ok linux noob here

[otispunkmeyer]

i wanna try out linux on a old machine i have, well not that old..its still fairly capable of everything but the latest games

i wanna turn it into something that just does internet, email, word processing, stores movies/mp3s etc etc.

i have no clue about linux other than its an OS. ive been reccommended debian? good choice?

also is there anything that can make the desktop look like an apple macs OSX?

 

[spherrod]

my recommendation would be ubuntu

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
i wanna try out linux on a old machine i have, well not that old..its still fairly capable of everything but the latest games

i wanna turn it into something that just does internet, email, word processing, stores movies/mp3s etc etc.

i have no clue about linux other than its an OS. ive been reccommended debian? good choice?

They're all fine. Try Ubuntu.

also is there anything that can make the desktop look like an apple macs OSX?

Getting a Mac.

 

[TGS]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer

also is there anything that can make the desktop look like an apple macs OSX?

For older hardware give XFCE a try for your window manager. Gnome/KDE seem to be a bit rougher on memory usage, if you care about that.

Text

examples

 

[Fresh Daemon]

also is there anything that can make the desktop look like an apple macs OSX?

Try here. This'll work for Gnome (Ubuntu's default). You can get it to look pretty close to OSX - but then, you can in Windows XP as well.

Don't bother with Debian. It's not for newbies. I recommend Ubuntu, but Fedora Core, Mandriva etc. are also good. Try Distrowatch.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

lol it would be great if i could get it to install

when im erasing the HDD's on the computers i wanna put linux on, one stops at 92% and the other stops at 89%, and i have no idea why or how to get round it

 

[drag]

It could be that the harddrive has damage to it or is failing.

Try booting up with a 'live linux cd' or tom's root boot floppy.

The command to try is
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda

That is if your drive is setup as the IDE primary master. The primary slave is 'hdb', the secondary master would be 'hdc' , and the secondary slave is 'hdd'

That completely obliterates all data on your harddrive, overwriting everything zeros. It can take a very long time to finish, especially on big drives.

It should run with no comments or status indicators... you'll just see/hear harddrive activity. When it reaches the end of the drive it will fail because it would run out of space, since the harddrive is full of zeros. If it fails early, or spits out a bunch of errors, and has difficult time then it's likely that your harddrive is damaged or failing.

Also if you use something like Knoppix it will include graphical tools for messing around, but the dd command in a old standby that I use often for troubleshooting drives.

After it's finished the drive will be in a fairly 'as new' condition and shouldn't give any problems with partitioning and such as long as it's healthy.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: drag
It could be that the harddrive has damage to it or is failing.

Try booting up with a 'live linux cd' or tom's root boot floppy.

The command to try is
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda

That is if your drive is setup as the IDE primary master. The primary slave is 'hdb', the secondary master would be 'hdc' , and the secondary slave is 'hdd'

That completely obliterates all data on your harddrive, overwriting everything zeros. It can take a very long time to finish, especially on big drives.

It should run with no comments or status indicators... you'll just see/hear harddrive activity. When it reaches the end of the drive it will fail because it would run out of space, since the harddrive is full of zeros. If it fails early, or spits out a bunch of errors, and has difficult time then it's likely that your harddrive is damaged or failing.

Also if you use something like Knoppix it will include graphical tools for messing around, but the dd command in a old standby that I use often for troubleshooting drives.

After it's finished the drive will be in a fairly 'as new' condition and shouldn't give any problems with partitioning and such as long as it's healthy.

cool ill try that later today. the drives are fine so far as i know, but i think the non branded psu in this machine really is giving up the ghost. it takes several attempts to spin up the HDD on start up

plus the HDD activity light crapped out lol, and the machines too noisy to hear HDD activity. ahaha lol

 

[nweaver]

please don't use questionable aging hardware to "try out" linux, then come back and rant about how much it sucks. Use solid, working hardware. "takes several attempts to spin up the HDD on start up" should tell you have some H/W issues.

 

[Fresh Daemon]

please don't use questionable aging hardware to "try out" linux, then come back and rant about how much it sucks.

Agreed. Why don't you set up a dual-boot on your main computer? You can spare a few gigs, right? Then you can make an apples-to-apples comparison. Dual-booting is very easy, most distros will set it up for you automatically.

 

[Parkre]

Originally posted by: nweaver
please don't use questionable aging hardware to "try out" linux, then come back and rant about how much it sucks. Use solid, working hardware. "takes several attempts to spin up the HDD on start up" should tell you have some H/W issues.

someone's touchy....not enough caffeine...mmmmm

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: Fresh Daemon

please don't use questionable aging hardware to "try out" linux, then come back and rant about how much it sucks.

Agreed. Why don't you set up a dual-boot on your main computer? You can spare a few gigs, right? Then you can make an apples-to-apples comparison. Dual-booting is very easy, most distros will set it up for you automatically.

i can dual boot but the copy of windows on it is far from stable, even though i think its a power issue, it loads into windows then just restarts. plus i dont have a spare copy of windows, i have a disc for my main machine, but i dont know about putting it on another machine with the same key

i really dont mind if i have dual boot or not, what happens to the machine doesnt bother me, im even thinking of donating it to the computer society at Uni (which im part of) as a Linux test bed and even as like a scoiety modding project

and to be fair its not really questionable hardware (bar the PSU) its still pretty much a mid range machine

XP2000, 512 ram, 80gb total hdd, DVD-RW, CD-RW, GF3 Ti GFX....you know so its much better than some of the cheapo newer computers that come with 256 ram and intel extreme graphics.

and if this works which im sure i can get it too, ill be buying a new case and PSU for it

 

[Fresh Daemon]

i can dual boot but the copy of windows on it is far from stable, even though i think its a power issue, it loads into windows then just restarts.

Then here's a chance to isolate your problem! If you put Linux on that system and it's stable, then you have a Windows problem. If Linux crashes too, it's hardware. You don't even have to reformat - just download knoppix, slax or another live distro and boot/run it off the CD. I'd do that, and see how it works first.

 

[P0ldy]

Dual booting isn't the end-all answer. You learn very little about Linux when dual booting. Run some torture tests on your hardware if you want diagnostics.

Keep Windows and Linux on separate machines, or at least separate harddrives if at all possible.

 

[Fresh Daemon]

You learn very little about Linux when dual booting.

A Linux you install dual-boot is exactly the same as a Linux installed alone. If you install it and never boot it, that's no different to putting it on a second machine and never turning it on. How much you learn about Linux is dependent upon you, not on your hard-drive partitioning scheme.

Run some torture tests on your hardware if you want diagnostics.

He can't. His system isn't stable to begin with, so if he runs torture tests and it crashes, he still doesn't know any more about his problem.

Keep Windows and Linux on separate machines, or at least separate harddrives if at all possible.

Rubbish. No need to, unless you like blowing money on hard drives you don't really need. What's your suggestion - he go out and spend $50 on another drive to try "free" software?

Just partition. They don't fight each other on the same drive, and any problems you might have, you'd also have with two drives.

I think you're trying to tell him to go cold turkey and only use Linux, or something. That's not for everyone and it can be very frustrating. Odds are he'll just get so frustrated at some point he'll wipe Linux off and go back to Windows. I recommend dual-boot, or a Live CD.