About to take Linux plunge - advice?

[Cleon]

I keep posting it because people keep referring to a particular flavor of OS that reformats your hard drive as good. (Hits head on post) What universe do I live in where such a thing is good?

Funny. I run SuSe--just installed it for the first time about a month ago (after using Slackware since 1995 or so). It did format my hard drive; but I have two HDs in my box and wanted it to.

During install, check what it's doing carefully to see where it's installing and what partitions it's creating/formatting/resizing. There's a screen for it in SuSe's install utility; I had been intending to splice up the HD, and modded the setup accordingly, then decided to go ahead and nuke the entire HD.

 

[ceptimus]

The argument about which Linux distro is best is a bit pointless. Once you become reasonably expert, all the distros are equivalent really as you can taylor the programs, and even the kernel to your own needs.

 

[Captain_Snort]

I installed Fedora on another PC just to see what it was like, and must admit, installed without a flaw, recognised everything and was very easy.

I am going to re-install debian woody on it, as I prefer that distro, I just find its not as limiting as anything else I used. I would not recommend it to a newcomer to Linux, but the installer for Sarge is supposed to be nice.

My first Linux was Suse 5.4 and I kinda stayed with suse, then I went Mandrake when it was 8.0 for a bit, but found it not really open to serios customisation, Now, I am a Debian junkie, and am happy that no-one is making money from it, unlike the other big distros, I have a problem with people making money from other peoples efforts, suppose its just me being a communist.

What is it about the various Linux Distros that yuou pay for that they have to up the version number every now and then to get silly numbers, I think they are all trying to make there numbers bigger than the opposition to hope people will think its better. Debian stable is still at 3.0 r2

 

[a_unique_person]

WOW! I'm pumped. Feeling pretty good about myself. Heh. Got home from work, went to Mandrake's site, downloaded it, burned all 3 CDs worth, installed it and here I am - posting from my new Linux box. Did it all in less than 5 hours.

I got Mandrake up and running without a hitch on an old IBM Aptiva 350MHz machine with 128MB RAM. Not exactly lightning fast right now, but I remember running Windows98 on here and this is definitely up a notch or two in speed from that.

Just wanted to let people I was successful without ever reading a page in a Linux book. I only did a couple hours worth of googling. Anyone who has ever done a Windows installation will likely find Mandrake very easy to get installed.

I tried Slackware about seven years ago. That was one pain in the rear side. X would not work with my graphics card. There were problems all round. I recently installed Red Hat to run SAP free install. It was much smoother this time. Only had to screw around for a couple of days to get SAP going.

 

[Whyatt]

Warning Idiot alert!

I know this isn't really the place to ask, but could anyone explain to me how you install programs on linux?

I'm totally confused by the RPM and tar files. I was trying to install firefox and zsnes (a snes emulator) and don't know where to start.

(I have a PC (box?) running mandrake 9.2. 950Mhz AMD, 256meg)

I do miss windows' install icons....

Also does a program only work on certain distros? I know these must be dumb questions, but I'm doing my best to leave windows behind!

Whyatt.

 

[iain]

Re: Warning Idiot alert!

I know this isn't really the place to ask, but could anyone explain to me how you install programs on linux?

I'm totally confused by the RPM and tar files. I was trying to install firefox and zsnes (a snes emulator) and don't know where to start.

(I have a PC (box?) running mandrake 9.2. 950Mhz AMD, 256meg)

I do miss windows' install icons....

Also does a program only work on certain distros? I know these must be dumb questions, but I'm doing my best to leave windows behind!

Good questions. Software installation is one of the biggest weaknesses in Linux at the moment.

Some programs that are compiled against a particular version of the C libraries or kernel will only work with that version. This is hugely annoying, but is something that has allowed Linux to develop quickly. In the Windows world, Microsoft have been very careful to retain backwards compatability, so a given piece of software will normally install on most versions of Windows. This isn't done to nearly the same extent on Linux which has plus points for development speed and security but definitely a downside when you're trying to find a compiled version of an app for your distro.

There are 4 main install methods for Linux (there are others too)
- RPM (Red Hat package manager) used by Red Hat, Fedora, Mandrake, SuSE and others.
- apt : default on Debian, also usable on most distros these days.
- tar : an archive of files (like a zip archive) - untar them and run an installation script.
- compile from source : get the source code, compile it, install it.

