To use Linux, or not to use Linux

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I'm considering installing Linux on my desktop computer at the moment--Ubuntu if possible.

 

Now, the question is, what will I get out of it that XP doesn't have? I have a few pros from the LiveCD already:

1. Lower memory usage--I was using 1/2 as much as WinXP.
   
2. sudo apt-get update vs. going to various websites to find if my software has a security hole and needs to be updated.
   
3. Security (though getting WPA set up may be annoying...)
   
4. Free (duh!)
   

 

I'd just like to know what else is worth getting, to see if I should back up and install or just stick with toying with the LiveCD. Remember that this computer will also be used by "laymen," as you could call them, so terminals aren't the best thing.

[ecoli]

you may get some info out of here:

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14229

[Dave]

It also depends on what you intend to use it for. Linux is still quite lacking in some areas (the most prominent being games). Personally I find myself going to Linux for a few days then switching back to XP after a few days.

[Dak]

one thing: if your going to dual boot, make sure you back up your files from the OS that is installed already.

 

My last attempt to install ubuntu alongside windows XP resulted in a less-than-amusing loss of my master partition table and all of my boot sectors

 

took me ages to repair my hdd/recover the original windows install.

 

[edit]actually, that was kinda my fault; but still, i'v heard from people who had it happen to them without doing anything foolish[/edit]

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

It also depends on what you intend to use it for. Linux is still quite lacking in some areas (the most prominent being games). Personally I find myself going to Linux for a few days then switching back to XP after a few days.

I'm planning on using it for the Internet, which is what I spend most of my time on.

 

And I do have a network drive that I can back up to, so I'm not worried about losing data (though it would be a pain).

[Klaynos]

meep meep...

use linux

 

UT2004 works nicely on it...

 

Yeah make sure you have backups (although my dual boot attempt was fine with ubuntu using 2 disks)...

[PerpetualYnquisitive]

You may want to try out a Linux distro that runs entirely from CD before committing to installing it on your harddrive.

 

http://www.knoppix.net/ supports this feature.

[ecoli]

You may want to try out a Linux distro that runs entirely from CD before committing to installing it on your harddrive.

 

http://www.knoppix.net/ supports this feature.

 

he did... hence why he was talking about the "Livecd"

[1veedo]

Ubuntu is a live CD that can also install itself.

 

For gamming try cedega. It's free even though their website would make you think otherwise. I don't do much gamming but it's ran everything just fine. (ps: America's Army installs nativly in Linux)

 

Btw, Ubuntu defaultly installs gnome. You can also check out other desktops such as KDE. Diferent people have their preferences, some like gnome, KDE, whatever. The only thing I dont like about Ubuntu is that it installs almost no software (of course, WIndows doesn't install anything). You'd expect things like whois to be default -- and it doesn';t even install firefox! Another thing is the media library. You'll want to install XMMS and build xine all the way from source...after uninstalling Kafine... And the last thing, synaptic package manager.

 

I think the main reason to go to Linux is that it's damn cool. Suberkaramba (desktop applets: weather, graphical bandwidth monitor...), multiple sessions at once (ctrl + alt + function key, startx -- :1), apt-get...

[eruheru]

im currently attempting to install hoary hedghog. im having dificulties, but im gaining a lot of experience which is worth it for me.

[Bluenoise]

I've tried linux a few times. But it's always ended up taking away to much of my time.

 

Like it's great n all, but unless you really need the benefits provided from it (or have alot of free time on your hands) it might not be worth the effort.

[Klaynos]

Btw' date=' Ubuntu defaultly installs gnome. You can also check out other desktops such as KDE. Diferent people have their preferences, some like gnome, KDE, whatever. The only thing I dont like about Ubuntu is that it installs almost no software (of course, WIndows doesn't install anything). You'd expect things like whois to be default -- and it doesn';t even install firefox! Another thing is the media library. You'll want to install XMMS and build xine all the way from source...after uninstalling Kafine... And the last thing, synaptic package manager[/quote']

 

Firefox was installed by default for me and everyone I know who's tried on ubuntu... And the ubuntu repositories have LOTS of other programs and if you're desperate you can very often use the debian ones... Also most of the problems such as not being able to play dvd's (fools) with xine in ubuntu have been fixed with the latest stable release...

