run Suse 9.3 on my worstation at work.  I currently have Fedora Core and RedHat ES installed on several servers.

I used to administrate a Sun Solaris network, and I can't say how happy I was moving to a job that was RedHat centric.

I've been a RedHat user for years, but I do like Suse these days for desktop use.
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