Linux, where to start?

Hi all, I am thinking of sticking linux on my soon to be Dell V130, I know that Dell used to ship the V13 with Ubuntu.
I see the main two are Ubuntu and Fedora, are their any other specific ones that would suit a person new to Linux, coming from a Windows background?
And yes i know that it will not necessarily be better, but different. I want to give it a try and dual boot it with the W7Pro thats installed to see if i like it, then if i do, install it on a new SSD from the start. Is this an easy process?

Cheers

 

You can put Ubuntu on a bootable USB stick, and run the whole system off of that. I'd suggest this as a decent starting point.

Alternatively, you can check out a package called 'Virtualbox', and merely virtualize a Linux system (ie: Ubuntu) within Virtualbox under Windows, as an alternative to dual-booting.

 

Thanks Pitz, I am 5 years away from Linux, and enjoyed the challange of getting Mandrake to run when I had a job. I noticed it has morphed into Mandriva
Does Ubuntu involve a lot of command line work (IT took me 3 days to figure out untar back in the mandrake days) Thanks, Josea

 

I'm the resident Mint fanboy on this forum. If you need to get up to speed ASAP with as little tweaking as possible then Mint 11 or openSUSE 11.4 is the best choice. It's a full fledged OS that throws the kitchen and the sink at you. Pretty much every codec is supported, it fast and stable and gives you everything out of the box that you would expect from a retail OS Windows or OSX.

If your into eye candy ala Windows 7 the openSUSE 11.4 and with YAST 2 there's rarely a need to touch the terminal. These are two strong and stable OS but keep in mind they are big because of what's included.

The Linux Mint Blog Blog Archive Linux Mint 11 “Katya” released!



software.opensuse.org: Download openSUSE 11.4
Screenshot:

 

I've been researching Ubuntu now for a while and I want to give it a try. Can I run it solely off of a USB stick? How large would the USB stick need to be? What would be the negatives from this?

Thank you.

 

I forgot how big the USB install is, but it says here your can use a 2GB USB: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick#USB%20flash%20drive

I used an 8GB USB and set "persistence" to yes so it will save your settings, bookmarks and the like and used it from the USB drive for some time before filing wiping Windows.

If you have a second USB drive, you can also run Fedora and try it out.

 

If I run Ubuntu off of a USB stick, I will still retain Windows 7? And I will just have to pull out the USB stick and I'm done? Back to Windows 7?
Or I will have to settle for either Ubuntu or Windows 7?

 

You will have to reboot. Plug in the USB stick and boot the computer and bring up the boot menu (F9 in my HP). Than select boot from USB. It will boot into Ubuntu. When you want to go back to Windows, shut down and uplug the USB stick. Turn on the computer than it will go to WIndows.

The Ubuntu install on the USB drive wont affect your WIndows 7 install on the hard drive.

I am typing this on Fedora 15 on a USB drive, with Ubuntu installed on my hard drive

 

Would you recommend the 2GB USB stick or 4GB?
So, I install Ubuntu here: Download | Ubuntu
Then copy and drag all of the files/folders it installs on to the USB disc and press F9 to boot into Ubuntu?

 

Download Ubuntu but you will have to "install it" on the USB drive. You can do this from Windows using the Universal USB Installer: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/

 

*EDIT* Answered as I was browsing Ubuntu. Thank you.

 

Your welcome. Debguy and the others did this for me seven months ago.

 

Welcome to Linux difficulty! but this is why Linux is something different. It will stimulate your skills

 

x2... or frustrate you to the point of sending you back to Windows (I do not think many Mac OS users even take a look at Linux). But it is worth the initial difficulty I think.

 

And it shouldn't as there are too many distros out there, from Linux on training wheels to BYOL (build your own Linux).

I started out with Ubuntu, thought it was pretty straight forward then found Mint and I marvel on how easy the Linux Mint team made Linux for the absolute novice.

openSUSE is another great distro for the novice and looks really slick as it's a KDE release. Better yet Yast2 is incredible and you don't even have to touch the Terminal if you don't want.

 

I will probably get around to trying Mint sooner or later.

When I had my fist run with LInux (on a desktop back than) I tried both Mandrake (now Mandriva) and Red Hat (now Fedora). I like Red Hat with the Bluecurve GUI best. That was my last Linux ditro. Back than you had two sets of control panels. One for the OS and the other for the GUI.

I stayed away from Linux for several years, basically when I moved to a laptop since they came bundled with operating systems. Started using Linux again December last year, and am impressed with how much improvement has been made.

I think most people could get used to Ubuntu, and I guess Mint easy enough. Although Windows is also cheaper these days (more cut down versions being offered in developing countries). You can get Windows 7 Starter for about US$40 when buying a new PC.

I digress, but it would be nice to see greater adoption of one Linux distro or another. Competition spurs innovation... and I do not think that MacOS really competes with Windows.

I think Linux on training wheels is ready for a run at Windows. Linux runs well on so much less hardware.

 

Fire up your favourite virtualization software and try a couple of distros before finaly settling for one (or turning your back on Linux)! Forget the "Linux Beginner's Guide" in this forum! There is so much more to Linux than just Ubuntu/Mint or Fedora. Unfortunately you won't find much of that diversity in these forums.
A good starting point for everyone who is new to Linux is this site:
DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.

 

Don't worry... we are getting there... Ubuntu 10.10 ---> Ubuntu 11.04 ---> Fedora 15... sooner or later we all will get bored and move unto something else.

 

Going to give Ubuntu a go, will there be any speed issues using a usb drive like this-
Scan.co.uk: Verbatim 8GB Netbook USB Drive USB 2.0 Memory Stick - 43940
with slower read/write speeds?

