Help me prep for my first Linux install

[Titan]

Ok, I have used linux, max OS X, and Unixes a lot professionally. I have even programmed and maintained the utilities (sed,awk,tar) for a little-known commercial unix.

I have 2 PCs at home, an old 32 bit athlon system, and my beast, the server board opteron. They are linked with a KVM switch. I keep using the crappy system for all my daily computing while the beast has sat there with vista x64 ultimate on it. All my music is on it, but I just haven't been spending much time at my home comp. I want to put linux on it as a key to rediscovering my love of computers and programing, while still rocking to tunes and gaming.

I have never bothered to put linux on my PCs. Windows all the way just because it's easy. I'm good at installing windows, just I am sick of all the BS in windows these days.

My hardware is fairly old, 4 year old mobo, 2 year graphics card, should be a snap. Dual dual cores, operon 885's 2.6.ghz. Onboard everything except Geforce 260 graphics card, and an M-Audio Revolution 5.1 sound card.

I want to install gentoo for maximum performance. i really have no experience setting up and installing linux. But I can use a shell.

So here's the deal. My main os drive is a 74gb WD raptor, and I have it ready to wipe, copied everything on it off system. I also have about 3 hard drives, maybe 3TB total, loaded with music, movies and other stuff. I think they are all in the NTFS file system. So whatever I install in linux, I need to access the data on those local drives.

I am a programmer and eventually I want to detup a dev environment but let's take things one at a time. Also for windows stuff I want WINE and maybe some other virtualization. Is there any VM software that will map to my video card so I can play older 3D games in a windows XP VM?

So what's the first step, and how easy is this to do?

 

[lxskllr]

I don't have much advice for you, but Gentoo? Isn't that the pain version of Linux? I don't think it would be significantly faster than an easier distro, certainly not for the extra effort it takes.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
Gentoo? Isn't that the pain version of Linux?

LoL! I didn't want to discourage the guy, but...

Gentoo is a very old (and capable) distro, but AFAIK, it's normally used by devs, the scientific community, and so forth, and so on - and they use Gentoo for very specific purposes, NOT for general desktop useage. I've never installed it, because I've read the horror stories. Even though I've installed dozens of other distros, Gentoo intimidates me!

In the old days (despite his expertise) I doubt if he'd even be able to install it.

Here you go...

Source: http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major (DistroWatch | Major Distributions)

The concept of Gentoo Linux was devised in around the year 2000 by Daniel Robbins, a former Stampede Linux and FreeBSD developer.[...]

Gentoo Linux was designed for power users. Originally, the installation was cumbersome and tedious, requiring hours or even days of compiling on the command line to build a complete Linux distribution[...]

Gentoo Linux has lost much of its original glory in recent years. Some Gentoo users have come to a realisation that the time-consuming compiling of software packages brings only marginal speed and optimisation benefits. Ever since the resignation of Gentoo's founder and benevolent dictator from the project in 2004, the newly established Gentoo Foundation has been battling with lack of clear directions and frequent developer conflicts, which resulted in several high-profile departures of well-known Gentoo personalities. It remains to be seen whether Gentoo can regain its innovative qualities of the past or whether it will slowly disintegrate into a loose collection of personal sub-projects lacking clearly-defined goals.

So, there, I said it... 😀

Really, dude, I don't mean to thread crap here, but I think you'd be better served experimenting with a more conventional distro...

 

[Titan]

Ok fine, so no gentoo. I guess Unbuntu is the way to go?

 

[lxskllr]

Ubuntu or it's derivatives are always a good choice, and my first choice. Mandriva, Opensuse, and Fedora are also fairly popular. I like Ubuntu best, but if you want to look around, check out distrowatch.com VinDSL linked above. They show screen shots, and give a brief description of each.

 

[Nothinman]

I want to install gentoo for maximum performance. i really have no experience setting up and installing linux. But I can use a shell.

