PDA

View Full Version : Linux Operating System



Peter Stahl
02-28-2007, 11:13 AM
Anyone using Linux? Any particular place to get it from? I want to put it on it's own harddrive, can I have dual operating systems this way? Have a old pentium II that I thought I'd try it out on.

Alex Berkovsky
02-28-2007, 12:13 PM
I just installed Ubuntu on my old PC and so far liking it. You can also run it from a live CD to see if you like it prior to installing it.
edit: I think Vector will run faster on a Pentium II machine. I hope Linux experts will add more to this topic.

Phil Sanders
02-28-2007, 1:04 PM
Peter:

A bit of background: Linux is actually a small part of the core of the operating systems most call Linux. What most people call Linux is broken down into distributions, or Distro's. There are a little over 100 Distros. Popular are Ubunto, Fedor, FreeBSD, and some others.

Aside: you will come across the term BSD, that stands for Berkley Software Development, out of U of Cal- Berkley. This is the brain trust theory people who work on the core of UNIX, Linux, and all the deep background stuff.

The following site lists the distros, sites to download, and some links on where to get a review of the distros. Spend a long rainy Saturday here.
http://distrowatch.com/

There are several competing open sourced modules for just about everything else in Linux. For example there is KDE, X-windows, and a few others for you to select as far as the Graphical User Interface (GUI) module you want to use. (I like KDE the best.) There are 4 browsers (Foxfire being the best), two firewall IP Sec modules and so forth for you to choose to make active. The problem is selecting the modules you want to install. You are not in Microsoft's world, just trust me on this.

Now for an example: Last fall, on an old P-III, I downloaded Fedora Core version 6 (renamed from old Red-hat desktop OS). Since I installed Fedora Core, Linux Core had a minor update, that called for an update to Fedora, and then over the next few weeks, I kept having this or that stop working until a module is updated for the new Linux / Fedora updates. Since most of the modules are maintained by volunteers, well, there is a time delay for the volunteers to get at it. It all got back working about 2 months later.

A few of the Distros are fully contained in a CD, and you can boot to the CD and never touch your hard drive and they let you see what a Linux system is like. No frills, and a simple GUI interface plus browser.

One Distro, Debian, is something like 15 CD's. You select the modules you want to install, and usually it takes only 4 or 5 CD's to install. HOWEVER, make note, it will install only the modules you ask for plus the core Linux. So, how do the newbie learn which modules are needed? Hmm-mm? I still haven't figured that out. Darn good Distro, but Debian is pretty much just for the senior expert in Linux command line interface (CLI) commands.

HTH:
Phil

Roger Fitzsimonds
02-28-2007, 1:06 PM
Peter
Do a google search for linux iso. If you can burn cdroms. Umbutu is a real easy install and has all the drivers that I have ever needed. good luck.

Roger

Hans Loeblich
02-28-2007, 1:12 PM
I also use Ubuntu. It seems to be one of the more user-friendly disstributions with relatively simple install process. You can set up your computer to have dual(or more) operating systems. This is generally referred to as a "dual boot" configuration. If you google for that, you should be able to find out everything you need and more. Both my home computers can dual boot to windows and linux(though I can't recall the last time I did boot windows).

I haven't tried it on old hardware like a pentium II, but it might be a bit sluggish for that. There are variants of Ubuntu that use different window managers(default is Gnome). Xubuntu for example uses Xfce, which is supposed to be a lightweight window manager that should run better on old hardware.

The forums at http://ubuntuforums.org are a great place to learn more. The people there are generally very firendly and helpful.

Chris Friesen
02-28-2007, 1:49 PM
Just thought I'd correct one minor issue in Phil's post. Ubuntu and Fedora (note the spelling) are likely the two best options for people just starting out.

FreeBSD is a version of BSD, which is something else entirely from Linux although they do share some similarities.

The standard versions of both Ubuntu and Fedora would likely be a bit slow on your PII, but it wouldn't hurt to try it out from a live CD (just stick it in the drive and reboot). As others have mentioned, Xubuntu is probably a decent place to start.