On Mandrake, RPM is the default. Mandrake also has a very nice tool called urpmi which allows you to select software and download/install it automatically from the web.

To install packages on Mandrake, use the Control Centre (which uses RPM and urpmi under the covers). This allows you to install software from the CDs and from Mandrake archives on the web (if you tell it where the archive is). It can also search for updates to software you've got installed and install that automatically.

 

[Whyatt]

Re: Re: Warning Idiot alert!

Good questions. Software installation is one of the biggest weaknesses in Linux at the moment.....

.

Thanks! There’s nothing like knowing what an anachronim actually means to build confidence. I’ve tried using that mandrake control centre and it didn’t seem to work, but I’ll give it another go. You seem to need to specify a new CD or the internet as the files location. Can’t I just specify the hard drive as I have to download stuff at uni (I don’t have web access at home) and then transport them home on a memory stick, and would rather dump it somewhere on my hard drive first as my memory stick can be a bit cranky.

Thanks Iain, I now know what I don’t know, if you get my gist, and that’s a huge step!

 

[Whyatt]

Oh and also, if it isn't too complicate to explain, what do you mean by install an installation script.

(I'm not always this dumb, I changed to Linux because have been using it at uni to run a particle simulator called "geant" in fortran, to simulate the interaction of cosmic rays with the interstellar medium.)

 

[LFTKBS]

Re: Warning Idiot alert!

I know this isn't really the place to ask, but could anyone explain to me how you install programs on linux?

I'm totally confused by the RPM and tar files. I was trying to install firefox and zsnes (a snes emulator) and don't know where to start.

Firefox is a little different than most other installs, by which I mean it's mindbendingly easy.

1) Download the tar.gz.
2) Extract the files to /usr/src (or wherever; that's where I put them)
(2a) To extract in GUI: right-click and select "extract files of whatever)
3) Run the script 'firefox' in the firefox directory.

That's it. This can all be done without opening a terminal window.

In all the GUIs I've used, it's also easy to create a shortcut/link to that script, also.

 

[Whyatt]

I assume by "run the script" you mean double click on the icon? I'll try it tonight. thanks guys.

Also people always talk about the benifits of Linux, but one thing they don't mention is thats it does look pretty.

(I say this because at uni I run a VERY old solaris box, which is as ugly as sin and so mandrake makes a great change!)

 

[iain]

Re: Re: Re: Warning Idiot alert!

Can’t I just specify the hard drive as I have to download stuff at uni (I don’t have web access at home) and then transport them home on a memory stick, and would rather dump it somewhere on my hard drive first as my memory stick can be a bit cranky.

I'm pretty sure you can do this. Sadly my laptop is at home so I can't check right now - I'll post instructions later.

 

[jimlintott]

Why do you want to install a web browser when you have no web access?

Oh well. Open a terminal window and use these commands: (but not the #comments)

#You have to be root to write where it needs to go so:
su

#Move to the directory to install to
cd /usr/local

#Untar the file you downloaded
tar -xzf /PATH/TO/firefox.foo.that.you.down.loaded.tar.gz
#I can't remember the correct name of the file

There all installed. To run firefox you have to put in the whole path /usr/local/firefox or I suggest writing a bash script to launch it with appropriate parameters and placing the script in /usr/bin which is automatically on all users default paths. Then the name of the script will launch it.

The script might look like this:
!#/bin/bash

cd/usr/local/firefox
./firefox &

That's it. Save as firefox (in plain text) in /usr/bin (you'll have to be root) and set it as executable with 'chmod 755 /usr/bin/firefox'. All users can now run it just by typing firefox on the cammand line or making an icon to launch it or whatever. I launch it by pressing F2.

In the Mandrake Control Center in the software management area you should be able to set up a directory on your hard drive to install from with the Software Media Manager.

A real important update is popt* as it fixes the unfortunate menu bug that doesn't update the menu properly after installing new software.

I've been using Mandrake for years and love it.

 

[Whyatt]

Thanks for all the help guys. Its a lot clearer, than it was.

I'm trying to install firefox because:

i've had heard of it
it isn't very large (only have a 64meg memory stick)
I don't know anything else to install for linux
As don't have the internet - it's no big disaster if it all goes wrong.

I really like Koffice, GNUPlot and being able to use emacs at home. I've got a feeling my XP partion is just going to become a games machine, and I'm definitly not updating to longhorn.

I'm converted. The difficulties are worth it.