 

These tiny USB keys tend to be incredibly slow when it comes to writing. I'd expect 5MB/s at most.
No USB 2.0 key will reach the speed of a HDD. The fastest you'll find have 20-25MB/s.

 

Cheers

 

I am trying to install Mint 11 on a USB stick, downloaded the "DVD 32-Bit" version, using the Universal USB Installer it starts to install and gets about 1/3rd the way in and comes up with an error-
-----------------------------------------------------
0#casper\filesystem.squashfs
1#The Semaphore timeout period has expired
3#
-----------------------------------------------------

Any ideas?

EDIT- Did it again, this time worked 100%, now running Mint 11 on my Tecra M5 off the USB

 

My only problem at the moment is that its running at full chat, there are no power options.
CPU is staying around the 7%/24% mark at idle and swapping over every 30 sec or so. (although both cores are only running at 1.0Ghz instead of 1.6Ghz.
The Diagnostics bit is good, apparently my battery is running at 7.3%, that would make up for the 10 min battery life! (a whole 3Wh from 50Wh originally)
I am only using around 240mb of ram at idle, which is around half of what XP Pro was running before.

 

Hello all, I am also Linux newbie, but have used Linux almost 20 years ago. I have followed this thread about USB installation/demo and have done that on my netbook. Problem is, I could only download Ubuntu 11.04 32/bit and couldn't download the 10.04 netbook version because its bit torrent and I work in a gov't office so torrent sites are blocked.
I am able to use the 11.04 version and like it ALOT. However I don't see any battery settings and this is why I think I should get the netbook version, agree?
Since this has piqued my interest, I tried to install the same 11.04 from the USB onto another laptop Gateway MX6920 (about 6 yrs old) but for some reason, it hangs up while halfway through the boot cycle at the F2/F10 screen. Its like it won't read the USB stick although I have changed the Bios so that the USB is first. The hard drive is clean, and I am doing fresh install, it originally had WinXp on it. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Is there a preferred notebook version? Thanks in advance.

 

The easy answer is to stick with 11.04, which has Unity desktop by default, but is easily switched to Gnome 2.32. There is no longer a separate "netbook" version because the distinction between "netbook" and "desktop" no longer exists.

Yes, there are power settings, but you don't see the icon on the taskbar when the laptop is plugged in. You have to for from: System Settings > Power Management, which is under Hardware.

Not sure about your specific hardware issues. Old hardware is typically less problematic than brand new or just released hardware. I do have to wonder if you've considered an alternate install or minimal install?

 

Thanks for the heads up on the versions, as there are many. And yes, found the battery option when I was unplugged.
As far as install, I haven't even gotten that far yet as the USB wouldn't actually read on the MX6920 yet it worked on my newer (albeit 1 yr old) netbook. I'm wondering if the fat 32 format has anything to do with it. I am running Ubuntu 11.04 off the USB stick on my netbook at the moment and it works okay, but wanted to install(normal install) using same USB onto other laptop(resurrected) Gateway MX6920. It seems to hang on the F2/F10 screen with bar loading about halfway. Puzzling.

 

FAT32 is a relatively old file format and shouldn't be the problem.

What I always do is format a thumb drive to FAT32 and use Unetbootin, running the disc image as a virtual live cd and checking major functionality issue before a permanent install.

My first guess is that you might have issues with the graphical installer, so you might want to try an alternate install or minimum install on your old laptop. Keep in mind that you lose the ability to run it as a Live CD, or to install from USB. I've done command line installs, which is actually a lot of fun with really, really old hardware.

Of course, if all else fails, you can always try Puppy Linux. Yes, I know it's the cowards way out, but burning a Wary 5.1.2 .iso to CD is a quick and easy way of running a Live CD, and yes, you can run it as a persistent install.

 

Ok, what would keep my MX6920 laptop from reading/booting off the USB drive. As I mentioned above, USB works and Ubuntu 11.o4 boots up on netbook but why not the other. HAve already changed the bios to boot from USB. Anything else I'm missing?

 

A couple of quick points. Some older machines have problems with "large" USB sticks. I.e. anything over a few hundred megs or a gig or so and they can't boot. Try making a smaller partition to put unetbootin Ubuntu or something and see how that works. Secondly, you can download isos for 10.04 here: Ubuntu Lucid

 

when your booting the ubuntu stick, hit ESC after it starts up so you can get rid of the splash screen and see whats going on in the background. I have seen a couple distros with very long hangs trying up load up all the language files they put on the live cd's.

 

Thanks Sxooter and S.Prime, but last night I was determined to get it installed or throw it out.
Yesterday, went out and bought new HDD, but instead I thought, "Hey, SSD, Linux, what could be slicker" so I bought a Corsair Vertex 2 120gb. Got home and put it in and still same issue with not booting on USB. I half thought the the Windows 7 on the 320 gb HDD I was using to install the OS on was the issue because the laptop still has an old Phoenix Bios 77.02 on it, and needed to be reflashed in order to run win 7.(old drive with XP crashed about 3 yrs ago). So I kept thinking it was the USB problem.
So I downloaded U 11.04 iso again and burned to DVD. Loaded that. AHA!! Success!! Ubuntu loaded up so I start install, ....but it says I have no storage. Its not reading the SSD. CRAP!!!( but used the other more colorful term). So after a few reboots and viewing the Bios again, I decide to remove the SSD because maybe this laptop doesn't understand what an SSD is and put the aforementioned old 320 gb HDD with the win 7 back in it.
I started it back up....lights flashed, menus popped, whirring sounds are heard and Viola! I started installing again and have actually completed the install and runs pretty smooth. Played with it last night setting up browser, background, and looking around.
The next step I think is, besides getting more familiar with it, to reflash the bios with lastest version. How would I do that with Ubuntu?