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Want to wet my beak with Linux,need suggestions on distro.

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Martin:
I recommend Debian purely for the reason that it has been my long running favourite in command line mode hehe!

On another note, Gentoo has an excellent package system called Portage that can make installing software so much easier....

Just my 2 cents.

Martin

Carol Haynes:
If you just want to experiment with Linux there are a number of distros that will run from CD (just to give a feel) and don't need any installing (or hard disc space). Not sure how they work, but presumably they create some sort of virtual disc to act as a Swap File and Temporary storage area.

This is slightly out of date now but here is a quote from Fred Langa's newsletter (the tinyurl link still works by the way):

Wow! Tons And Tons Of Free Small/No-Footprint Linux CDs!
Many other readers also are interested in zero-footprint or small-footprint Linux distributions. For example:

Hi Fred, about CD-Bootable Linux--- you may be interested to check this  http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Operating_Systems/Linux/Distributions/Live_CD/ (or http://tinyurl.com/9qyr )  See, DMOZ / Google directory has a whole section about CD-Bootable Linux Distros ! Cheers, MLL

Anybody mention U/WIN? http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/uwin/  I use it daily under Win2KPro and have found it to be stable and relatively complete, I've had one shell window open continuously for nearly 2 months, running a Perl server monitor script with NO problems. Oh - Not running ANY "Winders" apps - just the U/WIN shell and Perl script. Bill Powell

Fred, In the item "A Way To Install Linux Inside Windows" in your latest Langalist, you stated that PhatLinux might be the easiest way to try Linux without partitioning, etc. I have used an easier solution on and off for years. "Linux4Win," a feature of Mandrake Linux ( http://www.mandrakelinux.com ), allows a user to run Linux on their Windows system without creating any sort of partition at all. In fact, when installed, there is a "Run Linux4Win" icon on the user's desktop that allows them to "boot" into Linux straight from their Windows environment. Thought you might be interested! More info available online (i.e. Google).--- John Anderson

To add to your latest article on Linux Distro's... Suse'  ( http://www.suse.com/ ) also has "Run from CD" Versions of it's latest versions of linux available from their web site... Ran Flawless on an older AMD 300Mhz Aptiva with 256MB memory, and a ThinkPad A20 Cel 600... Thanks and enjoy, Eric

For those readers who are curious and would like to give Linux a try, but are maybe hesitant or just don't quite yet want to worry about partitioning yet, they can try Peanut Linux. It installs as a 'directory' in a windows OS, and all one has to do, is boot their system like normal, and then just click on it in the menu to run it. No partitioning is involved at all, the download is about 340MB IIRR (which might take a while with dial-up, but it's worth it IMHO. Or if they have a friend with Cable or DSL, it can be burned onto a CD), and when installed uses less than 1GB (800MB is more correct, but you'll want to think about any apps or games or what-have-you as  later downloads to try, etc). It's actually what I did about 4 years ago, because I was 'curious' and was looking for an alternative to Windows because I was tiring of the 'troubles' Windows was always giving (and other reasons), and it was what made me switch over completely to Linux. Anyway, all the info about it and the download can be found here http://www.ibiblio.org/peanut/ , just navigate to the 'how-to' section for instructions on installation.--- John Berger

Hi fred, 2 things I wanted to let you know... 1) Read your piece about knoppix. Yep, knoppix is great stuff. But there is another (not so known) distro alot like it and it is also great. HPA's SuperRescue 2.1.x: http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/superrescue/v2/  Created by H. Peter Anvin, you know, the same guy that created the great syslinux and isolinux bootstrap loaders. It is based on redhad 7.x (initrd based on RedHat 6.x). Looks a lot like knoppix. The main difference is that it does not use bios "floppy emulation" so the kernel size is not limited to the maximum emulated floppy size (2.88mb). This is what makes isolinux great Check the readme file for more information. http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/superrescue/v2/README  --Bart Lagerweij

Thanks to all who wrote in! It's going to be fun to try these out!

BTW, the "SuperRescue" disk that Bart mentions shows a nice sense of geeky humor. The author calls his creation, "The most overfeatured rescue disk ever created--- Bloatware at its finest!" <g>


--- End quote ---

tinyvillager:
Thanks for response,
My enthusiasm strayed a little after my upgrades.I got so locked into hardware issues and Windows customizing
the ideal kind of took a back seat,i sincerely appreciate your help though.I've toyed with live distros but i'd like
to commit.But the thougts of dual booting seems scary.I just need to buckle down and really do some homework
on it.When Microsoft starts bleeding into it's next OS,Vista i believe,i'd like to go a different direction even if it means going to a mac.

Rover:
When Microsoft starts bleeding into it's next OS,Vista i believe,i'd like to go a different direction even if it means going to a mac.
-tinyvillager (November 23, 2005, 06:27 AM)
--- End quote ---
Just curious, why is Vista putting you over the edge?  I'm mean heck, MS is starting to get the hang of OS/2* programming so XP is pretty stable these days.  Heck they even act like they're starting to think about taking security seriously.   :o



* Fer you kids too young to remeber, back in the late 80's MS & IBM teamed up to create OS/2.  When the broke up in the early 90's both had rights to the kernel.  Up until Win2K, you could still see references to OS/2 in the environment variables. 

Carol Haynes:
Dual booting works fine with most distros I have tried, hell I have even had it dual-dual booting ... (Linux Grub loads at start up and offers Linux and Windows, and if you choose Windows it goes to my multi boot windows).

The only real issue is getting rid of Grub (or other loaders) if you want to drop Linux. If you use Windows 2000 or XP this is done by running the recovery environment from the install CD and using the command FIXBOOT, for Windows 9x/ME you use the Windows rescue floppy and run FDISK /MBR

There are two other approaches you can use to dual boot:

1) Let Windows Boot.ini handle the dual boot (ie. just add the Linux boot to your windows startup). This is a bit fiddly to do but not impossible.

2) Use a boot manager to install Linux (something like BootIT) and then use that Boot manager to handle your multiboot system.

The only reason I have dumped Linux at the moment is it has totally crap support for wireless networks. In particular an awful lot of common hardware simply doesn't have native drivers. OK there are various wrappers you can play and tinker with so that you use Windows drivers in Linux, but given that Windows wireless drivers are notoriously temperamental in Windows I dread to think what the troubleshooting would be like in Linux.

Once decent wireless support is forthcoming (without the need for a Masters Degree in Wireless Technology to configure it) I will install Linux again - until then it is sitting in its box.

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