I'd like to give it a shot. I have a spare laptop that's currently running Windows XP but I don't use it much. I've recently got used to using Mac OS and I'm loving it, and I'm already adept enough at using XP so I thought I'd try and get another operating system under my belt.
Where do I start? I'm pretty technically minded, so give it to me straight G&T.
::Edit:: Also recommend me "Essential Apps" please. Web Browsing, Email, IRC...anything nifty
Moe FwackyRight Here, Right NowDrives a BuickModeratormod
edited July 2007
I started out with Ubuntu, switched to Kubuntu because I find KDE more attractive to my needs. Easy, 30-45 minute install. Check for driver support on your hardware before installing.
I started out with Ubuntu, switched to Kubuntu because I find KDE more attractive to my needs. Easy, 30-45 minute install. Check for driver support on your hardware before installing.
I like KDE infinitely more than Gnome, but I had issues with Kubuntu. The easiest versions of Linux that I've used with KDE were Suse and Mandrake (which has since changed its name to Mandriva). I am willing to try Kubuntu again though, as Ubuntu has hella lot of support.
Ubuntu rocks. I run it full time on everything now. The installation CD is also a LiveCD, so you can check all your hardware works before committing to an install. The install process is completely simple as well. It partitions your drives, sets up dual-booting, and sorts out a swap partition automatically. Good example with screenshots here, although that's 6.06, which is two versions old now.
As far as cool apps go, give beryl a try. It's a hardware accelerated window manager similar to Aero in Vista, but has cooler widgets like the desktop cube and the "ring" Alt-Tab switcher. There's another one called Compiz that Ubuntu 7.04 installs (but doesn't enable) by default which does something similar, but I've never tried it. There's a few videos on youtube of what they can do.
Finally, read this link, and keep it handy. How software installation works in Linux is one of the biggest adjustments you'll have to make.
It would help if someone could specify what in the hell KDE, Gnome and Ubuntu are
I know I'll have to do my own research at some point but this place is normally insanely helpful
Okay, think of names like Ubuntu, Suse, and Mandriva as cars. Now KDE and Gnome are just parts of the car, specifically they're the pretty aluminum/plastic outside that everybody sees. Now there are a lot of things that go along with the exterior, just because of the way it's shaped.
KDE and Gnome are basically the graphical interface for different distributions of Linux, which can be found in many different versions (ala Ubuntu and Kubuntu). The graphical interface is composed of your desktop, taskbar, program icons, etc. Gnome tends to be more stable, but KDE is more graphically pleasing (shiny). It's all a matter of preference, but in many distributions you can actually install both and then just choose which one you like best.
It would help if someone could specify what in the hell KDE, Gnome and Ubuntu are
I know I'll have to do my own research at some point but this place is normally insanely helpful
Ubuntu is a Linux distribution. Linux is really just an operating system kernel, which isn't a lot of use on it's own. A distribution is basically all the little pieces of software that make up a complete "Operating System" as the term is normally understood, tested for compatibility, appropriately configured, and packaged up with a nice installer.
Gnome and KDE are desktop environments, and the two most common choices. They're basically the GUI that you see when you use the computer. Which you choose is a matter of preference, as though software is generally designed for one or the other, it'll work in both. You can even install both at the same time and select which one you want to use when you log on.
Cheers for the help guys, the situation is currently my "spare" laptop is being used by my house-mate. We're going our seperate ways at the start of August though (her moving in with her bf, I on my own/kinda with my gf) so I'll be retrieving a laptop I haven't used in a year and a half.
Spec wise it's nothing fancy, it's 4 years old or so now. A P4 2.6ghz, 512MB RAM, 30GB Hard Disc Drive, 64MB Intel shared graphics (Samsung V25). It's a sturdy little thing (Although the power connector did fall off the board so I have a make-shift solution I created with some solder and some speaker cable) so I thought I might as well use it to learn something new.
You shouldn't have a problem with those specs, although you might with beryl/compiz if you try them out.
For reference, I'm running Ubuntu 6.06 on a 3.06GHz P4 with 1GB of RAM and a Geforce FX 5200 (desktop) and Ubuntu 7.04 on a 1.6GHz Pentium-M with 512MB RAM and a Mobility Radeon 7500 (laptop). Since it's a laptop, you might find that some of the hardware is a bit of a pain to get working (WiFi especially), although that's significantly improved with 7.04.