Ian Abraham
02-28-2007, 2:49 PM
I've been playing with Novell's Suse distribution.

You can download it from here http://en.opensuse.org/Download for free (it's a BIG download though)

The setup utility seems to work really sweet, has online updating and all the software you need to get a usefull working PC setup. (Email, web browser, Open Office, games etc)

Cheers

Ian

Phil Sanders
02-28-2007, 3:30 PM
Chris:

Thanks for keeping me honest. You are correct.

Phil

Matt Meiser
02-28-2007, 10:39 PM
I recently built a file server for home using Ubuntu. It is pretty straight forward, but then I've been working in the IT field for 10 years. As someone else said, you can burn a CD that you can boot off of to try it out. That even worked on my laptop.

Monte Milanuk
02-28-2007, 11:07 PM
I used to *live* in Linux (well, it seemed like it). After a while, I got to where I just wanted my desktop to be, well, like a toaster. Turn it on, do what I want, not have to worry about whether drivers are available (or have been reverse engineered) yet, whether a file format is compatible, or whatever. Granted, this was 5+ years ago, and a lot of rough edges have gotten filed off between now and then. Anyway, what'd I do? Moved to a Mac not long after OS X came out :D

The 'toaster' interface for those days I just don't feel like forcing the machine to submit to my will, yet the power of the command line interface and the BSD underpinnings for when I want to tinker. I've wound up back w/ PC's because of a few applications that there just aren't equivalent Mac apps for (and probably won't ever be). With the new Intel processor Macs, I'm looking at the best of all worlds... Mac for regular use, PC for the specialty apps, and either Darwin (the flavor of BSD underlying the GUI interface of OS X) or Linux for those days when the need to fiddle just won't go away ;)

Kevin Scott
03-01-2007, 11:21 AM
I have done computer consulting and computer security work for many years. As a result I have been exposed to many of the various Unix flavors through my clients or my own research/testing. I have used FreeBSD and Redhat on my home computers for many years.

Redhat is a very user friendly and feature rich Linux variant. It used to be freeware, however, they now charge a fee for it (I believe it is $179). You could also check out Fedora. Fedora is the free distribution now available from Redhat.

Randal Stevenson
03-01-2007, 1:56 PM
Anyone using Linux? Any particular place to get it from? I want to put it on it's own harddrive, can I have dual operating systems this way? Have a old pentium II that I thought I'd try it out on.

I would STRONGLY recommend Distrowatch. You also might want to list the memory specs of your test system.
There are several (lots actually) distro's that can boot, and operate from cd. Knoppix, Gnoppix, (same thing with a different xwindow gui), Pclinuxos, Ubuntu, Mandriva move, etc (not sure about Gentoo, another well liked distro).
If you have a fast cable connection, you can download and get several of these for the cost of time and the disc you burn them on, otherwise, you have places like Cheapbytes that you can get cheap copies.

Peter Stahl
03-01-2007, 4:49 PM
Thanks everyone for your replies so far, keep em coming. I'm going to at least try to make a DVD I can run Linux off before I get into a harddrive setup. Maybe some day MS won't be such a Monopoly.

Art Mulder
03-01-2007, 5:18 PM
Peter,

I've been using Ubuntu on my home PC for almost 3 years now. I have 15 years of using Unix behind me, so nothing much about setting up Linux scares me.

Still, Ubuntu is the closest Linux I had ever found that came close to the "it just works" experience of Mac OS-X. (My wife has a Mac mini, great system.) Upgrades can still be a bit tricky, but just read the advice on the forums and follow the "howto's" and it should be fine.

I used to use Redhat, and found Ubuntu easier -- now remember, this was 2-3 years ago. I have no idea how easy/friendly Redhat/Fedora are these days.

(Redhat is the commercial version from Redhat the company, Fedora is the free version)

I also agree with the advice to first try out a "Live" cd/dvd that you can boot from to try it out.

Further advice: I always configure my personal machines drives like this:
One) five-ten Gig OS partition
two) five-ten gig OS partition
three) everything else for user data.

