OK, Tech experts: Turn me on to Linux

Discussion in 'Technology' started by Neubill, Dec 29, 2006.

  1. patrickdavila

    patrickdavila Member

    Jan 13, 1999
    Easton, PA
    Club:
    New York Red Bulls
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The next release of Ubuntu (Feisty Fawn) is coming out in April. I hear it will offer the closed proprietary codecs as an option at install time. In the meantime Automatix works great.
     
  2. JeffS

    JeffS New Member

    Oct 15, 2001
    Cameron Park, CA
    Club:
    Everton FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Excellent post.

    However the one point I'll slightly disagree with is this last one.

    Your experience is with Ubuntu, which, as you say, is excellent. However, as I've already pointed out, Ubuntu is one of the distros that does not install proprietary plugins, media codecs, or drivers by default.

    True, Automatix2 makes it easy to get all that stuff. And your example isn't even the easiest way - You could just go to the Automatix website (finding by Googling 'Automatix'), and just download the deb file.

    Then in the terminal, just type the following:

    sudo dpkg -i automatix2.deb

    Then it will prompt you for your user password. And then it's done. And by the way, I did not give the full name of the .deb file there, because I can't remember it. Then Automatix will be in the desktop menu. Then you can launch it from there, and simply select the stuff you want, and execute it, and it does it's thing.

    However, Ubuntu, then using Automatix, is far from the easiest Linux option.

    I've been also talking about distros that do install the plugins, codecs, and drivers by default. All they take is a 10 minute install, and then everything is there and just works, without having to do anything else. Plus, these distros come with really good GUI config tools (similar to Windows Control Center). So with these distros, the user pretty much never has to enter the terminal, unless they want to.

    These include, once again:
    PCLinuxOS
    Mepis
    Freespire
    Xandros
    Mandriva

    ... and there are others, but these are generally the most popular, and generally the best at what they are designed to do (be a super easy desktop for non technical users).

    So, yes Linux is easy, and it does allow you to slap in a CD and just sip a cup of tea.

    But, apart from that, I love your post. It's just that you based your statement on your Ubuntu experience, which is a very good distro, but requires a little extra work to get all of the goodies a typical non techie wants.
     
  3. Claus KJ

    Claus KJ New Member

    Oct 1, 2003
    Aarhus, Denmark
    I made the switch to GNU/Linux (pedant points for me there) approximately a month ago after considering it for quite some time. The distro I went with was, as many others before me, Ubuntu and so far it has been a pleasant switch. Almost everything worked straight out of the box but there were a few things that required a bit more work but they were quickly solved with a bit of searching and typing in the terminal (except my lousy old printer that is). I still have Windows installed on a small partition but the only reason I keep it is to make sure i can write to the HDs that are formatted as NTFS discs and once I get around to buying an extra HD I'll start moving data around and converting all my discs to ext3 disks and then I'll be rid of Windows. Of course it helps that I'm not a big gamer but there are even ways to get around that if you want to.

    As JeffS said Ubuntu might no be the easiest distro to install but it is still very easy to do and if you don't mind searching and typing (or just use copy-paste) a bit you should have no problem in getting it to run on your computer. Anyway, try some of the distros out there if you're curious and remember there's more than likely one out there that suits your needs.

    So long Bill I won't miss you.

    KJ
     
  4. StrikerCW

    StrikerCW Member

    Jul 10, 2001
    Perth, WA
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Thinking about installing Linux (looking at the PCOS version) over my spring break on my/my parent's old computer to play around with and maybe use for everday stuff if I like it at school.

    They are getting a new computer and I think are going to hopefully back up all files needed on that computer for the new one.

    It has alot of crap/viruses on it so I really need to format the hardrive.

    Since this is mainly an experiment with an old computer.. should I bother to reinstall Windows and partition the hardrive for 2 parts 1 for xp and 1 for linux? Or just clean install the linux from the beginning.

    Also, if I just clean install the linux only, how do I go about making sure all that crap is off the computer and that the linux will run to 'perfection'? I heard a rumour that viruses can get into your RAM in addition to your harddrive and enable them not to be cleaned out when you format the harddrive, is this true?
     
  5. Naughtius Maximus

    Jul 10, 2001
    Shropshire
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    No! Not if it's switched off they can't ;)

    As others have said, try something like PCLinuxOS or Mepis which comes as a bootable CD with an 'install' option. You can download them and write them to a CD and figure out which one you like best.

    Obviosly, running from the CD it will be SLOOOOOWWWWW but that's because CD's are about a couple of orders of magnitude slower than a hard disk. I've just put PCLinuxOS on my dad's PC which is a 300Mhz Cyrix with a 4.3Gb hard disk and it works OK. Well, it works at about the same pace as my dad but he's nearly 80, so...
     
