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| Thread ID: 40355 | 2003-12-05 20:36:00 | the linux debate | miknz (3731) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 197655 | 2003-12-05 20:36:00 | I have been reading up about linux a little in the last few weeks and am considering installing it on my comp. Do you need to be a brain surgeon to install it and operate it? How idiot proof is it? Any info or links would be appreciated sys info win98se 333mhz intel p2 128 meg ram 40gig drive (i know, its a slug but its better than a boot in the nethers) |
miknz (3731) | ||
| 197656 | 2003-12-05 20:47:00 | I installed Fedora the other day,it was as easy as installing xp,Although it did make my xp install inacsesable.That upset me. Its now running on its own puter..... |
metla (154) | ||
| 197657 | 2003-12-05 20:55:00 | >>Do you need to be a brain surgeon to install it and operate it? Brain surgeons are not geeks! I would suggest Mandrake for beginners. You can purchase it through www.trademe.co.nz or there are other NZ based Linux suppliers. If you are a very cautious sort of person, you could get a copy of Knoppix which will boot from cd and leave your hard drive totally untouched, so you can try it on your machine without the obligation of partitioning your hard drive. Also the October 2003 edition of APC mag from Aussie had a cd with Lindows on it which also doesn't touch your hard drive. I tried to run it on my Pentium 4 laptop and it was a disaster whereas Knoppix ran fine (even detected my usb keyboard). |
Dolby Digital (160) | ||
| 197658 | 2003-12-05 20:58:00 | >>sys info win98se 333mhz intel p2 128 meg ram 40gig drive (i know, its a slug but its better than a boot in the nethers) Don't knock it. We all can't have Hyperthreading P4's. |
Dolby Digital (160) | ||
| 197659 | 2003-12-05 21:00:00 | Your current system will run Linux OK (some more resource hungry programs may be a bit slowish). There are a variety of different distributions available with Linux, some are more suited for newbies than others. They are generally easy to install. Most problems involve winmodems. This site here has a graphical guide to the sort of things you will see during installing Red Hat 8 (as an example) - Red Hat 8.0 Install Guide (www.blackviper.com) You can get some Linux distributions which run soley off a CD with out installing anything on your hard drive or touching any of your settings. This is a good way of having a look at Linux without installing anything for example Knoppix. I also have Lindows 4.0 which runs off a CD which is very linux newbie friendly if you are interested. |
Jen C (20) | ||
| 197660 | 2003-12-05 21:09:00 | on your own, or on forums/mailing lists. there are commercial versions which are cheaper than windows server. those may be entitled to some free tech support from the vendor. |
yang11 (170) | ||
| 197661 | 2003-12-05 21:18:00 | > I have been reading up about linux a little in the > last few weeks and am considering installing it on my > comp. Do you need to be a brain surgeon to install it > and operate it? How idiot proof is it? > Any info or links would be appreciated > > sys info > win98se > 333mhz intel p2 > 128 meg ram > 40gig drive > (i know, its a slug but its better than a boot in the > nethers) No you don't need to be a brain sergeon to use it, but it does have different ways of doing things. A lot of reading and question asking will see you right. It will run fine on that system. I use linux, RedHat 8 dual booting with win98, on a p200mmx with 128megs of ram with each OS on its own 4 gig hdd. I found KDE and Gnome bloated/memory hungry and run WindowMaker as my default window manger. |
mark.p (383) | ||
| 197662 | 2003-12-05 21:48:00 | Thanks everyone for your help and reassuance. I do have a winmodem so does this mean i will have trouble getting on the net with linux? Also, can i split my hdd and have an option at boot up asking which os i want to load?(is this possible????). |
miknz (3731) | ||
| 197663 | 2003-12-05 21:56:00 | Find out all you can about the make/model number of your winmodem. Some of them will run with Linux. An external serial modem will always work as they are very Linux friendly :). By splitting your HDD, you will be dual booting Win98/Linux. When you install Linux it will install a boot manager loader such as GRUB or LILO from which you can choose which operating system to boot into. You can set how you like this boot manager to operate with preferred default OS to boot and how much time-out to allow before automatically loading the default OS. |
Jen C (20) | ||
| 197664 | 2003-12-05 22:14:00 | Can most retail games work on linux, or just a few? | Craig (448) | ||
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