Then you put your user data in the third partition. By having TWO OS partitions the upgrades are much safer - make a copy of the OS on the one, and then upgrade. If something goes wrong, you still have a copy, AND it does not affect your user data.

...art

Hans Loeblich
03-01-2007, 6:11 PM
From someone that is running both Fedora (5) and Ubuntu (Edgy), I must say I prefer Ubuntu much more. Hardware support was better(particularly wireless on my laptop), and the package manager is much faster and feels more polished.

That said, I haven't tried upgrading to the latest Fedora 6.

Dick Latshaw
03-01-2007, 7:24 PM
Further advice: I always configure my personal machines drives like this:
One) five-ten Gig OS partition
two) five-ten gig OS partition
three) everything else for user data.

Then you put your user data in the third partition. By having TWO OS partitions the upgrades are much safer - make a copy of the OS on the one, and then upgrade. If something goes wrong, you still have a copy, AND it does not affect your user data.

...art
Having done this stuff since the IBM 7094, I can testify that Art offers some excellent advice. All you Loonix users should follow it.

Robert Mickley
03-02-2007, 1:52 AM
I'm in the Ubuntu crowd. I duel booted for about a month or so till I realized one day I wasn't using xp anymore. I blew everything off loaded Ubuntu and haven't looked back.

If you want a slightly more windoze feel there an offshoot of Ubuntu called Linux mint. I have it on a backup drive. looks more like windoze and works like Ubuntu

linuxmint.com

Monte Milanuk
03-02-2007, 2:26 AM
Alrighty, I'll give Ubuntu a try... I've been kind of itching to try one of the new flavors of Linux again lately. I started out w/ something like Slackware 2.x. Didn't get very far w/ that one. RedHat 4.2 thru 8.x, SuSE 5.2 or 3 thru 7.0 (when it became un-free for a while), little bit of Debian, LFS, etc. Always seemed like there was just something that wouldn't play nicely (usually sound). I've got a fairly un-fancy PC mid-tower from Gateway here, a new MacBook on the way, a fresh Open SuSE dvd iso here on the hard drive, and a Ubuntu Desktop/Laptop cd iso downloading (Gawd, I *luv* fiber broadband. What used to take literally days takes about... oh, 30 minutes or so now!). I've heard a few problems as far as hardware support for some things (like the keyboard) w/ other distros. Time to start sniffing around and see how Ubuntu works on a MacBook ;)

Hans Loeblich
03-02-2007, 3:53 AM
Alrighty, I'll give Ubuntu a try... I've been kind of itching to try one of the new flavors of Linux again lately. I started out w/ something like Slackware 2.x. Didn't get very far w/ that one. RedHat 4.2 thru 8.x, SuSE 5.2 or 3 thru 7.0 (when it became un-free for a while), little bit of Debian, LFS, etc. Always seemed like there was just something that wouldn't play nicely (usually sound). I've got a fairly un-fancy PC mid-tower from Gateway here, a new MacBook on the way, a fresh Open SuSE dvd iso here on the hard drive, and a Ubuntu Desktop/Laptop cd iso downloading (Gawd, I *luv* fiber broadband. What used to take literally days takes about... oh, 30 minutes or so now!). I've heard a few problems as far as hardware support for some things (like the keyboard) w/ other distros. Time to start sniffing around and see how Ubuntu works on a MacBook ;)
I'ver never heard of problems with keyboard support before. :eek: That's pretty much a deal-breaker.

Monte Milanuk
03-02-2007, 11:54 AM
My first search for 'Macbook' on the Ubuntu forums shows two or three of the ten most recent threads being specifically about keyboard problems w/ that particular computer. Similar results over on the Open SuSE forums. Not terribly encouraging :confused: but I can be patient. It's not like it doesn't already come w/ a version of BSD on it :D

Paul Downes
03-02-2007, 1:48 PM
I've been using Suse for about 3 years now and use a dual boot w/2 hard drives using Partition Magic to keep things segregated. I am on a dial-up modem and find that linux is way faster than windows. I don't have an anti-virus or firewall on the linux os and have had very few problems. I do use mozilla as my web browser but am thinking about changing to firefox soon. I'm not a computer techy, but have a good friend who is a linux programmer who helps me out when I need it. I'll never go back to windoz or internet exploder. I almost never go on-line with windows. I will be installing avg on the windows os soon to get some protection from the occaisional foray/sorte into the windows world.:D I believe that many of the sensitive parts/organizations of our government us linux based os's because of it's resistance to problems. NSA, CIA, etc.

