Linux

[demonmagus]

Anyone here use linux at all, I don't atm but I will soon do a dual boot system with ubuntu, I am a beginner and I heard ubutbu was one of the best

 

[smurfyy_2k3]

used to andywg still does

 

[demonmagus]

used to andywg still does

how come you don't use it anymore?

 

[smurfyy_2k3]

got a new laptop havent bothered with it since i changed. nothing bad about linux just that windows is familiar

 

[andywg]

Ubuntu is one of the easier ones to set up. However most of the best advice pages (such as ubuntu forums) seem to have died.

There are plenty of sites out there, and I find it a joy to come home to Linux after having to use Mickey Mouse Soft at work. You do still need to be pretty computer savvy, or at least proficient in searching on google to be able to set it up nicely though.

 

[bumfrog]

Ubuntu is one of the easier ones to set up. However most of the best advice pages (such as ubuntu forums) seem to have died.

nahhh, they're still there and a mine of information

http/www.ubuntuforums.org/

I use Ubuntu on my laptop at home and for some things at work. It's works great. The problem comes if you have any hardware incompatability and need to mess around installing third party drivers and such. The latest version 6.10 boots up to a live cd (so you can try it) and then install from there, so you can try before you buy as it were

 

[PeterM]

I'm using Ubuntu 6.10 right now. It just took me an hour to make room for the installation in Windows by moving files around. It then took 45 minutes from reboot to install Ubuntu 6.10 in the space. Theres a few things to know though, and you will really want to write these down:

• If you dual boot, don't let the partitions make themselves, you probably wont find much left afterwards!
• Always install Linux after Windows
• Try to use LILO if you're a beginner as your boot loader (ignore this if theres no clear and simple option to use it, GRUB is also great)
• You NEED this: a SWAP partition thats at least the same size as your RAM, preferably double - its type is Linux - SWAP
• You NEED this: a root partition ( / ) that fills the rest of your disk and is of type ext3
• Its NICE to have this: a boot partition ( /boot ) that is 512MB big - this just makes your disk a bit tidier and is completely unessential

Heres how nice Ubuntu is... the Internet connection that I use is on the Windows machine next to me. Ubuntu automatically does all of the network configuration and Internet configuration and I just installed over a dozen packages from the Internet using the built in Add / Remove feature. Firefox comes with a spell checker built in too in 6.10.

Note: there is a project called WINE. It lets you install and run Windows applications in Linux. I found repeatedly that the Windows version of HalfLife actually gets better frame rates when run through WINE in Linux than it does in Windows itself. WINE has now been massively upgraded so that about 95% of modern applications - including Office 2003 if you really don't want to leave it behind - will run in Linux. Even Steam and HalfLife 2 / Doom 3 will run! Its incredible.

Picture this: an operating system that doesn't crash, that does everything you need it to do, has a very shallow learning cure, has an intuitive interface and allows you to play all of your favorite games and use all of your favorite applications with minimal configuration...

Thats Ubuntu 6.10

Oh, and this version has got nearly all of the SATA hard disk problems ironed out too, so compatibility has never been better!

Quick Edit:

Another good version for beginners is Mandrake 10, though its no where near as simple as Ubuntu 6.10. Good versions for more advanced people are RedHat or Debian. Ubuntu is based on Debian and Debian is widely seen as one of the most powerful Linux distributions and is my personal favorite, but only because Ive used it for years. for new users its like pulling teeth.

 

[andywg]

I must briefly disagree with "has a very shallow learning cure"

I steep learning curve indicates that something is very easy to learn quickly as the amount you have learned goes up very quickly (but the phrase is misapplied by 95% of people using it). Therefore I reckon a shallow learning curve is not right for ubuntu as I found it pretty swift to pick up (and faaaaar easier than trying to configure internet usage on Mickey Mouse Soft).

Though for some reason I still cannot get ubuntu forums from home. I can ping the website from a control panel, but cannot view it. How strange...

 

[PeterM]

'lo weebl

There are updates for Firefox in the Ubuntu update manager thingie, try those. Failing that use a proxy, its likely that if the site pings but wont load then your IP has been blocked, check your PMs

 

[aaronc]

I use ubuntu on a few low end servers at work and have it on my testing/dev server at home

As much as I like it, I am still too reliant on windows.

Aaron

 

[three-fingers]

I use SUSE from time to time on an old computer that's now set up in the basement, I used to use it more but since I got my laptop with XP (which i like) running about 8 months ago I've not bothered. It beat windows 2000 easily though.

 

[Michael Buckley]

I have tried from time to time, but I can never quite get my wireless card to work. So I am hoping one day it will be supported and I can use Linux.

 

[andywg]

The new version of ubuntu (Edgy Eft - 6.10) has greater support for more wireless cards. I couldn't truly comment as mine was supported on Breezy and Dapper.

 

[rockerBOO]

Got my Gentoo system compiling right now.