How do you feel about Linux

[delsoljb32]

yeah, i have plenty of time to kill, plus it will be a good exercise for preparing to go back to school in january. i need to get back into these kinds of things, ive been engrossed in the "business" of computers too long.

i have a 60 GB drive, so a 20/40 Split should suffice if i use the 20 for linux right? I'll have to check out yellowdog, i have a friend who has been using SuSE, is that a good version?

[Viro]

SuSE and Mandrake for PPC are pretty much dead. THey haven't been updated in a long long while. The most current distros for PPC are Yellowdoglinux, Gentoo and Debian listed in order of my preference and IMHO ease of use.

20 GB for Linux should be more than enough especially since you're just gonna be trying it out.

[delsoljb32]

cool, im going to look into it this week. im sure i'll be here if i have questions! thanks.

[Convert]

Being a PC user (soon to change, hehe), I instaled Linux as a temporary OS.

The story begins....

I have a good PC. 3.2Ghz IP 4 Processor, 200GB HD, Geforce FX 5200 256mb Graphics, DVD Copier, 1024 RAM.

It has NEVER liked Windows. Or Windows has NEVER liked it. It was a brand new machine, BUILT for XP. All went well for a day, installed some games, then it froze whilst loadig XP. Had to to a system recovery, lost my files.

After this, all is fine. ONe month later, I just switch on my PC, and it logs me off, all the time. Cant access my files. SR again.

This happened 8 more times, and I lost all my work. I am a writer, I had 200 poems being published, most gone. I've managed to find them between publishers, so not all is lost.

But at one time, the SR didn't work. Wouldn't install. I had a Linux RedHat disc (well, 3) that I never used. So whilst talking to the Tech support (useless) I installed it.

I LOVED it. ONly problem is, for a 16 yr old like me, it didn't have all the things I wanted (couldnt even pick up the sound card), and there were a lot of progs available for Windows and OS X, but not Linux.

Otherwise, it was great. reat interface, better to customise, more reliable than windows.

I'd recomend having it on one pc, and Windows/OS X on another. But not as a stand alone.

[Viro]

You should have tried Knoppix. Its a live CD and so the whole OS loads from the disc. Many people use it to recover files from a dead Windows install before reformatting.

Also, Mandrake have launched 10.1 beta for PPC. That is pretty much current, but who knows how long they will support the PPC architecture for?

[Ailes Grise]

Linux? I think Linux is quite good and I dont think it's too difficult for an average
user to get to grips with it.

I'm not a computer science major nor am I a tech wizard of some sort. When I
expressed an Interest to learn how to use a computer to a friend ( who's a sys
admin), she came over with an old unused Hp pentium 90 comp installed with Red Hat 6.

So, with an additional $10 investment for a monitor, keyboard and mouse from the local Salvation Army outlet, she set the computer up and taught me some basic
command line stuff, using emacs, starting Gnome and how to use the mouse. Bear in mind at that time, I stayed away from computers.
I didn't know what email was and could not even tell the difference between a Mac, Windows or whatever else, but within a week I was surfing the web and writing emails.

When I did buy a brand new computer( a dell dimension 733), I
Asked for Red Hat Linux cause thats what I know how to use. Of course, I wasn't doing any work, just surfing, email, some wordprocessing, and mp3's.

Being a classically trained artist, I wanted to go CG and was recomended a Mac but I could not afford a DP quiksilver G4's so I settled for a refurbished P4 machine with win2kpro. but for many years, I ran Linux even though I was not a tech savvy person. It helped me later when I had to use an SGI machine and some commands I learned still worked in OS X terminal. I installed Suse 9.1 on my pc and found that its easier and better
than when I was staring out with it many years ago

I switched last year and I'm a happy owner of 2 Macs:- a Powerbook and a G5

[legacyb4]

Great for recycling old PC hardware...

[whyre]

Originally Posted by legacyb4

Great for recycling old PC hardware...

I agree whole-heartedly! I can't tell you the number of PCs I've given away to friends and family with Linux on it. A lot of them even the nicer P4s and AMD-XPs, the warranties had run out, and they were what I call 'Windows broken'. Windows wouldn't install, locked up, just made the machine unusable. So I take the 'Windows broken' stuff home, load up linux (Depending on who I'm giving it to, it is usually SUSE or Gentoo), test it for a few days, and someone would be the proud owner of a new virus free PC.

It's a hobby of mine to load various Linuxes (as well as other x86 OSes like QNX or Zeta) and play around with them, and learn the strengths and weaknesses of each so I know who to reccomend to people of various experience levels.

So I'd have to say, in short, that If I'm not on my Mac, I'm running some flavor of linux for x86 hardware.