Ubuntu is very nice for a starting dist. Hell, I know people that have used linux for 15 years and use it. Currently I am running gentoo on one of my laptops.
Read up as much as you can. Linux can seem a little intense at first (when messing with files in console and such). But over time it becomes very easy and quite fun.
If you need help this is the best place to ask. One of the nicest things about it is, believe it or not, the high proportion of beginners that post. Unlike forums dedicated to other distributions, most people on there won't assume that you know your way around the Linux filesystem and command line. There's nothing worse than getting advice that seems more cryptic than the problem.
Get Ubuntu. I hate KDE because of the way it resizes windows and whatnot.
After you learn Ubuntu, it might be better to switch off to something else (Ubuntu is very very bloaty). I just switched from Ubuntu to ArchLinux (my Ubuntu install was over a gigabyte or two, my ArchLinux install is only about 500 megabytes or less). But first, learn Ubuntu, and try to stick with a Debian distribution after you move on.
The above posts have done a good job of explaining the nature of Linux. Different people have different learning styles, so in the interests of helping Linux make sense to more people -- and in scratching my own personal itch for explaining things -- I'll reexplain Linux in another way. If I was just putting Linux on my grandma's computer I wouldn't explain this to her, because strictly speaking nobody needs to know this. You say you're technical, though, and a lot of other people who will read this are also technical, so I think you'll appreciate the background info.
I've been using Linux since the Bad Old Days, so I remember when things were VERY confusing for new users. I'll explain why the Linux way of doing things seems to naturally create this huge pool of confusing software choices. I'll then explain what's happened in recent years to make this more manageable.
Linux programmers writing open source write software to scratch an itch. They see a need and they write something for that need. They also make their software available to others for free, because they want to help people. If the software is good and useful, then it becomes "popular" and lots of people use it, and the person's reputation in the community goes up.
Commercial software vendors also write software to help people. Because they want to make money with their software, though, commercial software vendors will try to ensure that their software is useful for a large number of people. This usually drives companies to eliminate redundant products and choices. So when you install Windows you only get one "window manager," and your experience is always consistent. The X button at the top right always tells the OS to close the window. The Start button always shows the Start Menu, etc.
People writing Linux software don't have these same filters on their creativity. So you end up with a HUGE number of people producing interesting, useful software. If you have a unique need, one of these specialized software packages can probably help you. If you're a newbie, though, you may not WANT to understand your choices well enough to feel confident you can pick the right thing.
Linux distributions (distros) help. People know that the process of finding and installing all that software takes considerable work. To make things easier, Linux distribution vendors will package together a bunch of free software and put it on one CD. They will even write an installer that will help you pick and install things easily.
This too-many-choices problem persisted with early (and many current) Linux distros, though. For convenience, these distros would include multiple redundant pieces of software. This actually makes things worse: now instead of going to individual project web pages, reading what the authors wrote and seeing screenshots, you now see "Pick one or more of these window managers: FVWM, FVWM95, OLVWM4, etc." (There was no KDE or Gnome yet, and remember Slackware 3.1 was fast on a 486 with 16 MB RAM.)
So if you're technical and you have a lot of patience for installing and tinkering, you install one and see if you like it. If you don't like it you remove it and install another, etc etc.
If you're not technical, you say "Buh?" and you go back to Windows.
Now window managers are pretty well sorted. You have KDE and Gnome and everything else. But what about other things? If you want a text editor, you still get a huge list of choices. "I just want something like Notepad!" So you'll scan the list, not see anything named "notepad," and then install something at random. You may get something like Notepad; you may get an advanced text editor with built-in programming language syntax highlighting and hex editor support; or you may get something else weird.
Of late we've seen a new breed of Linux distro: an organization will really care about giving new users a good first experience, so they will do a lot of filtering and installation work for you. When you use Gentoo, for example, you're using something that has been lovingly fitted together in a way that makes things easier to use.
But these distros can't make the problem go away altogether. For one thing, there are still many Linux users out there who were trained in the old way of doing things, so they are still comfortable finding and installing random bits of software. If you ask them for advice, they may assume you are the same as them, and they may recommend their one favorite option. Or five people will recommend five different things, and expect you to try all five of them.
Above all, be prepared to occasionally run into a confusing set of options -- but ask for help or advice when you do.
