This question might be more appropriate for some tech forum, but you folks are where I come for answers, and I know there are tech people amongst us.
Anyway, I'm thinking of switching my home computer over to Linux. What I really want to do is get a new computer, since the one I have is old and slow. But in the absence of more funding, I figure a new operating system (and a more efficient one than Win98) might be fun, plus I've been meaning to learn Linux.
Not being very familiar with Linux, though, I have some questions. First, which distribution to get? I think I'd like to stick to one of the bigger, more well-known ones, but I'm not familiar with the differences between them. Mandrake? Red Hat? Debian? SuSE? Slackware? I'm mostly interested in just having a good general purpose OS, and I do hack out some code in my free time, so development tools would be nice. Although I understand that's pretty standard with Linux.
Also, is it worth it to buy a boxed distribution? Or should I just get a book that includes a publisher's edition? Or just download some CD images and do it all myself?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
I am in a similar situation. I have an old Compaq with a 233 Mhz chip, 64 megs RAM (I know, I know, add memory. And a SVGA monitor, a video card, etc . . .) and 4G hard drive (3/4 full), running Windows 98. I also cannot upgrade until 2004 at the earliest. Can I configure an older machine like this to boot up Linux and Win 98 by partioning the drive or using a boot program? Is it worth it?
The main reason I want to do it is to make Navigator and AIM quicker and more responsive and allow me to open more windows, and in general get more Internet throughput on my cable modem as they are giving me a free upgrade to 2M/sec soon. Will Linux give me enough additional efficiency to make it worth the trouble?
Posted by msakaseg (Member # 3826) on :
OK, so I guess my computer isn't as old and slow as some are.
Here are the specs on mine:
Dell Dimension XPS T450 Pentium 3 450 MHz 64 MB RAM 16 MB Voodoo3 2GB Primary HD 30 GB Secondary HD Soundblaster Live!
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
I'd suggest a boxed distribution of either Suse or Mandrake. Both come with excellent user guides, I hear, and it's good to support open source.
Both are good desktop distributions. However, you may find that initially they run a bit slow. The GUI for each is configured to take advantage of the power in modern machines, which yours are not. Before dismissing it, try turning off a lot of the widgets. Or do what I do, and switch to a lightweight window manager like fluxbox. Fluxbox screams on a pentium 66 (of course, programs open slowly, but the gui is responsive and very nice looking).
If you just want to try out linux, download knoppix http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-old-en.htm ) and try it out. Knoppix is a "livecd" -- it boots from the cd, and doesn't modify your host system any unless you want it to. And if you like knoppix, it's easy to install it while it's running, exactly as you have it running, onto your hard drive. Knoppix's front page is down right now because it's protesting a possible European software patent law, but the link above will take you right to the English page. It's a very usable linux system right from the get go, and can even use a home directory stored on a usb microdrive, making it a very feasible linux on the go distribution (I have regularly used it on school computers).
If you have any questions, feel free to ask them.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Thanks, fugu, I'll look into fluxbox and come back with questions.
Posted by jasonepowell (Member # 1600) on :
I suggest buying Xandros 2 Deluxe when it comes out. I'm actually part of the beta, and I'm typing this from X2 now, actually. I have to say I am mightily impressed. I loved Xandros 1 but thought it wasn't as pretty as it could/should be, and X2 is gorgeous. Also, you get Crossover Office built in, which means you can install MS Office (a big plus if you need it for work, etc) and Photoshop, etc.
The best thing is XFM - Xandros File Manager. This is what explorer should be. It's fully extensible, fully integrated with Windows (just click my network and you'll see all your windows pcs - a linux admin's dream!). For example, if you pop in a music cd, and you wish to copy that cd to your hard drive, you just drag and drop the audio files to the directory of your choice. A dialog will pop up and ask you if you wish to encode in .ogg or .mp3 format. How cool is that?
Xandros is full of this kind of stuff. It's the perfect midpoint between linux and windows, without compromising the stability and beauty of debian (apt-get ahoy baby!)
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
I haven't tried Xandros yet, I'll have to look into it.
Another possibility that just popped into my head is Sun's Linux offering (codenamed Mad Hatter) that should be available soon. It's apparently quite slick.
The one caveat is both of those distros are likely quite computer intensive. Though Xandros may be okay given the Debian philosophical influence: "Rock solid and Free as in freedom." It drops the Free as in freedom bit, but I think it retains the rock solid aspect. (How's the processor and RAM requirements on it, jep?)
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
What's scary is that I have PDAs which are more powerful than the computers on this thread. *laugh*
Posted by msakaseg (Member # 3826) on :
Unfortunately, I don't see myself being able to get a new computer before 2006, by which point I expect my current machine to collapse into a computron black hole.
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
My computer at work has a 75 mHz chip.
I win.
