Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Martinus on March 01, 2004, 08:31:23 am
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[color=66ff00]OK I know I'm probably opening a hornets nest of possiblities but I'd like to play around with Linux again, it's been a few years since my last foray and I'm sketchy to say the least.
Since I'm on DSL DLing whatever I need is not a problem.
Where should I start? I'd like something that's as close to windows as possible in use and functionality initally but with the flexibility to move away when I feel like learning more. So any ideas? :)
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First thing you need to do is format your harddrive. this can usually be done by way of the format.com command, located in the Windows directory.
Do that now. Then report back here for further instructions. :D:D
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[color=66ff00]Have you been banned recently?
Feel like it? :D
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there is no need to eliminate your windows install. most distro's should include a good partitioning tool, and a boot loader.
i'd google for different distro's, and check all the sites. i am using RH myself, but i'm not very handy with it.
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Pfff. If you're gonna double-boot you at least need Partition Magic so you don't completely **** things up.
And I'd suggest getting RedHat.
As for learning Linux, I strongly recommend the "four sheets to the wind" method. Basically just open every menu, change every value, delete and restore every file until you find out exactly what you need to do to bone your system. Then re-install linux and start using it.
I can personally vouch for the effectiveness of this method as I used it many, many years ago to learn Windows. That's why the blue-bar on my IE says "Microsoft Internet Explorer powered by Tony's Arrogance".
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[color=66ff00]Cheers an0n, one question though; why Redhat? Mandrake seems to be quite popular amoungst the masses, how about Knoppix?
I don't know much about the different distros.
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:lol:
Go for a distro with good support. I'm going to be using Mandrake on my new machine, but there are plenty of them about:
Mandrake
SUSE
Red Hat (being changed to a corporate OS, so the home version will be called Fedora soon)
Knoppix
Lindows
Gentoo
Debian
Those are some that I've heard of. The last 2 are meant to be rather evil to use if you're new to Linux, but someone else will know more than me. :)
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For the simple reason that RedHat is the industry standard.
If you go for the easier options you'll have much flatter learning curve but...well, you won't learn as fast.
I'm not suggesting you jump in at the deep end (sure, you'd learn faster but you'd also get really annoyed with Linux in general), but jumping into the shallow-end is a lot better than paddling around in the Mandrake kiddy-pool.
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Originally posted by pyro-manic
Red Hat (being changed to a corporate OS, so the home version will be called Fedora soon)
you're rather out of date - Fedora Core 2 release is in a few weeks
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Originally posted by an0n
For the simple reason that RedHat is the industry standard.
[color=66ff00]That reason alone is good enough for me, the others are just good sense. :nod:
Thanks again an0n. :nod:
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you don't need partition magic, i did my linux partitioning using parted before installing.
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You don't need Partition Magic, just like you don't need a GUI.
It's just a damn good idea to do things the easy way.
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hell, if i can use parted, i'm pretty sure someone computer literate can.
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Yeah, but Partition Magic is just pointy-clicky stuff.
The only possible way you can **** things up with it is if the computer stalls while it's trying to physically re-write the drive data.
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[color=66ff00]Hmmm, the Redhat site effectively dubs fedora as a less stable, less secure OS than the enterprise version. Is this simply to make people buy the enterprise version?
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Probably.
It's like how everyone says Windows 98 is a pile of crap with no security that crashes all the time. If you keep it updated and take minimal measures to keep Windows happy, it works fine. But if you're using it to host 50000Tb of webspace you'd want to use 2000 or NT.
For the general purposes you'll be using it for, all Linux is essentially the same. You just want the one with the best interface, easiest commands and simplest installation of apps (which RedHat has in spades).
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Actually, for 50Pb of space, an0n, you'd have to use XP64, Win2k64 or a *nix. ;) But that's pedantry.
For a beginner, Maeg, avoid RedHat. The RedHat package management is horrible, and they've done so many horrible things to the file system, that it would be hard to transfer your RedHat skills over to any other Linux based OS, let alone another Unix like OS.
I recommend Gentoo. Better yet, I recommend being utterly conservative and not using Linux at all: use FreeBSD. The hardware support is leading edge, not bleeding edge, so newer hardware may not be completely supported. But the hardware that is supported is supported very well. Further, the system as a whole is more stable, which means you spend less time trying to figure out if you broke something or if that thing was broken as designed. Package management and building from source go hand in hand, and installs are completely reversible. You don't get the same sort of thing with any of the Linux package managers (except maybe debian's apt or gentoos portage, which is just a rip of BSD's ports). Finally, you don't have to worry about the screw Linux bootloaders. LILO and GRUB both (yes, I know there's more, but they're all arguably worse than LILO and GRUB) are fragile. On the other hand, FreeBSD is quite happy to use the Win2k/XP bootloader if you desire, or provide its own, sane and dynamic bootloader.
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I hate FreeBSD.
Granted, my hatred stems from accidentally installing it without XFree, but still.........