Rich Konopka
03-03-2007, 6:42 AM
Peter,

I have tried Ubuntu, Fedora, RedHat, Suse... and to tell you the ruth it depends on your needs. Ubu is the most popular Distro these days for obvious reasons. I have been using linux for 6 years and I use Red Hat. I use it primarily for work. I don't use it at home because all of my Financial planning software is windoze based.

If you have this dilemna where you will be using software only available on Windows I would recommend that you also look at VMware. Vmware is a program that can run an operating system within an operating system.

If you go to the vmware.com (http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/community.html) site you will find many of these Linux Disto's already pre-configured and canned. All you have to do is to download them, unzip it, and use the Free vmware player (http://www.vmware.com/products/free_virtualization.html) to open up the vmware appliance.

There is also a cool tool that will convert your existing pc into a vmware image. So if you do make the switch and you can have your old windows machine running under Linux. How cool is that?

Ask any IT pro and they will tell you that VMware rocks !!! and is very stable. In fact, many of my Fortune 100 customers run their Production applications in these "virtual" enviornments.

PS. This company is owned by EMC and is being spun off. Should be an interesting IPO. I do not work for EMC or vmware.

Curt Harms
03-03-2007, 8:31 PM
...........
There is also a cool tool that will convert your existing pc into a vmware image. So if you do make the switch and you can have your old windows machine running under Linux. How cool is that?

Ask any IT pro and they will tell you that VMware rocks !!! and is very stable. In fact, many of my Fortune 100 customers run their Production applications in these "virtual" enviornments.

PS. This company is owned by EMC and is being spun off. Should be an interesting IPO. I do not work for EMC or vmware.

I hope Microsoft doesn't gain control of the spin off and break it or kill it. This seems like an interesting path.

Curt

Jim Becker
03-03-2007, 8:37 PM
Please note that there are restrictions on running some versions of Windows VISTA in VMs...all the pundants are throwing darts at that one!

Rich Konopka
03-04-2007, 1:25 PM
I hope Microsoft doesn't gain control of the spin off and break it or kill it. This seems like an interesting path.

Curt
They already have com out with MS Virtual PC. They inked the deal with Novell over SUSE.



Please note that there are restrictions on running some versions of Windows VISTA in VMs...all the pundants are throwing darts at that one!
Jim, it is inevitable before we are all assimilated with Vista. I think Vista is going to be sloww adoption until the drivers and programs from 3rd parties come out and Vista SP2.




Long Live Linux !!!

Peter Stahl
03-05-2007, 10:47 AM
Well I downloaded Ubuntu to a CD and was able to get it to boot up from the CD. Couple things it won't do so far. Can't access the harddrive on the PC and I have a wireless ethernet card in it and can't connect to the internet yet. Any clue as what I need to do? When I first tried the CD it wouldn't boot off the drive I recorded it on, tried it in the other drive and no problem. Would like to be able to access the harddrive and the internet, do I need to have it installed on the harddrive in order to do this? Thanks for all the help so far.

Boyd Gathwright
03-05-2007, 9:14 PM
Art,
.... If I may, I would like to ask you a question or two about “ubuntu” and other similar Linux (UNIX) programs. Concerning SCANDISK and DEFRAG, I do NOT have a clear understanding of why these two tools or similar are NOT used in the file system. I wonder if you could give a somewhat graphic picture of why these two tools are not used and perhaps explain how the file system is kept as healthy as it is in a windows (DOS) environment?

Thanks in advance and this would be a BIG help.

Boyd

:)




Peter,

I've been using Ubuntu on my home PC for almost 3 years now. I have 15 years of using Unix behind me, so nothing much about setting up Linux scares me.

