Linux Operating System

[Dick Latshaw]

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]

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]

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]

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. That's pretty much a deal-breaker.

[Monte Milanuk]

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 but I can be patient. It's not like it doesn't already come w/ a version of BSD on it

[Paul Downes]

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. 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]

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 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 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]

...........
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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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