Have you used or are you using linux?

JengoJengo Pasco, WA | USA
edited November 2005 in Science & Tech
Well, right now Linux is the only OS on my PC (Ubuntu 5.04 Hoary Hedgehog)

I used to go back and forth from Linux cause I wasnt satisfied with Linux. But Ubuntu pretty much solved all of that. Not only that but support for Windows games keeps getting better. dont get me wrong not all games work on it, but at least the games I play work on it. So no losses for me. lol.

Comments

  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited July 2005
    I like linux but currently the sad reality there are just some things that suck on linux. The game support goes without saying - but that's not the limiting factor for me. Where I need to constantly go back to windows for is DVD authoring and video editing linux just doesn't currently have good tools for doing it.

    Ideally though - I'd still rather have a MAC, but now I'm going to wait another year until the new x86 Mac's come out so much power will be at my finger tips.

    Back to the topic I have dual boot set up on my machine as I really like linux but I find I usually go back to windows and stay there longer because of the DVD stuff as that's what my machine ends up doing a lot of at home.

    One great program if you are dual booting lin/win is this one Captive http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/ it allows you to read/write to NTFS from a linux partition. So you can now keep all your data on NTFS and use it as common storage between windows and linux makes the whole puzzle fit nicely together.
  • CycloniteCyclonite Tampa, Florida Icrontian
    edited July 2005
    I don't really dual boot, but I have Gentoo installed on my laptop, and Windows on my main rig. I really like Gentoo, but it just doesn't have the ability to do what I do on a day-to-day basis. Plus, I'm not versed enough in the "Linux-lingo," nor am I as quick as I am in Windows, so I tend to just do minor things on the laptop.

    For instance, I've got SSH running so I can access shares on my Windows machine when I'm away from home.

    If it could do everything I need, I'd switch to Linux in a heart-beat.
  • HawkHawk Fla Icrontian
    edited July 2005
    Haven't used Linux yet, but I am going to put it on one of my pc's to learn it.
    Been wanting to for a while now. Hope it's not too hard to learn.
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited July 2005
    Linux is just different, it's not that hard to learn from the gui perspective and may command prompts things are similar. But most frustration for people lies in that they expect it to work like Windows and it doesn't do things the same way. Generally once you learn how to use linux it's much more efficient then windows is and if you can use linux you'll figure out windows in no time.

    My wife prefers the look and feel of linux over windows with it's virtual desktops and the way you can pop open a menu anywhere she also finds it much easier to navigate because for the typical user you only have access to the stuff you specifically need. Every user runs in a protected environment so they install a program it's just for them and they don't have to sift through everything every other users installed.

    You should have no trouble with it, assuming you have no hardware issues. So I'd pick a machine that's not cutting edge to test it on and get the newest version of your flavor of linux.

    Recomendations and debates on which linux are best are infinite but for me I'd recomend testing out mepis linux it runs off a cd and is a great 1st test just to see if it'll recog all your hardware. Then if it does I'd suggest Debian It's amazingly powerful and has the best software installer bar none. If you have some money or don't mind aquiring things Xandros is excellent as is Suse. They both have advantages and dissadvantages over Debian (as does every flavor of linux really). It just depends on how precompiled and user friendly of a linux install/enviro you want.
  • HawkHawk Fla Icrontian
    edited July 2005
    Thnx kryyst, That makes it a little easier to pick one.
    Gives me a better idea of the different versions, and which are more user friendly.
  • CycloniteCyclonite Tampa, Florida Icrontian
    edited July 2005
    I tell ya, over the last couple years I've tried on and off to get into Linux. I tried a bunch of different flavors, each one pissing me off more than that previous. I always just dropped it after about a week or so of frustration.

    Then, I finally found a friend to help me out with questions and stuff. I installed Gentoo, following their *very* well written installation documents. I've been running it for a little over a month now and love it. If you want to install something, it's just a short command. You don't have to download anything, as it gets it for you.

    I'm still trying to learn the ins and outs, as Linux is infinitely more powerful than Windows. I just don't know quite how to utilize it yet. :)
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited July 2005
    Is the command apt-get? If so Gentoo is based on debian and would also go into my recomend list as debian based installs are excellent.

    **of course I could look it up for myself but then I wouldn't have a way to perpetuate stimulating topics :)
  • CycloniteCyclonite Tampa, Florida Icrontian
    edited July 2005
    Nope. It may be a form of it though, as I've never used Debian.

    It's emerge.
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited July 2005
    Cyclonite wrote:
    Nope. It may be a form of it though, as I've never used Debian.

    It's emerge.

    hmmm, nuts may have to actually research this one. Basically there are three back ends for linux Debian, Slackwhare and crap forgot the name of the other one but it's based around RPM's (redhat, mandrake, Suse etc...). There are also a few bastardized types line Lindows but I'm not going to bother with it.

    So any flavor is based on one of the 3 debian and the one I can't remember being the most common.

