[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Linux--took the plunge (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 8/4/2008 8:23:48 AM EDT
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I've been wanting to try Linux for awhile, finally got around to installing it today. I'm using Ubuntu 8.04, set up as part of a triple-boot on my laptop (XP, Vista and Ubuntu). I'm not quite ready to ditch Windows, and didn't want to go the virtual machine route, hence the multi-boot. Install was a piece of cake, no driver issues except for needing to download some firmware for the wireless. Decided to install KDE instead of Gnome, and so far I'm really liking Linux. The more I poke around, the more I realize I have to learn, but so far so good. Any good tips for a Linux noob? |
I've got the BCM4306 chip set in my laptop and HH was a breeze to install. In the releases before I would have to dog around for a good day before I found the proper fix. 8.04 is a great improvement. |
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I've put Fedora on a few computers for a friends business. Fedora is the free version of Red Hat. It installs easily and they keep updating it and releasing new versions. You can download it as an ISO image and burn it on a DVD (or CDs). I've run into a few problems trying to get different plugins to view online videos and such. But the open office software works well and is a great no cost alternative to MS office. fedoraproject.org/ |
Thanks! I don't remember if I have 4306 or 4318, but I'm d/l'ing HH right now. |
Ubuntu is probably the best for a new user. Fedora is also popular, that's what I used in college. I run Ubuntu at home. |
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Linux, FTW! I never liked Ubuntu - it's like the Vista of Linux. Too much removing you from administrative abilities. Good for novice users, but annoying for intermediate or advanced users. I generally like the Fedora releases. Still easy to su - and do whatever I need to do. Plus lots of stuff works with it. I was kinda glad when RH ditched their update and started using yum. |
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We run Ubuntu on our home desktop, ever since the XP install shit the bed and we used a Ubuntu Live CD to run the computer for a week while I figured out the hard drive situation. XP is back on the machine, but we use Ubuntu 95% of the time. I easily set up dual boot, Samba (turned it into a media server of sorts), installed the Brother printer, etc. |
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Just got ubuntu with emc2 for my cnc computer. It really is awesome. Fast, stable, free. All I had to do was download image for the live cd, burn it onto a disc, and pop it in the new machine. It formatted, partitioned, and installed all on it's own from there in 20 minutes or so. Easy as pie. |
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I prefer OS's that use APT based package managers (Debian and variants) instead of .rpm based ones like Fedora. That being said my distro of choice is Debian "stable", it's stable, has a fairly long release cycle and has tens of thousands of free packages. If you need it, Debian has it. I've found the easiest way to install it is to use a Debian Live installer, I use the KDE version. I never really saw a need to go to the *Buntus but they are really popular for some reason, I guess because they had a Live CD before Debian created an easy to use installer. Here's a screen cap of an old Debian desktop of mine.  |
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Ubuntu is the best. If you compare the internet on Windows to the internet on Ubuntu, you will be surprised at how much faster it is. Ubuntu also never crashes. I believe you can get software that will convert any Windows program to run on Ubuntu. That way you can use the same software without having to buy the Linux version. |
on Ubunto, just "sudo -s" and yes, redhat's up2date can RIP. 
