Lately I've been experimenting with Linux and such on my laptop with no HD. The hard drive broke and I had to get a new one but it hasn't come in yet. But I'm not disappointed for the hard drive (and older one) had a infinitesimal 4 GB. Anyway what I'd like to know is if there is anyone an here with experience with Linux and/or BSD. Until then I suppose this can be the thread for talking about Linux (or other free operating systems).
I have power user experience with Ubuntu.
I've heard good things about the new ubuntu -- GET IT.
I'm going to get it once I get my hard drive situation set up properly.
What hard drive situation might that be?
I want to boot off of a windows 7/linux drive -- and my drive has some OS backups and such that take a couple of partitions, and since you can't have more than 5 partitions per drive (is that true? that's what i've heard,) i don't want to have my one drive that complicated. It's also for my own purposes in how I want to think about it. Not sure if that makes sense.
My laptop triboots OS X, Windows XP (soon to be 7 when my college gets it) and Ubuntu.
Desktop machine is just Ubuntu (fileserver, proxy server etc etc)
And I love it.
Not ran into any issues with it on my laptop; all drivers working (even the webcam and keyboard lights!,) games run through Wine pretty darn nicely too; Eve @ 80FPS, everything high but with HDR OFF is puuurty damn fine by my standards. Though that was just a test, as Windows is what I use games for. And only games I might add; I can't stand the fail.
As far as aesthetics go, people seem to think that Linux = ugly, 98-like or completely text based. Really, REALLY untrue. If you're like me and you like shiny stuff and don't give a toss about your resource usage, install compiz and emerald. I'm sure you've seen the youtube videos on compiz. If not, do it. Any Linux distro is 100% customisable. Any colours, shapes, whatever - you can have it.
Infact, my aunt kept blowing her XP install up, so I put Ubuntu on it, made it look like XP (you can't actually tell the difference, theres even a start menu clone in the repositories) and she hasn't said a word aside from 'its so fast and I can't believe it hasn't broken again yet.' At least I won't be hearing from her again.
My desktop has a few issues with Ubuntu. It was hard to get ALSA (sound driver) working with my chipset and it hates USB headsets to this day. It also freaks if you pull the mouse out and should I have to do a hard reset it gets grub (boot loader) errors and often cannot see the hard drive. Though that isn't actually Ubuntu's fault; its some funky hardware thing since it isn't even picked up in BIOS.
It freezes now and then, which blows since then I have to hard reset... but thats guaranteed to be my fault as the installation is old and has been messed with to hell since its my 'test subject.'
I should probably start again and leave it nice and clean this time... Only issue is I don't have a spare 500gb hard drive to copy all my junk over to... *sigh*
ANYWAY, rambling there; bottom line is, none of those problems are apparent on my laptop as I haven't gone and screwed with a buttload of system files like I have on the desktop.
I highly recommend Ubuntu for newbies. Hell, I still use it now and I've been on Linux for what, 3 years now?
Arch is also pretty good. I briefly tried Gentoo but I think that hard drive (literally) exploded.
Ubuntu is pretty much all GUI based. However, certain tasks will probably need the terminal (command prompt.)
Grit your teeth and bare it. It isn't often required, and unless you're fixing something that went very wrong - it isn't complicated. 90% of the time that you would need to open the terminal is to open an 'explorer' window with root privileges so that you can screw with your system stuff like sound schemes and themes etc. "gksudo nautilus" isn't hard to remember is it? :P
Hell, if you're anything like me once you get the hang of it you'll do 90% of tasks in the terminal anyway - but its important to know that it isn't necessary.
Ubuntu - Linux for human beings is their slogan for a reason; its easier than Windows in most cases, 'cause it doesn't scream at you; "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG, I'M GONNA DIE NOW!"
People always wave their e-dicks around with OSs and I don't know why; Windows vs OS X is the most obvious one.
People that use Linux do the exact same thing with the distros despite it being the same damn OS at heart. Its this generation's nature I guess; being a trolling retard.
Ubuntu is often criticised for 'being nooby' (actual quote.) True I guess, it really is usable for people that are 100% used to Windows - but where's the problem with that since it does what it does very well, and I haven't seen anything that another distro can do that it can't? Save for Redhat.