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That, actually, is the best way to get to know any Unix. ;)
Seriously, never EVER install FreeBSD with XFree86. Always always always install XFree86 afterwards. And don't use the configuration GUI. There's a commandline you can use to build a basic XF86Config file, which you can customize later. Its a hell of a lot safer.
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[color=66ff00]Crap, I knew you guys would do this. :D
Hmmm, more possibilities. Good thing I haven't started downloading yet. ;)
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Well, I've never tried Gentoo, but if Mik and Kam (excessively, constantly and annoyingly on IRC) say it's better, I'm willing to cede to their judgement.
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[color=66ff00]Not that I don't value your opinions guys but I'd like to hear Kazan's although I think he might say debian as he sounds like a linux extremist. :)
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I recommend Gentoo, but I wouldn't USE Gentoo.
See, I don't like Linux. From the memory management to the lack of standardization, to the plethora of mutually incompatible package managers, Linux is too much of a mess for me to use, let alone like.
I recommend Gentoo because it provides Portage. Portage is directly inspired by the BSD ports system. For those of you not familiar, I'll break it down: On any *nix box you can install software from source code (IE, build it yourself) or from binary packages (like installing a Windows program). On a Linux box, these two things are generally (though not always) two completely seperate things.
On a BSD box, these two systems are almost identical. If you want to install a package (lets say, php4). As root, you just type:
# pkg_add -r php4
Your machine goes out and fetches the package and installs it. You can do pretty much the same thing with Linux style RPMs or deb packages, too.
If you want to build from source, you just do this as root:
# cd /usr/ports/lang/php4
# make install && make clean
That will fetch the source, compile it, and install the software. Not much different than using a package, really.
With Linux, when you download a package, you get whatever the package maintainer thought was a good idea to put together. When you download a package on a BSD box, you get exactly the same thing as you would have gotten from installing from the source in /usr/ports. This means that you can depend on identical behavior from both sides of the software management system. This is a very good thing from both a systems administration point of view AND a user point of view.
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Originally posted by Maeglamor
[color=66ff00]Not that I don't value your opinions guys but I'd like to hear Kazan's although I think he might say debian as he sounds like a linux extremist. :)
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Kaz uses Fedora, so far as I know, Maeg. Check the source code forum. He was talking about it not long back.
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i hate debian with a passion
I use Fedora
red hat says "Fedora is less stable" but is not talking about run-time stability - feature stability. Red Hat Enterprise is "Tested, certified, supported etc" so has a slower revision time and is thereby called "more-stable"
Fedora is the updated constantly
mik's *****es about memory management and whatnot have been addressed in the 2.6 kernel which will be shipping with Fedora Core 2
Red hat does do things differently - but rpm is not "braindead" espcially now that there is yum which is the rpm equilivent of apt-get for .deb's
Red Hat and Fedora also have the anaconda installer which saves you many headaches. The summartion of everything in fedora makes it the easiest ditro to learn on - the differences are minor [paths, just where certain files are stuck *twirls finger*]
Mik is currently caught up int hte "FreeBSD" whore craze and they try to say things about linux swhich they used to say about windows. The problem with this is not all of it is true, and what little hat was true has been addressed in the 2.6 kernel
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[color=cc9900]I'm surprised that Knoppix hasn't been mentioned much more than it has in this thread. If you can afford to download lots of stuff, it's the way to go if you want to get an initial impression of Linux. Runs off a CD, and doesn't do jack to your computer, so if you don't like it you simply restart without the CD in your drive. Then you can move onto something more permanent when you're ready.
I second mikhael's FreeBSD viewpoint for the long run. This (http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/rants/bsd4linux/bsd4linux1.php) is a very useful site if you want to get a grasp of the differences between FreeBSD and Linux. Unless you buy hardware like the clappers, then there is no real reason not to use FreeBSD.[/color]
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i thought Maeg already played with knoppix
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[color=66ff00]Yeah briefly Kazan, I was interested in getting something that I could customise to the extent you said was possible in another thread (the Microsoft one I think, not 100% sure).
As for learning *nix, to be honest I just want to be able to use it and know that if I need support for my hardware that it'll be there.
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[color=cc9900]Hardware support will always lag behind Windows, due to hardware vendor choice. However, FreeBSD will almost always be able to utilise hardware more stably than Linux due to drivers only being released when fully tested.
One other advantage of FreeBSD is that it allows binary-only drivers to be loaded at runtime. This is more attractive to vendors than releasing their source to the world.[/color]
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Originally posted by Maeglamor
[color=66ff00]Yeah briefly Kazan, I was interested in getting something that I could customise to the extent you said was possible in another thread (the Microsoft one I think, not 100% sure).
As for learning *nix, to be honest I just want to be able to use it and know that if I need support for my hardware that it'll be there.