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I could never get Ubuntu to run the live desktop on either of my Dell laptops. It always seemed to choke on the video drivers or something. I said, "fuck it im foing" to use XP for awhile longer... My wife will be getting a laptop to use at home so our old Dell laptop will become a Linux testbox. I am planning on building my kids a little home PC in the next year though, and I'll probably attempt to install Edubuntu and give a go on it before "regressing" back to Vista. |
It does crash. Not often, but like any software, there can be issues. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by 'software that will convert any Windows program to run on Ubuntu'. There's Wine, and you can get a lot of stuff to run, but not everything, and what does run will be anything from Nearly Perfect to....well...it's kind of running. That said, you can get most anything to work, just depends on how much work you want to put into it, and how computer savvy you are.... Anyway, I've been running Ubuntu 7.10 since it launched last october, and I have not run Windows in my home since April of this year. |
Well, it has never crashed on me and all my software runs on it flawlessly. Depends on the software, I suppose. My hatred for all things Windows is deeper. |
Windows crashed on me twice today.  My computer is a real POS though. |
All OS's can and do crash. In my corporate environment, we have Windows NT, 2K, XP, and Vista, all Crash. We have Mac OSX. It crashes. We have even had Unix and windows based servers crash, and yes...even one of our Cisco routers locked up the other day, and kicked all of the users off of one of the VLans. One of the few times I've had to reboot a big Cisco router. Not trying to start a pissing match, I just cringe whenever I see the 'My (insert OS of choice) never crashes!' comments. |
Well, in my personal experience (as little as it is), Ubuntu is far more reliable than Windows. |
That's my point - everything crashes. It doesn't always crash for everybody, but every OS has crashed for somebody many times. |
I'm using Firefox. With Linux, it may take a little tweaking to get the internet working perfectly, but once you get it right it's very fast. |
It's working well, just some pages don't display quite like they should, or at least not like I'm used to. Maybe just a difference between Linux and Windows... |
I noticed that too. I think it's just a difference between Linux and Windows. I'm used to it now, so I don't notice it. You can still do the same things like watch movies, play music, etc? |
Movies, pics, music, etc. all seem to be working just fine. E-mail and internet are both good too. With the fonts and such, I guess I'm just used to having them a certain way, and I just need to get used to a new way 
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I had trouble with movies for a while, but it eventually fixed itself with some update. |
I like Seamonkey. Less flashy than Firefox ETA: Ubuntu users might need nonfree packages to view all formats (they're 'free as in beer' but not 'free as in freedom' - ie they may be patent-encumbered or have onerous license terms) |
The problem with Windows is that it can be infinitely difficult to find out why, exactly, the system crashed. ...well, that and I haven't yet had a Windows box hit anything vaguely resembling 500+ day uptimes... Not an OS evangelist, operating systems are simply tools, but it's difficult to argue that Windows is especially reliable |
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Congratulations. I love KDE alot more than Gnome, many more customization features and such. Gnome does have a neater and more simple appearance however. There are literally hundreds maybe thousands of different distributions out there, and as everyone likes something a little different, it will be hard to find a distro you like best. I really like the slackware distros as they are small, fairly standard in their filesystem archetecture and such. Installing new programs can get to be a pain in the ass with different installation packages like .rpm, .deb and such. I usually just gave up installing pre-compiled packages and downloaded source packages and compiled them myself. You'll run into small incompatibilities and search around for the prerequisites all day, but you learn so much about the community that way. Just keep playing around with it and something will "click" in your mind and everything will pretty much make sense some day. Play around with the terminal and learn how to use the shell and commands. I've found I can get stuff done a lot quicker and more efficiently using text commands, and if you want to do something that doesn't exist in graphical form yet, you can always open up a terminal and have at it. Also visit your local library and check out some books on linux. I read Linux in a nutshell and it really helped me understand the system a whole lot better. Dual boot is definitely the way to go if you have a lot of programs you need that only run on windows, or you can't find a program for linux that has what you need. I think once you start knowing what you like, check out the Linux From Scratch project. It will help you build you own system from the ground up using source code, and you can customize it to your hearts content as you go along. Also, I suggest customizing the kernel so it will run faster and have less kernel modules loaded into memory. The "vanilla" kernels that come with the distribution are big and clumsy because they have all sorts of different modules installed to make sure they run on as many different systems as possible. You should obviously only do this if you know EXACTLY what hardware is on your machine, and what features you want and don't want, because you could end up accidentally not having support for some of your hardware. And remember, the online help files are vast and informative. They are like a cross between the technical forums here and wiki. You won't get several different opinions, but they cover everything in great detail. Have fun! |
