Should I Make the Switch to Linux??

Factual Questions
1

I’m thinking about making the big leap. Will a Linux system make me complete?

Important things to consider:

  1. I don’t play computer games, except maybe the occational SNES ROM, so ‘gaming’ won’t be a problem.

  2. I would need to maintain my home network where the host computer with the internet connection would be running Linux and the only other client computer would be running windows 98.

  3. My Mediacom cable internet ought to still work on it…right?

  4. I’m a design freak. Can I make it look pretty?

  5. What is Red Hat, and do I want it?

2

You might want to try out a Knoppix CD, and see how you like Linux. Just burn a copy on to a CD, boot from the CD, and you can use Linux, without having to touch your harddrive.

3
  1. you can probably get a SNES emulator under linux
  2. I’m not sure exactly what you mean by host and client here, but you can use SAMBA to make your linux system browsable from the 98 box. 98 and linux can also co-exist quite peacfully on a network. If you want to make things easier for yourself, use all static IPs on your local network. You can also use the linux box as a gateway, similar to what is done with some versions of windows (the gateway connects to the internet, and local computers connect to the gateway).
  3. Most cable internets have a little box that has cable on one side and a standard ethernet port on the other. These will work fine under linux. You might get into trouble if you have a specific adapter card that goes straight to your cable, and this card is not supported under linux.
  4. Yes. The desktop is configurable, just like a windows desktop. You can put whatever background you like on it, etc.
  5. Red Hat is one of many Linux distributions. Other distributions include Slackware and Debian. Each different distribution has its own installation method. Some are easier to use. Slackware, for example, is much more difficult to use than Red Hat and has a much more primitive interface for installing, but on the other hand is much more configurable. Red Hat is one of the more popular distributions, and would probably be a good one to start with.

Go to www.linux.org for more info.

Note that if you are used to windows, linux is in general more difficult to set up and much more difficult to recover from if something goes weird.

4

KDE is extremely configurable, as a desktop environment. It supports all the bells and whistles that WinXP does, for example transparency, animated menus, themeing of the Windows etc. Take a look at www.kde-look.org

There’s no need to completely switch away from Windows, no matter what Linux fans say, there is still software available for Windows which is leagues ahead of the same software on Linux (MS Office comes to mind). You’re better dual booting Windows and Linux.

Ideally, as a beginner, you will want to get a distrobution with some form of RPM system, which means you will not need to compile programs from their source code. Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake etc. all support RPMs.

I use Suse 8.1 Pro, although 9.0 is out now. It was very easy to install (far easier than Windows, in fact). Just put the disk in the DVD drive (it comes as one DVd or about 7 CDs) and reboot. The installer then detects your current OS, asks whether you want to format the drive or dual boot, and then does what you specified and then install. As long as you don’t have some extremely obscure hardware, Linux will autodetect it at install time.

5

Hmmmmm…slightly optimistic, IMO. Even an HP laser printer proved too much for Suse when I tried it. Not to mention my ADSL modem…

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      • Opinions, and observations:

-Well, , , , --it might be. It is for me, for sure. NVidia-chip based videocards have pretty complete Linux support, but ATI-chip based cards do not. I have an ATI card and cannot play many Linux games if they do not have a software-display mode, because my ATI card will only redraw the screen like… about… once… every… second… and… there’s… no… fix… available. So if you have an ATI card, you might want to think about spending oh, $30 or so and get yourself an older 32 or 64-meg NVidia videocard that is known to be supported. My ATI card shows all other programs just fine, it is just the gaming/graphics hardware accelleration that is not supported.

-Depends on how you have this set up: I have a cable modem connected to a router, and then one Win98 PC and one Linux PC, each with their own ethernet cards, connected to the router. So neither PC depends on the other to get online, and yes, both can be used at the same time–though they end up sharing bandwidth.

