Windows to Linux switch what distro/book?

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videogamer323

Limp Gawd
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Jan 31, 2003
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Total windows user here, but I want to make the switch to linux. Had Fedora Core 4 on my machine for 2 days when I crashed it trying to install nvidia drivers lol. Now I get BSOD. Well I want to learn NOW, so I was going to run out to my local bookstore and pick up Sams Fedora 3 Unleashed. This a good book and is fedora 3 that much diff from 4 cause the Unleashed 4 book isnt coming out till next month... Or is there a better book/distro combo I could go with. I have no real exp with Linux maybe 10 hours at max of just fiddling (leading in the above BSOD)
 
Knoppix is a nice distribution to start with. It's very popular so support is easy to find. You can run it without installing it, and installed (simple to do) it has a great package manager (apt-get). It's mostly setup for you already and there are several hundred flavors of it that people have customized. Plus if you ever run into trouble, you can boot the CD and use it for rescue/repair.
 
I'm pretty much a Linux noob and am using Ubuntu (same a kubuntu only w/ Gnome rather than KDE) with no trouble at all.
 
Any really good guides you guys know of to help me get started?
Or maybe a good book or 2?
Thanks
 
Read a book? ... don't ya just just keep clicking until something happens? :)
videogamer323 said:
Any really good guides you guys know of to help me get started?
Or maybe a good book or 2?
Thanks
Click to expand...
 
LOL, I tried that read my first post about my BSOD ;)
I would like to get a book or good guide (online) because I'm currently working 2 jobs so I don't have a lot of time just to fiddle and reinstall all the time. I want to get my feet wet then fiddle so I at least semi know what I'm doing and can maybe even fix it :eek:
 
bsod in linux?? didnt think that was possible

anyway, trying to drop windows cold turkey without any experience in linux is suicide. you really have 2 options.
1)use 1 of the live cd's. nothing to install, easy to try different versions, and leaves windows alone so your system doesnt become a doorstop.
2)dual boot, install linux on another partiton. just about every distro can live on the same system as windows. gives full access to linux and its abilities. required more of a commitment than the cd, but is better for serious use.

check out Distrowatch.com just about anything in the top 10 would be good to start with. ubuntu, knopix, fedora, and mandriva are more or less noobie friendly. gentoo and slackware give the full initiaion, or maybe thats hazing, where you build everything from scratch.

if your a gamer be prepared for headaches, only a few games will run native. everything else requires emulation. and even when that works performance is usually less or eye candy gets turned sour.

books are nice but your best resourses will be the community forums and faq's for each distro.

glhf
 
I haven't worked with Fedora, but I can say that I've played with Suse 9.2 and it's pretty enjoyable. Everything auto-installed for me, though I do hear people have issues with their wireless cares with Suse. I can use either the GUI or bash at will. There's also a Suse 9 Bible which is great...but like all Bibles, you'll have to be willing to go though 500 pages or so.

As a side generalization: Suse is to Europe as Redhat/Fedora is to the States - Preferred linux distros for enterprises servers. So no worries about support and stability.
 
Running Linux is a good book, and Beginning Programming Linux is good for the programmers out there (has beginning Linux stuff in it too).
Linux in a nutshell is more of a reference, not much of a guide.
The distro specific books are ok, but they cover alot of stuff that you probably won't use at all. So their nice to have around when you finally decide your distro.
 
I'm in the same boat....
Being a n00b at linux.
I've been playing with the simplyMEPIS distro.
It's really cool in that what you get booting off of the CD is Exactly the same as what you get booting after installation.
Installation is a breeze... just click one link on the desktop answer a few questions and it installs itself.
It also has just about every application that you'd need for a desktop computer pre-installed. You can even run them from the CD.
Check them out.
Here is the LINK

 
From my experience, this book was the best thing I could have possibly read for my move from Windows to Linux.


RUTE

 
I think it is somewhat weird how it appears that "choosing the distro" is a major problem with switching. In all honesty, my problem with Linux is not installing it or choosing a distro, but USING it. I have used windows for ages -unfortunately- and have tried to get something going with Linux 2-3 times, but I am always at the point where I have a version running and then ask myself "so what now"?

I mean I would need a nice programming IDE (I like Visual Studio a lot!) and I'd like a WSYWYG text editor (word compatible please). Then, I think I heard that I can get LaTeX for Linux pretty easily, and I am sure TeXnicCenter is available for Linux, but I'd not even have the slightest clue how to install it.

Next up, I need a graphical FTP program (using SmartFTP for windows) and a real player decoder (using real alternative for win32) and some CD-ROM emulator, CD-burning program, DVD ripper. Can I still remote desktop with Linux?

see, I think that the problem isn't "how do I get Linux running" but rather "what can I do once I have it"....

my 2 cents.
 
i think everything you want is either included in most distros, or available in a binary package for easy install. a few minutes on a community site or with google would have solved all those problems.
 
drizzt81 said:
I mean I would need a nice programming IDE (I like Visual Studio a lot!) and I'd like a WSYWYG text editor (word compatible please). Then, I think I heard that I can get LaTeX for Linux pretty easily, and I am sure TeXnicCenter is available for Linux, but I'd not even have the slightest clue how to install it.
Click to expand...