Linux Mint is also nice -- based off Ubuntu but made to look "elegant" (I think that was the word they used on their website).
I've been using *buntu linux distros for about 4 years now, and mandriva before that -- and these are pretty decent distros for beginners. My favorite one had to have been Kubuntu 7.10, right before all the KDE linuxes started moving to the experimental and buggy KDE4 interface.
I just got a 1.5TB drive and will be multi-booting Windows XP, Windows 7, Chakra Linux (a fast KDE linux based on arch linux) and some other distro, maybe Fedora.
In ubuntu, you typically have to set a lot of things up like installing audio codecs, flash, 3D video drivers etc. Linux Mint is like ubuntu except they did all that stuff for you, as well it comes with a new theme and some other modifications. Linux Mint is pretty good if you like the GNOME Desktop environment (GNOME is like a customizable version and vastly improved version of windows 2000 environment, whereas KDE4 resembles windows 7 a little more) So if the user interface of Ubuntu or Linux Mint doesnt catch your fancy you might want to try Kubuntu or Linux Mint KDE.
I would suggest you wait awhile before installing ubuntu or Mint, for the very reason that a new version of ubuntu is scheduled to be released on October 29th, which improved bootup speeds and some other modifications which make things easier. The new linux mint will likely be released 1 month after the ubuntu release (Late November/Early December).
Also, check out this article
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/kdegnome
This is all very well but when trying to choose one its terribly confusing, although I think I like Linux Mint the best.
I personally only use Linux Mint or Ubuntu, so that's what I recommend. But you really can't go wrong -- or rather, it's difficult to go wrong with one of the big distros.
Oooo I like the sound of that Chakra. I will admit that I've been slightly swaying towards KDE over Gnome, but it does what I want it to do I guess.
Ok, so I've got my hard drive with no partitions or anything and am trying to partition it. I intend to put a minimalist OS on it first and then through that install a bigger one. Any recommendations on minimalist Operating Systems?
There are a couple minimalist lini -- Damn Small Linux and Puppy Linux jump to the top of my mind. Not sure which to recommend though.
No recommendations on the minimalist OS's, but I do know you can use the gnome partition editor (gparted) on any linux liveCD to partition your drive however you want prior to installing something. I recommend allocating about 40GB for all normal linux installs (30GB to a minimalist linux), 100GB to windows, and the remainder to a shared files partition (NTFS), for your media and some of your programs. The shared media install will allow you to preserve your shared files if your linux or windows installs ever gets wiped.
Nvm I found something. Ever seen this?- http://www.linuxlinks.com/Distributions/Mini_Distributions/
Bleh, perhaps something can be 'too basic.' I can't vouch for any of them so I probably shouldn't pass an opinion, but I think those are a little extreme and would probably do the opposite of entice you to use them.
Having said that, my very first go at Linux was with Knoppix on a LiveCD. I can't say much about it since I didn't know what the hell I was doing back then, but it seemed ok to me. I *think* it used KDE?
I know ZA said don't install it yet - for a very valid reason. I will be using that release as a reason to finally wipe that desktop and starting from scratch. However, its only 700MB and its so easy to install and then re-install over later. Mint makes it even easier, and all the *buntu distros are pretty damn similar aside from the DE. Its probably the best place to start, just don't fine-tune it to exactly how you like it.
Problem. I download and burn a *buntu cd and it always has problems with the disk. I checked the md5 sum and its fine but i cant get it to even start the installation. The one that works the best from CD is Slax and thus i am copying it to the hard drive. Afterwords I will install something else from a CD in Slax. BTW - Tada! Slax - http://www.slax.org/
I really, really don't mean to insult your intelligence - but you burnt it as a bootable ISO and not just data, right?
Yes of course. It works as far as the menu but i select install and then it freezes for a while then gives me a boot disk error message.
Ooo thats new. Hmph... Honestly don't know.
When you say menu, do mean you go straight to install from the boot menu, or do you boot to the LiveCD first? If you try to just install, I'd try to boot to the desktop. If something goes wrong there it might give you a more detailed error message as to exactly what went wrong. If it happens to boot all the way, double click the installer on the desktop and try it that way. I highly doubt it will work but theres no harm in trying.
Quote from: Clavin12 on October 21, 2009, 07:13:24 PM
Yes of course. It works as far as the menu but i select install and then it freezes for a while then gives me a boot disk error message.