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Strangely, I can't stand KDE. The complete lack of human interface guidelines have not helped the Kool Desktop Environment at all. I understand that it's a lot better after you spend a day or so tweaking, but it's not to my taste. Gnome is much more logically laid out, though they could stand to add a few options in here and there. XFCE4 is, of course, an amazing alternative, though missing a few essentials like integrated print driver config and SAMBA support in Thunar.
I actually switched from ArchLinux to Ubuntu. Don't get me wrong, I could use Arch, and I loved the way it worked, but I found myself constantly tweaking things or putting stuff back together after system updates. When I got to school, I needed to have something that "just worked" all the time with minimal interference. The horrifying breakage of the OpenOffice.org spreadsheet program's excel spreadsheet export function the day before I had something due also helped. I love cutting edge, but I kinda need stable. :-/
Strangely, I can't stand KDE. The complete lack of human interface guidelines have not helped the Kool Desktop Environment at all. I understand that it's a lot better after you spend a day or so tweaking, but it's not to my taste. Gnome is much more logically laid out, though they could stand to add a few options in here and there.
I think the tweaking is really meant to be the point of KDE. Gnome, by comparison, deliberately seeks to reduce the number of options available to the user, in the name of consistency and usability. I'm not implying that's a bad thing, I use Gnome myself, but the intentions behind the design of the two are very different.
It's actually kind of similar to the Mac approach, in that the idea is that you'll work in the way the designer intended, rather than determining your own optimum from many different possible approaches to a given task.
I found myself constantly tweaking things or putting stuff back together after system updates
This is one of the things I think Ubuntu has got exactly right. Updates are incredibly simple and completely painless. Even major upgrades, like 6.10 -> 7.04. Before I did that, I backed up my entire home directory to a network share, then felt a little silly when it went completely smoothly.
Edit: I don't use GNOME or KDE, I use FluxBox. It's completely customizable, it's like making your own windows manager from scratch:
You'll notice there's no start menu button. You right click to get that. Those icons were added in with another program I think, normally the desktop doesn't have any icons.
I actually switched from ArchLinux to Ubuntu. Don't get me wrong, I could use Arch, and I loved the way it worked, but I found myself constantly tweaking things or putting stuff back together after system updates. When I got to school, I needed to have something that "just worked" all the time with minimal interference. The horrifying breakage of the OpenOffice.org spreadsheet program's excel spreadsheet export function the day before I had something due also helped. I love cutting edge, but I kinda need stable. :-/
I actually haven't had any problems with it so far. In fact it took me less time to configure it than it did Ubuntu, mostly because I was already familiar with Linux while installing it, where as Ubuntu was pretty much my first serious Linux install. The only thing I haven't done so far is configure 3D acceleration, but that's a pain on any Linux distro.
Edit: I don't use GNOME or KDE, I use FluxBox. It's completely customizable, it's like making your own windows manager from scratch:
You'll notice there's no start menu button. You right click to get that. Those icons were added in with a mod I think, normally the desktop doesn't have any icons.
Edit: I don't use GNOME or KDE, I use FluxBox. It's completely customizable, it's like making your own windows manager from scratch:
You'll notice there's no start menu button. You right click to get that. Those icons were added in with a mod I think, normally the desktop doesn't have any icons.
But I would suggest running the default desktop enviroment (Gnome in Ubuntu, KDE in Kubuntu) until you get a decent understanding.
Agreed. It would have been a pain to use FluxBox if I hadn't already learned the CLI. Actually, if I recall, I learned the CLI while trying to get FluxBox setup. In fact I learned everything about Linux by just jumping in. That's probably not a very smart thing to do
Edit: Xfce looks hot. I'm going to try that out a bit.
Edit: I don't use GNOME or KDE, I use FluxBox. It's completely customizable, it's like making your own windows manager from scratch:
You'll notice there's no start menu button. You right click to get that. Those icons were added in with a mod I think, normally the desktop doesn't have any icons.
But I would suggest running the default desktop enviroment (Gnome in Ubuntu, KDE in Kubuntu) until you get a decent understanding.
Agreed. It would have been a pain to use FluxBox if I hadn't already learned the CLI. Actually, if I recall, I learned the CLI while trying to get FluxBox setup. In fact I learned everything about Linux by just jumping in. That's probably not a very smart thing to do
Thats how I learned! That and LFS (Linux From Scratch). Nothing like compiling every base package from scratch
suadeo on
My 360 is [strike]back[/strike] [strike]bricked[/strike] back!
