OT: Linux

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Will:
You could also grab a Knoppix CD to test drive a Linux environment, so you get a better feel for it before diving right in.

Except that Knoppix is likely to leave a real nasty impression of Linux, regardless of whether you're more a Windows or Unix person. I tried Knoppix and despised it, and I've been programming msdos/windows since about 84 and Unix since 90.

Knoppix : A bad desktop, a bad shell, and making even a fairly fast (Athlon 2600+ with 512 megs on an nForce2 mb) computer feel slow.

Ewww. The _only_ thing Knoppix does is let you avoid losing a partition (or entire drive, if things go bad) while installing a proper Linux.

[SalsaDoom]

Slackware Linux 10.

Slackware is fast, stable and secure. Its got a great selection of apps on the cd, your choice of gnome or kde.. no linux distrobution is as fast or stable as Slackware. Gentoo's reckless use of optimizations and poorly tested ebuilds makes it unstable. Red's unsecure, bloated... SuSE is .. commerical, and the free Versions are incomplete. Debian is ugly, crufty and messy. I've been using linux since '94, and I learned on slackware and its the best thing, because Slackware doesn't hide the OS from the user with a bunch of (usually unstable) GUI tools. When you learn slackware you can say you've learned linux, with redhat or suse your just learning redhat or suse.

Course, all of the above is just my opinion

--SD

[Arryn]

Before you go deleting partitions, I'd recommend buying Partition Magic (v8.0), which allows you to resize and/or create new partitions without the hassles of M$'s FDISK. OTOH, PM will cost you more than any of linux distros you'd be buying. But PM is, IMO, a useful investment for anyone who's a serious Windows (or dual-boot) computer user (otherwise known as 'geeks').

EDIT: guess that make me a geekette ...

[ July 23, 2004, 22:20: Message edited by: Arryn ]

[Thilock_Dominus]

Hi, thanks for all the inputs, suggestions and input. I really appriate that .
I've choosen Mandrake 10.0 as a start and I'm at the moment downloading it and later burning it on CDs. Surely I'll try the other Versions of linux later but I think I should take one step at the time.
Here is my Idea to put up my harddisc with dual boot: C: WinXP Pro (20gb) D: Mandrake 10.0 Linux (30gb) E: Games/notes/stuff (30gb) maybe later another OS on the E: Drive like Linspire?


Isn't Slackware for the more advanced and pro linux user? I'm totally newbie when it comes to programming (execpt CMD64 basic language )?

How does a linux partition works vs. NTFS?


best regards
Thilock

[Esben Mose Hansen]

Originally posted by SalsaDoom:

Course, all of the above is just my opinion

--SD

And untrue. E.g, Gentoo left at it's defaults is not optimized beyond the basics. (-O2 -march=..). Gentoo is stable as a rock, as long as you keep yourself to stable ebuilds. Please don't spread FUD about things of which you are obviously ignorant. Thanks.

Uh-oh. We're just done with the obligatory Nazis thread, and now it's time for the OS religious wars. Run for your lives!

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Mark the Merciful:
Uh-oh. We're just done with the obligatory Nazis thread, and now it's time for the OS religious wars. Run for your lives!

Damn! I missed the Nazis thread! Sigh.

[Gandalf Parker]

One of my many sig files says....

-- I guess the new social rule is that politics, religion, and operating system are not topics for polite company.

[Sheap]

Slackware is a little more oriented to the advanced user, but I learned on Slackware (back when it was still the #1 distribution). If you are used to working in a commandline environment then you will be OK. You don't need to know any programming to set up or use the system, but if you do have some programming ability you can do additional things that you couldn't do otherwise (but this is not specific to Slackware, it's true of all Unix).

I use Slackware myself, primarily because it is very tolerant of being altered. Many distributions get a little antsy if you start tinkering with their stuff.

As far as Linux vs. NT/XP filesystems:
Linux has its own filesystem, called ext3. (There are other filesystems around, but this is more or less the "standard" one). Windows XP uses NTFS, which is called NTFS because it was originally developed for Windows NT. Files stored in a Linux ext3 filesystem can't be accessed by Windows, and while Linux can read NTFS, it can't write to it, at least not to recent Versions. It can both read and write DOS and Windows 95/98/ME filesystems. (And there are third-party commercial programs for both Windows and Linux that allow full access to the other OS's filesystems, if you really need it).

[Esben Mose Hansen]

Originally posted by Sheap:
Linux has its own filesystem, called ext3. (There are other filesystems around, but this is more or less the "standard" one).

Is ext3 standard? I'm not sure that is the case. If think SuSE use reiserfs (namesys made), and Gentoo recommends ext2, ext3 and reiserfs. The Last major filesystems in XFS (SGI made this, do not use without an UPS!) and JFS (which IBM made, and which rather sucks, I gather )

Just in case you encounter any of the others...