Still, Ubuntu is the closest Linux I had ever found that came close to the "it just works" experience of Mac OS-X. (My wife has a Mac mini, great system.) Upgrades can still be a bit tricky, but just read the advice on the forums and follow the "howto's" and it should be fine.

I used to use Redhat, and found Ubuntu easier -- now remember, this was 2-3 years ago. I have no idea how easy/friendly Redhat/Fedora are these days.

(Redhat is the commercial version from Redhat the company, Fedora is the free version)

I also agree with the advice to first try out a "Live" cd/dvd that you can boot from to try it out.

Further advice: I always configure my personal machines drives like this:
One) five-ten Gig OS partition
two) five-ten gig OS partition
three) everything else for user data.

Then you put your user data in the third partition. By having TWO OS partitions the upgrades are much safer - make a copy of the OS on the one, and then upgrade. If something goes wrong, you still have a copy, AND it does not affect your user data.

...art

Art Mulder
03-05-2007, 10:08 PM
Art,
.... If I may, I would like to ask you a question or two about “ubuntu” and other similar Linux (UNIX) programs. Concerning SCANDISK and DEFRAG, I do NOT have a clear understanding of why these two tools or similar are NOT used in the file system.

Boyd, I have no idea what Scandisk does.

As for Defragging... No Unix system for the past 15+ years (yes, fifteen) has had a defragger, nor needed one. It just has to do with how the filesytem (and the use of it) is designed.

I'm not a filesystem guru, so I don't understand the guts of it. But I did some checking to try and find a simple answer and this is what I got: On Unix systems the system divides up the disk into "cylinder groups" and then organizes data within those groups. So ideally, all the files or blocks of data in a certain disk directory (or folder) will be physically located within the same cylinder.

Or my simpler explanation: You don't need to defrag because the system is designed to never let files get that fragmented in the first place.

It is still a good idea to have user data on a separate partition from the system/program files - it keeps the frequently-changed-stuff separate from the rarely-changed stuff. This is good on Windows systems also.

Phil Thien
03-06-2007, 9:08 AM
As for Defragging... No Unix system for the past 15+ years (yes, fifteen) has had a defragger, nor needed one. It just has to do with how the filesytem (and the use of it) is designed.


People should be leary of defragging anyhow, as it tends to push hard drives to their thermal limits for tens of minutes up to over an hour. Doing this puts tons of stress on the drive, for very limited return.

About 1/3 of the data recovery jobs we do are performed on recently "optimized" drives.

jeremy levine
03-07-2007, 9:12 AM
This is a real image 59650
(http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=59650&stc=1&d=1173276595)

Robert Mickley
03-08-2007, 2:45 PM
Well I downloaded Ubuntu to a CD and was able to get it to boot up from the CD. Couple things it won't do so far. Can't access the harddrive on the PC and I have a wireless ethernet card in it and can't connect to the internet yet.
Access to the hard drive is limited when running it from the CD. But even after an install you have to go through a couple steps to access the drive. It's been a couple months since Used any windos stuff and my memory being what is I don't remeber what I did. Well sort of :D

Go to
System/administration/Disks
On the left you will see a list of your drives.
Click on the drive you want to access
Click on the partitions tab
under access path it should be blank
Click change, browse your way to the desktop and click on create folder create a folder, click on open and it will drop you back to disk menu under status click on the enable button.

If all goes well you should be able to close it. click on the folder on your desktop and you should be able to access your windows files from there.

This applies for Dapper drake 6.06, if you downloaded Edgy Eft 6.10, your on your own. the took out the disk menu in Edgy due to the fact it was still a little buggy

Wireless
Check the Ubuntu forum. Some cards are a pain to get working others are easy. I don't have wireless so I'm not much help



Any clue as what I need to do? When I first tried the CD it wouldn't boot off the drive I recorded it on, tried it in the other drive and no problem.
Some cd drives are bootable some aren't, and it depends on how things are set in your computers bios


Would like to be able to access the harddrive and the internet, do I need to have it installed on the harddrive in order to do this? Thanks for all the help so far.
See above for the hard drive, but keep in mind that is a temp fix, It will go away when you reboot. Same with the wireless. Major changes will require an install. If you can use a wired Ethernet card to test it out. I realize this isn't ideal but it will gie you feel for things before committing to an install.