The only thing I haven't done so far is configure 3D acceleration, but that's a pain on any Linux distro.
System -> Administration -> Restricted Drivers Manager in Ubuntu. Check the box next to "NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver" and you're set.
That's not painful IMO.
Not painful at all. Unless you don't have an nvidia card. :P I hear ATI is a pain in the ass to work with in Linux, how true is this?
Very.
Ok, actually *configuring* the card is only /slightly/ more painful than NVIDIA. Performance wise, we're looking at "very painful" to "extremely painful". ATi is not known for great OpenGL compatibility. Stuff runs MUCH better for me under DirectX in windows. Also, depending on the ATi card, it might only be capable of using XGL for desktop effects. XGL is not the way you want to go if you like desktop effects.
From experience, if you must decide between Intel integrated and ATi integrated, grab the Intel, even if it's a less powerful card.
NVIDIA dosen't have open source driver like Intel, but unlike ATi, they have /decent/ drivers.
The only thing I haven't done so far is configure 3D acceleration, but that's a pain on any Linux distro.
System -> Administration -> Restricted Drivers Manager in Ubuntu. Check the box next to "NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver" and you're set.
That's not painful IMO.
Not painful at all. Unless you don't have an nvidia card. :P I hear ATI is a pain in the ass to work with in Linux, how true is this?
Very.
Ok, actually *configuring* the card is only /slightly/ more painful than NVIDIA. Performance wise, we're looking at "very painful" to "extremely painful". ATi is not known for great OpenGL compatibility. Stuff runs MUCH better for me under DirectX in windows. Also, depending on the ATi card, it might only be capable of using XGL for desktop effects. XGL is not the way you want to go if you like desktop effects.
From experience, if you must decide between Intel integrated and ATi integrated, grab the Intel, even if it's a less powerful card.
NVIDIA dosen't have open source driver like Intel, but unlike ATi, they have /decent/ drivers.
So I'm fucked then? I mean, it doesn't really matter since if I want to play games or whatever I'll just boot into XP but I'd like to be able to do stuff like that in linux if it's not too impossible.
The only thing I haven't done so far is configure 3D acceleration, but that's a pain on any Linux distro.
System -> Administration -> Restricted Drivers Manager in Ubuntu. Check the box next to "NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver" and you're set.
That's not painful IMO.
Heheheh. Now configure your Xorg file to get all 3D apps to actually look and run well :P .
That's done for you. In fact, if you want to use Beryl the necessary settings are also configured for you. And if you don't already have the NVIDIA drivers installed, it'll take care of that as well as part of the process.
Barrakketh on
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0
Moe FwackyRight Here, Right NowDrives a BuickModeratormod
edited July 2007
I edited my Xorg file for dual monitors a few installs ago and it's still the best, no matter how many times i try to dick with the generated file, it always fucks up.
welcome to the biggest hurdle of learning Linux: simply choosing what distro to use, which GUI to use, you name it. you're simply overwhelmed with a vast amount of choices. Not that it's a bad thing, but IMO, a newbie needs guidance, he needs to be told to learn these basics, learn that version. etc etc before they can go out and dabble in the various distros.
Enter the Linux zealotry (not saying you guys are btw, just recounting my own experiences) All yelling at the top of their lungs that their particular favorites are the best.
Every time I try, I'd get through the install with zero problems but I'd always run into the same issue: Then what? I build the box just fine, but then I need to find something to DO with it y'know? Then it gets harder to devote time to learning it when you don't really have a clear cut objective of what you're trying to get to.
Not saying any of this is Linux's fault, I freely admit that its as much my lack of...ambition..I guess, than anything. But it is still a hurdle that exists
So my advice is, don't wade in thinking "whee im going to learn Linux" as your objective. IMO you need to be able to say, "Hey I need to build X, let's try using Linux for the job instead of MS/IBM/whatever. Until recently, we've been a Novell shop at work, and we used Zenworks. Their imaging software uses a boot CD with linux on it. I never made ANY headway learning Linux until they slapped it into Zenworks and I had to learn a bit of the networking commands in order to utilize it for work.
I love Ubuntu, and recently found out Beryl works on my install (using it on my ~3 year old Sony Vaio). I'm still learning linux, but I think it's pretty straight forward for beginners, at least in my experience. A friend installed Xubuntu on his notebook and seems to be doing quite fine, with absolutely no linux experience whatsoever.