 

Fluxbox is suposed to be a quite nice windows manager (another alternative to gnome) personally I use gnome.

 

I've tried linux a few times. But it's always ended up taking away to much of my time.

 

Like it's great n all' date=' but unless you really need the benefits provided from it (or have alot of free time on your hands) it might not be worth the effort.[/quote']

 

It took me less time that the average windows XP install I've done, but this is just personal experiance bassed on the 5 or so pc's I've installed debian on in the last year...

[1veedo]

Firefox was installed by default for me and everyone I know who's tried on ubuntu... And the ubuntu repositories have LOTS of other programs and if you're desperate you can very often use the debian ones... Also most of the problems such as not being able to play dvd's (fools) with xine in ubuntu have been fixed with the latest stable release...

I installed the lattest KUbuntu and the only browser I got was konquorer (not even Lynx!) I know that you can install everything you'd want very easily, in fact the apt-get is much better than yum IMO. But the default install provides nothing, no development files, hardly any compilers, no gift, no k3b, gimp, XMMS... Try installing Fedora and you'd see what I mean. After installing Ubuntu (and synaptic) I spent another hour or so installing software, most of which come installed in Fedora. This isn't a downside in Linux because one can sped several hours getting and installing software for Windows, which doesn't come with much more than notepad. You can install bundles of software like kde-guidance, build essencials etc but I think they should come installed.

 

The xine thing is that it doesn't support all the codecs. I've never had problems with DVD support but I did with supporting different media forms. Even still some of the codecs (certain AVI audio and wmv video for instance) don't work under 64 but xine supports many more video types when you build it from source than installing it from the repository. Kaffine played literally nothing.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Ubuntu's goal is to fit on 1 CD, so they aren't likely to add extra software to it.

 

Just how hard is it to configure the colors and theme of Ubuntu? I don't like the brown all that much. (Not that the XP theme looks all that great either, but at least it's bright)

[Klaynos]

Sorry 1veedo I've never installed Kubuntu so didn't know as for codes have a look at the ubuntu guide it's quite usefull on things like that, locations of win32 codecs etc... And yeah I know fedora comes with ALOT depending what you tell it you want the computer to do...

 

 

Ubuntu's goal is to fit on 1 CD' date=' so they aren't likely to add extra software to it.

 

Just how hard is it to configure the colors and theme of Ubuntu? I don't like the brown all that much. (Not that the XP theme looks all that great either, but at least it's bright)[/quote']

 

 

Very very simple, it comes with several other themes installed, and there are more in the repositories and with gnome/kde you can download new themes good sites for this are:

 

http://gnome-look.org/

http://www.kde-look.org/

[1veedo]

Superkaramba is a neat little thing I recently came across. I think it does themes but it can put cool wigits like the weather (with all the maps) and bandwidth meaters. I would post some screenshots but I'm having a hell of a time with my website right now...

 

http://liquidweather.net/screenshots.html

 

There are all kinds of things you can do with Linux it's just a matter of using it long enough to discover it. Try this, for example:

 

ctrl + alt +F1

log in

type startx -- :1

 

Neat, hu? Now you can scwitch bettwen F7 and the new F9. Play a game on one and feign your homework on another

[Bluenoise]

It took me less time that the average windows XP install I've done, but this is just personal experiance bassed on the 5 or so pc's I've installed debian on in the last year...

 

Debian doesn't have the proper drivers for my laptops hardware when I tried.

 

Anyways installation wasn't what I ment. Once you've installed windows there's nothing left to do. (it can be depressing)

 

Once you've installed linux. Well that's just the beggining if you get my drift. If I had the time I'd play with it, but life calls me in other directions for now.

[Klaynos]

Debian doesn't have the proper drivers for my laptops hardware when I tried.

 

Anyways installation wasn't what I ment. Once you've installed windows there's nothing left to do. (it can be depressing)

 

Once you've installed linux. Well that's just the beggining if you get my drift. If I had the time I'd play with it' date=' but life calls me in other directions for now.[/quote']

 

 

I spend more time getting ftp clients etc... for windows than I did setting up any of my desktop boxes (the servers obviousely took longer due to all the server software that was needed)

[1veedo]

It depends on what you're doing. Windows is usually more time consuming than Linux when it comes to installing software. You can spend a long time configuring Linux but that's just because you can configure Linux much more extenssively than Windows. It's perfectally head of to install a distro and never mess with the system ever again.

