Linux ideas

[Guy1961 358]

Hey

 

Gonna get me a laptop an throw linux on it so I can practice my scripting and admin stuff.

 

I will also use a KVM switch to redirect the video output to my big 21" screen and use a special keyboard and mouse.

 

all I need from the laptop is lots of hard drive space, lots of ram and god video card. any ideas?

 

what flavour of linux is good for newbies?

[WildTiger 1296]

I'm not an expert on Linux but there are packaged versions such as Linux Redhat that you load up onto your computer just as you would any other OS. You could also keep the other OS (likely Vista) and switch between them on boot up. This gives you the benefit of playing with Linux while still having the other system available for use.

 

Another consideration if you are looking for a power computer with "lots of hard drive space, lots of ram and god video card", you may want to consider buying a PC instead as it will likely be cheaper than a laptop with the same specifications. And then you can also experiment with different hardware components or upgrades.

 

Good luck and have fun.

[qwertyaccount 15793]

You could just use Virtual PC and run a Linux system on your existing computer and not have to fuss with KVM, etc.

 

With Virtual PC you also get "undo disks" you can screw around to your hearts content with the guest OS, and then simply drop all of the changes if they aren't to your likeing.

[P. Sherman 213]

Here are a couple of other options. I use Linux daily for work. I've installed dual-boot on my laptop so that I can interrupt it during boot time and select which OS to boot, either Linux or Windows (it defaults to Linux if I don't interrupt it). If it boots to Linux then I have a few options there again. I've got KVM running (the open source virtualization engine, not the keyboard switch) and I've got several different virtual guests I can run; Red Hat, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu and Windows 7.

 

I hope this helps...

[Guest Ou**or**n]

Ubuntu is now pretty much the standard as the most accessible version of Linux. It is hugely popular, has a great install program and is widely supported. Red Hat and Suse are yesterday's Linux.

[Rassilon 982]

Hey, Guy.

 

Ubuntu is the big one to send newbies to, but their recent change in desktop environments has caused everyone to freak out. Big changes usually do this, but I think there is something to people's concerns as they seem to just want to make a phone interface and make desktop users live with it. Also, I would hesitate to ask someone new to Linux to go through the learning period with a new to everyone desktop.

 

That having been said there are variations of Ubuntu. One is Kubuntu, which is Ubuntu running the KDE desktop environment which is good for beginners. (http://www.kubuntu.org)

 

There is a Linux dsitro called Mint, quickly rising in popularity. They took Ubuntu and added a bunch of stuff and tweaked it further for convenience. While Ubuntu is a distro that made using and configuring Linux easy, Mint is Ubuntu where they used that power to already configure and install software and settings most people would benefit from. (http://www.linuxmint.com)

 

I would like to recommend Mepis as well. It has two particularly great things about it. Special custom software to help configure everything and a thorough manual that gets install with the distro placed in an easy and obviously accessible spot. Mepis is based on Debian, a distro that many others are based on so it has a large amount of software packages one can easily install despite not being one of the more widely known distros. (http://www.mepis.org)

 

These are my new to Linux recommendations. I have other recommendations if you have specific concerns. (Like "Hey, I study results from the Large Hadron Collider" or "I am not afraid to jump into the somewhat technical and do not maintaining the system every week for great performance.")

[etasman2000 15994]

You could just use Virtual PC and run a Linux system on your existing computer and not have to fuss with KVM, etc.

 

With Virtual PC you also get "undo disks" you can screw around to your hearts content with the guest OS, and then simply drop all of the changes if they aren't to your likeing.

 

Totally agree here. Use something like Virtual Box (opensource and free) to place your guest OS on.

 

In terms of distro, the simplest to install these days are Ubuntu and Mint. If you want to customize the distro then look into Gentoo or Arch Linux.

[qwertyaccount 15793]

Totally agree here. Use something like Virtual Box (opensource and free) to place your guest OS on.

 

In terms of distro, the simplest to install these days are Ubuntu and Mint. If you want to customize the distro then look into Gentoo or Arch Linux.

 

If your primary OS is Windows XP or later, you can get Virtual PC for free from Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/virtualpc

[Guy1961 358]

thanks for the replies.

 

How much effort is reqired to setup a virtual machne on my current box so I can run LINUX?

 

is it the same as a dual boot system?

 

Any pros or cons to a dual boot system?

[qwertyaccount 15793]

thanks for the replies.

 

How much effort is reqired to setup a virtual machne on my current box so I can run LINUX?

 

is it the same as a dual boot system?

 

Any pros or cons to a dual boot system?

 

The only extra work involved is te 5 minutes it takes to download and install the Virtual PC software. You launch the VPC software, add a virtual machine with a couple clicks and install the (guest) OS like you would on any fresh new computer.

 

It is different than a dual boot system, with dual boot, whichever OS you fire up is the only one you have access to.

 

With Virtual PC, you have access to the host OS, and as many guest OSs as your computer can handle, and they can be set to communicate with each other, or not, as you like.

 

You can also set up separate virtual drives for each guest OS, which looks like a regular drive to the guest OS. On a dual boot, the OSs share a single drive, and the only way of separating them is with partitions. The OS can't be prevented from accessing areas/partitions of other OSs which leads to its own problems.

 

Let us know how you make out.

[Guy1961 358]

Ok, off to try the virtual PC approach.

 

I'll update as it happens

[Phaedrus 209521]

There is a Linux distro called Mint, quickly rising in popularity. They took Ubuntu and added a bunch of stuff and tweaked it further for convenience. While Ubuntu is a distro that made using and configuring Linux easy, Mint is Ubuntu where they used that power to already configure and install software and settings most people would benefit from. (http://www.linuxmint.com)

 

One word of caution on Mint: my understanding is that you can't upgrade it to new versions when these change without a re-install (but you can with Ubuntu). I may be wrong about this, or they may have fixed it since I last heard, but if you're considering Mint it's worth thinking about.

[RubJunky 1954]

I live in the digital world business and well just about everything else and I recently got the MAC book pro 17" loaded. I also use Parallels and load WIN7 virtually you can also load linux. I use IO Gear for all my KVM switches they also carry a wide variety of switches.

[CALLMEADAM 103]

Like mentioned.

I would go with the Parallel's Desktop.

The lastest version of it.

 

Supports both mac and windows.

[Rassilon 982]

I recommend Virtualbox for virtualization over other mentioned pieces of software, but I have no problems with those other programmes mentioned.

 

If you virtualize you can run software that is just for Linux and see what it is like and get the feel for using it. However, Linux is not controlling your computer, ultimately the virtualization software is and to a degree the host OS. You do not get the full appreciation of of what a real install is like in the same way you would if you dual booted.

 

However I only mention it because you asked about the differences between virtualization and dual booting. With virtualization you can quickly, easily and risk free test the waters and test them very throughly.

 

Phaedrus: I didn't know about. Normally I do the backup and fresh install upgrade method, but recently tried the automated distro update for Kubuntu. Didn't work. :-) Crapped out on one package and did not do the rest of the upgrade. Perhaps I waited too long between releases. Went back to normal methods.