For your IDE, give KDevelop a spin. It is a very feature rich IDE and will probably provide a similar feel to Visual Studio.

Four your WYSIWYG text editor, OpenOffice.org is a complete office package and should be included in most major distributions. I find it to be as good as Microsoft Office and the embedded PDF creater is a fantastic feature, not to mention support for MSO file types.

drizzt81 said:
Next up, I need a graphical FTP program (using SmartFTP for windows) and a real player decoder (using real alternative for win32) and some CD-ROM emulator, CD-burning program, DVD ripper. Can I still remote desktop with Linux?
Click to expand...


gFTP should have you covered for you FTP needs (and should be installed by default)

RealPlayer/Helix should cover your RealPlayer needs (should be installed by default in major distros)

DVD::rip has been one of my favorite DVD rippers for a while now

K3B , in my opinion the best CD/DVD writing software period.

Hope this helps! :cool:

 
I've always used RH (now Fedora) and I found it to be relatively newbie friendly. Plus, it's popular and there's usually never a shortage of sites where you can find help if you need it.
 
Okay heres how i switched to linux.... well not completely switched yet but obtained a happy mutual existance. First I started off wrong by trying to replace windows with linux on my main machine. Dual booting is fun for a bit, but soon as you get sick of having to spend an hour to do something you know how to do in 2 seconds under windows you'll be spending less and less time in linux till eventually you never bother to reboot to linux. Least thats what always happened to me.

Then, I was upgrading and had a few extra parts, bought a $60 mobo and all sudden had a 2nd computer, athlon xpm @ 3200+, nf2mobo with onboard video (gf4) sound and nic... extra harddrive and i was set. Spent another $30 for a KVM or whatever those switches are.... now i got a nice computer dedicated to linux.. when i get sick of something i hit a key on the keyboard and am happy under windows. Some problem occurs? So fast to switch between windows and broken linux box, easy to search google for fix.

I think gentoo is the best way to quickly learn, the installation isn't brainless but if you can follow step by step instructions you can do it and aactually learn something along the way. Plus every problem i've ever had (except 1), gentoo forum search had my answer. Someone else had it already and another person has written a howto to fix it.

Extra computer might not be cheapest way of doing things but it was very effective, I spend bout 80% of my time in linux... gaming (due to slow cpu) is still in windows as well as burning cds/dvds because there isn't any type drive in my linux computer... just pulled the one outa windows machine to run install linux and then put it back in the windows one.

Also about different versions, Knoppix and all are super easy to install but you really have no clue what happened, at least imo. LIvecds you actually don't have to anything at all and everytbhing pretty much works. THen you try fiddling with something that you have no clue about and it breaks. Least under gentoo few things i broke i could go "oh yea i rmeember how i set that up at first" and could figure out hwo to fix stuff.... i dunnnno I love gentoo. Gentoo Forum is also the holy grail of information.
 
Well, let me give my $.02 on how I learned linux.

I started in 1999 with a mandrake distro that a friend had burned for me. I installed it on a spare box and played around a bit to try to figure things out. I managed to write a script to initialize a ppp connection to my isp and browse the web with linux. That's about as far as I got with it, and I had a fair amount of help from a girlfriend at the time who had been an aix/solaris sysadmin for many many moons.

I then went through the distribution identity crisis after my inode tabe went south on that disk and tried every distro I could get my hands on. I ended up with a slackware box that I kept for about 6 months and used as a way to get onto kazaa from work. :D

Then, I discovered Debian. Debian is my best friend. Debian is my arch nemesis. I love it, I hate it, I love to hate it. The installation is logical and well ordered. The software installation tools are incredible, with superb out of the box dependency resolution. The only problem that I've run into is that with EVERY Debian install I've ever had except for the most recent one, I've managed to get the system so far out of whack that I was unable to update or install software anymore. Every time, I made an effort to resolve these issues, but I gave up. I know the boxes could have been saved, but I didn't think it was worth the effort because I had discovered:

GENTOO.

Gentoo is, in my (biased, eletist, insensitive, etc.) opinion, the greatest Linux distribution (and second greatest operating system) in existence. I'm not quite sure I can put my finger on any one thing that makes me think this, but some of the contributing factors are:
1. Performance: gentoo runs faster (marginally) than any other distro i've tried on any piece of hardware i've ever tried it on
2. Elegant system design: everything that runs on your computer is customized the way that you dictate. **DISCLAIMER** This allows you to shoot yourself in the foot very easily and with a powerful weapon. Without the ability to do very stuipd things, you are not able to also do very clever things.
3. Software Library: the amount of software available in the ports library is impressive
4. Excellent Forums

On the other side of an imaginary fence that most people don't even see: OpenBSD
I love OpenBSD. Theo is my hero. Yes, as almost anyone that follows the events of the open source movement can tell you, Theo can be an ass. The thing about it is, he's an ass that's usually right. There is MOST DEFINITELY a reason that more and more network appliances are moving to OpenBSD under the covers and away from linux. It's just PLAIN BETTER. I mean... cmon... systrace policies RULE if you're trying to keep people out. Additionally, pf is the slickest and (to my network-retarded brain) the easiset to figure out firewalling ruleset language. Your mileage my vary.

