Walk me through Linux like I'm 6 y/o.

In My Humble Opinion
1

Inspired by galen’s thread, and a desire to start a thread a few nights ago, I’m ready to take the plunge.

But, I have to ask that no techno-speak and one-off references to versions be included.

So walk me through, the download, set-up, and use if you can. A link to a thread in another message board would be nice if it gives step-by-step instructions on how to use Linux, without all the “insider” jargon that a newbie has no chance of understanding.

Here’s the deal. I’ve used computers since age 12 (almost 20 years). My first was a Vic-20 and spent many an hour on the Apple II-e (or -c, can’t remember). To put it in perspective, the Commodore 64 was the be all end all of anything I had ever seen when it was released. However, I’m not that skilled in programming, I’m comfortable with it if I know it, but know nothing of Linux. But I don’t know how Linux ties into anything that I do know, or how it may relate.

So assume I can program little more than my DVD’s clock. Don’t worry about insulting my intelligence, I’ll see it as an offer of help, not an insult. :slight_smile:

*****And I’ve never partitioned a hard drive before. That’s the main reason I’ve shunned Linux. I hate to render the computer inoperable by screwing something up. I don’t have the cash to take the tower in to be reset if I really screw the pooch on this. (Though I guess I could just put the OS disc in) But I want to be careful and I’m hoping to have both OS’s available. *****

I can work hardware like nobody’s business, but OS’s get me holed up in a cave crying like a little girl.
For the system (let me know if more info is needed) I’m running:

XP Home
2.4 MhZ
512 RAM
80 G HD
So, my hopefully, someday, geeks-in-arms, can you help walk me through the unknown forest of an unknown OS?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

2

  • Firstly, try a Live CD - this boots the whole OS from disc, leaving your hard drive untouced. Obviously, it runs slowly, and leaves you with a default installation. But it’s a safe way to see what you’re going to be dealing with. Knoppix is one that gets recommended a lot, but I know both Mandrake and Suse offer such discs.

  • shrinking an XP partition is the most dangerous aspect of the whole thing. I’d recommend getting a second drive (40GB ones cost peanuts nowadays), and put Linux on that. You won’t get anywhere near filling that space.

  • even if you’re doing that, back up everything. It really is possible that you’ll lose stuff.

  • Put a Mandrake or Suse CD in the drive, and follow the instructions.

  • Partitioning. Windows generally sits in one partition, whereas Linux likes to have several. It needs a dedicated partition for the swapfile (=virtual memory) - in your case make this 1GB. The minimum necessary after this is one partition, but typically separate ones are used for /usr (where much of the program files & data is put) and /home (where ‘my documents’ directories reside). This has several advantages, which include being able to spread an installation across multiple hard discs (or multiple computers!), and being able to recover data from one partition if another is damaged. For example, you could reinstall Linux without reformatting the /home partition, and everybody’s files will be untouched.

  • Suse and Mandrake should make a good recommendation for partitioning the empty disc space which you can accept without changing it. (Be warned, there have been problems with Mandrake’s partitioning tools, which can trash an existing XP installation. For this reason alone, I’d suggest using Suse!)

  • Both these installers are very straightforward. You’ll be asked to set passwords for root (the admin account) and for normal users. You’ll soon be rebooting, and you’ll be given a menu to choose whether to boot Linux or Windows. Assuming you opt for Linux :stuck_out_tongue: , you’ll get a login screen, and then go into KDE. This is a Windows-type environment which you’ll have no problem finding your way around. There’ll be tons of software installed by default, and plenty more still to try…

  • To make any big changes (including installing software), you need to be logged in as root. You can do this from the login screen - many Linux folk shudder with horror at the idea of running KDE as root, but ignore them. It’s a valid worry when a wrong move could crash a whole server, but in your case, mistakes aren’t going to be that much of a problem. You can also access root from within a normal session through a terminal window (ie command prompt, which you’ll rapidly become familiar with) by typing ‘su’ and entering the password. (You can also type ‘su username’ to switch to any user.)

  • Getting online. If you’re on a network connection, then (hopefully) all you’ll need as the relevant IP and username details during installation. If you’re on dialup or have an ADSL modem, you’ve probably got a problem - start googling for details on the specific hardware now!

  • Sharing files between Linux and Windows: Windows won’t read anything on a Linux partition. Linux can read NTFS data, and your Windows partition will probably appear in Linux, but can’t write to it (well, there’s some software that will try, but they’re not perfect yet, and you probably don’t want to take the risk). The only option is when creating the Linux partitions, make a Fat32 partition (perhaps 1GB). This is the one format that both OSs can write to happily.

  • Printing. Ugggh. Still a huge problem for Linux. Unless your distro recognises the printer, probably best to forget about it for now.

