Partitions and Linux

Strygun · 2004-03-10, 09:52 PM

Well, I've just recently decided that I have a ton of free space on this 80gig HD of mine. I'm toying with the idea of partitioning the drive and installing linux on the other half, so that I can experiment/learn/use Linux on it every once and a while. Have a little dual boot thing going on. (Correct terminology?)

What's a good version of Linux to install to learn it, easily? Also, which of those Linux versions has a GUI? (I know there's one called WindowsX or something which you can switch between a GUI and command lines...)

Pretty much, if anyone is willing, give me a rundown of the possibly system problems, including slowdown of the HD b/c of the partition, using Linux in general, and any other related information.

Thanks

Phaelon · 2004-03-10, 10:30 PM

Whoa nelly there is a lot of information you will need. Make sure windows is installed first. When you install Linux, what ever distribution you settle on, you will want to go into Grub and change it so it recognizes there is a partition with windows on it. That is pretty simple in and of itself to take care of from that stand point. There are lots of guides online or I can write you a process to do that.

The Gui for Linux is KNown as X. Simply X. There are multiple Interfaces for X, Gnome, KDE and many others. KDE and GNome are the two biggest and the most supported.

Distributions:
Mandrake - Novices to advanced. - http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en-us/
FOr mandrak i would recommend going against version 10.0, they seem to have a lot of problems in it. I would stick with something in the 9's family

Red Hat -Novice to advanced - You have Fedora and Red Hat 9, I would try either, both are fairly simple and easy to learn.
Fedora - http://fedora.redhat.com/download/
Red Hat 9.0 - http://www.redhat.com/download/products.html

Debian - Moderate Linux knowledge to advanced - http://www.debian.org/
Debian is like a hashed down version of Gentoo made specially for you.

Gentoo - High to Advancted Linux users - DO NOT DO THIS if you don't know how Linux functions - http://www.gentoo.org/
I am throwing this in here because it is good to know it exists. Gentoo is a huge amount of raw code, that you compile yourself specific to your machine, thereby enabling Linux to be based solely for your machine, making it sometimes 10 to 20% faster than any other operating system out to date. It took me around 4 days to Fully compile the Operating system, THEN i could install it. Anytime you need to apply a security patch to the os, you have to recompile the entire Kernel.

I would go with Mandrake or Red hat. Both have simple installation procedures and will walk you through what you need to do. If you have important information on the 80 gig drive, MAKE SURE you back it up.

Go to thier sites and read a bit into them, this is not really something you can download, install and go with, you should get some information on it prior to execution. However if you do just download it and go, you should be fine.

Strygun · 2004-03-10, 10:38 PM

WinXP is already installed on the parition... Any other info from anyone else? I kinda just want to start out linux as a hobby/time filler.

Rbstr · 2004-03-11, 03:19 PM

I don't knwo mch about Linux, but i made ups a disk with Knoppiz 3.3 on it, that i'm exparametning with, and soon i'll have a partition that i can put it on just need to do ome file clearing

Strygun · 2004-03-11, 04:18 PM

I just remembered... on my old computer (which currently is running win2k.. I use it for chat/aim/ etc) there is a 5GB partition that I don't use. I guess I could just put Fedora on that partition and be able to goof around with it there.

Comments?

Rbstr · 2004-03-11, 04:30 PM

go right ahead

Strygun · 2004-03-11, 05:25 PM

I'll wait for Phaelon

Phaelon · 2004-03-11, 07:57 PM

That would be cool man, Fedora is pretty cool, has a nice installation setup. If there is anything on that system that is important, make sure it is backed up.

Here ya go man, How to go about installing Fedora. Download em as ISO's, then burn them and you are set to go.
http://fedora.redhat.com/download/

Once you boot from the cd, it should be pretty simple from there, if you have any questions just shoot them to this board or to [email protected]

Strygun · 2004-03-11, 08:14 PM

Phae do you have AIM or another instant messenger program? Or, do you get on IRC? I'd like to have some live support

Phaelon · 2004-03-11, 08:14 PM

www.gamersanon.com is a server I run PHP on, using Red Hat Enterprise 3.0. It runs beautifully and is just a blast, in case you wanted to see a server running linux.

