Getting Linux in September

[DigiTan]

Okay, so the computer I got last winter is holding up well. I had my eye on getting a second, larger hard drive and transferring all my current stuff there while installing a new OS on the smaller drive. Linux seems to be the natural way to go, but I don't know which Linux distro would be good to start with.

So that's my first issue; choosing the distro. I checked out one of those Linux placement quizzes and it referred me to Mandriva, Kubuntu, Ubuntu, and OpenSUSE. Okay, I've heard of a few of those. While I'm ordering the new harddrive and transferring all my current files, I want to choose a Linux distro. Hopefully one of the more stable ones that requires less Linux experience.

So, my questions so far are:

1. What are a few good Linux versions to look into? How do you install them without a CD?

2. With WinXP on one drive and Linux on the other, is there a way to move from one OS to the other without rebooting?

3. Is it unusual to have two different Linuxes on the same drive? (Maybe in different partitions?)

4. Are there any recomended utilities for moving a drive's contents to a much larger drive of the same type?

Probably a few more questions will come up later...

[JoeImp]

1. What are a few good Linux versions to look into? How do you install them without a CD?

If you're new to linux, the standard move I guess is to try ubuntu. Should install pretty easily and work with your hardware well, so it's easy to get into, but it's really linux, so you can learn commands and learn about how things are setup and work. After you get comfortable with ubuntu, either stick with it, or try another out. (Since you would then know more about linux, you could read about certain distros and really understand how they differ.) Most installs are done by booting to a cd, why can't you do that? Depending on your distro you could boot from a floppy, or it's also possible depending on your computer to boot it from a network.

2. With WinXP on one drive and Linux on the other, is there a way to move from one OS to the other without rebooting?

Yes, either the windows bootloader or grub/lilo can boot either drive/OS. You'll boot up, and be presented with a list of OS's to choose from. You'll have to configure it of course.

3. Is it unusual to have two different Linuxes on the same drive? (Maybe in different partitions?)

On different partitions, sure. As long as you don't get them confused and mess up configuring your bootloader. Should be fine though.

4. Are there any recomended utilities for moving a drive's contents to a much larger drive of the same type?

In linux -
dd if=/mnt/hda of=/mnt/hdb

:P

Dunno about windows.

[DigiTan]

Okay, that's a good start. I keep hearing good things about Ubuntu over here, so I guess that'll work out. Actually, booting from a CD wouldn't be a problem. I just assumed most people downloaded it off their site (Maybe this is to burn a boot CD?)

[JoeImp]

Yea, you download it off the site, and boot from it.

[Demon]

[elfprince13]

[NETWizz]

Just my input.


I am a seasoned Linux user in that I have been using it for several years, have taken Unix Admin Courses, as well as learned to do shell scripting.

I have tried Red Hat, Fedora, Mandriva, Ubuntu, and Open Enterprise Linux (Novell $$$ Linux).

Mandriva, is falling behind and cannot be tested.

Fedora is nothing more than the testing grounds for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Stuff is always broken in Fedora, the themes suck big time with all the bubbles, but all the tools are GUI based. You really would never have a reason to leave the GUI. Install system supports RPM.

SUSE Novell is good, but reminds me of Fedora only more stable and reliable. I use Suse Linux Open Enterprise Novell Server 10.2 at work with a nearly perfect track record and great uptime. OpenSUSE is also great... especially for the desktop. I really like it. I have successfully gotten everything to work.

Slackware was fun, but I only played with it for a week.

Gentoo sucked in my opinion because everything I installed took forever and the instructions were long. They really didn't have pre-built packages that just work flawlessly.

My favorite is Ubuntu. There is Kubuntu, Xubuntu, EduBuntu, WinBuntu, Woobi, and otheres. Kbuntu is KDE, Xbuntu is a light interface, EDU is for education, and the last too install in Windows. I wanted a full fledged windows manager, yet I hate KDE. That left me with Ubuntu!

I avoid Woobi and WinBuntu like the plague
They create a single file on a windows hard disk drive and add an entry to boot.ini

To boot you select Linux from the Windows Boot Screen after ntksrnl has already loaded into memory. In other words, the Windows NTFS kernel and driver load then they chain load linux which mounts a single NTFS stored file as its root file system.

This is slower, less stable, less secure, and stupid. If you are going to install an OS, install it on bare metal for maximum performance... Especially if you are adding another hard drive... You won't even have to delete anything to do that.


My recommendation is to load Fiesty, Ubuntu 7.04. I am running Fiesty, and 6.10 Edgy on systems at home. You will not be disappointed with Ubuntu Fiesty. As per the other person, I tend to disagree. DO NOT wait for 7.10 unless it has a specific feature you need. Each Distro is at its very best near its end of life service. In other words, Fiesty is more supported, stable, secure, and reliable. It is tried, tested, and time-honored.