In conclusion.... if you're computer savvy enough to read hardware reviews and have gotten all you can out of windows, look into an OpenBSD (and/)or a Gentoo box. The learnng curve can be a bit steep at times, but it is very worth the climb. All of my self taught *nix skills that I earned are now being put to use as my primary job function.

Good Luck
-q
 
I started out with RedHat. It was ok. I could browse the web, play music, etc. And things worked most of the time. The problem was with installing new software. If there was something I wanted that did not come on my redhat cd, you could just forget it. I would download an RPM. Find out it had a dependency, and download it. Then the dependency would fail, because it too had a dep. On and on, one package at a time until 30 min later, I could install the one little app I wanted in the first place: wmfire. Needless to say I ditched linux after a short time of this. I know RedHat has probably improved since then, but after that hell, I will never intentionally use it again (as long as it is RPM based).

Then I later tried debian. This was a lot better. For most things you could just do: "apt-get install <package>", and the deps would be handled for you. I also like how debian is .conf file friendly. I would much rather edit some files than have to mouse around in some redhat custom GUI bullshit.

I used debian for a while, and I still like it, but wow. Gentoo. Just wow. Gentoo is everything I could ever want (well, emerge could use a few extra command line options), and then some. Source based installs, no more dependancy hell, everything is set up by editing files, god, let me say it again, I hate GUI config bullshit. Gentoo gives me controll, never complains, and is easy to keep up to date. I don't think I'll ever switch : )
 
qfour20 said:
Then, I discovered Debian. Debian is my best friend. Debian is my arch nemesis. I love it, I hate it, I love to hate it. The installation is logical and well ordered. The software installation tools are incredible, with superb out of the box dependency resolution. The only problem that I've run into is that with EVERY Debian install I've ever had except for the most recent one, I've managed to get the system so far out of whack that I was unable to update or install software anymore. Every time, I made an effort to resolve these issues, but I gave up. I know the boxes could have been saved, but I didn't think it was worth the effort because I had discovered.
Click to expand...


The SimplyMEPIS distro is a Debian compilation, also.

 
I've been looking to get back into linux recently also. A few years ago I installed Mandrake, really without a clue what I was doing. I didn't really know what it was, so I played around a little bit, and gave up.

More recently, I tried Gentoo. Gentoo is a very neat Linux distro. The portage system was an amazing feature. I did seem to have some strange problems though. My grub.conf was set up properly, but it did not boot right. I had to manually mount and boot the driver every time I restarted the computer. That was very annoying. I tried Gentoo on a work machine, and after a while I we just reimaged the machine with windows.

I have most of the parts for a second machine, that will be dedicated to linux. All I really have left is to buy a case and ram.

As for right now, I'm going to try a LiveCD of Ubuntu, as I've heard many good things about this distro.

If I can get the parts to finish of that other machine, I believe I'm going to try running Gentoo again. Hopefully I will have more luck this time.
 
I started .. in 2000, I think. Played around with assorted linux distros (redhat, corel, mandrake, others ), but didn't really use them for anything useful. I did get used to the basic tools, though. (Come to think of it, bash must have been my first shell. Can't have done that much of an impression, I feel much more at home with tcsh. :D )
Over the next years I played around with assorted OSes [1], and ended up using FreeBSD for my unix-ish needs. [2] I've read a lot of manuals, how-tos and forum discussions. :)
I've also tried and failed [3] my way through a number of installs, configurations and programs.

In short, I've done all the things that let me look at newcomers and say things that begin with "In my day, we had to ...".
:D

What I am trying to say is that even things that sound difficult can be done by a newbie, given good documentation and some willpower. (Stubbornness or boredom also work.)



[1] OS/2 W4 + extra software makes a perfectly good ISDN->NAT box, but it's a bit slow on a 486 with 20mb of ram. BeOS 5 PE was marvellous when it was new. And yes, the QNX boot floppy is still impressive. The Solaris x86 installer has improved a lot since the first time around.
[2] FreeBSD was also a bit slow on the 486. Dualbooting the P2/300 was a massive improvment, but things only really got going when I got a new PC and dedicated the P2 to FreeBSD.
[3] Mostly in harmless ways, though that one time I overwrote my partition table with a solaris boot partition was kind of hairy.
 
ubuntu is the first Linux distro that stands a chance in Hell of being a true Windows competitor, in my honest opinion. It is a diamond in the rough, and with enough effort on the part of its developers, I can see it emerging into the mainstream. Like Firefox, it has a shot at the Bigtime.
 
I think one of the best ways to learn *nix is to decide a goal (e.g. I want to use linux as a ftp/web/file server). Research online what tools do what you need done and look for ways to accomplish the goal.

Also don't be afraid to fuck up. I have loat many files and windows partitions in my day, but now I'm very competent in Linux and I'm working my way into FreeBSD.
 
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