If you want eye candy, Beryl is just cool to mess with.
What's the easiest way to get Ubuntu/Kubuntu to like a particulare wireless setup? I want to dual boot my laptop to get some linux fun / easier streamlined web browsing but my router (Linksys wtr54g in WAP mode) doesn't want to play fair... on second thought i'll look at their respective boards
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Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
edited July 2007
From what I read here and there, Ubuntu is pretty good about properly detecting wireless LANs. I have not tested this myself, as I am not using wireless.
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Moe FwackyRight Here, Right NowDrives a BuickModeratormod
edited July 2007
Ubuntu is good at detecting them, connection is another matter. I have yet to be able to connect to my university wireless in Ubuntu. Apparently, it seems to think that a PEAP network can only exist in WPA encryption and not in WEP. Tell that to my university IS&T department.
I just started using ubuntu on my laptop about a week ago, everything has been sunshine and kittens until all of a sudden it decided to start kernel panicking on startup and I cant even load the os . I'm getting some help on the forums now though, and hopefully it'll be all over soon.
The only thing I haven't done so far is configure 3D acceleration, but that's a pain on any Linux distro.
System -> Administration -> Restricted Drivers Manager in Ubuntu. Check the box next to "NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver" and you're set.
That's not painful IMO.
Heheheh. Now configure your Xorg file to get all 3D apps to actually look and run well :P .
That's done for you. In fact, if you want to use Beryl the necessary settings are also configured for you. And if you don't already have the NVIDIA drivers installed, it'll take care of that as well as part of the process.
No it isn't. In fact, it has never done that for me. I had to scour the Ubuntu forums for somebody elses configuration and copy and paste and set everything just right to get it to work. The hardest part of getting Linux to work has always been 3D acceleration because it has never configured it for me and I have to go searching to forum archives.
Thankfully though I don't plan on playing any games on Linux, so I don't have to worry about it this time around.
From what I read here and there, Ubuntu is pretty good about properly detecting wireless LANs. I have not tested this myself, as I am not using wireless.
No it isn't. In fact, it has never done that for me. I had to scour the Ubuntu forums for somebody elses configuration and copy and paste and set everything just right to get it to work. The hardest part of getting Linux to work has always been 3D acceleration because it has never configured it for me and I have to go searching to forum archives.
And I'm telling you that it does, in fact, do this. I decided to do a clean install of Feisty about a month after release and it works exactly as I described. You can read the release information here for Feisty. The "Desktop Effects" and "Easier install of proprietary drivers" sections are of interest.
Barrakketh on
Rollers are red, chargers are blue....omae wa mou shindeiru
Awesome, I got my ATI drivers configured. When I restarted I got some kind of error but I reset my computer and it booted up just fine. I installed Warsow to see if it worked and it does, so that's good. I'll see if I can get Beryl to run now.
Thanks for the advice up to now guys. I'm probably just going to go ahead, pick something at random (from suggestions in here), install it and see how I get on/where I go wrong. I'm going to use the machine for general web browsing/forum surfing and day to day usage and see what problems I come up against.
If I balls up, no big deal, I've got my macbook and desktop machine whilst I fix it
Cheers for the advice thus far, I shan't be going ahead for another couple of weeks but any other suggestions in the mean time are most welcome. Or just use the thread to natter about OS related stuff.
So I don't know if it was explained well, but Ubuntu/SUSE/Other are all linux distributions. Ubuntu happens to be a debian distribution. Basically that means it uses a particular method for installing/uninstalling stuff. You can use Ubuntu's GUI to do it with the package manager, or you can use the command line:
sudo apt-get install <package-name>
sudo just puts you into super user mode for this command, bypassing pretty much all security.
apt-get is the program used for downloading packages from the repositories and then installing the package
install is just an option to install, there are others like "remove"
and then the name of the program you want to install
you can use: sudo apt-cache search <regexp> to look for packages from the command line.
Linux is a mess because everything depends on everything else. So to install one package you might have to install 6 others first. Debian just takes care of all of that for you, or at least throws an error so you know things won't work.
That's my two minute primar on apt/Debian that is probably completely wrong.