There's no appreciable performance benefit to compiling your own stuff, anyone saying otherwise is confused. If you want to go through a Gentoo stage1 install just for the experience, go for it. But I doubt you'll want to deal with it in the long term. Good package management in systems like Debian and Ubuntu will make Gentoo seem like a huge waste of time.

I am a programmer and eventually I want to detup a dev environment but let's take things one at a time. Also for windows stuff I want WINE and maybe some other virtualization. Is there any VM software that will map to my video card so I can play older 3D games in a windows XP VM?

WINE doesn't run everything out there, it's pretty hit or miss. You should only use Windows apps in WINE as a last resort, you'll have a much better time using native Linux apps. And I don't think any VM does 3D well yet, you'll probably have an easier time with WINE.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Titan
Ok fine, so no gentoo. I guess Unbuntu is the way to go?

Yeah, Ubu is a good starting point. I run it on a couple of macines on my LAN. I didn't care for it initially, but Jaunty (9.04) changed my mind.

I also like Mint 6 & 7. That's what I'm using (as I type) on this multi-booted netbook (Mint 7 | Solaris | XP)...

openSuSE is another good distro - KDE or Gnome version (take your pick).

And, if you have any doorstops laying around, you can't beat Puppy Linux, IMHO. I'm running that on an ancient Fujitsu Lifebook (32MB RAM | s-l-o-w Celeron CPU | 5GB HDD) with great success.

If you fancy running Gentoo, e.g. want to run something different, you might try Sabayon (once you get accustomed to Linux):

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=sabayon (DistroWatch | Sabayon Linux)

This distro is based on Gentoo, in much the same way Debian -> Ubuntu -> Linux Mint.

Sabayon has always intrigued me! I started to install it several times, but somehow never got around to it (yet). 🙂

Happy hunting!

 

[Titan]

ok so first question, will I have no problem getting to files on my other hard drives that use NTFS? Or is this impossible/a PITA to do?

 

[lxskllr]

Linux can read NTFS, but not write to it. Windows can't read or write to the common Linux file systems. It's customary to use a FAT partition for dual use between the 2 O/Ss.

 

[Nothinman]

Linux can read NTFS, but not write to it. Windows can't read or write to the common Linux file systems. It's customary to use a FAT partition for dual use between the 2 O/Ss

The in-kernel driver is read-only last I checked but NTFS-3g via FUSE works pretty well. I've heard of performance issues and I'd still want to chkdsk it periodically if I was using it for a long time, but in general it should be fine.

 

[sgtwiltan]

Gentoo is to linux as DOS is to Windows. The benefit is that you get to choose only what you wnat so you don't get umpteen millions drivers for a gajillion different devices and you also get to specify only what services(daemons) you want to run. However if you are asking about which Linux to install, this might not be for you unless you have access to old (circa 1990's era) install CDs just for familiarization. Newer distros tend to be much more setup-and-go from Live CD to install and then wait for the latest updates in whatever package manager that distro uses. Then you also have to know if you have esoteric devices like VIA sound or S3 graphics that will tell you how much tweaking you need to do.

 

[Nothinman]

Gentoo is to linux as DOS is to Windows.

No, not at all. Unless there's some version of Windows out there that doesn't come with an installer and has you configure everything by hand.

The benefit is that you get to choose only what you wnat so you don't get umpteen millions drivers for a gajillion different devices and you also get to specify only what services(daemons) you want to run.

Which isn't really a benefit at all since those drivers don't get loaded into memory unless an appropriate device exists. Not having unnecessary daemons can help bootup a bit, but that's about it.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Linux can read NTFS, but not write to it. Windows can't read or write to the common Linux file systems. It's customary to use a FAT partition for dual use between the 2 O/Ss

The in-kernel driver is read-only last I checked but NTFS-3g[...]

Exactly! I use NTFS-3g all the time - works great - never had a single problem!

Here's a short tutorial on how to mount NTFS partitions in Linux with full read-write support:

http://www.sysresccd.org/Sysre...ull_Read-Write_support (SRCD | Mounting an NTFS partition with full Read-Write support)