Switch to Linux - why, which and when!

Okay, so here's the deal. I just finished my masters (not in computer science, so I am a noob indeed), and will not need my computer for many advanced issues in the future. I thus thought I would install Linux (yes, I know it is also good for advanced stuff, but just had some programs that weren't linux compatible). My questions are:

1: I thought about installing a new harddrive - would this be a good time to install linux? Or should I rather try it out on my old harddrive?

2: for standard stuff like emailing, browsing, typing and a little excel-like stuff, is Linux then faster than windows (vista) and/or more reliable ? Other things I should consider?

3: i am by no means a tech-wiz, but neither am I a tech-idiot. Just read the Ubuntu installation guide, which seems quite easy - will I have problems installing Linux (I have a Sony Vaio Z and have read somewhere that it might be difficult to get graphics drivers to work)?

4: last, but not least, which distribution should I get? I want one that is as fast and reliable as possible (given my needs described above), but if the interface looks hot it is of course only a plus ;-)

Thanks!

 

1) Yes, it is an excellent time to try out Linux. Apparently you did look at Ubuntu before, so if you are willing to make the switch, do it when you put a new hard drive in!

2) Linux is significantly faster than Windows Vista, and because it is open source, many members of this community and throughout the world work to make Linux more efficient every day! Linux is more than capable of doing the "stuff" that you list, and it may be significantly faster than Vista too!

3) You should have NO problems installing Ubuntu. I have had experience with Ubuntu since version 5, and although I use Windows XP as my main OS, I have seen the work that the Ubuntu team has put in to make the installation as streamlined as possible. It is more Windows-like installation than ever before (without WGA and Product Keys...lol) If you need to install drivers, all you need to do is just click a few buttons, and you will have them installed in no time.

4) Ubuntu would be a perfect starter package. It comes with all the applications you need to get the jobs you want done, and it is constantly updated, so you will know that your OS will be fast, secure, and up to date.

Good luck!

 

Okay, thanks - acquisition of a SSD and one Ubuntu installation coming up!

 

If you have time and want to see how much faster Ubuntu is than Vista or XP, dual boot on the SSD with vista, install all of vista's drivers etc. and do the same for linux...

then time the boot times... windows will lose much of it's appeal, especially on a SSD.

by the way Linux doesn't have 'stuttering' issues with cheap SSD's.

 

I honestly don't care too much about boot times - how do they compare during regular use as I described?

Another thing I use my computer for is watching DVDs and also livestreaming/renting movies online via amazon/netflix/etc - how does Linux cope with this? Shall I find equivalen programmes and sites, or can I use the same?

 

Yes, start with Ubuntu....remember you can run most windows programs in a virtual machine from within Linux...side by side....cool, eh?

 

yeah, I have heard that but have also been told that it doesn't work too well - will I be able to find movie-watching programmes?

 

I believe there are is a dozen or so to chose from .

Edit do you mean like a streaming program? or like a media player?

 

Like both - i sometimes watch DVDs, sometime listen to music and sometimes stream movies online and/or rent them online in amazon. That is what I need besides email, browsing and texting!

 

it works excellent....I'm not talking about gaming, but they are getting better with 3d acceleration. You won't need a virtual machine to watch any movies, etc.

 

ok, sounds great. I am now convinced 100%. Only thing is now if I can get a new SSD for my computer - but that is in another thread

 

What about PDF files?

Also, I have a lot of word/excel/music/pdf files on my current HD. If i move them to an external HD, will I then be able to throw them right into Ubunto when time comes? (also, will ubuntu recognize my external HD)?

 

Yes, ubuntu will recognize your drive right away.

All of those files will be recognized. You can open your office files with open office or install M$ office via wine.

 

I can confirm I can Read PDF files out of the box in Jaunty and all of my removables Auto-mount and open when plugged in, which includes External USB drive Old USB Pen, New USB Pen, Even my Ancient MP3 USB Pen 256MB which I thought was dead.

Customisable options are incredible, A different wallpaper for each workspace finally! lol

 

I do it every day...I have Office 2007 in Vista, and when I'm in Linux I open my docs with Open Office and save in doc format. Linux has various pdf readers including adobe linux version.

 

How often do you need to run Windows due to stuff you can't do in Lnux?

 

For games, every single day.
(Recent 'Windows games' that is)

 

Depends on what you need to do. Me? I run XP in a virtual machine for anything I can't do in Linux. Which is generally just Livemeeting. And my laptop boots into XP instead of Linux once a fortnight when I play a game on it. Most of my gaming is done on my Wii or my Linux media center + bluetooth PS3 controller (woohoo retro gaming!). I watch all my movies on Mythbuntu, play open-source games on the desktop, do all my movie transcoding and photo editing and such on Linux. Of the 5 machines I have, only one has Windows installed natively, and it's dual-booting with Linux. Every other one runs Linux exclusively, XP in a virtual machine on the work lappy.

 

I love the game Tetravex.

I have a dual boot setup for both Ubuntu and XP. Since i'm a noob when it comes to Ubuntu I mostly stay in XP but hopefully i'll try and buy a Linux for Dummies book and dig a little deeper into the OS.

I really like Linux since I recently gave 9.04 a try. It's not perfect, what is? But it's a solid OS that's free !

 

Gaming is not something I do a lot. Plus, my graphics card is not very good! Am thinking about whether I should have dual boot though, just in case!

 

Rodknee - why do you stay in XP? What is it that you cannot do in Ubuntu?

