linux yes or No?

Question

I have a tower computer 1 year old runing WINDOWS XP home. 1gb ram. Drive c 200gb hard drive Drive d 50gb . 1.80gig AMD Sempron processor. I am strugling to decide which linux OS to use and how to install it. If you have an idiots guid it would help. tried reserching it but just got more confused. Please help or Linux has lost a user

Answer 1

I'm an old windows guy. I've used windows ever sense Windows for Workgroups back in '93. *Sigh* Those were the days. Anyways, I got heavy into the tech stuff, and own a computer repair business, and I even taught a class Windows XP a few years ago. Anyways, I was totally happy in my own little windows world until a friend of mine showed me Ubuntu Linux. I was immediately captivated, and started goofing around with it on my laptop.

What I did (with my Linux savvy friend helping me) was to go to www.ubuntu.com and download the CD image. It was an .iso file, so I used Nero Burning Rom to burn the CD image to a CD. (assuming you have Nero already, just open the burning rom, click the tab on the left that says 'ISO', click browse, and navigate your way to the .iso file you burned. Then click burn it, and wait until it's done.)

Once I had the CD of Ubuntu in my hands, I put it back in the CD rom, exited windows, and restarted my computer. Then I went into bios (system setup right when your computer turns on) and made sure my boot order was set to CD Rom - then Floppy - Then Hard drive. Then I saved, exited bios, and waited until the screen said 'press any key to boot from CD'. I pressed any key, and then I had a screen in front of me that said Ubuntu! There were several options to choose from, but I just chose the one that said Install or Run from CD.

After a little bit of loading, I was looking at a new shiny operating system. Now, what is nice about where we are so far, is that Ubuntu isn't actually installed on the system. It's just running off of the CD. There is nothing being taken from, or put on your hard drive. So, you can get a taste of Linux (or do some hard core learning like I did) without having to commit to an install. So, for a few days I just ran Ubuntu from the CD, and I fell in love.

Ubuntu comes with so much software, like audio players, movie players, firefox browser, graphic editors that rivals photoshop, a office suite that kicks M$ office's butt and tons more! That alone kept me busy for days. Also, another neat tool was Synaptec package manager. This is a search engine style software installer program. It lets you search for, or just browse all the !!FREE!! open source software that is avalible in the Linux universe! It even takes care of installing it for you (usually installing new software in Linux is hard for newcomers). And let me tell you, there is so much great software out there, from games, educational tools, database programs, HTML editors, scientific calculators... It's amazing.

So, at that point, I became a Linux believer. I decided to go ahead and install it on my hard drive. But, before I did that, I thought it might be a good idea to have some reference material for the process. So, I went to Borders Books and got a copy of 'Ubuntu Linux for Non-Geeks' by Rickford Grant. Boy was that a good idea. Not only did the book guide me through the install, but it also helped guide me through all the software configuration and updates that I needed to get my computer like I wanted it.... But I'll get into that later.

So, with my new book in hand, I got down to business with the install. I still wasn't 100% convinced that I was going to go all Linux, so I decided to leave a copy of Windows XP on my computer. All I had to do was boot up into Ubuntu from the CD like I did earlier, and right there on my desktop is an icon that said 'Install Ubuntu'. Well, that sure made it easy. I just clicked it, and I was on my way. Most of it was very straight forward. The most confusing part was the partitioner (I'll skip the rest because it's so easy I'm sure you can figure it out for yourself).

The partitioner allows you to split your hard drive into 2 sections. Because Linux uses a different file system than Windows, it has to have it's own place to live. So, you have to give it it's own partition. Luckily, Ubuntu's partitioner makes this really easy. When you get to the section in the install about partitioning, you will want to choose 'manually edit partition table'. The next screen will ask you to choose what partition to modify (you should have 2 to choose from. I would recommend putting it on your 50Gb drive D) and how much space you want to give to the new partition. I gave my new Linux partition 10Gb of space. You may want to go less, but DO NOT go less than 4Gb. If you do, Linux won't have enough room for virtual memory, and your system will be very sluggish. Trust me... Just keep it over 5Gb. :) Then choose 'finish partitioning and write changes to disk'. This is a very safe surgery to your hard drive, and won't cause it to loose any data that you have saved in your Windows installation. Once you're done with that step, the rest is pretty much a no brainier.

So, that's how I became a Linux geek. It's been months sense I've went to Linux, and I haven't looked back. I've done all the record keeping for my computer business, HTML editing, digital pictures, MP3s, DVDs, movie editing, and tons more in Linux with very little difficulty. And best of all, it has NEVER crashed. No spyware, no adware, no viruses, nada. It's a beautiful thing. Of course, as with anything new it's going to take some time to get used to, but I'm sure that you'll become a Linux lover too!

So a last word... I really recommend that book I mentioned earlier - Ubuntu Linux for Non Geeks. - That book was really my Linux salvation. And, it's just nice to have a reference book when you're stuck somewhere, and can't figure out what to do next. Also, Ubuntu has a VERY extensive community and official support website that I will mention in the sources section. Those are some of the most valuable tools around for the Linux user.