If you go to uptime.netcraft.com and type in gamersanon.com it will tell you my linux version number and my Apache version number.

Rbstr · 2004-03-11, 10:22 PM

hey Phaelon get on PSU IRC somtime and come to #tech, your on my to be halfoped list

Cyanide · 2004-03-12, 12:33 AM

Originally Posted by Strygun

...What's a good version of Linux to install to learn it, easily?

Well, becoming a Linux guru is not easy, otherwise everybody would do it. If you're looking for an easy distrobution of linux, I would suggest Fedora (formerly known as RedHat). Mandrake is equally as easy to use, but it's essentially a bloated version of fedora with a few little addons here and there. Fedora is more widely supported and is by far the most popular distro in the US (Suse is another popular one in Europe, but for some reason doesn't seem to be used much in the US). All major distros of Linux have huge amounts of documentation included in the distro. Using the "man" (short for manual) command you can access extensive documentation on nearly every command Linux has. That's the best way to learn Linux. Somebody can IM you specific instructions on everything and you'll never remember how to do anything. The best way to learn something is to figure it out for yourself.

Also, which of those Linux versions has a GUI? (I know there's one called WindowsX or something which you can switch between a GUI and command lines...)

Almost every version of Linux comes with the GNome and KDE UIs. Some default to KDE, some default to GNome. GNome is a bit more like a Mac UI, where as KDE is a bit more like windows (at least that's my impression of the two). I've used both and I recommend KDE.

Pretty much, if anyone is willing, give me a rundown of the possibly system problems, including slowdown of the HD b/c of the partition, using Linux in general, and any other related information.
Thanks

As long as you get the latest version of the distro you chose, you shouldn't have too many problems with installation. If you've got older hardware, like an older sound card or something there's a chance that the distro may not have drivers for that. Also, Linux isn't quite as good about managing USB devices as windows is, but it's getting better quickly.

Partitioning the drive should not have any negative affects on the performance of the system, so don't worry about that.

As for Linux in general.
1. DO NOT use root (root = administrator) as your default user. Create a normal user account for day-to-day operation and only log in as the root when it's absolutely necessary in order to do whatever it is that you want to do. This is because Linux does not provide all the saftey nets that Windows does. If you are root and you accidently delete some important system file, you are screwed. Linux WILL allow you to delete system critical files (even if they're running) while you're logged in as root, where as Windows will not (or it will ask you 5 times if you really want to delete the file). So use a normal user account so that you're less likely to screw yourself.

2. Learn to answer your questions for yourself. If you go to Linux forums and ask questions about commands or "how do i..." questions, you'll usually be given a command like "man someCommand" which will point you to the documentation which is already available in Linux. After 3 or 4 of those you'll start to feel stupid for even asking because the answer is right there if you would just look for it. So learn to use the documentation that already exists and you will be much better off, and you will have an easier time remembering how to do things.

3. If you can't find the info you need in the included documentation, then use google. The amount of information about Linux which already exists on the web is unfathomable, so make use of it.

4. Did I mention not to use root as your default user? Cause you shouldn't do that.

Phaelon · 2004-03-12, 07:42 AM

AiM - J12a34k66
icq - 86418282
msn - [email protected]

Cyanide has some good points, as far as user Root is concerned, but remember that you will need root to do a lot of stuff at the command line. Generally when I am messing with anything on my websever I need root access so I can halt apache, rewrite the conf files and stuff like that. There is a very nifty command in Linux that lets you "switch user" to another user to execute things, then you can switch back and everything is great.

When you get Linux fully loaded, you will want to create a new user, and then use that user to log on locally through the GUI.

Becoming a Linux guru is very difficult, becoming a Linux user has some moderate difficulty.

Strygun · 2004-03-13, 01:03 AM

I just formatted the comp that I will put linux on... it runs SO much better now =)

I put a 14GB parition for windows and a 5GB parition for fedora.