the linux switch

various things have been getting on my nerves latley
spyware, virus, shitty programs that eat memory, adware and the like..., software licenses, its all just utter bullshit... and with the release of vista coming very shortly i am celebrating by switching to linux.

but i have questions

i have a pretty nice grasp of the inner workings of windows, but i have never used linux... im wondering what a good flavor for learning would be
i was thinking of mandriva10 http://www.mandriva.com/
someone also suggested debian

another thing is im addivted to video games... which poses a problem
someone told me to use wine, they said it was fairly good at running win games, but reading the site, its seems quite difficult... this isnt really a major thing... dual boot with xp is always a possibility

does anyone have any advice on a good flavor for begginers... any software i will need, or a good intro site?


thanks guys

Just make sure all your hardware is compatible with the distro.

Burn, I would say start with a user friendly distro. such as Mandrake or even Red Hat. I used to have a dual boot but found things are so much easier in Windows. Linspire is also something to look at, it is the most user friendly but you would have to purchase it.

Welcome aboard the Linux train to freedom! Most distro's these days are not any more difficult than XP or 2000 to install. As long as your hardware is fairly new, dsl/cable connection (56k modems can be challenging sometimes), it's pretty much "next". I use Mandrake 10.1. I have used RedHat, Debian, SuSe and Xandros. Debian and SuSe are probably best for getting your feet wet. The great thing about Linux is- Try Them All, they're FREE! I have used wine previously, as well as dual boot using Linux Loader (LiLo). Wine works great -with somethings, setup is a exercise in patience. Dual boot is a long startup time (think win2000, then add 38 sec). I am beta testing the next release of VMWARE 5 (I think). It is so much better than VirtualPC, and boots up fairly fast. Once booted all OS's are available. The best fit for me was a XP "gaming tower" and a second, more moderate system for Linux. Because the hardware requirements for Linux are so low, it doesn't need to be on anything faster than a 233Mhz to give good performance. Go here, http://www.linuxiso.org/ and download 1 or 2. You may also want to try Knoppix a time or two. It is a bootable OS that runs off CDROM. It emulates a 4(?)GB HDD from CDROM. Boot to disk, play w/Linux. Remove disk and restart back to HDD. It's here. http://www.knoppix.org/ Longest reply ever, Good Luck!

"Dual boot is a long startup time (think win2000, then add 38 sec)."

Not really.

"Because the hardware requirements for Linux are so low, it doesn't need to be on anything faster than a 233Mhz to give good performance."

Actually, I've been able to run XP very well on a lower end system from '97 that Ubuntu struggled with.

As I stated before you will not find a more easier to use OS then Windows or even MAC OS. Reasoning behind that is they are marketed towards the genreal public. In which 95% can't even find the My Documents folder.

Linux is still a programers OS, but because it is not highly used it is more secure then any copy of Windows, not matter how much anti-virus, firewall, anti-spyware protection you have.

nzo- yeah im prolly going to go with a gaming tower... i have an older 1.7 amd... the bios needs a hot flash... i figured i would do that tommorow and install mandrake
you also arent the first person to suggest debian so ill d/l that too.

pil- im having a copy of lindows burnt for me as we speak

mmm nice and clean... i love you fefe

I would say mandrake is a good choice if your beginner to linux and have a good grasp on windows, suse is by far my favourite and they even offer a dvd you can run to try it without having to install it (good way of checking to see if the hardware works)

You'll probably find your first steps with linux will be frustrating as mine was but once you get the hang of it you won't switch back.

If your into gaming check http://transgaming.org/gamesdb/ for a list of games that will play on linux if you have Cedega (formerly known as winex)

Also look at http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20040329/index.html for some information on switching from windows to linux

If you decide on suse also see http://cdb.suse.de/searchForm.php?searchtype=simple&LANG=en_UK&PHPSES[blacklisted]43b4d2e614a614879c39331e170f6420 for a database of hardware that will run on suse

I installed Mandrake a few months back, it is a very easy install. The only thing it didn't detect was my NIC. I was able to find the drivers pretty easily though. One major issue I had with Linux was that they don't have exe. files. All programs are under rpm's and you can't just double click and a set up wizard opens up. You have to compile the files into proper directories and stuff.

That is why I say Linux is still about 3-5 years to be an actual competitor with Windows. Until they figure out the 1 click installs for all programs and no more command/compiling Microsoft has a lock on the market.
Edit: spelling

Duds, those are some great references thanks....

I always liked Tiger stripe, seriously try knoppix it runs off a cd so you don't have to do anything to your pc to check it out

Quote:

Originally posted by PiLsNeR

Duds, those are some great references thanks....

no problem

you can get most linux distros at linuxiso
They have a lot of information linux in the forums too

well transgaming seems to have erased my gaming problem :P

i run Kubuntu regularly, infact im on it right now.. runs all my hardware just fine.. + able to watch all my porn

Setup.exe- I remember that, that was very convenient. RPM Packet Manager (RPM) after a couple of visits isn't bad at all. Take your time and learn how things work. When sat down in front of our first OS, none of us knew how it worked. Don't go cold-turkey w/winblows, you'll just get frustrated and go back.

welcome to linux Burn. dual boot for games. enjoy mandrake. its clean and sweet + there are a thousand pdf manuals on the net for it. if you ever want more support go redhat but i use drake.

i like mandrake (mandriva) the most.. but over all i prefer wxp corp

if you are going to try out debian, go for the testing distribution 'sarge'. its got much better support for new hardware and with the the new installation scripts its alot easier to get a version up and running than the stable distribution, but i recon starting with mandrake is a nice starting point.

and try out knoppix, but on some old hardware i had some probs with a new version, but i tried an older version that i had and that worked fine. i think because of the space limitations they remove support for hardware more than a couple of years old