 

[Beanbag]

I installed SuSe Linux back in 99 on a box that I had dual-booted Win98/Win2k.

I chose default install.

It formatted my whole hard drive with out asking me.

I think I left the CDs downstairs for some other poor sucker to try.

Red Hat install was smooth. No complains with RH.

I just got through installing SuSE 9.0 Personal, basically accepted all the defaults, and let it handle everything on autopilot. It moved the existing Windows ME install that I used to test the hardware into it's own smaller partition and put itself on the remaining space. No reformat, nothing lost. I think whatever version you used before must have been something much earlier, like 7.0 or so.

Other than having to suck down a bunch of upgrades during the install, it went just like a Windows XP install (for me).

Of course, I have to ask: does anyone consider it ironic that Windows gets bad-mouthed because of regular upgrades required, while Linux seems to cruise along with a large upgrade package "suggested" during an install? Either way, something's getting fixed or patched on both systems. Linux, you pay at the start. Windows, you pay as you go along.

Regards;
Beanbag

 

[iain]

Of course, I have to ask: does anyone consider it ironic that Windows gets bad-mouthed because of regular upgrades required, while Linux seems to cruise along with a large upgrade package "suggested" during an install? Either way, something's getting fixed or patched on both systems. Linux, you pay at the start. Windows, you pay as you go along.

All software has bugs unfortunately. I think people get annoyed about all the patches but I don't know of any serious security people who actually criticise Microsoft for releasing patches (more the other way round - they often wait for too long before releasing a patch; though there is an interesting debate there too).

A valid criticism of Microsoft is not so much the number of bugs, but that the design of the software and the lack of focus on security means more of the bugs lead to serious, exploitable, problems.

I doubt the difference between Linux and Windows is as great as some die-hard Linux folks believe; but there are some differences.
For example, your Windows patches are just for the OS. With Linux you'll find very few security patches are for the kernel and core functions - most are for the host of extra software you get bundled with it (that's like having patches for Windows + MS Office + games etc. etc.).

I go along with the view that the biggest thing to help security is not to have everyone switch to Linux, but for there to be a good mix of OSs out there. If instead of the desktop being 95% Windows, no single OS had more than a 30% share, it would be a lot more difficult for worms and viruses to wreak the havoc they do (that's one reason why you don't really get viruses on UNIX - a virus that infects Solaris won't do jack on AIX or HP-UX so they would die out quickly).

In terms of non-security patches, the nature of Open Source is "release early, release often" so you'll often find that a new version of the software has come out in the two months since the packages were fixed for that distro version.

 

[shanek]

All software has bugs unfortunately. I think people get annoyed about all the patches but I don't know of any serious security people who actually criticise Microsoft for releasing patches (more the other way round - they often wait for too long before releasing a patch; though there is an interesting debate there too).

Well, and it's also what's getting patched. It seems like every time you turn around Microsoft is having to patch some huge honking hole that lets intruders write worms that burrow into your system and give them total remote access to your files and your life. With Linux, it's usually a small patch on some obscure little file that just might cause a problem if someone who already had access to your system decided to exploit it.

For the record, if you look in YaST you'll see an updater that you should run regularly; in fact, like Windows Update, you can set it to run at regular intervals. (Unlike Windows Update, you can set it to get the patches from a number of different mirror sites and so you can pick the one that is fastest for you to download from. Sweet!)

 

[bignickel]

Beanbag's post would seem to make my objections moot.

BTW - the installer screen that I was using did NOT say anything about formatting the hard drive: just 'default' or 'custom' - "choose one."

 

[deanerk]

Found a sweet distro site with links to download several ISO images. There is also a forum area with a section for each distro. Haven't had the time to check out the forum yet, but it looks like it may be a good resource.

Check it out --> http://www.linuxiso.org/

 

[Captain_Snort]

Found a sweet distro site with links to download several ISO images. There is also a forum area with a section for each distro. Haven't had the time to check out the forum yet, but it looks like it may be a good resource.

Check it out --> http://www.linuxiso.org/

I usually point people there, they have some obscure distros available, my favourites being BBC - Bootable Business Card, which is a live system runs of one of one of those CD business cards, as the name says. Great for rescueing stuff and is quite useable for a 33mb download.

Another good one is miniwoody, basically Debian cut down to the core and fitting on an 8cm cd (185mb), but allowing you to add sources and install extra via the web.

Some of the cd based distros (i.e., you run them of cd rather than installing them) are quite good.