I was reading this thread about getting a new OS for a computer. Leenmi mentions (third post) that Linux has better resource management and he uses it on his 333mhz laptop. I also have a 333mhz laptop running Win98. It’s soooo slowww. I only use it for checking email and a small amount of surfing but I get pissed at the slowness. I’ve tried deleting all the programs I don’t use and cleaning up the registry. It wasn’t much help. After reading about the superior resource management of Linux, I’ve decided to try formatting and installing it on the laptop.
I know a little about Linux but I have never used it before. I AM willing to learn more and I see it as a fun challenge. I’ve been reluctant to change the OS on my main computer because of all the headaches it would likely cause. However, I wouldn’t mind trying Linux on the laptop as a ‘introduction’ so to speak. If worse comes to worse I’ll just reinstall Win98.
What is the best version for a complete Linux beginner? I just need a simple OS so I can check my email away from home. I noticed Mandrake 9.1 and Redhat were mentioned as good for beginners. Any others? Easy of use is my biggest concern. Good resource management would have to be the next most important since that is the whole point of me switching to Linux. Is it even going to be an issue between all the versions?
Where can I find a iso for download? I would rather download a free copy and figure it out as I go along than buy the box version and have tech support. What can I say? I’m a hands-on type of guy. I can always hop onto the main computer and search the net if I need help. I have a cd burner so I wouldn’t have any problems getting a iso off the net.
How would I go about installing it? It seems so easy to install Windows. Is it going to be similar to that? I’m a little worried about hardware problems but I’ll deal with that if it comes up.
What is a good Linux site? Not just for help but also updates and links to good programs. I like how there is so many free programs available for Linux. Free is good.
PS If your reading this leenmi thanks for the recommendation. You’ve convinced me to give it a try. I would have emailed you for more information but I didn’t know if that was ok or not. Some people don’t like email from strangers (Sobig.F). I know I don’t. I usually just delete any mail I don’t recognise without even opening it.
When installing Linux for the first time, it’s best not to start on a laptop, IMO, mostly because it’s often harder to get all the hardware working. (you have to do more searching for the drivers) And you really want the video card to work. Honestly, in this case all of my instincts say just to BUY the OS (not expensive, Red Hat 9 is $40), 'cause it’s going to be difficult enough as it is without burning your own and poking around online for help.
I liked Mandrake 9. Install was so easy it was almost better then Windows 98/XP. Setting up e-mail is even easier. It would help if you have a fast connection if you want to download the 650 mb cd. For me, I installed all 3 cds since I was running servers and stuff but I would go with Mandrake or Slackware type.
I installed some linux on my laptop (233 mhz) and it when very well, much more so then I expected. Most hardware wwas reconized right away. IIRC the video driver I had to DL from compaq, but the default was a usable video anyway.
It was no speed demon, actually slower then 98 (1st edition which is faster then 2nd). So it when away and win 98 came back to stay.
Cleetus, I’ve been using mandrake 9.1 (on a desktop, not laptop) for a while. It’s very easy to install in general but I also think it’ll be harder on a laptop. Mind you, it depends what you want to use it for. If it’s just for email and the internet then if linux can find your modem, you’re all set.
If it’s speed you’re after, I would advise you to
Don’t have any services running you don’t need and
Choose a small, quick window manager like blackbox rather than KDE or GNOME (which I think are the default choices in Mandrake). Or take the hardcore approach and only use the command line
Also, unless you have a very fast internet connection, I would suggest you buy the CD’s rather than download them. There are places here in the UK which will post you copies of the CD’s (ie. the ones you could have downloaded) for only a few pounds - there will be a similar set up in the US.
Let me know if you want any links to any of the stuff I’ve mentioned.
Here’s a good idea (that I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned) - run Knoppix. You set your machine to boot from CD, put the CD in the drive, and reboot. Your HD isn’t used (unless you wanna save something, and I think it can use a Windows formatted HD), so you can take a look at the possibilities w/o causing yourself any problems.
It runs almost without configuration on my friends Toshiba laptop (I think he had a problem with the sound, I forget), which is quite impressive for a Linux distro.
I second the recommendation to run Knoppix. It is a very well-configured distro with exceptionally good hardware auto-detection. If you like it, you can tell it to install itself on your harddrive by running sudo knx-hdinstall.
Knoppix is based on Debian, which is one of the best Linux distributions out there. What really makes it shine is its package management system, apt. For example, if you want to install Evolution (an Outlook clone), you just open a command prompt (in root mode) and type apt-get install evolution. Likewise for just about any other application as long as it’s open-source.
cletus: If you’re careful about running low-demand programs (for example, BlackBox or IceWM instead of KDE or GNOME) and not running services you don’t need (Apache doesn’t need to be on, for example), you’ll notice a speed boost because Linux doesn’t come with as much baggage as Windows does. While Windows must start the rather beefy Internet Explorer to have any usable GUI at all, Linux is perfectly useable with a terminal emulator (rxvt would work well) and a very minimal window manager.
And if you pare down in some areas, you’ll probably be able to run the somewhat resource-intensive (but very nice) Mozilla without your system being as slow as it is under Windows 98.
