Should I move to Linux?

[CrazyPaddy]

I am a beginner so please keep your replies fairly basic.

If I change from Windows 98, what do I have to gain?
And what do I have to lose?

 

[merlocka]

If I change from Windows 98, what do I have to gain?

In depth knowlege of how an operating system works.
A better understanding of networking.
A stable, secure desktop.

And what do I have to lose?

Hours and hours of time reading FAQ's an mini-how-to's.

 

[TheOmegaCode]

And what do I have to lose?

Hours and hours of time reading FAQ's an mini-how-to's.

Hours and hours, bah! More like days

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

if you are really eager to learn, then you will gain huge amounts of useful knowledge/experience which can/will improve your erm..satisfaction (?) as far as computing goes. basically you learn alot and its fun.

if you arent eager to learn and just want your computer to work well without dealing with windows, get a mac.

 

[Darien]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
if you are really eager to learn, then you will gain huge amounts of useful knowledge/experience which can/will improve your erm..satisfaction (?) as far as computing goes. basically you learn alot and its fun.

if you arent eager to learn and just want your computer to work well without dealing with windows, get a mac.

You can always install linux on a mac as well

 

[Flatline]

Personally, I recommend a dual-boot system (right now I'm running SuSE and Mandrake )

For a Win98 user, seriously, start off with a dual-boot so that you don't just jump in and get intimidated; you can maintain a comfort zone with Windows while learning with 'nix. Some distros (SuSE in particular) have tools built into the installer that will allow you to resize your Windows partition in order to make space for your Linux system.

Dual-boot and try to use your Linux system first for all of your normal computing needs; once you learn the landscape a bit, you might just decide to go ahead and kill your Windows partition

 

[ETan]

I just made this move. I do have dual boot thought - XP (that won't shut down: help me!) and RedHat 8.0.

First thing that intimidated me: how the hell do I browse all my files??? I want my mp3's and movies!

I know there are apps out there...

oh well, it's an ongoing learning process. slowly but surely.

 

[Bleep]

Just try it out.

Do a search for KNOPPIX and download it, burn it as a ISO and run a debian based distribution right from the CD rom. it is a little slow this way but it will give you a good feel for what Linux is like. If you do this be sure that you download the EN version.

Bleep

 

[bromer]

Originally posted by: ETan
I just made this move. I do have dual boot thought - XP (that won't shut down: help me!) and RedHat 8.0.

First thing that intimidated me: how the hell do I browse all my files??? I want my mp3's and movies!

I know there are apps out there...

oh well, it's an ongoing learning process. slowly but surely.

Okay... a little introduction. When you have a prompt (get yourself a prompt right now ) you can type commands. These commands go into your shell (propperly bash or bash2 in Redhat, but don't worry about that right now). Your terminal will propperly start at your home (propperly /home/yourusername). To list all the files in this directory type ls, maybe the command dir will work, but dir will just be a alias (type man alias to find out more) to ls.

So.. if you don't know much about linux or any other unix type OS, let me introduce you to the main tool you will be using for some time.. the 'man' program. type 'man man' to get information about how you use the man program. Type 'man ls' to see how you could use the list command. As a good linux start type 'man hier'.

how to install apps... well.. Redhat have a package system. This mean that many programs come in a binary format you can download and intall with the rpm (man rpm) program. This is very usefull, eventhough the rpmsystem is quite bad in comparison to many other). If you can't find a needed .rpm file surf to www.rpmfind.net, and locate it.

Anyting else?