  • Likely first impressions? Quite possible, “What’s the big deal?” Obviously, Linux is far more secure than Windows. It’s cheaper. KDE is far more configurable (and should you not like it, there’s other options such as Gnome - imagine being able to choose a whole new interface for Windows…) However, the ‘easy distros’ such as Suse and Mandrake pile so much stuff into the installation that often they run as slowly as XP. This is when you’ll start wanting to try something like Debian, which installs nothing unnecessary (ie the initial install leaves you with a command prompt and nothing else). You can also start compiling kernels yourself, to get them running efficinetly on your machine, picking exactly which bits of what window manager you want, etc etc. Once you start doing this kind of thing, you’ll see how much of those 2.4MHz are being gobbled up by MS bloat. But we’ll leave all that for another time :wink:

3

Thanks for the response GorrilaMan! The live CD you mentioned, 2 questions about that.

  1. Can I run it from the CD-ROM without any system changes to play with it?

  2. How do I get the disc? Download and burn to a CD-R or trust a disc from someone sending it to me? I assume this is a free OS?

4

Yes

Yep - get them from here (it’s the ‘i586’ or ‘i386’ versions you want). There can be some issues with burning these from Windows (some software imposes ‘helpful’ formats which cause problems), but only worry about that if the CD won’t boot! Also, with a downloading a file this size, it’s possible for errors to occur and go undetected, so you may need to try downloading again.

(Oh, and it’s not “free”, you’ll get scolded by Linux geeks for calling it that :wink: . It’s released under the GNU Public Licence, which essentially means ‘free to use’ and ‘free to distribute’. The GPL requires you to make any distribution (or changes) under the same licence.)

5

Thanks again GMan. I knew better than calling them free. :smack:

One more question. I’m going to dive into the help links, but there are 15 links on the front page you gave me. Are they all the same or is there one I should go to over the others for the CD content? I assume they all have the same file, but what’s easiest to use?

Thanks again for your time. I do appreciate it.

6

Do a search by name, he said Knoppix, Suze or Mandrake, which should come up when you do a search.
I am officially going to try all this when I get some more dl quota in 3 days. :smiley:

7

Or well, bookmark this, then come back to it at the end of next month if I have enough quote remaining. :frowning: 1 GB.

8

Each distribution is different in its own ways, each being designed with a different type of end user in mind. They’ll all install a different selection of stuff by default. They also each have their own installer. Go for Suse - it’s a good option because it’s designed for the ‘familiar with Windows’ user, and if you decide you like it on the basis of the live CD, you can install the full version and it’ll seem very similar.

9

OK, I’ll try the Suse version. I wanted something somewhat close to Windows, and I think I found it. Back tomorrow (or later tonight) to share the results and, maybe ask for help. Thanks again GorillaMan

10

So I found a copy of debian lying 'round. V 3.0r2 so not that old. Would it be best to partition a current drive or install a new harddrive and run it off there w.r.t risk factor?
What happened duffer?
I think I will also need the walking through debian like I am a 6 yr old.

11

Ignore that first question, you already answered that.

12

I really think this is something you should get your Mommy or Daddy to do.

13

:eek:
My mom needs me to place the solitaire icon on the desktop so that she can find it. If it goes missing she starts hyperventilating. My father doesn’t know how to shut down a computer if XP hasn’t got the “shut down when power button pressed” option enabled.

14

LiveCDs are a wonderful thing! The possibilities are amazing…for instance, I work with robots. I just came across the Pyro (Python robotics) project, which has their software packaged on a live CD. I just downloaded one last night and will try it later today. The point being, I don’t have to screw around with dependencies and such just to try it out. More developers of complex software should take this route.

Although I have to admit, I’ve tried quite a few LiveCD Linux distros that didn’t work properly (particularly on some Dell laptops).

15

Ugh. Linux. I don’t mean “ugh” as in “Linux sucks” but as in “man, that was a royal pain in the ass”. The best thing you could do for yourself if you’re looking to install linux is spend a few hours doing google searches for your hardware and chosen distrobution. Without that, I’da been screwed. Of course - it’s probably easier if you’re not using a laptop.

At the recommendation of one of my coworkers, I decided to install Fedora Linux on my new laptop a few months ago. I still don’t have it to the point where some important things work as they’re supposed to - no more than rudimentary 3D acceleration, no ACPI, no printing. After installation I couldn’t get a graphical interface at all; getting it to work required some configuration file editing that I - as a newbie - would have had no impetus to try without being told. Fedora boots slower than XP and runs no faster.

On the plus side I did get my wireless network card working, finally, after trying a gazillion different things. And I have all of the necessary applications to play text adventures, though getting some of that to work was a Herculean chore on its own. (Damn you, Hugo.)

And it’s good for programming homework, but I doubt that’s a concern here.