Registered: Dec 1999
Location: "Children are a gift from God, they are a reward"
Posts: 1049

Thinking about trying out Linux?

Hey just a small bit of advice. It can be important to know exactly what's going on in your computer before you try and install a distro of Linux. If you are currently running a windows machine and want to try Linux run Belarc Advisor on your machine first. It will give you a lowdown on everything imaginable in your PC (hardware and software). You can find it, along with some other cool and useful apps at www.tinyapps.org , a truly excellent site.
Have fun!

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"I am a debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish."

Registered: Aug 2001
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Posts: 383

I recommend trying Linux by setting your computer to boot from CD and burning the SuSE LiveEVal ISO from http://www.linuxiso.org/ it gives you the feel of Linux without having to mess around with anything big so you can decide whether or not to buy/download a full distro or not.

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: "Children are a gift from God, they are a reward"
Posts: 1049

That's reasonable.

If you decide to go with a dual boot, or overwrite Linux over your current windows flavor, BA will give a lot of crucial info on your system (although it won't give you any info on your monitor) which will help when you set your Xconfigurator settings.

Are you running Linux now?

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"I am a debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish."

Registered: Aug 2001
Location:
Posts: 383

I'm running SuSE 7.2 with all the SuSE updates plus I updated XFree86 and KDE basically making it [better than] 7.3 out of the box. SuSE is currently one of the few distros only available on CD-ROM for Intel i386 computers but the documentation is well worth it. I currently dual boot with XP. I put LILO on a boot disk so whenever I want to run Linux I just pop in the boot disk and choose to load up Linux.

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Them Twin Cities
Posts: 1758

Thanks BobbyMike and Techie!! I now have a weekend project!

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Registered: Dec 1999
Location: "Children are a gift from God, they are a reward"
Posts: 1049

"Thanks BobbyMike and Techie!! I now have a weekend project!"

Claening out your garage is a weekend project you heathen! Linux is a life choice!

May monkeys crawl up your nether regions and smoke cigars for your insolence (sorry Matt N.)!

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"I am a debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish."

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Them Twin Cities
Posts: 1758

quote:

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Originally posted by BobbyMike
Claening out your garage is a weekend project you heathen! Linux is a life choice!

May monkeys crawl up your nether regions and smoke cigars for your insolence (sorry Matt N.)!

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Registered: Dec 1999
Location: "Children are a gift from God, they are a reward"
Posts: 1049

Does your monkey carry a gun?

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"I am a debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish."

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Them Twin Cities
Posts: 1758

quote:

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Originally posted by BobbyMike
Does your monkey carry a gun?

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Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:

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Originally posted by dietrichbohn
Only when he thinks about sex in the same sentence as his mother.

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Registered: Aug 2001
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Your welcome. For Linux help I suggest checking out the website of whatever distro you choose to buy, Linux.com, and if any websites you go to have a Linux/Unix forum the people there should be willing to help.

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: "Children are a gift from God, they are a reward"
Posts: 1049

"Your welcome. For Linux help I suggest checking out the website of whatever distro you choose to buy, Linux.com, and if any websites you go to have a Linux/Unix forum the people there should be willing to help."

Ditto, also worth looking at:

Linuxnewbie

Linuxapps

Freshmeat

and finally the Linux Roundup at ExtremeTech

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"I am a debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish."

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Aberdeen, SD
Posts: 2531

Diet R. Bohn, you might want to take a look at Mandrake for a virgin linux experience. It's easy.

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-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Them Twin Cities
Posts: 1758

quote:

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Originally posted by dick-richardson
Diet R. Bohn, you might want to take a look at Mandrake for a virgin linux experience. It's easy.

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Registered: Sep 1999
Location: San Francisco, CA
Posts: 431

quote:

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Originally posted by Techie2000
I recommend trying Linux by setting your computer to boot from CD and burning the SuSE LiveEVal ISO from http://www.linuxiso.org/ it gives you the feel of Linux without having to mess around with anything big so you can decide whether or not to buy/download a full distro or not.

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I've been wondering what Linux to try and looked at SuSE. The free Intel distribution can only be run from CD so that's no good. I'm going to try RedHat.

(A little later...)
I tried RedHat on a Compaq Deskpro with SCSI drives. RedHat hung every time it came to partitioning the drive. So then I downloaded Mandrake. Mandrake liked the SCSI and installed OK. I can see this Linux stuff is not going to be straight-forward but I want to give it a try Have been using PCs for 14 years...

Last edited by kalahari on 01-26-2002 at 05:14 AM

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Aberdeen, SD
Posts: 2531

Actually, I'm getting a laptop myself. I had been saving up for a nice ibook, but that got shot down to the pisser after hitting a deer and then backing into a lady 2 weeks later. After the deer, I lowered my deductible from $1000 to $500, for a grand total of $1500 and my laptop money. I did find a used thinkpad that will work in the meantime, if the guy will sell it. Maybe by the time I get the money scraped together again, Apple will have released a G4 ibook.

At any rate, I installed linux w/o my wife's consent. Thankfully, I was able to give her the iMac, so she only needs to use mine for internet - until I get my home network set up.

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-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: "Children are a gift from God, they are a reward"
Posts: 1049

I've got Red Hat running solely on my laptop (an old 200 Mhz Fujitsu Lifebook) and the old Compaq Presario, and I'm dual booting the new Dell (w/ WinME). the only problem I had was finding the correct monitor settings for the Compaq when I set up Xconfigurator. After I had installed Linux on my laptop I found out that can sometimes be a chore (putting Linux on a laptop). Lucky me, I had no problems.
I got my distibution with a book, Red Hat Linux 7 , so it's not the 420 CD full distro, just a 2 CD set.

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"I am a debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish."

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Them Twin Cities
Posts: 1758

Well, I'm going to wait for the laptop too, before I try out Linux... the guy I'm getting it from (or he's fixing my old one, or something like that...) is trying to talk me into FreeBSD... I guess we'll see...

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