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then ignore all the arguments here and use fedora - it's the easiest to use, best supported, yada yada -- from there you can learn the harder distros and whatnot
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Originally posted by Kazan
mik's *****es about memory management and whatnot have been addressed in the 2.6 kernel which will be shipping with Fedora Core 2
Actually, no, Kaz, they're not. The whole memory management scaffolding of Linux is broken. You'd have to tear the whole thing out and rewrite it from scratch, in my opinion. Its one of the things I dislike about the Linux kernel, and have since... oh... the early nineties. :D
Mik is currently caught up int hte "FreeBSD" whore craze and they try to say things about linux swhich they used to say about windows. The problem with this is not all of it is true, and what little hat was true has been addressed in the 2.6 kernel
I'll wager that I've been using a BSD OS longer than you've been using computers. I remember the time before Linux, after all. I'm not 'whoring' for FreeBSD, I pointed out that I like it. I recommended a Linux to Maeg. When someone suggested that I liked Linux I corrected them. Be careful how you characterize my motives and statements.
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Originally posted by mikhael
Actually, no, Kaz, they're not. The whole memory management scaffolding of Linux is broken. You'd have to tear the whole thing out and rewrite it from scratch, in my opinion. Its one of the things I dislike about the Linux kernel, and have since... oh... the early nineties. :D
they did completely rip out the memory manager and rewrite it
Getting around, oh a 60% performance increase IIRC
Originally posted by mikhael
I'll wager that I've been using a BSD OS longer than you've been using computers. I remember the time before Linux, after all.
As do I
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As I recall, there was some reason I hated all BSD stuff in general. But I can't, for the life of me, remember what it was.
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Originally posted by an0n
I hate FreeBSD.
Granted, my hatred stems from accidentally installing it without XFree, but still.........
[color=cc9900]In this thread ^_^[/color]
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No, that's just why I hate FreeBSD.
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Originally posted by Kazan
they did completely rip out the memory manager and rewrite it
Getting around, oh a 60% performance increase IIRC
Its faster, absolutely. But its still not robust enough. Basically, what it boils down to is that I prefer the time tested BSD model for memory managment. I find the Linux model lacking. Since the BSD model not only works, but is in a live OS, I get to have my cake and eat it too. You prefer Linux and that's cool. Stick with it. I'm not trying to convert you. I'm trying to tell you what I don't like about Linux.
But please: don't call me a 'FreeBSD whore' ever again. Be certain you know my position before telling the world what they are--or better yet, leave it to me.
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A) How is linux not live
B) how is the linux model lafcking/unrobust
C) something being around longer doesn't make it better
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I always recommend Mandrake to n00bs, not because it's the most flexible or powerful, but because it's n00b-friendly and is very major. Redhat Fedora is comparable to Mandrake, but my experiences with Redhat have been quite bad.
Mandrake's package management is not very good. It's possible to set up "apt" or something similar, but not a very pleasant ride.
For someone willing to learn, I recommend Gentoo or Debian. Gentoo is a source-based distro, that is, you compile the packages you install (the BSDs are like this). There are precompiled binary packages available (same with the BSDs), but in Gentoo's case not all packages have binaries. On a moderately fast computer the smaller packages won't take long, but it's not fun at all to compile XFree or GNOME (these big packages have precompiled versions).
Debian is nice 'cause it has sources for all packages (though it's not too easy to setup your system with source packages) and binaries for all packages. The package management is bliss. However, don't use the default "dselect" program. Use aptitude (for terminal) and/or synaptic (graphical). Don't expect an easy initial install with Debian until the new installer is released.
You could try using a BSD too, but the BSDs are all harder to set up than the n00b linux distributions. They're probably on the same level as the "hardcore" linux distributions.
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It just occured to me: Since I'm now using an Ethernet card to hook my PC to the Wireless Router instead of using it's USB to go direct to the modem, I can finally get RedHat to recognise my internet connection!
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Originally posted by Kazan
A) How is linux not live
B) how is the linux model lafcking/unrobust
C) something being around longer doesn't make it better
A) I didn't say Linux isn't alive. ITs very much alive. I said I prefer the FreeBSD memory management frame work better and since I can have my preference in the OS of my choice, I use it. You're looking for an attack where none exists.
B) It doesn't meet my requirements. Its a personal bias. Nothing more. I believe I stated that it was my opinion.
C) you're absolutely correct. I didn't say the longevity of BSD made it better. You're looking for an attack where none exists. I was using BSD before there was Linux. Does it not stand to reason that I would continue using the OS I have always enjoyed?
Now, let me finish this conversation: use Linux if you want, Kaz. I don't care. I use FreeBSD. Its what I like. Its an opinion. If that's not enough of an explanation for you, tough. Drop it.
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I am currently rying to install CRUX (www.crux.nu) on my laptop. Had some problems with the lilo so I had to start over.
It's probably a little too 'hardcore' for me (<-- n00b), but I have a friend I can turn to when I get stuck.
Oh, dual-boot, of course.