I’ll second this with a slight caveat. Linux will not be significantly faster than Windows doing the same kinds of things. However, you can have a useful Linux system without a GUI window system, so you can avoid a lot of overhead that’s not possible to avoid on Windows. You can install Linux without a windows system (KDE, Gnome, etc.) and still use almost all the software from the command line. Of course this means using command-line tools instead of GUI apps, but if you’re used to that it can be incredibly fast and productive even on low-end hardware. There are very few modern apps available for DOS, so you can’t really use Windows without Windows.
That said, I’ll put in my obligatory plug for Slackware. Their ZipSlack distro might be particularly useful in your situation because it’s a package you just drop on a disk. If it will run on your laptop, it’s a painless way to get the basics installed.
Not that I would want to keep anyone from experimenting with Linux, but if W98 is running slow on a 333MHz machine then there is something wrong. Heck, when it first came out, a 80MHz Pentium with 64MB was considered state of the art! How much memory does the laptop have, by the way? That tends to be more important for overall performance than processor speed.
For all the bad things that can be said about 98, it’s actually pretty hardware-efficient by today’s (generous) standards. Maybe your virus scanner is a little too enthusiastic? Maybe you have installed a lot of little programs over the years which are slowing down the machine even when you’re not running them? Windows is notorious for that. Have you tried a clean re-install? Does the laptop’s BIOS support some kind of economy mode where the processor is not run at its maximum speed, and if so have you tried turning it off?
So, will Linux be faster than Windows on the same hardware? That depends on a lot of factors, ‘better resource management’ being only one of them, and debatable. When judging it as a desktop OS, you can’t really talk about ‘Linux’ as a single entity. With a modern window manager like KDE or Gnome with all the eye candy turned on, running a couple of heavy applications like Mozilla and OpenOffice, even a 333MHz machine with, say, 128MB of memory isn’t overkill.
On the other hand, Linux offers much more customizing and tuning possibilities than Windows, so it is certainly possible to get it to run efficiently on any hardware. I wouldn’t be too sure that a default installation of the latest Red Hat distro will beat a clean Windows 98 installation out of the box, though.
I run Mandrake 9.1 on a couple laptops. I’ve tried several distros, but haven’t found one that jumps right onto a laptop like Mandrake 9.1. (Have not actually tried Red Hat. I hear it is simple, too.) XFree86 configuration was the biggest difference. Mandrake just seems to get it a lot more right than others (Debian Woody, Peanut, Vector to name a few. I like them, and learned a lot about the config files, but this guy needs a simple introduction).
Mandrake 9.1 is perfect for beginners and not shameful for intermediates or advanced users.
Sometimes I feel like I should run another distro, but I keep coming back to Mandrake.
As for performance benefits: You will no notice blazing speed differences, true, but you will notice that Windows XP runs like a three-legged dog on a 333Mhz processor, yet Linux (even using KDE or GNOME, though I do use Blackbox) hums right along. You can talk about benchmarks, or time to start applications or whatever you want, I am using experience: I ran XP on an older computer and I ran Linux on the same computer and I tweaked neither one. Linux ran better.
This shouldn’t turn into a flame war, though. There isn’t anything wrong with Windows XP for home use. Use it, enjoy it.
I’m just saying Mandrake 9.1 is fun, cheap and offers more choices. And less risks. And I love, love, love my Mandrake. Never got warm and fuzzies from Windows.
I am also dubious about a 333MHz machine with W98 being exceptionally slow and I would suspect a virus. Here is my experience with a Toshiba laptop with W98 (first edition) running at 233 MHz. The thing to remember here is that Toshiba modified the OS somewhat for its laptop. I was having some problems and I downloaded the latest free upgrades from the MS site. Then things really started to go wrong to the point that I finally reformatted the disk and reinstalled the OS. Not realizing the causes I then upgraded the OS immediately and started reinstalling programs. I hadn’t gotten very far when I realized things were not working. So I formatted the disk again, did not install any upgrades and things worked fine thereafter. Since then, I have been very leery about installing OS upgrades on a laptop. Anyway, the first thing I would do before going to Linux is to try to reinstall the OS, but only the version that the laptop came with.
The real problem I have found with Linux on my desktop is not the UI, but that programs do not usually come in binary form, but in some sort of source code that you have to make the programs with. Sometimes they have to be modified for the particular version you use. Unless you have support, this is likely to be a serious problem for a newbie. The documentation generally assumes you are already experienced.
This is not so much of a problem any more. From what I have seen, there are basically three package formats out there: .deb (Debian flavored), .rpm (Red Hat flavored, like Mandrake) and .tgz (Slackware flavored). There are even tools to convert between formats.
True, some applications have not been packaged, but most of those can be installed by extracting the archive and doing a “make install”.
I am not a programmer. I still don’t really understand make, but I have not had a problem, yet, installing from source.
Thanks for all the advice guys. Right now I’m downloading Knoppix. I’m going to try that and Mandrake 9.1 as well.
I would prefer a graphic interface as opposed to a command line, at least for right now. Does this mean there wouldn’t be much of a improvement in performance? I’m still interested in learning how to use Linux though. I guess I’ll find out more as I go along.
Leenmi, I’ll probably email you for some advice once I get started. Then again, there seems to be lots of helpful Linux people here too.
