Okay, because of various problems with my PC (sluggish boot/shutdown speeds despite tweaks, some kind of malware running in the background that screws up burning software, etc.) I’m going to be switching to Linux. I’ll probably be using the Mandriva distro (though I’m not adverse to using any of the other free distros), and while I’ve played with Linux before, I’ve not made the commitment to it that I’m having to do now. (You see, I burned CDs of Mandriva and when I went to install them, everything went fine until it came time to install the stuff on the drive, then I got errors indicating there was a problem with the CD. Of course, my hard drive was already formatted at this point, so I lost Winblows, and if it weren’t for this copy of Knoppix that I have, I wouldn’t be posting this right now.)
I’ve tried downloading the Mandriva distro using Knoppix, but it claims that the drive’s full after just a few moments (given that it’s now a blank 18 gig drive, I think that this is hardly the case) so I’m going to go over to a friend’s place after a while and download and burn the stuff there. One thing that I want to be able to do, is use some kind of ad blocking software, so I’m not staring at the ads on various websites, and I’ve noticed that Konqueror in Linux doesn’t have that natively built in. When I was running Winblows, I had Proxomitron running which killed all of that. There’s not a Linux release of the software, so I’ll need something else. I intend to run Opera as my web browser once I get everything set up (and I don’t know if that’s got any features in it similar to Proxomitron on the Linux version or not). Also I’ve got a tuner card in this box (ATI) and XawTV doesn’t appear to be compatible with it, so if there’s something out there that will work with it, I need to know what it is (and how best to install it, since Linux isn’t quite as simple as Winblows). Any other pointers would be greatly appreciated (like software that’ll play AAC encoded audio files).
I’ve used Firefox and I don’t really like it, since it doesn’t have some of the features that Opera has. I only use Firefox when a page won’t load in Opera.
I would like to recommend the Ubuntu distribution; it has been specifically tailored as ‘Linux for human beings’ - it comes with GAIM, Gimp and Firefox included in the standard install and uses the Synaptic package manager to add extra stuff, which is really quite straightforward to use.
Second for Ubuntu, if you’re not willing to go for Debian. If you didn’t know, Ubuntu (and many other distros) are Debian-based, which says a lot about Debian. However, I think Ubuntu now has more developers working on it (as it’s funded), so it seems it progresses more quickly. I also believe that it currently does a better job at recognizing a larger assortment of hardware than Knoppix (although it’s always chancy if you have non-mainstream hardware). Since you mentioned Knoppix, Ubuntu also has a live CD (which I assume is why you used Knoppix).
The apt download/install tools that are available with any Debian-based distro are excellent, and at least as easy to use as anything on Windows. You mention a tuner card; my (extremely limited) remembrance is that you may have issues with that. The only two I remember being well supported are ATI All-in-Wonder and some card by Hauppage. And now I’m doubting my recall about the ATI, although you should be able to google it. At any rate, finding and installing an available package for video from an apt system should be trivial, assuming one is written (and I know there are replacements for xawtv).
I’m not familiar with Opera, being a Mozilla user (which I like better than Firefox), but I find it hard to believe they don’t have some sort of ad-blocking. A quick google for AAC turned up Hymn, although I’m not familiar with that software as I don’t generally use my computer for audio.
Rereading this, it seems I’ve not offered much in the way of actually useful knowledge. Sorry about that, but I’ll try and lend a hand if there are more questions.
This is the part you should be dealing with first. It’s possible that your aborted Mandriva install screwed up your disk partition. You should fdisk from your Knoppix CD to make sure you’re really starting from a clean slate.
I can’t really comment on getting up and running on Linux. I occasionally play around with various distros but I always end up reverting back to windows. I just have too many windows apps that have no linux equivalents of the similar quality (AutoCAD being the big one) and WINE has always been buggy for me.
Just an opinion on partitioning your disk manually – if available, I find that parted is easier to use than fdisk. According to this blog, Knoppix includes qtparted, which has a similar interface to Partition Magic (but is free).
There are several ad blocking proxies for Linux, such as filterproxy and privoxy. Also, Konqueror as of version 3.5 has basic ad blocking features.