I use the E17 window manager at home. It doesn't have all the crazy spinning cube effects or anything, but its got probably the fastest (and still pretty damn pretty) 2D gui I've ever seen on a Linux desktop. The window manager is a small small part of much much MUCH more powerful set of libraries for application development. Kinda like the next-next gen of Linux applications where the front end GUI is kept almost entirely separate from all the backend stuff. Its neat and has fantastic performance!
Once or twice a year I go "Time to try Linux as desktop OS again!"
Then I install it, use it for a week, and go back to Windows.
Not dissing Linux here - it's a great server OS, and what I use when I have a web/NAS server up and running at home. But I don't have any use for it as a desktop OS.
Posts
I like KDE infinitely more than Gnome, but I had issues with Kubuntu. The easiest versions of Linux that I've used with KDE were Suse and Mandrake (which has since changed its name to Mandriva). I am willing to try Kubuntu again though, as Ubuntu has hella lot of support.
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I know I'll have to do my own research at some point but this place is normally insanely helpful
PSN: SirGrinchX
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As far as cool apps go, give beryl a try. It's a hardware accelerated window manager similar to Aero in Vista, but has cooler widgets like the desktop cube and the "ring" Alt-Tab switcher. There's another one called Compiz that Ubuntu 7.04 installs (but doesn't enable) by default which does something similar, but I've never tried it. There's a few videos on youtube of what they can do.
Finally, read this link, and keep it handy. How software installation works in Linux is one of the biggest adjustments you'll have to make.
Okay, think of names like Ubuntu, Suse, and Mandriva as cars. Now KDE and Gnome are just parts of the car, specifically they're the pretty aluminum/plastic outside that everybody sees. Now there are a lot of things that go along with the exterior, just because of the way it's shaped.
KDE and Gnome are basically the graphical interface for different distributions of Linux, which can be found in many different versions (ala Ubuntu and Kubuntu). The graphical interface is composed of your desktop, taskbar, program icons, etc. Gnome tends to be more stable, but KDE is more graphically pleasing (shiny). It's all a matter of preference, but in many distributions you can actually install both and then just choose which one you like best.
Wii Code: 1040-1320-0724-3613 :!!:
Ubuntu is a Linux distribution. Linux is really just an operating system kernel, which isn't a lot of use on it's own. A distribution is basically all the little pieces of software that make up a complete "Operating System" as the term is normally understood, tested for compatibility, appropriately configured, and packaged up with a nice installer.
Gnome and KDE are desktop environments, and the two most common choices. They're basically the GUI that you see when you use the computer. Which you choose is a matter of preference, as though software is generally designed for one or the other, it'll work in both. You can even install both at the same time and select which one you want to use when you log on.
Spec wise it's nothing fancy, it's 4 years old or so now. A P4 2.6ghz, 512MB RAM, 30GB Hard Disc Drive, 64MB Intel shared graphics (Samsung V25). It's a sturdy little thing (Although the power connector did fall off the board so I have a make-shift solution I created with some solder and some speaker cable) so I thought I might as well use it to learn something new.
Anyway, forsee any probs with that spec?
PSN: SirGrinchX
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For reference, I'm running Ubuntu 6.06 on a 3.06GHz P4 with 1GB of RAM and a Geforce FX 5200 (desktop) and Ubuntu 7.04 on a 1.6GHz Pentium-M with 512MB RAM and a Mobility Radeon 7500 (laptop). Since it's a laptop, you might find that some of the hardware is a bit of a pain to get working (WiFi especially), although that's significantly improved with 7.04.
Read up as much as you can. Linux can seem a little intense at first (when messing with files in console and such). But over time it becomes very easy and quite fun.
For references:
Ubuntu Forums
Gnome
KDE
Linux.com
My 360 is [strike]back[/strike] [strike]bricked[/strike] back!
Hell yes.
If you need help this is the best place to ask. One of the nicest things about it is, believe it or not, the high proportion of beginners that post. Unlike forums dedicated to other distributions, most people on there won't assume that you know your way around the Linux filesystem and command line. There's nothing worse than getting advice that seems more cryptic than the problem.
After you learn Ubuntu, it might be better to switch off to something else (Ubuntu is very very bloaty). I just switched from Ubuntu to ArchLinux (my Ubuntu install was over a gigabyte or two, my ArchLinux install is only about 500 megabytes or less). But first, learn Ubuntu, and try to stick with a Debian distribution after you move on.
