NationStates Jolt Archive

Bascily i've been hearing good the things about Linux. I was shown it recently and it lookied damn complicated to use and i was told i shouldnt bother trying to learn how to use it. I just wanted generall commenst on wheather you think i should dump microsoft and go text and can someone tell me wheather i can install pretty much any software or would i have to lose the ability to play lots of my computer games?

If you just use your cpu for games, email, and the web, there's really no point

If you go with one of the straight forward, "user friendly" distros of linux installation is and basic setup is quite easy and its not too steep a learning curve from MS. I'd recommend new user try SuSE or Mandrake as these are two of the easier to use distros.

The software availble for linux is constantly under development but if you use the stable versions you should have all the tools available to you that you do under the windows environment. The bonus to this is that the software is free.

Unfortunately you will lose the ability to play most of your games natively, (ie straight from the OS) but emulators (ie wine) make most games playable. OpenGL based games are usualy great, directX not so great.

I'd recommend creating a duel boot machine (see the DOCs of your chosen distro) just so you can have a play with a test installation of linux whilst maintaining your functional windows installation. Linux is an excellent tool but unfortunately still not for the faint hearted.

What you should get is either Knoppix, or Xandros Linux, probobly both. They are both available free online. www.knoppix.net and www.xandros.com for Xandros you will need to use bittorrent.

Knoppix is a bootable LIVE Linux install. You can boot into Linux without using a hardrive at all, and the CD has lots of preinstalled software. Great for learning Linux with no risk, or for a rescue CD. Knoppix just saved me from losing abunch of data when I could no longer boot my computer and had to reformet the drive.

Xandros is for when you want to dual-boot with windows. It is exteremely easy to install and set up the dual-boot, it uses real Nvidia drivers (a ver big deal) so you can use the 3d acceleration if you have an Nvidia card. Xandros is essentially an attempt to make it so you don't need to use teh command line, most things have a graphical equivalent, so you can learn as you go.

I would recomend getting Knoppix and playing around with it for a while and finding out if you like it. If you decide to install, install Xandros, NOT Knoppix, Knoppix has many unecessaary features, and is complicated to install.

Oh yeah, windows games won't work under linux, but games are starting to be made with Linux compatibility, Unreal Tournament 2004 is compatible. :D

I bring you http://www.linspire.com/
The most idiot proof distro ever.
You can download a Live CD of it but you have to pay for the full Program.
It's a nice easy learning cruve to learning the basic's of KDE.

I like to tinker around with an old version of RedHat Myself.

You can download a Live CD of it but you have to pay for the full Program.

This blows. Use the Knoppix Live CD, and Xandros is quite idiot proof as well. both are absolutly free. (The business edition of Xandros costs $$, but Knoppix is totally free)

2 things:
1st) Transgaming Technology's winex from http://www.transgaming.com/ will let you play a large number of native windows games on your linux box (with the number of supported games growing every day). I've got Deus Ex 2, Max Payne 2, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Elder Scrolls 3 currently all running on a Mandrake V 10 system with no problems (well, Elder scrolls 3 once in a while will have have trouble mapping textures, but it doesn't occur often, and it's still very playable. usually moving or turning will solve the glitch). I've got several other games, which I simply haven't bothered installing, but most of what I have claims to be supported by winex.

2nd) Codeweaver's Crossover Office at http://www.codeweavers.com/site/products/ has allowed my to run Microsoft Office XP Professional version for almost a year now on my Linux box. Hell, even Internet Explorer works with this (although I use Firefox ).

I honestly haven't booted up my windows partition in almost 6 months because of these 2 utilities. Although there is some performance loss running the emulators, they haven't been particularly noticeably on my box so far.

woah winex sound like its really good, do you use the copy installed on your windows partition? or do you run the install with winex? Im somewhat of linux noob so I run Xandros, but most windows programs wont run with crossover (not crossover office)

Bascily i've been hearing good the things about Linux. I was shown it recently and it lookied damn complicated to use and i was told i shouldnt bother trying to learn how to use it. I just wanted generall commenst on wheather you think i should dump microsoft and go text and can someone tell me wheather i can install pretty much any software or would i have to lose the ability to play lots of my computer games?
It's only complicated if you make it complicated - you can drag/drop, double click etc fine in KDE and GNOME but you want you can do it command line. For your purposes something like Mandrake or SuSE would be fine.

Any of the big distros that are around at the moment will have lots of stuff on the CDs, so you can word process etc without a problem. 3D games need WineX or something, which I've not used: I boot Windows XP when I want to game, everything else I do in Linux.