-Depends on exactly how your “internet” gets to your “computer”. Like, as above. I had Linksys ethernet cards that come with Linux drivers included–so I knew they would work in Fedora (what used to be Red Hat). Somehow your coputer has to connect to the cable modem, and however that is, you need a Linux driver to do that with whatever hardware you have. The internet works the same–except you can’t play many Windows media files and Quicktime files. I think there’s a Realplayer verison for Linux, and regular standard files are no problem, but … -you don’t realize how common WMP and Quicktime media is out there until you can’t play it. This is one big argument against casual surfers trying to convert completely to Linux.

  • Well, I was trying WinXP for a while and KDE and Gnome on Fedora both look pretty much like the standard WinXP does these days. You can install and pick different GUI’s for each session if you want–but if you want to avoid command lines be sure to ask around for ones that don’t involve one. Some of the minimalist ones like TWM run very fast but are rather baffling if you don’t know the command-line stuff. But you can always choose which GUI to use, at the start of each session. So let’s say you set the PC to boot into TWM, and you don’t have a clue how to use it, and can’t get it back to KDE. With Fedora you just reboot, enter “session manager”, and choose “KDE” and check the “default GUI” box, and you’re back in business. There is no command-line-typing involved in switching GUI’s, and you can always reboot, get to the login screen, and set your user account back to a familiar GUI. Fedora installs with KDE, Gnome and TWM. KDE and Gnome both “look and work” like Windows–you just click around on stuff to do most things. You can type on a command line if you want, but you usually don’t need to.
  • The Red Hat project has “split”, officially “Red Hat” is now the business (pay) version with actual tech support, and “Fedora” is the free-download version (that I have running).
    ~
7

mplayer can play Quicktime and Media player files quite well, BUT they might not be embedded in your browser. You can still download them directly and play them. I believe there may be an extension for Firefox to let you view these files inside the browser, but I’m not 100% sure. As a casual surfer, it doesn’t bother me one bit.

If you go the Knoppix/Debian route, you’ll discover the wonders of apt-get. Sort of like the aforementioned RMP system (though by many accounts, better), apt-get lets you type a program name and it will install all the packages you need, including dependencies, when tend to be the hard part of installing things in Linux. I didn’t install Debian myself, and I’m told it isn’t as easy as others, though it is getting better, and there is a lot of documentation out there. If I were to start over, and try and install a Linux distro myself (rather than having my SO do this install 3 years ago) I’d still want apt-get.

While MS Office IS better than OpenOffice.org in some ways, OO.O isn’t all that bad. The one problem I have with it is that the graphing part isn’t quite as good, or as easy as Excel. The rest is just a learning curve of learning new buttons and keyboard commands, although I don’t tend to do complicated things (there are a LOT of Office features I’ve never even looked at, let alone use).

ATI does have some linux drivers out there - they just tend to be third party, rather than company-provided like NVidia (at least from what I’ve seen). My SO has an ATI video card (actually, I think I do too, but mine is old and was popular, so it was supported by the time I made the switch) and while at the time his was too new to have a driver, he was able to “cheat” with another driver to make the better card features work. I’d have to ask him for more details, though.I know that within about 6 months of the card being on the market, someone had coded a driver for it. With a lot of hardware, it’s possible to just tell your computer that it’s something else, and it will work fine. My printer, for example, isn’t “offficially” supported (or wasn’t at the time) but we used a driver for a totally different printer and it works fine.

Networking…we have cable internet, and it is going to my SO’s computer from the modem. His computer acts as a router as well, and it forwards (gateways?) the internet connection to a hub, through which my computer and the laptop are connected.My computer is a dual-boot of Debian Linux and Win98, the laptop is a dualboot Debain(Knoppix) and WinXP, and we have no network problems whatsoever.

I think that’s about all I can share in this thread! Basically, I use the computer to browse here, and use email, and simple things, and Debian works fine for me. I only boot into windows to use the odd windows-only software, like ChemDraw (and that’s been months since I’ve needed it). I don’t consider myself a huge computer geek, but it’s amazing how much MORE i’ve learned about computers just by using Linux on a day-to-day basis. At the least, you’ll learn something!

Now if only I had hardware that didn’t occasionally die on me…then things would be great!