I've been using Linux since the Bad Old Days, so I remember when things were VERY confusing for new users. I'll explain why the Linux way of doing things seems to naturally create this huge pool of confusing software choices. I'll then explain what's happened in recent years to make this more manageable.
Linux programmers writing open source write software to scratch an itch. They see a need and they write something for that need. They also make their software available to others for free, because they want to help people. If the software is good and useful, then it becomes "popular" and lots of people use it, and the person's reputation in the community goes up.
Commercial software vendors also write software to help people. Because they want to make money with their software, though, commercial software vendors will try to ensure that their software is useful for a large number of people. This usually drives companies to eliminate redundant products and choices. So when you install Windows you only get one "window manager," and your experience is always consistent. The X button at the top right always tells the OS to close the window. The Start button always shows the Start Menu, etc.
People writing Linux software don't have these same filters on their creativity. So you end up with a HUGE number of people producing interesting, useful software. If you have a unique need, one of these specialized software packages can probably help you. If you're a newbie, though, you may not WANT to understand your choices well enough to feel confident you can pick the right thing.
Linux distributions (distros) help. People know that the process of finding and installing all that software takes considerable work. To make things easier, Linux distribution vendors will package together a bunch of free software and put it on one CD. They will even write an installer that will help you pick and install things easily.
This too-many-choices problem persisted with early (and many current) Linux distros, though. For convenience, these distros would include multiple redundant pieces of software. This actually makes things worse: now instead of going to individual project web pages, reading what the authors wrote and seeing screenshots, you now see "Pick one or more of these window managers: FVWM, FVWM95, OLVWM4, etc." (There was no KDE or Gnome yet, and remember Slackware 3.1 was fast on a 486 with 16 MB RAM.)
So if you're technical and you have a lot of patience for installing and tinkering, you install one and see if you like it. If you don't like it you remove it and install another, etc etc.
If you're not technical, you say "Buh?" and you go back to Windows.
Now window managers are pretty well sorted. You have KDE and Gnome and everything else. But what about other things? If you want a text editor, you still get a huge list of choices. "I just want something like Notepad!" So you'll scan the list, not see anything named "notepad," and then install something at random. You may get something like Notepad; you may get an advanced text editor with built-in programming language syntax highlighting and hex editor support; or you may get something else weird.
Of late we've seen a new breed of Linux distro: an organization will really care about giving new users a good first experience, so they will do a lot of filtering and installation work for you. When you use Gentoo, for example, you're using something that has been lovingly fitted together in a way that makes things easier to use.
But these distros can't make the problem go away altogether. For one thing, there are still many Linux users out there who were trained in the old way of doing things, so they are still comfortable finding and installing random bits of software. If you ask them for advice, they may assume you are the same as them, and they may recommend their one favorite option. Or five people will recommend five different things, and expect you to try all five of them.
Above all, be prepared to occasionally run into a confusing set of options -- but ask for help or advice when you do.
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I actually switched from ArchLinux to Ubuntu. Don't get me wrong, I could use Arch, and I loved the way it worked, but I found myself constantly tweaking things or putting stuff back together after system updates. When I got to school, I needed to have something that "just worked" all the time with minimal interference. The horrifying breakage of the OpenOffice.org spreadsheet program's excel spreadsheet export function the day before I had something due also helped. I love cutting edge, but I kinda need stable. :-/
I think the tweaking is really meant to be the point of KDE. Gnome, by comparison, deliberately seeks to reduce the number of options available to the user, in the name of consistency and usability. I'm not implying that's a bad thing, I use Gnome myself, but the intentions behind the design of the two are very different.
It's actually kind of similar to the Mac approach, in that the idea is that you'll work in the way the designer intended, rather than determining your own optimum from many different possible approaches to a given task.
This is one of the things I think Ubuntu has got exactly right. Updates are incredibly simple and completely painless. Even major upgrades, like 6.10 -> 7.04. Before I did that, I backed up my entire home directory to a network share, then felt a little silly when it went completely smoothly.
Edit: I don't use GNOME or KDE, I use FluxBox. It's completely customizable, it's like making your own windows manager from scratch:
You'll notice there's no start menu button. You right click to get that. Those icons were added in with another program I think, normally the desktop doesn't have any icons.
In this example the task bar is on top.
I actually haven't had any problems with it so far. In fact it took me less time to configure it than it did Ubuntu, mostly because I was already familiar with Linux while installing it, where as Ubuntu was pretty much my first serious Linux install. The only thing I haven't done so far is configure 3D acceleration, but that's a pain on any Linux distro.