  6. nsa

    nsa Member+

    New England Revolution
    United States
    Feb 22, 1999
    Notboston, MA
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Boot from a CD, as Andy said, or a floppy to do the format.

    If you're really paranoid, re-flash the system BIOS. ;)

    .
     
  7. Grouchy

    Grouchy Member+

    Evil
    Apr 18, 1999
    Canal Winchester
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Just curious, has anybody spent any time with 64 bit desktop Linux? Every now and then I like to goof around at NewEgg, spec out a Shuttle xPC with a high-powered AMD 64 X2 cpu, about 2 gig of memory, y'know drool type power...

    I can either go Windows XP 64 bit, 2003 server turned into a workstation (install DX, etc.), Longvistahorn -or- 64 bit Linux. Most reading I've done on 64 bit Linux is that it ain't quite there yet.
     
  8. StrikerCW

    StrikerCW Member

    Jul 10, 2001
    Perth, WA
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The thing is, this computer as it stands now takes about 10 minutes to boot up and virus windows pop up every 5 minutes it is just plain rubbish.

    I want to wipe it clean, but do I still need to xp? is what I am asking.
     
  9. nsa

    nsa Member+

    New England Revolution
    United States
    Feb 22, 1999
    Notboston, MA
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    No, you do not need to have the old WinXP running. From my limited experience, Linux distros will prompt you to repartition and/or reformat.

    .
     
  10. patrickdavila

    patrickdavila Member

    Jan 13, 1999
    Easton, PA
    Club:
    New York Red Bulls
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    My main workstation is an AMD64 and Linux is quite happy on it. The only thing I have to do differently than a 32 bit system is to have a 32 bit compatability library (which comes by default on most 64 bit versions of distros) to run a handful of programs not natively compiled for 64 bit. I run the 32 bit version of Firefox because there's no 64 bit flash player for Linux. You used to have to run chroot environments for 32 bits apps. Not the case anymore. Ubuntu/Kubuntu, Debian, Mepis, OpenSuse, Gentoo and other distros all work great on 64 bit systems.
     
  11. Grouchy

    Grouchy Member+

    Evil
    Apr 18, 1999
    Canal Winchester
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Just curious, then ...

    Lets say I was going to get and AMD64 X2 CPU, with probably 2 GB of ram or 4GB if prices go down, and enough disk space to store a number of decent sized virtual disks, iso images, backups, etc. or the typical nerd pr0n collection. I'd like to do the following on that machine:

    have a desktop KDE or Gnome or Flux or whatever, doesn't matter
    share files on my LAN via Samba
    run VMWare server
    maybe browse the web
    maybe have a local subversion repository

    Which 64-bit Linux would you recommend now or in the next couple of months (ex, isn't the next Ubuntu coming out soon)?
     
  12. Dadinho

    Dadinho Member

    Feb 19, 2005
    San Diego
    Club:
    Vitoria Salvador
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The new FreeBSD to be released this year, but I prefer UNIX to LINUX because of familiarity.

    http://www.freebsd.org/
     
  13. JeffS

    JeffS New Member

    Oct 15, 2001
    Cameron Park, CA
    Club:
    Everton FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I'd recommend any one of the major distros - Ubuntu, SuSE, Fedora, Mepis, PCLinuxOS, etc, that offer 64 bit versions. They could do all of that stuff easily.

    BTW- that will be a pretty kick-butt system, capable of running virtual servers to your heart's content.

    That's ultimately what I want to do - have Linux has the host OS, then run, as needed, Windows in virtualization. That's the best way to run Windows if you absolutely have to (for Windows only software) - that way if it gets infected by some malware, or the registry gets too bloated, or it simply crashes (as it still sometimes does), you can simply start a new virtual instance of Windows, back to it's pristine state. And it can't affect the underlying system, Linux (and that underlying system is rock solid).
     
  14. Neubill

    Neubill Member

    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Jan 26, 2005
    Southern Kelehfornya
    Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread.

    I have two concerns:

    1. Security. If I buy a distro, like PCLinuxOS, how will I know that my sensitive data isn't being secretly being transmitted and captured? I'm not the conspiracy type, but at least with Windows, you know it's some dude in Redmond. With the distros, it's sort of anybody's guess. I'd feel a little more secure knowing the company making the distro was bonded in some way.
    2. Lack of geekiness. Based on many of the contributions from the many knowledgable posters in this thread, it seems that one must have a real good understanding of the computer's workings, whereas, I'm very un-geeky when it comes to this stuff. I freely admit that I'm far from a brainiac when it comes to this stuff. Moving away from AOL's mail client to Thunderbird was a big step for me. Is there a 'Dummies' book out there?