Couple things you can try, like burning it at a lower speed, or using a different CD burning program. You can also try putting a linux distro on a thumbdrive and booting from that. Its possible to make thumbdrive and portable HDDs bootable, as I have done it and it works really well for some distros.
Thankfully I was able to install puppy and its working fine.
Ubuntu will also mail you Live CDs for free.
https://shipit.ubuntu.com/
I don't like puppy. I know this seems like a poor reason but does anyone know of an OS (free) that can run on 128 mb RAM?
Hmmm... I'm wondering if you'd have better luck with Damn Small Linux, not really sure how it compares to Puppy though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damn_Small_Linux
Also, you could boot off a live cd and not install?
Lol, I'm trying dsl right now. Attempting to install. I installed once and it said there was a problem with my partitions so I repartitioned it. I might try a different partitioner than the one that comes with dsl.
I've always used gparted and that worked fine for me. But then again, I've never actually run any of these small distros because I didn't need to. Google Chrome OS is coming out within a year (?) and that should be lightweight and such. Little hardware support though, so... yeah... I don't think it'll be available for "download and install."
Can you recommend a bootable hard drive wiping utility?
If you can boot (but not install) from a Ubuntu live CD, you might be able to run "gparted" from that. Not sure what to recommend aside from that though.
A quick google search gave me this page: http://www.thefreecountry.com/security/securedelete.shtml
I can't vouch for any of them because i haven't used them before, but that's an option.
Acronis is good.
Whoopsie, isn't free, sorry.
Unless you want to buy it of course. I get on great with it.
Heres a link anyway.
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/diskdirector/
Congrats to me because i'm typing this from my laptop running Zenwalk linux off of the hardrive, with only 128 mb ram. :lol:
Congrats!
Quote from: Clavin12 on December 02, 2009, 08:53:44 AM
Congrats to me because i'm typing this from my laptop running Zenwalk linux off of the hardrive, with only 128 mb ram. :lol:
Awesome, how does it run? I'd like to know what distro's are good for machines that have low RAM. Some of the ones I tried so far are pretty crappy.
DSL (damn small Linux) runs super fast but its terribly ugly and not very productive. Puppy is a little better and it has a better word processor. I could get my wireless car to work with it where I couldn't in DSL. Zenwalk is a lot bigger than either of these and runs slower, but I like it better because it has a lot better programs, such as open office. It actually comes in 4 different versions: Standard, Core, Live CD, and Gnome edition. One problem I did find was that I couldn't find a version of WINE to go with it.
http://www.zenwalk.org/ (http://www.zenwalk.org/)
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/)
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/)
Well you could always compile wine, for most programs compiling is easy (./configure -> make -> sudo make install) but something like wine sounds like it might be a little more difficult, and some OS's require you to use certain flags (like -xcv) in the compile command, and sometimes you gotta install dev headers for certain things -- but its not a big deal if you're not as lazy as I am when it comes to doing things the long way.
Crap, its not working. I booted a couple times and it was fine then it gave me a kernel panic error. I wiped and reinstalled. A couple boots later it started giving me errors about a badly configured X. Should I find something else or keep trying?
Are you talking about a random zenwalk problem, or did you try to compile wine and it somehow went off the rails?
A random Zenwalk problem. I think their related though because they both happened after I rebooted a couple times.
Well, i dont know the exact details of your problems but one of the stock solutions of X problems is to login as root and run the command:
nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf
and make sure that the driver variable is set to "vesa" (or if you're using "nvidia", then try "nv") and restart the x server (or the computer)
Some OS's or drivers have commands to configure x, like ubuntu's command "sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" or for people using the proprietary nvidia drivers an also try "sudo nvidia-xconfig"
Only try the X reconfiguring commands if your research turns up nothing.
My troubles are over. My neighbor found his win2k cd. :-P And now I'm duel booting win2k and ubuntu.
Word up.
At least on the desktop (which I might not have told you about). On the laptop I just have win2k. I found out something also. Tomboy Notes is great for everything and more writing related.
Yeah, it's pretty cool to have a little notes program like that.
Unfortunately I can't get it to work on windows. It takes a .net framwork and gtk#. I got those but for some reason it just won't start.