Linux Beginners' Guide

Well i feel it would be best to generalize that there may be some problems and the entire experience can sometimes have bumps along the way as many different people have different problems.

Yeah, i see what you mean. I'll also change the placement.

 

I think you need to add Gentoo to the list of distros:

 

I'm working on that section but i need you guys to make reviews before i can change anything.

 

Thats a great way to put it. You should copy over that sentence over to the CAQ, and follow it up with "for example, I had issues with flash ....".
The original CAQ seemed to indicate that flash/video is buggy in linux in general.

 

Alright, i finished that up. I'm just waiting for some reviews so i can fully revise the Choose a distro section. I'll see if i can remodel my reviews this evening so that you guys know the structure to use.

 

Calvin, I'm not trying to be a jerkwad, but Fedora is not really windows network friendly. That lower's it's noob and useability rating.....ouch, I said that word, "rating".

Keep up the good work, it took me a month of go back editing to finally get my VirtualBox usb how-to for Hardy right. And that's just one narrow field of focus.

 

The "Important Ubuntu Wiki's" part reminds me something...

 

Ease of use - 0/10

I'm not sure ease of use should even be rated this high! LOL

 

What are you talking about, gentoo is super-easy, just look at the "quick install" procedure:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-x86-quickinstall.xml

That's less than a hundred commands!

 

I wonder what it could be? I've never seen anything like that around here.

 

I think you'll have to start reducing the number on the right....lol

 

Quick install is easy except for the kernel config. That part will kill you every single time you're on new hardware. Also, setting up some things afterwards was a pain, like wireless and 3D graphics.

 

Thank you for the nice guide.

 

No problem.

 

Really appreciate your time and effort. Thanks

 

No problem.

 

Thanks for the great guide, switched to Linux, really happy with it beside the problems, and I hope I never return to Windows for something more than gaming.

 

Ubuntu is my fav.

Great guide Calvin!! Really helped!!

 

Made a much needed update to the distro choosing section.

 

currently installing kubuntu through wubi. Easiest way for me to access both windows and linux.

 

If someone is just interested in running Linux applications within their Windows environment, andLinux is probably easier than doing a full Linux install inside of Windows with wubi.

With andLinux you get the ability to run your favorite Linux apps alongside your Windows apps, and to be clear, you're running Windows as your OS. If you use wubi, it installs a Linux installation into a file that's stored in your Windows file system, and when you boot, you have the choice of running Windows or Linux as your OS, (but not both applications at the same time without some kind of VM software).

I guess that wubi would provide you with a better experience of what running Linux is actually like, although people say that disk access is slower than a native Linux installation, while andLinux will give you the experience of running Linux applications under Windows.

Good Luck..

 

I'd rather have more of a Linux experience. I don't like windows very much, but i need a few programs for school work (number crunching/simulation for physics.)

I decided on a 15gb install for Linux, i can go back and change it if need be, but i've read i can acess my media from the Windows side so i shouldn't need to.

Thanks either way.

 

I am so confused which one to install - ubuntu 8.04 or opensuse 11.0???

I am all the time going towards opensuse but I am thinking, is there much support for opensuse as there is for ubuntu. And I also like the visual look of opensuse than what ubuntu is offering. Plus I like easy installation which I think opensuse offers....am I right?

 

IMO, no distro is easier to install than Ubuntu. My favorite would probably be Suse anyway, but I never can get the damn sound to work.

 

well I did tried the LiveCD from Suse and Ubuntu and everything seem to work fine except ofcourse bluetooth wont work with Suse. So i was thinking maybe if&when I install on the hdd, it will

I just dont like the look of ubuntu and ive some difficulty with it when I tried it sometimes ago...

 

I am currently running both Ubuntu and OpenSUSE and I generally find myself using OpenSUSE more often. The package management in Ubuntu is bit faster and my ATi x800 took some work to get running in OpenSUSE but beyond that I have less slowdowns in OpenSUSE.

 

i'd like to try out ubuntu on my machine, but i'm not sure if it will recognize a raid 0 array during the install....

was thinking of a dualboot along side my vista x64 install, with maybe 15GB allocated for the ubuntu partition.

the most important things i care about in ubuntu is to get the following working: wifi, video cards, sound.

any pointers/tips would be greatly appreciated before i start on this project....

 

Have you tried out a liveCD? That should tell you whether the wifi, video and sound all work. The video may not be 100% on the liveCD (they don't often contain non-OSS drivers), but everything else should work.

If your RAID-0 is implemented by a BIOS of it's own (as in, you don't configure it from inside Windows) you should be fine to use it in Linux. If not, then I don't think there's a good way to dual-boot, so you may look into using VirtualBox or VMWare for a Linux virtual machine.

Also, do you keep your data backed up elsewhere? RAID0 is fast, but horribly risky. If a drive hiccups, your data is toast.