    I just bought a laptop (Celeron M 430) and would to have an OS that I can boot up with by disk to:
    • Check e-mail with Firefox
    • Listen to steaming media on Real Player from my broadband connection

    Do I need to be geeky for this?
     
  15. nsa

    nsa Member+

    New England Revolution
    United States
    Feb 22, 1999
    Notboston, MA
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    1: The fact that this is all open source means that other folks have the chance to look at the code to see if there are issues. There are folks out there looking at the code that are more paranoid than you or I. :)

    2: Stay away from the Dummies and embrace your geekiness. ;) (And there are a lot of free on-line FAQs and tutorials.) And you might not be using RP for that streaming media...
     
  16. StrikerCW

    StrikerCW Member

    Jul 10, 2001
    Perth, WA
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Got PCLinuxOS livecd up and running on my old desktop (although it won't boot up on my laptop after the loading screen for some reason, although that is not really important because I need windows on this one). Planning on wiping the hard drive after my parents get their stuff off of it.

    My question is, do I need some kind of anti-virus if I will connecting via ethernet to a University network with the linux computer? Also, what are some of the 'required' softwares for the OS, other than antivirus if applicable.
     
  17. nsa

    nsa Member+

    New England Revolution
    United States
    Feb 22, 1999
    Notboston, MA
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Yes. AVG has a free version for Linux. I'm sure there are others.

    It all depends what you use the system for. Firefox and Thunderbird are available for Linux. You may want OpenOffice 2.0. Adobe Reader, too.
     
  18. Naughtius Maximus

    Jul 10, 2001
    Shropshire
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    Well, no... but yes... but no... but yes.

    The thing is you'll probably be copying data files in windows formats, like word, excel, etc, back and forth so do you REALLY want to give some else a problem when all you've done is copy a file, edit it and then send it out to someone else? In any event there are certain proof of concept, (POC), viruses for linux but, because you should only be working as a normal user they should only have the permissions to do something you can do yourself as a normal user and that limits their damage.

    As long as you NEVER normally log in and work as root user, (superuser), you won't be able to infect any programs because you simply don't have 'write' permissions for them, i.e. you can't overwrite your program files because you're not the rot user. Actually, there was one a while ago called 'bliss' IIRC but that was about 10 years ago and nothing has really been seen 'in the wild' since then. In fact that was pretty much a POC as well.

    Just be sensible, install a virus prog and keep it, (and the rest of your op. sys.), up to date on a regular basis, and only install any software from accredited sources like the PCLinusOS repositories and you'll be fine.
     
  19. StrikerCW

    StrikerCW Member

    Jul 10, 2001
    Perth, WA
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States

    Nice posts guys, thanks.

    On the thing bout PClinuxOS and it's program to install programs (the name escapes me at the moment): are all the programs listed on there considered "safe"? Or are they just a bunch of programs in lists.
     
  20. Naughtius Maximus

    Jul 10, 2001
    Shropshire
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    Synaptic, the PCLinusOS software management program, stores list of it's available programmes in 'repositories'. As I understand it the major repositories, (the default ones), only add software once it's been checked.

    The thing is that with linux it's usually the case that the source code is available for scrutiny by other people. It's a bit difficult to get a virus past people if they can see the source code staring them in the face.

    Er, not you I don't mean... people who understand such things ;)
     
  21. Naughtius Maximus

    Jul 10, 2001
    Shropshire
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
  22. ForzaGrifo

    ForzaGrifo Member

    Sep 22, 2000
    Here's a good comparison between Windows vs. Linux:

    http://www.michaelhorowitz.com/Linux.vs.Windows.html

    It should be noted that one major advantage for Linux over Windows is that in Linux, you'll never need to defragment your hard disk (unless it is more than about 80% full). So in Linux, you will rarely experience slow down of your hard drive due to defragmentation like you will experience in Windows.

    Here's an explanation for why there's no defragmentation in Linux:

    http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/index.php/2006/08/17/why_doesn_t_linux_need_defragmenting
     
  23. Neubill

    Neubill Member

    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Jan 26, 2005
    Southern Kelehfornya
    So it looks like Dell will be offering systems with Linux preloaded sometime in the near future. It'll be interesting to see if some others follow suit. A non-geeky type like me might like the idea of a company (Dell, HP, etc.) being able to offer drivers and support for a Linux machine.
     
  24. Naughtius Maximus

    Jul 10, 2001
    Shropshire
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    Just downloaded the FREE virtualbox software available for most Linux distro's and windoze in the, (probably unlikely), event you want this, from http://www.virtualbox.org/

    Works great :)
     

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