So, if you're a little open minded, I'm sure you'll fall in love with Linux too. Not to mention, it's awfully nice to have an endless supply of free software. I still can't get over that.

Have Fun! Hope this helps ya!

Added 3-9-2007 6:54PM
Oh, and that Synaptec thing I told you about... It'll also let you download and install a DVD decoder easily (the book I mentioned guides you though that). You CAN indeed run (most) windows programs with another easy to install bit of software from the Synaptec program (again... the book tells you how)....

The reason I chose Ubuntu is because I was such a windows guy. Ubuntu was designed with normal computer users in mind. Other Linux OSes like Mandriva and SUSE are (aside from being HUGE) more geared to the seasoned power Linux user. They can be much more difficult to learn because they rely less on the GUI (the windows type graphic interface) and more on the texted based command line for downloading and installing new software, and for configuring system functions. Ubuntu just makes the transition easier.

Just go to www.ubuntu.com and read their mission statement.... Then you'll see. :)

Answer 2

There is a way of trying Linux to get an idea if you like it before you install. There are versions which can run from a CD without any effect on your Windows installation. This way you can try various distro's to see which you like. I recommend you buy a copy of Micro Mart it's only a couple of quid. In the classified adverts you will see a number from Linux man, he sells most available versions, he.s reliable and knows his stuff. They also have a web site with forums where you can ask for assistance if needed the guys there are really good and very helpful. Linux is for me much better than Windows and not just because it's free, if you just want a stable O/S and don't want to mess around it's fine. However it does give you the option to do a lot more customising if you are interested. Good Luck.

Answer 3

Why not try dual booting, use Kubuntu linux, its a simple process Download from http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/releases.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/edgy/kubuntu-6.10-desktop-i386.iso and get the disk image, make the disk bootable when you burn it. Linux will run from CD so you can just try it out and see if you like it. If you do you can install it. I would suggest dual booting it with windows its a simple process and there is a graphic partitioning tool included during the install. but before you install it is advisable to back up and files and defragment your hard drive. When you have linux installed on your dual boot system it is possible to have you win xp disk (ntfs) visible to linux so you can read the files from your XP My Documents and stuff.

Linux is certainly the way to go, especially if you want something that works.

if you decide to install looking at your system it could be advisable to install it to your 50Gb Hard drive and run them on totally seperate drives. When you format the drive for linux I would advise on a 1Gb swap partition as this is the RAM you have and maybe go for a 10Gb '/' partition (this is where the operating system files will go and a 39Gb '/home' partition (this is the equivalent of My Documents.

I hope you have fun with Linux, if you still arent sure maybe check out https://help.ubuntu.com/6.10/ubuntu/installation-guide/i386/index.html
this should give you better and very concise information about the questions you have. I would hope it does

Answer 4

Yes and No.. it's not for every one as it depends on what you do with your PC. I use Linux Suse 10 and find it OK,where it falls a little short is in audio and video/DVD playback as there's some sort of licencing agreement that prevents many of the Linux distributions from offering a DVD compatible player as standard,however the latest version called Mandriva 2007 has included a complete player although this is only available with one of the commercial paid for versions,and if you want to connect to the Internet through an adsl modem things can get a little fraught to say the least.I would suggest looking on eBay or some such site and buying a couple of versions ,yes they are free to download but for the sake of a couple of quid you can save yourself a lot of hassle.
The other thing to remember is that you can not easily use programs that were designed for windows although there is away around that,but again its not as straight forward as many would like.
As for dual booting yes certainly Suse and Mandriva will
automatically detect windows on your hard drive and they will partition it so as to save your windows OS and install Linux on it's own partition.(I have my Laptop set up like this XP pro and Linux Suse 10)
On the up side it is a stable OS and is generally considered safe from viruses,and as standard it comes with a whole host of software applications,the DVD play back issue is relatively easy to resolve it just takes a bit of research on the various Linux forums,basically I'd say give it a go and see how you get on with it,I'd suggest taking a look at the latest version of Linux Suse(10.2) or Mandriva 2007. Hope this helps ;0)

Answer 5

i subscribe to a couple of cNet news emails and one of them was about someone asking about Linux in which there were a lot of very help full responses but unfortunately i can't find that link but did find this one http://help.cnet.com/Linux/9602-12576_39-0.html?messageID=2507420&tag=tip-2507420&kw=+Linux+ which may be a good starting point, to find more just search for some forums for linux as there are plenty out there

Answer 6

I don't know if it will help, but there's an article about one guy's experience with switching to Ubuntu Linux that might have some good information for you. It's at http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTI5OCwxLCxoY29uc3VtZXI=

Answer 7

we set it up dual boot...
to linus or windows.
but they have to be on separate partitions
so maybe you could use partition magic to make
a new partition for linux.

Answer 8

OK NO