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Help with Linux

Started by save yourself Feb 16, 2005 at 11:32 PM 11 replies 2k views

Original Post

Feb 16, 2005 at 11:32 PM

I need some help... I don't know anything about Linux, but a number of companies consider knowledge of the linux environment a plus. Since I should probably become a bit familiar with it, I have decided to install it on my other computer. The problem is, I don't really know what to get or where to get it. I know there are several versions but I don't know the difference. What version do you suggest for somebody that is familiar with computers, but not familiar with Linux? Being free is a plus. Where would I get a copy? What software would you recommend getting (internet browser/programming tools/MSoffice type stuff/whatever)? Thanks for the help. Edit: Anybody work for any companies that primarily use Linux? What version do they use (or recommend using)? I'm specifically curious about engineering professions and what would be good for me to get used to. [Edited by - save yourself on February 16, 2005 11:57:29 PM]

Miserable

Feb 16, 2005 at 11:49 PM

Ubuntu Linux is a fairly new distribution that is frequently recommended to beginners. I have little experience with it, but it looks nice. If you get a Gnoppix live CD, you can even run it from a CD without installing anything to your hard drive (though it has disadvantages, such as the lack of saved settings, documents, and so forth).

Pretty much any distribution comes with a full complement of tools—I believe the default Ubuntu setup has OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox, and so forth; getting the Anjuta IDE should not be difficult.

Note that there are literally dozens of Linux distributions, and which one is the best for what purpose is a religious issue. Ubuntu is one that's recommended for beginners; others include Fedora, Mandrake, and so on. Generally, they all come with all the tools you need, and are all free.

leiavoia

129

leiavoia

Feb 16, 2005 at 11:53 PM

For more specific answers to this generic question, search the forums on linuxquestions.org and also check out linux.com for some articles.

For a steamin' fresh newbie, i'd recommend you download, burn, and run Knoppix which runs off the CD drive entirely and does not install anything. It's good to play with and get a feel.

When you are ready to install, i'd look into a newbie friendly distro, either Mandrake (free) or Fedora (free version of RedHat).

Start by reading as many articles as you can on what distro offers what.

Cygon

110

Cygon

Feb 17, 2005 at 12:25 AM

You also might want to take a look into SuSE Linux. They're strongly pushing it towards being a desktop operating system, thus the default installation boots directly up to KDE 3.

You can grab ISOs of the Professional Edition and also a Live CD which does about the same as Knoppix.

-Markus-

Goober King

104

Goober King

Feb 17, 2005 at 3:01 AM

Quote:
Original post by Cygon
You also might want to take a look into SuSE Linux. They're strongly pushing it towards being a desktop operating system, thus the default installation boots directly up to KDE 3.

You can grab ISOs of the Professional Edition and also a Live CD which does about the same as Knoppix.

-Markus-

I finnaly settled on SuSE after trying several others. I'm not to sure about the direction IBM wants to take it, but overal I've been happer with it that any other.

I've always gotten the Linux CD/DVDs from 2 places. I only have dialup so downloading the ISOs aint gonna happen. One place is Ebay. There are several people that will sell copies of various versions for only a few dollars. Just enough to cover the disk and shipping cost. The other place Is Linux Format magazine. Its a UK mag I think and it often ships with whatever the current is of one distro or another. If you do have a good connection then you can download the install CD for just about any distro you please. Try a few of them just to see what the deal is.

PnP Bios

114

PnP Bios

Feb 17, 2005 at 6:27 AM

try cygwin. unix in a sandbox.

save yourself

Author

save yourself

Feb 19, 2005 at 1:26 PM

Well I decided to try out SuSE 9.1 and the ftp installation is easy enough, but I can't figure out a good way to install SuSE so that it is the only operation system on my computer. The YaST auto-partitioning tool is leaving most of my harddrive for XP, but I would much rather have the effect of formatting the entire drive and installing only SuSE (no XP remains). How can I safely do this? Can I resize a partition created for SuSE so it just takes up the XP space, and if so, which one do I resize? Is there a better/safer way? Help!

QzarBaron

Feb 19, 2005 at 3:43 PM

Quote:
Original post by PnP Bios
try cygwin. unix in a sandbox.

If you just want to learn Unix and Linux then thats a good idea to use Cygwin or Knoppix.

If you want to use Unix/Linux then I recommend Ubuntu Linux.

LinuxQuestions.org is a great source of information.

If you want real knowladge and experience(and have a couple jars of aspirin lying aruond) then I recommend LFS or Slackware. Not for the faint of heart though.

Yann L

219

Yann L

Feb 19, 2005 at 3:54 PM

Quote:
Original post by save yourself
Well I decided to try out SuSE 9.1 and the ftp installation is easy enough, but I can't figure out a good way to install SuSE so that it is the only operation system on my computer. The YaST auto-partitioning tool is leaving most of my harddrive for XP, but I would much rather have the effect of formatting the entire drive and installing only SuSE (no XP remains). How can I safely do this? Can I resize a partition created for SuSE so it just takes up the XP space, and if so, which one do I resize? Is there a better/safer way? Help!

When Yast gives its suggestion for the partitioning, you have the option to go to expert mode (a button on the bottom of the screen). Here, you are totally free to customize your partitioning in whatever form you want.

WilyCoder

Feb 19, 2005 at 5:26 PM

Be a man, get Gentoo Linux. Compile everything yourself, do a stage1 install.

Luckless

379

Luckless

Feb 19, 2005 at 5:56 PM

Now, with the 'newbie friendly' builds of Linux, how hard is it to set them up as a dual boot with WinXP already installed?

I've been wanting to get away from MS and learn others, but still want to play all my games. I've read some people saying the only want to get a clean working version is to to a fresh install of everything. how true is that?

WiseElben

Feb 19, 2005 at 6:03 PM

Most Linux distros come with Grub, which will let you dual boot windows. I got it to work on mine a year ago, but when I reinstalled Linux, Grub doesn't read my XP anymore, but I don't think you'll come across that problem.

Luckless

379

Luckless

Feb 20, 2005 at 4:54 PM

interesting,... I should have started looking into this again at the START of my 1 week break from classes,... as with my luck, it will mess up, and I'll lose my computer just as I have like 5 projects due,...

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