Other posters have recommended Ubuntu, which uses GNOME by default. There is also Kubuntu, the offshoot which uses KDE by default. I highly recommend that you try both GNOME and KDE, because there is too much great software under both heads to rationally exclude either one for the sake of consistency. I find Konqueror to be my favorite browser, Gaim my favorite instant messenger, Kate my favorite graphical text editor, Gnumeric my favorite spreadsheet, and so on.
The caveat is that this isn’t necessarily applicable to the latest Mandriva releases, because I’ve been settled with Ubuntu for a while. However, it was pretty serious - damaging an XP partition it was supposed to be leaving untouched. It doesn’t seem to be common, but I’ve found other people with the same issue when I’ve googled.
For reasons far too complicated (and stupid) to go into here, I’m running Mandriva. for the moment, and I’ve managed to get Opera up and running, but for some reason I can’t get into the second hard drive on this box, which sucks, since that’s where I’ve backed up my bookmarks and other things on this machine. I can’t even find it, using any of the installed software. Any ideas on WTF I need to do?
rkts, does Privoxy for Linux work better than the Windows version? I tried using it on Windows, but I couldn’t get it to work.
You probably need to mount it manually. Was that hard drive partitioned into two partitions, or was it all one partition? What specific Windows version did you use when you added it? (This will determine the filesystem type (FAT32, VFAT, or NTFS), which you need to know in order to mount it.) Are your drives SCSI or IDE? (SCSI is more expensive and less common. If you don’t know, IDE is a safe assumption.)
I don’t know what graphical programs exist for doing this kind of thing under Mandriva, so my instructions (once you’ve answered my questions) will be entirely focused around the command line method, which will work on any Linux distro whatsoever. Someone who knows Mandriva specifically might be able to give you instructions for how to use graphical wizards.
It’s mounted, I’ve managed to find it hit 'n miss style. I can’t get certain apps to find it, but Nautilus has finally figured out that it’s there. So I’ve copied certain files for Opera to the desktop, and I’ve gotten my bookmarks imported that way, but I can’t figure out where Opera stores it’s session files in Linux, so I can’t copy those over.
Not being familiar with Mandriva, I’m not sure what tools they have available. However, gparted is the gnome frontend for parted partition editor that I mentioned earlier. It’ll show you all the disks, their filesystems, and allow you to change things if you’d like. Also, I’m not familiar with Opera, so I can’t help there.
Any application should be able to “find” a partition, so long as it is mounted and readable (unless, of course, the app is configured to look in a different place). You could add a line to the fstab file to always mount it in a particular place on startup. For instance, to mount the second drive in your own directory (assuming it’s partition 1 of the second drive, an ext3 filesystem, and your home directory is /home/tuckerfan), do this:
Make a directory called, say, /home/tuckerfan/hdb
Edit the fstab file (you must be root), adding the line:
/dev/hdb1 /home/tuckerfan/hdb ext3 defaults 0 0
You can check the man page for fstab for the options (type “man fstab” from the command line or google it).
Tuckerfan: Well, that was random. I don’t know how to help with that.
And don’t modify /etc/fstab (or any other configuration file, really, but especially that one) without knowing precisely what each line means. Type ‘man fstab’ into a console window and don’t touch the file until you have read and understood the manual that appears. Looking at your current /etc/fstab file is also a good idea.
Oh, here’s something a Windows user might not know – a file that begins with a period doesn’t display using the regular ls command. You need to pass the -a switch.
…and many, if not most, of the settings for various programs for your account will be in a hidden directory under your home directory, eg, /home/tuckerfan/.programname
Do an ls -a in your home directory to see everything that’s there.
They’re the equivalent of C:\Documents and Settings uckerfan\Application Data in Windows.
You should at least consider a dual boot configuration, especially now that storage is so cheap. Just because Windows is there, doesn’t mean you have to use it every day, but the likelyhood of getting a few weeks or months down the road, and finding out “Hey, I need XP to do this” is high. I haven’t heard from one single person who made a clean break with Windows, and I’ve been a card carrying techie since the mid-nineties. I’ve actually made a couple attempts over the years, but it’s still to soon I guess. It’s either a sound card, or a video driver, or no support for my digital camera - whatever. It’s always something, and I can’t justify refreshing every computer-attached geegaw, whizbang and doohickey I’ve got just to run LINUX full time. And trying to run it on a laptop? Ugh. Don’t even get me started. Yes, LINUX is vastly superior in many (many) ways, but you can’t beat Microsoft at their own game. Good luck.