Here is a great free Ebook on ubuntu, over 800 pages in a PDF file
http://ebookspyder.net/index.php/2007/03/03/ubuntu-linux-bible.html

Hans Loeblich
03-14-2007, 2:04 AM
Boyd, I have no idea what Scandisk does. Scandisk basically checks the disk for errors(bad sectors). The equivalent program in linux is called "fsck" FileSystem ChecK, and it is automatically run every 30th or so time you reboot(probably depends on distro, and this number can be configured by the user anyways).

And as for defragmenting, I concur with what Art said.


When I first tried the CD it wouldn't boot off the drive I recorded it on, tried it in the other drive and no problem. This is probably due to a BIOS setting. BIOS tells your computer which drives to check when booting, and which order to check them in. It is probably not configured to look at the first CD drive you tried. To get into bios menu I think most computers use the Delete key. It should say somewhere on the screen what key to press when your computer first turns on. You have to press it quickly while this screen is still displayed.


Would like to be able to access the harddrive and the internet, do I need to have it installed on the harddrive in order to do this? Thanks for all the help so far. I don't think I ever tried accessing the drive from a liveCD. Harddrive access is definitely do-able, it just takes a little bit of configuring. For wifi, there might be a way to set it up from the liveCD, but I would guess it is not worth the effort since you would have to configure it every time you boot from the CD(settings are not saved to the hard drive). Wifi drivers can be troublesome sometimes. If you know the model of card you have in the computer, I would try searching for other users on the forums with the same card, or just making a new post to see if it works well with Linux.
Also, this site http://ubuntuguide.org is a great resource for many common setup questions.

I think the next version of Ubuntu(codename Feisty) is going to be released within a month. Maybe wifi support will be improved with this release. If you are lucky it might work automatically from the LiveCD

Joseph O'Leary
03-14-2007, 9:39 PM
You can put it on the second hard drive and dual boot. i think that's pretty easy to do. I like Fedora http://fedora.redhat.com/ but there's a lot of others out there. i played with knoppix for a while. it boots from a cd. but you still have to store your files some where. you can get help with fedora lots of people use it. good luck!

Allen Bookout
03-14-2007, 9:50 PM
Mandriva, formally Mandrake, is excellent. It pretty much just works with a few additions from PLF. You can join their club and download each new distro as they come along. They also have a fine forum for club members which can be a big help, especially if you are new to the system. http://club.mandriva.com/xwiki/bin/view/Main/

Peter Stahl
03-14-2007, 11:20 PM
Peter,

I've been using Ubuntu on my home PC for almost 3 years now. I have 15 years of using Unix behind me, so nothing much about setting up Linux scares me.

Still, Ubuntu is the closest Linux I had ever found that came close to the "it just works" experience of Mac OS-X. (My wife has a Mac mini, great system.) Upgrades can still be a bit tricky, but just read the advice on the forums and follow the "howto's" and it should be fine.

I used to use Redhat, and found Ubuntu easier -- now remember, this was 2-3 years ago. I have no idea how easy/friendly Redhat/Fedora are these days.

(Redhat is the commercial version from Redhat the company, Fedora is the free version)

I also agree with the advice to first try out a "Live" cd/dvd that you can boot from to try it out.

Further advice: I always configure my personal machines drives like this:
One) five-ten Gig OS partition
two) five-ten gig OS partition
three) everything else for user data.

Then you put your user data in the third partition. By having TWO OS partitions the upgrades are much safer - make a copy of the OS on the one, and then upgrade. If something goes wrong, you still have a copy, AND it does not affect your user data.

...art

Thanks Art, I set up a dual boot and managed to get that to work. Getting this wireless card to work with the how to's are very intense that's why I thought I'd put the wired card back in and try that. Haven't had any luck with either. The learning curve is extremely steep right now but I still have my PC's till I get comfortable with it. I loaded the Ubuntu Dapper version and it loaded very quickly and easily, I just can't get to the internet with it yet.