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| Thread ID: 67556 | 2006-03-31 02:49:00 | For Linux Moderators | kjaada (253) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 442338 | 2006-03-31 02:49:00 | Ref the posting today."Regarding installation of Linux" Are these people on the right track ??? Surely it does not matter which brand puter one has,linux distros will partition and install and sort out itself from there or have I got it wrong ? And of course one can allways boot in THAT OTHER OS if linux gets a bit much It is ok to go with a live CD distro but I feel the rest of the advice given is a bit hard to understand or have I got it wrong ? |
kjaada (253) | ||
| 442339 | 2006-03-31 03:01:00 | Your about right - installing a new Linux distribution onto a reasonable computer (non cutting edge) should be a walk in the part. It should pick up most if not all of the hardware and just run. Be aware that Linux doesn’t run with every bit of hardware out there, some manufacturers keep the specs to themselves so Linux doesn’t have drivers, this is especially true for some of the non branded modem cards, and some manufacturers produce binary only drivers so they generally have to be installed by the user. Sometimes for odd kit the kernel has to be rebuilt to take make it run properly, but for the average user with an average bit of kit your right. |
gcarmich (10068) | ||
| 442340 | 2006-03-31 03:11:00 | I am fully aware of modem problems etc (been there done that several times)but this is not the answer the person appeared to be looking for.He appeared to think that because he had a HP puter he would need "drivers".My point is that no matter what puter you have,Linuxwill work if you are prepared to work thru the hickups.The brand of puter does not make any difference.Or am I wrong there? | kjaada (253) | ||
| 442341 | 2006-03-31 03:13:00 | Your right, sort of but lets not go there. | gcarmich (10068) | ||
| 442342 | 2006-03-31 03:16:00 | Any operation which involves disk partitioning can end in tears. We sometimes see plaintive/angry postings "Linux deleted my data partition", when the only realistic response is: "You said you were 'sure' when it asked you. Linux didn't do the damage; you did". Nothing is foolproof. The suggestions to try a live CD system are sensible. The poster is inexperienced. A live CD will run without much risk of destroying the working system. It will show whether the hardware is common enough to be detected and used with the common set of driver modules. Since the computer is a "Media Center " , I suspect that installing Linux won't make it a better "Media Center " without a lot of setting up. |
Graham L (2) | ||
| 442343 | 2006-03-31 03:28:00 | Thanks for that.I now see it is the media centre that could be a problem. I did not want people with HP puters thinking they could not install or use the "better" os and some of the replies to the posting seemed to leave a bit to be desired. |
kjaada (253) | ||
| 442344 | 2006-03-31 04:12:00 | He appeared to think that because he had a HP puter he would need "drivers" . My point is that no matter what puter you have,Linuxwill work if you are prepared to work thru the hickups . The brand of puter does not make any difference . Or am I wrong there? The developers of Linux make no guarantees about what hardware it will run on for good reason . In alot of cases they have to reverse engineer windows drivers to see how it works . Linux SHOULD run on most intel based pc's but you will get the odd one that will have a problem . I have a Compaq 233 with a Cyrix CPU and Linux refuses to run on it . . . so I don't . Thats why you try one of the live cd's to see how its goes . Of course you can go straight into the hard drive install but thats extra work if you don't like what you see with Linux . The live cd concept is great . Try before you "buy" (or install in this case) . I think the media center pc is more about M$/HP marketing than what hardware is inside it (its still an Intel based pc) . Most people will give up after a couple of hiccups so Linux has to work "out of the box" as much as possible . |
dolby digital (5073) | ||
| 442345 | 2006-03-31 08:03:00 | Surely it does not matter which brand puter one has,linux distroswill partition and install and sort out itself from there or have I got it wrong ? And of course one can allways boot in THAT OTHER OS if linux gets a bit much It is ok to go with a live CD distro but I feel the rest of the advice given is a bit hard to understand or have I got it wrong ?As already mentioned, the advice on trying it out with a LiveCD is a good one. It will give you a general idea on how Linux will function on that machine. A Media Centre computer can be quite hardware specific, so open to more issues than the average home desktop PC. A computer with newly developed or released hardware may not have the Linux drivers or support available in the current standard kernels. Sometimes Linux is miles ahead with the support than Windows is (eg, 64-bit support). Depending on the users ability, you can work around most hardware issues with kernel tweakes and compiling specific drivers, but does the average home user want to do this? A good modern distro should install and go on most desktop computers without any special configuration (not withstanding the Winmodem issue) |
Jen (38) | ||
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