    So in Gentoo's case emerge is probably a script they wrote that uses apt-get or rpm manager to get and install files to make the process even more simplified and controlled for Gentoo versions to help insure you don't get broken packages (a bad install).
  • CycloniteCyclonite Tampa, Florida Icrontian
    edited July 2005
    That sounds about right. Good explanation. :)
  • drowddrowd Texas
    edited July 2005
    my server is currently redhat 9, and im running suse 9.3 at home. i always enjoy playing around witht he various distrobutions of linux, but i always end up coming back to suse. them getting bought by novell is probably one of the more successful buyouts in history, because suse was great before, but its awesome now. as far as making linux more user friendly and gui friendly, suse is definitely going in the right direction.

    unfortunately, the command line is where most of the power really lies within linux. unlike windows, everything you can do from the gui, you can do from the command line, and better really. but thats really any windows users worst nightmare is being stuck at the command line and not knowing what to do. but whats really great about linux is that you can custom fit it to whatever you need. my webserver doesnt need a gui, so X isnt even installed. i really like the pretty KDE interface on suse, and so i prefer to use that.

    also, i typically discourage people from dual booting cuz they really dont get into the OS enough. i think i even attempted that when i was first trying to learn it, and i would always just boot back into windows and do what i had always done. so, i really feel like the best alternative is to grab some virtual machine software (vmware will do the trick) and run it on top. that way its easy to start and stop and you can even keep it running. that will allow you to really play around with it. but if you can afford it, the best way is really to have a dedicated linux machine. right now, i use my linux machine as my file server (its got all my hard drives in it) and then i use my windows machine for gaming, etc.

    linux has really come a long was as far as installing applications. when i was first getting into linux, i was constantly dealing with dependancy hell. the folks that have done this before know what im talking about. and app will will 2 or 3 deps, and those will have their own deps, and so on, and so on. was a huge pain. anyway, they have come a long way and the installation managers take care of it for you. suse has yast (which is from a gui or command line). however, there are lots of people (including myself) that perfer to use apt on suse (its not that hard to install). and for apt, there is a pretty slick front end called synaptic that also works fairly well. in addition to these, there is another one called yum (from yellow dog, i believe) that works really well. i have several friends that swear by it.

    anyway, im done making this post, but i really encourage you to dig into it, cuz its pretty awesome. also, google is absolutely invaluable when looking for linux answers. good luck!
  • WarriorWarrior Scotland
    edited July 2005
    I agree about Suse, but I am biased LOL. I tried a few distros a while back and still do enjoy installing the latest and greatest as they are released. One to watch is called Progeny, it's debian based but uses the redhat installer. You can also use apt-get on all the distros now with a nice front-end like Synaptic to make life easy. My advice? get an old HDD and install a distro (no duel boot) and just have some fun for a while.
  • XyphusXyphus South Bend, Indiana
    edited October 2005
    I dual-boot with SuSE 10.0 and WindowsXP on my gaming rig. I am running SuSE 9.3 on my server. Played around with a LiveCD version of Ubuntu on my iBook. Very snappy.

    I'd say for a new-to-linux user, SuSE or Ubuntu is a good choice. (SuSE is KDE-based, where Ubuntu is Gnome based. But by configuring and/or updating some packages you can use whatever display manager you wish...)
  • drowddrowd Texas
    edited October 2005
    hey xyphus, have you gotten dual monitor support working in suse 10.0? i had it working perfectly in 9.3, but so far, i have been unable to get X to work properly for dual monitors. i guess i have to configure by hand :(

    (or it could be ati's terrible driver support, but you would think that if it worked in 9.3, it would work in 10)
  • XyphusXyphus South Bend, Indiana
    edited October 2005
    drowd wrote:
    hey xyphus, have you gotten dual monitor support working in suse 10.0? i had it working perfectly in 9.3, but so far, i have been unable to get X to work properly for dual monitors. i guess i have to configure by hand :(

    (or it could be ati's terrible driver support, but you would think that if it worked in 9.3, it would work in 10)

    Haven't had a chance to try dual monitors yet. I would think that it may be easier with nVidia hardware over ATI. Linux support from ATI has always been rather shoddy. Maybe the newest batch of drivers will make that easier. At least with this set of drivers I actually got 3D accelleration to work on my Radeon 9800Pro. :)
  • drowddrowd Texas
    edited October 2005
    ha! i actually noticed, that i didnt have any 3d accel on any of the beta builds of suse10, but on the final OSS build, i finally got it enabled on my x800. it makes the screensavers so much prettier :D

    i should get a low end newer nvidia card, maybe like a 6600 or something. they have such great driver support (for win and linux).
  • edited October 2005
    Xyphus wrote:
    Linux support from ATI has always been rather shoddy.

    AAGH. I had a hell of a time trying to install the x68-64 version of Ubuntu linux. (Ironic considering their motto is 'Linux should just... work.') It doesn't know what in God's name my PCI-E X700 is. So instead of giving me poor support or no 3D acceleration, XWindow crashes on startup. In the end, I am left with a huge install of a linux text console. : (

    I'm slowly purging this system to make room for new components, so when that 6600GT is nestled in my PCI-E slot, Ubuntu will be my main boot. 'Till now though, M$ wins again.
  • citrixmetacitrixmeta Montreal, Quebec Icrontian
    edited November 2005
    you need to install fglrx

    "sudo apt-get install fglrx"

    dpkg-reconfigure gdm

    and select fglrx driver... that should work
  • GnomeWizarddGnomeWizardd Member 4 Life Akron, PA Icrontian
    edited November 2005
    Ubuntu was nice when i finally got it on my lappy but damn it was hard!
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