My opinion of Linux is not very high. I worked on a cluster with Linux and there were a lot of problems with the system. All I can do is just make an analogy. Linux is like a car with manual transmission, and Windows is automatic. Now if you want more hassles but more control, get Linux. If you want ease of use, but less control go Windows.

woah winex sound like its really good, do you use the copy installed on your windows partition? or do you run the install with winex? Im somewhat of linux noob so I run Xandros, but most windows programs wont run with crossover (not crossover office)

You install the game through winex, much as you would on a windows box. There's apparently a couple of games which have some install issues, but their forums a really good, and from what I've heard they're quite fast at answering support questions there. A friend of mine had trouble installing Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne, but they had him up and running in less than a 1/2 hour.

In answer to the windows partition, he doesn't have one, and has about a dozen games running.

As for crossover office, I'm not sure what version Xandros includes with their distro, but like I said, I've had no problems with MS Office XP at all. I'm not sure about other applications, as they explicitly state that the office suite is there main concern. I don't really use any windows apps outside of games or office anyway, and if Open Office's document compatibility was a bit better, I'd dump MS Office in a heartbeat and use that instead. (unfortunately, everyone I work with uses MS Offices documents, so I need MS Office installed and running. Open Office's compatibility right now for me opens approx. 90% of Window docs I receive. MS Office so far (maybe I just haven't created the right one yet) has had no trouble opening any OpenOffice docs I've created and stored as MS docs.

My opinion of Linux is not very high. I worked on a cluster with Linux and there were a lot of problems with the system. All I can do is just make an analogy. Linux is like a car with manual transmission, and Windows is automatic. Now if you want more hassles but more control, get Linux. If you want ease of use, but less control go Windows.


That shows you're american :) Most of you lot drive automatic.

Personally I've had great fun with Linux... After I worked through the stress of loosing windows and some music I didn't back up. It's really annoying when grub doesn't work. I'm downloading knoppix for the second time now... First iso got corrupted :( Anyway where was I?
Linux is a great OS I use Mandrake 10 or 8.1 depending on which I can find in my room, I've had a few problems which I managed to sort out farely quickly. Sadly I switched back to Windows before I could find and install the drivers for my onboard sound, get Java running and some other stuff. I'm going to dual boot as soon as I can though. Also a lot of my friends run various distros, and people who run Debian are no help with Mandrake :P

Linux is a good system, that is, if you go with the right one. I personally orefer Suse; I find RedHat is too buggy and it tends to coincidently crash when I try to use it. Mandrake isn't bad. If you want to try Linux without installing, you might want to try a distro like Knoppix - on OS that runs directly off the CD, no installation required.

Before I forget to ask, is there a gnome version of Knoppix?

Suse is in german isn't it?

Linux is a good system, that is, if you go with the right one. I personally orefer Suse; I find RedHat is too buggy and it tends to coincidently crash when I try to use it. Mandrake isn't bad. If you want to try Linux without installing, you might want to try a distro like Knoppix - on OS that runs directly off the CD, no installation required.
What version of Red Hat were you running? I've not had a problem with Fedora Core 2 that I couldn't get myself out of, it's mostly stuff falling over because of something I've done.

Suse is in german isn't it?
SuSE originates in Germany, but it's available in english.

Ah cool, I'd get the german distro anyway. My Germans getting a bit rusty :( Need to stay in practice...
Actually I might download suse and try it out. *pokes grub* work damn you!


I miss Konqueror :'(

You can select any language when you're installing it (to your hard drive, at least), I'm pretty sure you can do more than one, I've just never bothered to try - my French is below appalling.

Linux is basically good for two things

1. Hobbyist programmers who like to tweak

2. Server applications

If the above don't fit you, you will probably be very disappointed.

*checks*

Yes that fits here...
Course I've only ever returned to windows because of hardware conflicts :(

Linux is basically good for two things

1. Hobbyist programmers who like to tweak

2. Server applications

If the above don't fit you, you will probably be very disappointed.

Exactly.
I've done work for a few universities, and their CS departments universally used Unix. Privately employed programmers use Unix, too, at work and often at home.
Dorks who enjoy hacking, but have no jobs, use Linux. It's Unix for the unemployed and the poseurs. You'd be surprised how many of my mind-numbingly stupid friends ask me to help them install Linux, claim that they wanted it "because the cool people online are using it," and then, after explaining to them how use emacs, they try for a week and decide that no-one would willingly use this. I've started just partitioning the drives and putting it on there so they can have it but never actually use it.

The neccesary disclaimers: By "hacking," I meant the antique definition of programming creatively, not cracking/running a cracking program.
Some people with jobs do use Linux. A few of them even have stable, respectable jobs. I've never met one who could convince me he was more than a first-year CS student, but there are a few who use it and call themselves programmers. There are nuts in every group, and while I recognize thier existence, they are a negiligible part of the population.