Taking the Linux plunge....

By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics and access other forums reserved for members. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today by clicking here.

Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 6:21 am

I can help you look at some of these without prejudice. If as most people you go into it expecting a duplicate of M$ you will be disappointed. I think you have to clear your mind and start without expectations. And don't be afraid to try the command line or in some cases directly modify a file.

A.) User friendliness - Depends on which GUI you use. KDE I know about. I wouldn't prejudice you with my opinions.

B.) Media playback - Some types of media have to be installed separately like Realplayer. Of course a few M$ proprietary formats won't be easy but with searching you may find the codec. The newest ones won't play.

G.) Gaming (I kind of already know this will be a joke on Linux since I know they can't fully replicate the DX API) Forget it for the most part. I never tried WINE but you should look into XWINE if you want the better video games. It comes with dll's for windoz graphics which will help. Also to be fair try the Army game, "America's Army". Ported to Linux so you don't need an emulator and will see the real libraries at work.

Linux games available
http://linuxgames07.blogspot.com/2007/09/top-21-linux-games-of-2007.html

I have to respect that you are willing to try it out. Give it a chance and if something is confusing ask people here. Sometimes things are not clear but are easy once someone explains it.

Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 6:29 am

Quote:

You don't need to waste your time to find out why Linux 'is so good'.

And that's the only thing it requires... time. He could 'waste' his money to find out my Mac is so great, but Linux is free.

I have been more-or-less forced into the Linux world because of some piece of malware that I can't get rid of in Windows. But then again, I could waste money on a spyware remover that *might* remove it. Too bad every spyware remover is confusing me as to what I'm really infected with. So I figured I'll just ditch Windows until I do a complete reinstall in April when the new Ubuntu release comes out. And to tell you the truth, I'm not doing too badly without Windows! Here's what the bonuses are for me:

No more paying for crappy software
No more conflicting spyware reports
No need for spyware removers
Customizability

I really like the idea of customizing Linux into whatever you want, and I wish I had more time these days (like I did in my youth) to pick it up at a faster pace. However, work and family life come first Smile

I'm not a typical Linux pusher because I know it's not for everyone. It works for me, it's less time-consuming to fix than Windows (at least in my experience), and I'm not a gamer. The only games I usually play are old DOS games, and those work quite well in DOSbox.

But if someone is interested in Linux, of course I'm going to tell them to at least try the live CD.

Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 3:38 am

I've mentioned the appliance concept before and I still think that is a great way to start. In this case get an old laptop and set up linux on it. There is a good article on how to do this and while I wouldn't reccomend a Pentium 1 or 2 the author of this article does.

From the article:

Quote:

If you acquire an old Pentium I, II, or III era laptop, you'll find a good many uses for the machine. We've entered a new day -- you no longer need to have the latest hardware to have a useful computer.

Open source software has matured. Linux is much better at recognizing laptop hardware than it was just a few years ago. Installation is easy. Hundreds of enthusiasts have posted their experiences in installing laptop Linux on the web. My own success shows you no longer need to be a Linux guru or PC support specialist to get laptop Linux working.

Full text:

http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT6185716632.html

Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 4:50 am

I use to run linux on a P2 and worked fine. The problem comes more from the GUI you use. The newer ones need the faster CPU and GPU. Unfortunately as KDE desktop gets more like windoz, it gets more like windoz. The bloat is starting to show. Just use a window manager like blackbox and it will run fine on old hardware. I even had linux running on a 386 at one time just to see what would happen. Slow with a GUI but useable.

Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 4:58 am

Quick question: how big is this setup file supposed to be?

EDIT: Nvm I stopped bothering with the mirrors. Just went to Bittorrent.

Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 8:12 am

The full distro is 700 meg.

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

Rover seems to have repaired quoting; respect.

Bungo Pony wrote:

Also, I wouldn't get too "settled in" yet, as the new LTS version is coming out in April. I'll be settling into that one myself, as it will be supported for three years (it'll be two before the next LTS release). Doing Ubuntu upgrades is just as painful / successful as doing upgrades in Windows.

I did that on the last LTS release (Dapper Drake), and I wished I hadn't. Debian-based distros like Ubuntu are far easier to upgrade than Windows, since you do it all from the GUI/command-line - no CDs involved. Programs you have installed get upgraded along with the OS, so you don't need to reinstall them. A couple of months ago I did the upgrade, and while it did take quite a while to download all the files and do the upgrade it went wonderfully smoothly. It would have been even easier if I hadn't been three releases behind and had to do each in turn. The result was a much better OS than the one I was using. Whereas I had both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Firefox, the former of which required a lot of arcane fiddling and couldn't auto-update, now I find I can use just the 64 bit one.

The sticking point in Linux for me is realplayer and flash - because both are commercial applications, and they don't (yet) play well in an AMD64 Linux install. However it is getting better all the time. There is no Linux version of Quicktime, and Apple don't seem to be in a hurry to provide one, but I've only missed it once.

One reason put forward why there are no viruses in Linux is that the user-base is so small there is no reason to write them. I don't believe that, but it does hold true for commercial apps like realplayer, flash and quicktime. It also holds for games. As the Linux base gets larger these apps will be increasingly released for Linux.

The problem with games is not that the API is not available, it is, but that they cost a huge amount to produce. Many games are as involved to produce as a Hollywood film, and that is an expense that the Open-Source community cannot match. Many games are released these days with Linux ports available, but that does cost a significant amount of money to do and the games companies will not do it unless they can justify the expense.

Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 11:17 am

There are very few viruses on Linux, because Linux is just built to be secure, with it's root and user accounting. Saying that LInux has less viruses because of it's smaller user base is just silly.

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

^^^ I never said it was and I tend to agree. However I refer the honourable gentleman to my previous answer.

http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=886960#886960

Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 11:58 am

Oh, sorry, I re-read your post now Sad

Taking the Linux plunge....	View next topic View previous topic