Also, you say it is not perfect - what is not working?

 

Google Earth among other things sucks in Linux. Don't listen to the sheep tell you everything works but it's up to you.

Being objective is not the forte of most Linux users, unfortunately.

This is coming from someone who is no Windoze fan but I will criticize anyone fearlessly.

 

Just dual-boot, why limit yourself to one os, end of problem!

 

Oops sorry for not explaining myself.

On my XP laptop I play lots of casual games as well as racing games I downloaded via Steam. Also I use my laptop for pretty much everything including watching Live TV streams from around the world including ESPN360.com thanks to Verizon. I haven't figured out how to do any of that within Ubuntu. Besides i'm totally new to the OS so i'm still figuring things out.

 

I use ubuntu almost exclusively. My gaming rig though dual boots with Vista (soon to be win7) because while most of my games work on ubuntu some will not (i'm looking at you Sins of a Solar Empire and Dawn of War 2)

Also i cant figure out how to watch Netflix movies through Ubuntu so i use windows there as well.

All in all both windows and linux are great OSes for what they were designed for. I wish a few more game developers would start releasing open source versions of their software (and curse you netflix for using silverlight for viewing) But i dont mind dual booting to meet my needs, i just wish i didnt have to.

 

I would recommend Ubuntu for your first *Nix based OS, but I wouldn't stick with it permanently (No offense Ubuntu users out there). I like Ubuntu but I think there are better distros, like Fedora 10 or Sabayon (Peronally, of course).

I use Linux and Windows, Linux being my main OS. I use windows only for gaming and Office 07 (I'll try it in Wine one day). Other than that it's Linux. I personally use CentOS as my main OS but I have used Fedora and Red Hat in the past (As you can tell I'm a red hat fan )

Another thing you might want to keep in the back of your mind about watching movies is if you get a blu ray player, from what I've read (I personally don't have blu ray so no hands on experience here) it's a PITA to get blu ray movies to work. Other than that however you should be completely fine. Just be sure to install Compiz Fusion and stuff after you get your video card installed, from what I've seen Compiz makes most Windows users say "wow"

 

any suggestions for linux on an asus M50VM

 

offtopic: what abour REACTOS?

 

Okay, am writing this from Ubuntu. I have until now noticed only two glitches:

When i press Fn+F3/4, I can adjust the sound. I should be able to adjust the screen light via Fn+F5/6, but this doesn't work - it is either on max lights (when plugged in) or on low lights (when on battery). How do I fix this?

Also, in Windows i can put it on "Stamina" mode or "Speed", that doesn't work either. That means my battery runs out much faster than in Windows! Where can I change these settings?

 

Does anyone know what sort of FPS decrease you get running games in Windows mode?

Also, any known developers actively working on a release which is Windows and Linux (or are we doomed to MS forcing us to dual boot because of games)?
Thanks

 

No problem with that machine...I have linux on an Asus A8JS, and C90S btw

 

Haha, yeah, I got that enabled for the first time today in Ubuntu and had fun playing around with it. Couldn't quite get the full 3D cube view but what I did get was nevertheless impressive. Not sure quite how practical all the special effects are yet, but they definitely look cool.

ReactOS is at attempt to make a free operating system that is fully compatible with Windows. It's not a Linux, and isn't nearly as developed as most Linuxes are at this point. Other than that I can't tell you a whole lot about it, but Wikipedia has a decent-length article about it.

 

You can install it on whatever you want, I hear you're getting an SSD which would be a noticeable bit faster than HDD's. Ubuntu is the way to go if that's all you do, Linux gaming sucks terribly but there's always a dual boot for Windows gaming. There probably won't be any problems, be sure to snag the latest Ubuntu copy which is 9.04 and go x64 if you can. My wifi card is auto enabled in the latest copy which saved me a lot of time when configuring my network. Just head on over to gnome-look (google it) and select a theme you like. I personally use Shiki Colors (theme) and Gnome Colors (icon theme) along with the Colors GDM and lock dialogue because I like the uniformity and clean, fast interface.

 

Hmm, This may be a little off topic but isn't SSD's not recommended for *nix? I haven't looked into it in a while (So I may sound like an idiot saying this) but I remember reading an article saying that the way swap is configured in Linux that it read/writes to the SSD too often and reduces the life of the SSD dramatically (due to SSD's having a read/write # limitation)

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, been a while since I've read into SSD's

 

according to my 'swap indicator', conky, it never swaps unless I'm doing some very very large file transfers which is rare....so I'd say that's a bunch of baloney... How long are these SSD's rated for? What's the warranty? With that logic I definitely wouldn't use one in Windows

 

AFAIK, the swap problem went away with the latest version of Ubuntu (the one before 9.04). Because I know I had to fix it with an older version, but when I reinstalled Ubuntu, I ran the test to see if the HDD was still parking at a high frequency, but it didn't. I'd still check to be safe.

 

I researched it a little bit more and came up with this

Apparently SSD's are fine unless you're going to be getting a lot of read/write files (Logs), so in a computer that's going to be hosting Apache or Exim, I probably wouldn't recommend it, but that's just me. BUT the chances of you running that from a desktop are slim to none

 

ah...YES...you're talking about disk initializations....yes, there wAS a scare on previous Ubuntu's....that's a bit different...thought you meant file swapping. I'll find that old thread and Check Slackware just for (fun?) lol For example, I've got Crunchbang on my USB stick formatted as EXT2 to reduce the r/w numbers