 

thanks for the info. i tried out ubuntu on a live cd and it picks up wifi, audio and video, which was very good. i had to do some work to get it to install on a partition i made on my raid 0 array, but it eventually installed. however grub was not installed, and although the os was on the hdd, i couldn't start from it....

i think that doing a linux install first on a clean raid array would work better, followed by restoring my vista image onto a new partition.

for some strange reason, ubuntu didn't want to create the mbr and install grub. i tried to install grub manually after the installation finished, but i wasn't doing something right and it wouldn't take...

i also tried using supergrub from within windows, but that did not work either.

is it possible to create a partition on my usb hdd and install linux on that ?

 

Good guide

 

I loved OpenSuse 11 until I had the same problem with the sound on every single one of my computers and couldn't fix it. KDE 4 and up was so buggy. I switched to mint.

 

What about programming enviroments, c++, java? Okay, Java stuff should run very nicely, but c++? Do I need to study how to use those linux headers and things? What about winsock?.. What does linux use?
And some programs that I need to use: Solid Edge, msn, office(does openOffice support docx? ..Because my school uses the latest windows software), Java wireless toolkit(programming for phones, midp2), Acid pro, photoshop cs3, ftp and php programs, pdf creator...
Just suggest me some programs that could replace my needs...

 

Does Linux have the ability to use Direct X at all?

 

Nope, there is no way to get DirectX to work in Linux unless you use WINE which is kind of complicated.

 

Awesome thread...just lacks precautionary measures such as untoward commands such as forkbombs and tarbombs,etc

 

Just installed Ubuntu. I can't connect to the wireless router. I entered the key, but that dialogue box keeps popping up like the key was incorrect, which I'm 100% sure it's correct. Help?

 

Thanks Calvin! You definitely helped convince me to try linux. Great guide.

 

No problem, you're welcome.

 

i'm trying out linux becaseu my computer is alittle out dated. i can use xp but i don't feel like optimizing and cleaning it all the time because it's my beat up computer that i use.


i just have one problem before staying with linux

how do i undervolt. my P4 in my notebook gets really hot and it use to shut off because of that. i clean it out and i don't have that problem no more but i will still like to undervolt to save battery life, cpu life, etc?

 

The computer should run a lot cooler using Linux, but you'll have to ask the more techy members of the forum like Archer for details on under volting.

 

Hi Calvin.
I didn't realize that this thread was originally 2 different topics that was merged into one, till i have finished read thru all the 9 pages... hehe...

Anyway, cheers for your hard effort on posting the guide to linux. But i would want to share a little comment on what i have seen.

On the issue of your bias towards Ubuntu is really a little... too biased. Whether it is Ubuntu or Fedora or others, if you can get it installed to a gear without any problem, the only common thing that i can see is that they serve basic work and applications for all users to get things done. Be it internet, office application, or medias.
The major difference that separate them apart is the camp of repository and support(.deb, .rpm, .sls- just to mention the most popular three) that they belongs, which in turn affects each individual knowledge on getting their system to shine to perfection.

Ubuntu may work with majority of the gears out there, but there are some hardware that works with non-ubuntu distros. One such hardware is the SiS GPU that's fails during live disc session or even installation. SiS is just one to point out. I believe that there are more to add.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Suggestion-
Please continue to put up post in relation to Linux, to continue with this topic in separate thread(and maybe sticky as well)... such as...
[Tweaks and Tricks]- Hardware Hacks(...or something like that)
[Pursuit of Perfections]- Eye Candies and Enhancements(...or something like that)

 

Hey there. Want to try Linux, probably duel-boot with a 64-bit Vista, at least for now, and I'd like to try Kubuntu. Few questions, if that's cool?
How easy is it to load in?
What's the difference between Kubuntu's KDE and Ubuntu et al's GNOME?
If I store files, like ripped CDs, on one side of the partition with one OS, can it be accessed when I'm using the other OS? e.g. If I want to rip all my CDs with the Vista side, can I listen to it when running Kubuntu?


Fantastic guide, convinced me to try out Linux in the first place, and the games section is invaluable

 

What is this linux of which you speak of?

 

I think this maybe helpful in get your feet wet with the commandline...

http://www.linfo.org/command_line_lesson_2.html

It goes over various commands that you can use to creat/copy/move/remove files and directories(folders). To just get a quick taste of Command Line, I found this fantastic.

 

Hi Calvin.

Thanks for providing such useful information related Linux. Because I like the Linux and specially its working on command basis. Currently I am learning the linux scripting language and I am collecting all the information regarding Linux. You have a good knowledge about Linux So Keep sharing information with us.

 

Just install Linux side by side with windows, that's all there is to it.

Yeah, just install ntfs-3g and you're good to go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kde and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME

Thanks, no problem.

 

Cool I found this guide, should it work alright?

Sweet, that's perfect!

So effectively just graphical? I assume that there's programs that run on both, and versions for each on the rest?

Pleasure

 

Stick to the guide! http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/installing Any Linux app will run on both, it's a graphical and slightly philosophical difference.

 

Kindly check this link:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=413142

Thanks,
comrade_commissar7 (^^,)

 

Hello..
I have just a basic knowledge about Linux. I have not much knowledge about Ubuntu,Kubuntu and Xubuntu. You have given very good information about Linux so thank you very much for sharing all this information with us.