Posted by msakaseg (Member # 3826) on :
Man, if that weren't a typo I'd say you had the all-time world record. However, I'm pretty that even Babbage's mechanical computer could do more than 0.075 instructions per second (13 seconds per instruction!)
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
It's a typo?
Posted by Nick (Member # 4311) on :
*still has a 486DX downstairs* Posted by msakaseg (Member # 3826) on :
Did you actually mean that your office computer runs at 75 millihertz?
Posted by Nick (Member # 4311) on :
quote: What's scary is that I have PDAs which are more powerful than the computers on this thread. *laugh*
*is jealous* *scowls at TomD* jk Posted by jasonepowell (Member # 1600) on :
Fugu - Xandros seems to run well on most mid to good hardware platforms. Call it maybe a 500mhz processor and 128 MB of RAM? It's got the same performance as, say, Windows 2000.
Posted by sarahdipity (Member # 3254) on :
I don't have any real opinions about distributions. I personally use Redhat. However, I would recommend that if your harddrive is big enough you consider partitioning the harddrive to run both windows and linux. This gives you a safety net. I did this on my computer when I decided I wanted to try linux and found that I picked up Linux fairly quickly. Other people I know have not and have had to use their windows partition in times of need. Also it might help if you could just upgrade your comptuer piece by piece. If you do that then you're more likely to be able to afford a "new" computer. Naturally there are limits to how well you can do this but it might be worth looking into,
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
YES!
Do you know how much that sucks?
Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
I've used the Lycoris Desktop on my home system for some time. It's a fun little distro, very Windows-ish but still keeping the Linux enhancements. Probably not ideal for an older system, though.
Posted by msakaseg (Member # 3826) on :
quote:Do you know how much that sucks?
Hmmm... well if it takes my computer 10+ minutes to boot up, and mine is 6 billion times faster than yours, then if you powered up your computer in the year 112,152 BC (in the latter eighth of the Paleolithic Era--Neanderthals still being about 70,000 years from extinction) it would be ready to use pretty soon.
Posted by Liquor and Fireworks (Member # 5785) on :
I am also planning on switching to Linux, but I have to wait until christmas at the earliest. I did find a website which will help you pick out a distro. DistroWatch It also has a beginner's guide. http://www.distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
In case anyone cares, I finally have things set up to where I want them. I decided to just go with Debian, since it's free. I've got KDE up and running and last night I got PHP installed and finished configuring Apache, so I can do my web development at home now. The only thing that sucks is that my computer (a Dell) came with a winmodem, so I can't get online with it. Which sucks, but I've been using my wife's computer for that anyway. Plus I left Windows on the other hard drive.
Posted by Liquor and Fireworks (Member # 5785) on :
I've heard that Linux can be tricky to install, I'm curious how long it takes and how much you need to know to set it up. Was it difficult for you?
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
Debian was a giant pain in the butt to install and configure, especially since my install CDs kept getting screwed up and I had to wait a day to burn a new one at work. But I've heard that Debian is one of the harder ones to install, and that ones like Xandros and Mandrake are easier.
Edit to add:
It took me about 3 weeks to get everything set up, but I only worked on it for about half of those days, and then only about an hour at a time. For Debian, anyway, you do need to know what's in your computer, since the hardware detection was pretty useless. It's also good to read through the installation and user manuals.
[ November 05, 2003, 04:51 PM: Message edited by: saxon75 ]
Posted by WheatPuppet (Member # 5142) on :
I used to run Redhat 8... and then Redhat 7.3 (or something like that) because I didn't want to deal with the uglier features of 8. I thought the install process was insanely easy. You didn't even have to tell it how you wanted the drives partitioned, it just worked. My only real complaint was that it took about 4 hours of niggling to get my mousewheel to work because the Xfree86 Configurator doesn't write the config file properly. The only reason I don't have Redhat installed now is because I couldn't for the life of me get my soundcard to push digital out (which is required by my Boston Acustics speakers).
Now I'm looking for an easy download of something I can run constantly (months at a time) that uses less than ~200 megs on the hard drive (I'm using an ancient 1.2 GB drive... hey, it was free!). I don't mind gearhead install procedures
If you're looking for a cheap speed boost, I reccomend upgrading in pieces. You can get a new AMD 1700XP Mobo/Chip combo for about $70. Buy a 256 stick of DDR RAM for another $30, and you're out at most $150. Assuming you're running an ATX case, cramming the new motherboard in there should be a snap. That's almost a 4x gain in megahertz.
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
I installed Mandrake on my old P3 and it was pretty easy. Everything worked right the first time.
I even got the printer and sound card to work. But I didn't really get into it very much because I wasn't good at doing anything complicated.
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
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. . .) and 4G hard drive (3/4 full), running Windows 98. I also cannot upgrade until 2004 at the earliest. Can I configure an older machine like this to boot up Linux and Win 98 by partioning the drive or using a boot program? Is it worth it?![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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