I love the *box's (Running Openbox on my laptop).
But I would suggest running the default desktop enviroment (Gnome in Ubuntu, KDE in Kubuntu) until you get a decent understanding.
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Agreed. It would have been a pain to use FluxBox if I hadn't already learned the CLI. Actually, if I recall, I learned the CLI while trying to get FluxBox setup. In fact I learned everything about Linux by just jumping in. That's probably not a very smart thing to do
Edit: Xfce looks hot. I'm going to try that out a bit.
Edit 2: Neato. Comparison of X Window System desktop environments.
System -> Administration -> Restricted Drivers Manager in Ubuntu. Check the box next to "NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver" and you're set.
That's not painful IMO.
Thats how I learned! That and LFS (Linux From Scratch). Nothing like compiling every base package from scratch
My 360 is [strike]back[/strike] [strike]bricked[/strike] back!
Heheheh. Now configure your Xorg file to get all 3D apps to actually look and run well :P .
Edit: I'm in Xfce4 now. This is so slick.
That's done for you. In fact, if you want to use Beryl the necessary settings are also configured for you. And if you don't already have the NVIDIA drivers installed, it'll take care of that as well as part of the process.
Enter the Linux zealotry (not saying you guys are btw, just recounting my own experiences) All yelling at the top of their lungs that their particular favorites are the best.
Every time I try, I'd get through the install with zero problems but I'd always run into the same issue: Then what? I build the box just fine, but then I need to find something to DO with it y'know? Then it gets harder to devote time to learning it when you don't really have a clear cut objective of what you're trying to get to.
Not saying any of this is Linux's fault, I freely admit that its as much my lack of...ambition..I guess, than anything. But it is still a hurdle that exists
So my advice is, don't wade in thinking "whee im going to learn Linux" as your objective. IMO you need to be able to say, "Hey I need to build X, let's try using Linux for the job instead of MS/IBM/whatever. Until recently, we've been a Novell shop at work, and we used Zenworks. Their imaging software uses a boot CD with linux on it. I never made ANY headway learning Linux until they slapped it into Zenworks and I had to learn a bit of the networking commands in order to utilize it for work.
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If you want eye candy, Beryl is just cool to mess with.
Just my 2 cents.
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No it isn't. In fact, it has never done that for me. I had to scour the Ubuntu forums for somebody elses configuration and copy and paste and set everything just right to get it to work. The hardest part of getting Linux to work has always been 3D acceleration because it has never configured it for me and I have to go searching to forum archives.
Thankfully though I don't plan on playing any games on Linux, so I don't have to worry about it this time around.
Edit: Now this is a fun "Look what I can do!" video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALqduQfm09c
And I'm telling you that it does, in fact, do this. I decided to do a clean install of Feisty about a month after release and it works exactly as I described. You can read the release information here for Feisty. The "Desktop Effects" and "Easier install of proprietary drivers" sections are of interest.
If I balls up, no big deal, I've got my macbook and desktop machine whilst I fix it
Cheers for the advice thus far, I shan't be going ahead for another couple of weeks but any other suggestions in the mean time are most welcome. Or just use the thread to natter about OS related stuff.
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sudo apt-get install <package-name>
sudo just puts you into super user mode for this command, bypassing pretty much all security.
apt-get is the program used for downloading packages from the repositories and then installing the package
install is just an option to install, there are others like "remove"
and then the name of the program you want to install
you can use: sudo apt-cache search <regexp> to look for packages from the command line.
Linux is a mess because everything depends on everything else. So to install one package you might have to install 6 others first. Debian just takes care of all of that for you, or at least throws an error so you know things won't work.
That's my two minute primar on apt/Debian that is probably completely wrong.
I use the E17 window manager at home. It doesn't have all the crazy spinning cube effects or anything, but its got probably the fastest (and still pretty damn pretty) 2D gui I've ever seen on a Linux desktop. The window manager is a small small part of much much MUCH more powerful set of libraries for application development. Kinda like the next-next gen of Linux applications where the front end GUI is kept almost entirely separate from all the backend stuff. Its neat and has fantastic performance!
Then I install it, use it for a week, and go back to Windows.
Not dissing Linux here - it's a great server OS, and what I use when I have a web/NAS server up and running at home. But I don't have any use for it as a desktop OS.