8

About what? Computers or Linux? Is this not a circular argument. Linux is hard work, but at least you’re learning so much more about Linux. But if Linux wasn’t such hard work you wouldn’t need to learn so much about Linux.

I’m afraid your average user doesn’t care much about Linux or computers, and shouldn’t have to either. Windows is successful because at the most basic level the user doesn’t need to know anything beyond point and click.

Much as I like Linux, it’s never going to get anywhere as a desktop replacement as long as it expects users to delve into a command prompt and type obscure commands without having the faintest idea what they mean in order to get something working. Especially if that command returns an unenlightning error message because you’re using the wrong version out of 1001 different compulations, distributions, and versions of add-ons, and the documentation you’re painstakingly following has no clues about how to help you or even any suggestion that you might even encounter a problem there…

IMHO, of course. You don’t want to hear tales of weeks of tearing hair out getting things configured in Linux.

The OP would be better trying out one of the free distributions on the older win98 computer (a basic version of Linux isn’t as resource hungry as Windows) than making the jump with his main computer.

9

About both - computers, Linux, even about Windows. I am much more confident when it comes to messing around with features in either OS. So many people are afraid to change their screen settings for example, for fear that the computer will explode or something. I am less intimidated by having to learn new programs. Basically, I have a new set of skills, and that is ALWAYS a good thing. The dumbed-down-to-the-point-of-stupidity approach Windows is taking doesn’t appeal to me. It hides too much, and makes people afraid.

As for error messages - do YOU understand the BSOD codes? Cuz I sure don’t.

I have seen hours of troubleshooting. My computer has some particularly weird quirks that cause us to have to find work-arounds. Just getting Linux onto this computer took WEEKS, especially since I only had dialup to get the packages from.

The command line still intimidates me. But not so much that I can’t download a new program by myself and install it. It isn’t very hard to type “apt-get install packagename” and hit ENTER. Yes, the initial install and configuration can be tough, but once it’s up and running, I happen to like it. I didn’t do the initial install myself - I admit that - but today, if I had to, I’d at least try.

It is, however, always good to have a second internet-connected computer around so you can look up info on Google.

Linux isn’t for everybody. But I think if you’re asking the question, then YES! Get a distro, install it, and mess around with it. Maybe you’ll use it exclusively, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll try another distro instead. But as I said, if you’e asking the question…it’s worth checking out.

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Nor me - but they’re pretty well documented on the MS knowledgebase, and can be found elsewhere via Google.

11

Try the portable versions as RandomLetters advised. I used Mandrake Move and it booted up real easy and I did not have to install the OS. I gives you an idea of how Linux works and then you could decide if you want to go from there.

12

I would second the “try knoppix” remark. It’s obviously a bit slow running from a CD, but it gives you a fair idea of what things are like before you actually change anything on your machine. Why exactly do you want to switch anyway?

DougC: What ATI card do you have, and which drivers are you using currently?

13

Linux, the graphical control freak’s dream. – Well, Linux is the control freak’s dream, period, but we’ve done an especially nice job with desktops. :stuck_out_tongue:

One thing to understand about how Linux handles GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces, also known as point-and-click, desktops, and (by the command line bigots like me :wink: ) point-and-drool): Linux hands all of that off to a program called the X Windows System, which in turn provides a low-level interface between the hardware (the graphics cards, the screen, the mouse, etc.) and the applications that draw on the screen.

One of those programs that X handles is the window manager. The window manager is the single most important factor in determining how the desktop looks and feels. The window manager will define how buttons are placed on windows (if they are), how the mouse is handled (it usually is), how the keyboard works (it always does*), and so on and so forth. Seriously, you can use a window manager to make your desktop like nothing you’ve ever seen. X imposes diddly-squat on most of what you see, giving the window manager free reign to completely define the experience. You will probably go through a couple window managers a week, spending hours tweaking each one ;), depending how well you predict what you really want. Download a few, they’re free.

*Free hint (important): Type Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to kill X dead and return to a shell. This can save your ass if your configurations don’t work as planned and you get stuck.

