I have an HP pavillion ze5170 laptop computer that I purchased almost 3 years ago. Recently it decided to kill itself by destroying its own harddrive. I would start the thing and a single line of text would show up that read, “Operating System not found.” Luckily, I bought the 3 year warranty from Best Buy and still had 3 months on it. Now I have this laptop with a new harddrive + battery; the thing is factory reset with all the crap programs like “internet startup” etc. that it came with when I first got it.
I was thinking of selling it, now that it is pretty much brand new again, but instead I want to go the anti-microsoft route. 100% of my viruses came in through IE, I should have switched to firefox much earlier. Now I’m interested in installing Linux. Bear in mind I know nothing about Linux, though.
I just got my laptop back and haven’t even touched it, so…
How do I install Linux as my OS?
Is there a microsoft office equivalent in Linux?
Will all my media files still work: mpg, wmv, mp3, wma, mov, etc?
Will aol instant messenger work?
Is there a Linux equivalent to notepad?
Will Photoshop and Nero work?
Basically, now that I’ve lost all my information and am starting over… I want to make my laptop anti-microsoft and badass. If you need specs, they are:
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[li]How do I install Linux as my OS?[/li][li]Is there a microsoft office equivalent in Linux?[/li][li]Will all my media files still work: mpg, wmv, mp3, wma, mov, etc?[/li][li]Will aol instant messenger work?[/li][li]Is there a Linux equivalent to notepad?[/li][li]Will Photoshop and Nero work?[/li][/quote]
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[li]That depends heavily on which distribution you’re using. If you’re on an anti-microsoft bent, you might check out www.debian.org (they’re the closest thing to an official “GNU” distribution there is, or were when I followed such things). However, I think you’d be happier with one of the more shrink-wrapped consumer-oriented distros. The easiest route is to burn a bootable CD from the distribution, but in the drive, turn on your computer, and follow the directions. But you can make it more complicated if you want. :)[/li][li]Yes. www.openoffice.org[/li][li]Most media formats have a player available under Linux. There may be exceptions.[/li][li]AIM won’t work, but there are programs that speak the same protocol that you can use. Check out “gaim”.[/li][li]Yup–there’s a zillion simple text editors that run under X windows. Take your pick (but if you’re gonna learn Unix, forget them and learn emacs. Some people may speak of something called “vi” and say it’s a good editor, but they’re just pulling your leg. “vi” is a long-running Unix joke.)[/li][li]Photoshop and Nero are windows only, however, there are programs that perform similiar functions under Linux. Check out www.gimp.org for Photoshop and cdrecord for CD burning.[/li][/ol]
I’ve just done this last night. I used an official, bought-and-paid-for distribution of Red Hat Linux and installed it on a desktop system I have.
There were a few problems but nothing I couldn’t overcome. One thing to watch out for are sound and video cards which Linux has a problem recognizing. These tend to be cards that are very new and state-of-the-art. I wound up removing a new super-duper gaming-type graphics card and replacing it with an older Matrox. I also had to buy a VERY cheap sounblaster as Linux had problems with what was on the motherboard.
Both of these problems could probably have been solved by hunting up the drivers but it was just easier to swap the cards.
If you have always been a Windose user, try to pick a distribution that contains something like KDE or GNU which are GUIs that run on UNIX and will keep you a bit more comfortable until you get used to looking at a command prompt. The KDE GUI also has an MS-Office lookalike inside that is very useful.
I haven’t used UNIX in almost 15 years but it is amazing how easily it comes back and how genuinely handy it is.
I’ve found the easiest to install and most widely hardware compatible distro is Mandrake Linux. It also comes with just about every basic application you could need as part of the distro, to a point of ridiculousness. You can download it from mandrake.com (three .iso files) or purchase the CDs, depending on the speed of your download connection.
My only gripes with Mandrake are the difficulties getting Quicktime to work and place nice with browsers, and the fact that, for some reason, the drivers for my 802.11g card just won’t work. I’ve got it (dual boot with FreeBSD) on my file server machine, though, and it’s very smooth.
Hey! I like vi!
But seriously, Emacs is probably easier to learn and use, and both should be available on any Linux/Unix/BSD/Darwin installation. vi is quick, but cryptic. There’s also a GUI version of Emacs as well as console/text.
I strongly recommend that you try out the Knoppix distribution of Linux before you go through the trouble of installation.
Knoppix is a Live CD distribution of Linux on a bootable CD…there is no installation!
Just pop the CD in the drive, reboot the computer, and you’ll be running linux in no-time.
Most of the standard linux applications are there, but they are compressed heavily on the CD. Performance will suffer due to the compression, but it will give you a feel of what’s available without spending too much time on it, and with no risk of messing with your existing Windows installation (until you’re ready).
From the Knoppix site, you’ll download a CD image as an ISO file. Burn that to a CD, then you’re ready to go.
If your computer doesn’t boot from the CD, it’s probably not configured in the BIOS, but that is easily changed.
Knoppix is good, especially if you already have an OS on the machine and are considering a dual boot, but I’ve found that it does have some limitations with older hardware and particularly some of the more esoteric laptop components. Since the machine is already bare-arsed and you aren’t going to dual-boot, you don’t have to go through the trouble of repartitioning and configuring GRUB or LILO for dual OSs, and the install isn’t that big of a deal with a prepackaged distro.
Still, Knoppix is a good thing to keep on hand. I’ve used it on occasion to get past login on Windows machines where someone has forgotten the Admin password and change the password file.
Windows (even NT/2000 Pro) is so pathetically unsecure, even a barely cracker-literate shrub like me can hack past it. :rolleyes:
Here’s a page by somebody tackling Linux on the same laptop as the OP.
Try the bootable CD versions of Suse and Mandrake, before you commit to anything, because it may give you a good idea of how much stuff they recognise by default.
Thanks for all the info everyone. That link sounds like it could have been written by me! I think I want to try a bootable CD version of Mandrake, but I don’t know where to find it. A google search led me to “Virtual Linux” and “PC Linux OS”, but I don’t know which is better or how they are different. Any help would be appreciated. Also, I MAY want to be able to boot XP and Linux after all. I’m very comfortable with Photoshop and my Kawaks may not work with Linux… but for now I really just want to see what Linux is all about.
http://www.linuxiso.org/ is the place to start. Click on the Mandrake link, and download the v9.2 ‘Move LiveCD’ option. There’s also links to Knoppix and to Suse (IIRC the first CD of a full Suse install doubles as a bootable CD).
If you do go the dual-boot route, it is much easier to put Windows on first. Linux will see it an allow you the dual-boot option. Windows will give you all sorts of trouble if you try to install it on a machine running Linux, and want to keep your Linux working.
Personally, I’d say that spending 50 bucks on the new Linspire Five-0 might be a good way to go. You get support and stuff via the Linspire message boards, and it is very similar to Windows, and judging from reviews I’ve read (I haven’t spent 50 on it yet) it detects most hardware well. www.linspire.com
Also, SkyOS is a non-linux OS that is different from windows, looks pretty cool. www.skyos.org
The KDE GUI also has an MS-Office lookalike inside that is very useful.