The fonts are usually a little different on the two systems. You may have to teak or install some fonts or font settings. You'll have to screw around a little but that's the fun part. |
Well, learning how to do something new is the main reason I installed Linux, so no worries there. |
+1 for XMMS. If you want to open MP3 files with XMMS automatically,find the file using FILE BROWSER and then RIGHT CLICK and select PROPERTIES then select OPEN WITH tab and select ADD then add XMMS. At least thats what I remember in my case anyway. |
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I dual-boot Ubuntu and Vista. To be honest, I haven't had much trouble with Vista. I guess I've been lucky so far. Ubuntu with Beryl pretty much rapes Vista in the visual and feel department. Now if only could get my girlfriend to quit rebooting into Vista every time she uses my laptop I'd be ok. |
XMMS has been deprecated.  The next best thing I found is Audacious. It uses the same skins as XMMS so it looks the same. The feature set is not as well rounded as XMMS, but it does the trick. |
can't find it right now i think my g-neices have been rearranging my cds
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Welcome to the Linux club. I have saved a lot of money by switching to Linux. No more virus programs to buy and 90% of the programs are free. No more spending $50 here and $50 there it seem like every thing you do with windows costs $$$. I prefer Gnome instead of KDE but every one has there preferences. here is A link I wish I had when I first got in to ubuntu. the AptGet/Howto........ https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AptGet/Howto |
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+1 on the KDE, I can't stand Gnome. Ubuntu is up to 8 now? I installed Ubuntu 7.1 and kubuntu I still don't like the distro... Although you can sudo in a shell, you're still not logged into X as root, having to type sudo all day completely sucks donkey. KDE is funkey in Ubuntu, incomplete menus, fonts etc etc. Ubuntu is not considered "stable" debian based distro. Ubuntu is the desktop hackers dream (I hack but need a desktop to work right out of the box). That being said... Mepis 6.5 was based on Ubuntu and has changed to purely Debian based in 7 for stability. The desktop is way nicer in all Mepis versions vs Ubuntu. I still keep a 6.5 live cd around because it has qtparted, 7 only has gparted and doesn't work so well much of the time. Of course that isn't a big deal once you're up and running. I started out w/redhat 3 (as I can recall, it's been a long time). RedHat really dominated the "market" for a long time. As a desktop based machine it sucked and as a result I didn't even screw w/linux as a desktop for many years (10 I'd say). The RPM package management was not even close to elegant and in many cases have to install from source. It was stable, open and a great alternative to the costly windoz thing. I divorced windows based servers a very long time ago and will never go back. I've burnt much time with Gentoo, emerge is a great package manager for tight control of what happens. Gentoo is very time consuming, you will learn a lot about Linux, their docs are great, too much work for a desktop. Gentoo's organization has been in a state of flux for some time, kinda sad. Linux From Scratch will teach you much as well, perhaps more than Gentoo - choose your package management poison w/LFS. After getting "hooked" on the magic of Mepis I've been using Debian for my preferred server platform. Installs quickly, apt is a reasonable package manager, I can find plenty of fault with all of them btw and although file locations and configuration methodologies are a little different (RedHat are you listening?) it's a great distro. Back to the desktop and the noob... Do yourself a favor, ditch Ubuntu. During the learning process you need quick and complete, not security - leave that to your router and email server. Past there... In a desktop environment that is complete, without the "screws" to tight, there isn't much you'll need help with in regards to "Linux". My mother, wife, kids can use it fine without knowing anything about Linux. My older son knows little about Linux and can install, do a little tweaking etc to his desktop and OS. Learn the file system (like any OS), learn a little bash scripting, use your shell so you understand what's going on under the "hood" (desktop) and you'll be well on your way. Some of this might not make much sense right now but as questions come up the internet if full of Linux answers like nobody's business and whether the answer comes from a Suse, Fedora or a Ubuntu user it usually provides the clues you look for to get the task done. After that, grab an old machine w/a couple network cards, build a Linux router for your home or business, slap Samba on there for file sharing (for both Windoz and Linux desktops), top it with Apache and OpenVPN and watch the real fun start! |