The window manager may abdicate a bit of responsibility to a desktop environment such as KDE or GNOME. A desktop environment provides a better bridge between what the window manager does and what the applications do, like defining a more convenient clipboard (although X itself has a pretty usable clipboard, with multiple pages and so on) and providing a graphical shell, such as Nautilus or Konqueror. (Note that most graphical shells double as web browsers in this degenerate age. I blame Microsoft Explorer. ;)) A desktop environment is a beefier program, but most Linux distros will come with both KDE and GNOME. You can download the latest iterations if you feel the need.

(Another little note: There’s nothing saying you must use X to do graphics on your machine. There’s also nothing saying you must use a gasoline-powered car instead of a biodiesel-powered one. There have been various projects put together to replace X, a goodly number of them trying to release something called the Y Windows System ;). A new user can probably ignore these people until they produce something much more stable and more accepting of different hardware. X, for all its faults (real and imagined), is here to stay for the forseeable future.)

14

You probably don’t want to go to linux. Its very much still for geeks.

I’d recommend a mac, OS X is the best unix-based OS. Its pretty, fast, very compatible with Windows AND Linux, Can run XWindows natively and soon Windows, has the command line in a nice friendly app. You get exactly as much unix goodness as you want.

15

See, the thing is, I’m a borderline geek. The only coding i’ve done is stuff on the web (i.e. PHP and javascript, not too intensive), but maybe Linux will turn me into some code-monkey.

General Respones:

I’m not too worried about a command prompt, as I grew up on a DOS/Win 3.1 computer, and half of my time was spent fiddling with DOS and batch files.

I’ve always liked the idea of complete control of the layout and whatnot, perhaps I can actually make that dream come true. And truth be told, I want to try something new.

It sounds like dual-booting is the way to go. And perhaps I’ll get a router, too.

I have Open Office right now, and it is fantastic considering it’s free (though its equation editor could use work).

I also have a NIVDIA GeForce2, so hopefully that won’t be a problem.

Oh, and I’m downloading Knoppix as I type.

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      • Fedora identifies the card as an ATI Mach 64. I have no idea which driver it is using, I don’t know how to check that.
  • And I don’t know how to do anything with a command line, I haven’t found anywhere online that really explains how to do that. All I know is that all of the few CLI things I have tried did not work. ???
  • And most of what I find about the ATI Mach 64 card is for XFree86, and I don’t know if I am using that, or even have that… and most of what I find anyway says “this driver is obsolete and will only work with versions-something-or-other”, some more things I do not know. There are packages for using the TV and media player functions, but not a lot that says it helps graphics accelleration.
  • And I haven’t really bothered looking anymore, it ain’t worth my time. After 2-3 hours of effort, it would be more economical to just go buy an older $30 NVidia card instead, and plug it in and have it work 100% right off.
    ~
17

Well, the driver you’re using is the ATI Mach 64. :wink:

That can’t be your real card though (it’s far too old)…it’s just using the bog standard will-work-with-any-ati. You could download a better driver, but you need to know what your card really is. A Radeon 9xxx type perhaps?

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      • No, the card is that old. The computer is an off-the-store-shelf mid-level one purchased in early 1999. The exact card name (printed on the GPU) is “Rage Pro Turbo 3D” but ATI says that uses the “Rage Pro” family of drivers. Fedora was set to “ATI Mach 64” and I did get it changed to “ATI Mach 64 3D Rage Pro” but the problems still remain–in particular, Tuxracer updates the screen about once every second.
  • I remember now that this particular card was an OEM special-version, that didn’t have its own drivers really.
    And this page:
    http://www.linuxvoodoo.com/resources/howtos/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO/video.html
    -shows that both the “mach 64” and “mach 64 3d rage pro” cards use the same driver anyway, for either version of x86free.
    ~
19

I have an Nvidia GeForce 2 GTS, and Linux detected it OK. You must download the drivers from Nvidia’s website for it, however, to be able to use any 3D stuff on it.

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DougC: Ahh…then I’m afraid that your card is working perfectly…the early ATI cards may have had 3d in the title but they’re crap at 3d. I don’t know of any drivers that will make Tuxracer run any faster on that card…