Like Debian, Ubuntu is a Rock. and Apt-Get kicks butt.

If you wish to contact me, in regards to personal assistance setting up ubuntu, I am here to help. Just email me NETWizz@trashmail.net

I have a whole list of packages and add-ons that work great. I have been using Ubuntu exclusively since June 2006.

I have Audacity, Gnomad 2 Mp3 player software, filezilla, proftpd, apache, mysql, google earth, skype, terminal, vmware, crossover office, microsoft office, open office, Piddgen, textedit, audio tag tool (ID3 Tag editor), totem, vlc, dvd decrypter, dvd shrink, wine, stream tuner, xmms, Azureus, Java, wine, avant window navigator, compiz fusion, nvidia drivers, ndiswrapper & wireless, hard wired ethernet, custom resolution, webcam, scanner, network printer, didital camera, real, wmv, wma, ogg, xvid, divx, 3vid, x.224, ogg-theora, alsa sound, audacity, mpeg 4, mpeg, Quick Time, all necessary browser plug ins, acrobat, adobe flash, ghostscript PDF printer, wireshark, K3b cd burner, ntfs-3g, firefox, opera, rdesktop, seamless rdp, vnc server and client, smb shares, nfs shares, raid, and some other cool stuff.

I can set up all of the aforementioned stuff and copy all my data back within 2 hours. Additionally, everything runs great, no slow downs, now competing file extensions, no pop ups, don't have a million tray icons, no TSRs, no tasks or services that startup just because they want too... All of the codec's use open source implementations that use the Totem-xine or maybe totem-Gstreamer interface. I also added the mplayer plugins to the browser.

The same setup on windows would take 5 hours to configure and run less than half as well.

You won't be disappointed, and you don't need to delete anything either. Check out PartImage for moving your windows partition quickly and safely to another drive.

-NETWIzz

[JoeImp]

[Newbie]

I prefer to use Open Suse. I have been using Open Suse for about a year now. You have the option of chosing between gnome and kde upon installation if you want. I usually choose KDE. (Installed it more than once) My one experience with Ubuntu was awful. Not because I didn't know what I was doing, but because I was doing it on a laptop. That didn't work out too well. Like I said in a previous topic, Ubuntu doesn't agree with laptops. Although some people might have a problem with open suse because Microsoft is too closely related to that distro. I just hope Microsoft never interfers with open source.

[elfprince13]

[Rezek]

[alexrudd]

There's really no question here. Ubuntu > all for newbies. Other Linux distros are great too, but none beats Ubuntu as a first Linux install. Kubuntu is good too, but I just didn't like KDE as much as GNOME. Apps from either desktop can be installed easily in the other with apt-get.

There is no way to switch operating systems without rebooting, but you can create a virtual machine and run another operating system inside that. For running Linux apps on windows, setup a headless Linux machine and look up X session forwarding with SSH and Xming.

[Newbie]

[Rezek]

[Demon]

1. Oh, and Gentoo's good too.

[elfprince13]

[Newbie]

[VvoidDragon85]

I guess this is a helpfull first post. :)

I like Ubuntu myself because with distro's it's all about what you get from the installer and in this case it's a valid latest-gen OS with all the tools you'd expect from that. Driver support, media center stuff, power use, and office environment is all as top notch as it gets on Linux.

It's an excellent way start to learn linux and if you need something else that the default install doesn't give you, any distro gets you the same kernel and you can remove change or add anything you want to with any installation. Excluding specialised distros of course but I think you won't have any need for those. The default Ubuntu install has some "bloat" since even the most excessive users won't need all it's packages, but what is excessive varies per the user so have a look at what's installed. That way you also get aquinted pretty fast with working the packages.

After many years of dabbling with linux and Ubuntu has been my main desktop linux flavor since the first real release, and it's only getting better. I have no doubt it will show you what you want from linux and how to get it. You can mix Windows really well into it with VMWare and some tools but I'm not very into that since I only need Windows for games and they need the real thing to work well anyway. I post this from Windows because I don't know what to boot into Ubuntu for, for me, or else I'd switch entirely and use those tools for MS Office.

-VD

[kermmartian]

Since no one has mentioned it so far, there are two types of CDs that you can burn for most distributions (I think Ubuntu combined them for 7.04). One is a LiveCD, which allows you to try out the OS without actually installing it or modifying any data on your hard drive. The second is an installer CD that allows you to install the OS as well as either leave or remove any existing OSes (including a bootloader to handle switching OSes).

[alexrudd]

Actually, the LiveCD is the installation CD. You install from a graphical program launched from the LiveCD desktop. The other ("alternate") CD is a text-based installer for systems with fewer resources or servers. I think it also contains a few more packages so you can get some without accessing the Internet.