 

With Windows you're bound to eventually run into problems. Updates are horrible. Windows takes more time rebooting than it takes to fix an issue with Linux.

[MindOfChaos]

It depends on what you're doing. Windows is usually more time consuming than Linux when it comes to installing software. You can spend a long time configuring Linux but that's just because you can configure Linux much more extenssively than Windows. It's perfectally head of to install a distro and never mess with the system ever again.

 

With Windows you're bound to eventually run into problems. Updates are horrible. Windows takes more time rebooting than it takes to fix an issue with Linux.

 

Windows needs updates and runs into problems because its a broken piece of software but on the other hand installing software on Linux is mostly a nightmare if you can't find the right precompiled binarys and have to try and complie a whole list of depenancys and the application you want.

 

Or though I do like rpm packet manager. The packet manager that Fedora uses alot of people rubish it but its not that bad if you use pbone and type what you want to download and download it then open up your terminal logon as root then rpm -i and see what depenancys are missing (quite often theres a few) and go back to pbone and look at the reqiured depency list and download the things you need. I have heard Yum even better where you just have to type what you want to install into yum and it finds all the depencys need and installs them for you.

 

I am stuck in windows since about 2 days ago because I was trying to upgrade my distro to Fedora 4 when I found out that my modem wasn't surported. I have to buy a new modem as there are no drivers out there for linux 2.6.* kernal. It worked in rh9 because I had drivers for the 2.4.* kernal.

 

I really want to get back to linux because I want some stablity back and I love multiple desktops. there is a version of mulitple desktops for windows but it just doesn't cut it. Gnome and Xfce are my favorite window managers.

[Klaynos]

Windows needs updates and runs into problems because its a broken piece of software but on the other hand installing software on Linux is mostly a nightmare if you can't find the right precompiled binarys and have to try and complie a whole list of depenancys and the application you want.

 

 

Seriousely a decent package manger deals with dependencies and stuff and if you pick the right distro you have lots of binaries specifically designed for it... *hug apt*

[Dave]

Well, I've recently had a project due in for a module called Computational PDEs, which required quite a lot of coding. I have to say that I've now not been in XP for about 2 weeks, and it's quite a nice feeling For the area which I'm now starting to concentrate in (Scientific Computing), it's a lot easier to do the things I want to do.

 

There's a few qualms I do have though; firstly, I really do miss MS's ClearType, and nothing I do with the autohinter seems to be able to fix this. I'm also itching to get my hands on a stable version of XGL at some point, but I really don't know if that's even going to happen anytime soon But we'll see, I suppose.

[1veedo]

MindOfChaos if your drivers were in 2.4 you should still be able to use the 2.6 kernel. A lot of drivers have to be downloaded seperate of the basic kernel; it's not like the kernel is just one blob of code. Video cards are a good example of this. If you're using a different distro maybe they decided not to include it. There is the possibility that it's somehow incompatible, though. Google could probably tell you that.

 

PS: *hugs emerge* Seriously, package managers completely blow windows away.

[MindOfChaos]

Google tells me buy a new modem. The drivers were not included in the 2.4 kernal. They were binarys on a cd. I have some "source" code .src.rpm packages im not sure if they are true soruce code. They also complain when I try to complie them that the kernal header file is the wrong version and shows 2.6.

[Dave]

A lot of drivers have to be downloaded seperate of the basic kernel; it's not like the kernel is just one blob of code. Video cards are a good example of this.

 

You should step back and take a look at what exactly is included in the Linux kernel these days. I mean, seriously, there's a whole heap of stuff; right from support for at least 6 different architectures, support for all types of input devices from USB to Touchscreens, framebuffers, SCSI CD-ROM drives, network adapters, etc.

 

True, you can't get everything from the kernel. These days, however, I find that I only have to download video drivers for my ATI card, the pwc driver for my webcam and the alsa-drivers (which are also included in the kernel, but I prefer to keep them up to date). Not that I'm having a go or anything, but I just thought I'd point this out

 

And yes, portage does rock a lot.

 

For anyone that's interested, I just bought myself my first laptop which I plan to have dedicated to Linux (more specifically, Gentoo, since I adore that distribution). So I shall check in here from time to time to see how it's going