Re: Experiment: Neophyte versus Windows XP
Simon Kitching wrote:
On Tue, 2004-07-20 at 17:46, Mark e Plummer wrote:
Hello,
I have just read your article as best I could.
Just curious -- what article?
I am thinking about dumping Windows XP because it is a pain, I was
looking at Mandrake and ReHat. Debian Woody I have never heard off
until five minutes ago.
Is it really hard to understand. Or as I am not a programmer should I
even be thinking about using it.
I pretty much agree with Simon's comments, but here's a few of my own.
If you are the type of person who likes to buy an old junker car and
dive in a rebuild the thing, go with Debian; elsewise go with a distro
such as Mandrake or Redhat that is more tuned for beginners.
(This is not to say that Debian requires the same level of effort needed
to rebuild a junker car, but it does take more of that type of mentality
than does Mandrake, et al, although Debian is getting easier for the
newbie.)
Provided you have a reasonable-size hard drive, you can have multiple
operating systems installed on the same PC by "partitioning" your disk
drive. Or if you're short of disk space, you can always buy another disk
drive to experiment with.
If you're not familiar with partitioning, I'd _highly_ recommend a
second disk drive, or even better, a second computer to tinker with.
There are even Linux versions that run direct from CD without needing to
be installed at all, but that is probably not what you're looking for.
This might be the easiest way for you to get your feet wet. For example,
you can go to http://www.knoppix.org and download the most recent
Knoppix image and burn it to CD (not as a data file, but as an image).
Then you can boot off the resulting CD. This will provide you with a
complete Linux environment (based on Debian, but not actually Debian)
that will give you a good feel for how Linux looks/feels. Be aware that
running the system from CD means it'll run slow; a properly installed
Linux system will run faster than a LiveCD.
When you need to go back to Windows, just shut down the Linux system,
remove the CD, reboot, and you're back to your normal Windows system
like nothing ever happened.
Also, because everything's running off the CD, your settings won't be
saved from Knoppix session to Knoppix session, unless you put in a
little extra work to save the settings to some other medium (floppy,
flash drive, space on your hard disk, etc); there's a menu item in
Knoppix to help you do that, but I've never used it so don't know what's
involved.
About 6 GBytes is a good amount to use for a linux install. Of course if
you can spare more, then that is good - you'll need somewhere to put
your music and photo collections ;-).
You can install Linux (depending on what features you want) in a
considerably smaller space, just like you can install Windows in a
considerably smaller space than what's comfortable. But like Simon, I'd
suggest about 6GB for a comfortable playground.
Regarding which linux distribution to install, both Mandrake and RedHat
are good choices. Debian is a little harder to use initially, but more
powerful once you get to know it.
It's been my impression that a lot of Debian fans start off with one of
these other distros, then try another, then try another, never being
quite happy, and then finally try Debian, and stick with it, because it
just works better. But as Simon implies, Debian requires a steeper
learning curve to get started than does those other distros.
So if you're willing to put up with frustrations and work and effort,
but with lots of learning how the under-the-hood processes work (thus
making you a more knowledgeable gnerd), then start out with Debian. If
you just want something easy to play with for a few months to figure out
what you think, try Mandrake, Redhat, S.u.S.E., etc. If you just want to
take a quick look-see, try a LiveCD like Knoppix or Morphix or Gnoppix.
--
Kent
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