Trying out linux

[ruffilb]

I want to put a flavour of linux on my empty 20g D: partition, not to replace windows but to dual boot. I'm 64 bit.

I want to have a pretty good idea how linux acts (if that makes sense) but at the same time I don't want to spend 3 years trying to make it work.

My specs:

• CORE HARDWARE
  • Power supply OCZ 600W
  • Motherboard DFI nForce 4 SLI-DR
    • Revision ?
    • BIOS ?
  • CPU Athlon64 3500+
    • Core 90nm Winchester
  • Memory (2) 512MB OCZ Platinum 3200 modules
    • Voltage Dunno, whatever default is (2.6?)
    • Timings AUTO, I assume results in 2-3-2-5 @ 200MHz
• CARDS
  • Primary video card BFG 6800GT OC, PCI-e x16
  • Secondary video card (Same as above)
  • PCI slot #1 (top) empty / na
  • PCI slot #2 empty / na
  • PCI slot #3 empty / na
  • PCI slot #4 empty / na
  • PCI slot #5 empty / na
  • PCI slot #6 empty / na
• DRIVES
  • Boot drive 200GB Seagate 7200.7
    • Interface Serial ATA
    • Controller hosting this drive nForce4 SATA controller
    • Jumper setting not applicable (SATA)
  • Optical drive #1 NEC 3500A DVD burner
    • Interface Parallel ATA
    • Controller hosting this drive nForce standard ATA controller, secondary channel
    • Jumper settingMaster

[*]OS AND SECURITY

• Operating System WindowsXP Professional
• Service Pack SP2
• Internet connection DSL
• Hardware firewall Netgear WGT624 v2 router
• Software firewall Nvidia Firewall
• Antivirus None (I know I need some, but I'm afraid norton will eat my system resources!)

[/quote]

Please comment on what flavour I should try, how I should install, anything I should know, etc.

Thanks.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Any should do. You'll need to format that partition since it's probably NTFS.

nForce is ass, you might have issues.

Your ethernet might work, you don't mention the chipset.

 

[appledelhi]

If you want to set up linux fairly quickly you should probably try Red Hat , Mandrake, or Suse Linux. Using any of these, you will be able to use a partially automated setup program which will allow you to set up your partitions, choose the software packages you wish to install, and also , choose your preferences for other settings, eg. time, keyboard settings etc. Also , Fedora Core is a completely free distribution created and maintained by Red Hat. It can be downloaded from fedora.redhat.com, and the ISO images can be burned to discs. Make sure any distribution you use is up to date and has a current version of the linux kernel, otherwise, you might have driver problems with your SATA controller.Nvidia , as you may already know, has mature videocard and nforce linux drivers available at their website, along with instructions on how to install them. Soundcard support under Linux is still limited; depending on what soundcard you are using , you might have difficulty finding driver support. I'm not sure if the nforce driver package has the nvidia firewall wizard or not. Also, you should learn how to build your own kernel to support your Athlon 64 and choose what other features you want in the kernel (It's not as hard as it sounds). Here is a good How To:Kernel Rebuild Guide. To dual boot , you will most likely be using GRUB or LiLo as the bootloader. Most distro's will have documentation on how to use either one. Once you get up and running , with most distro's , your initial environment will be the window manager you chose to use (chosen in the setup). Although this is fine for many, and even most tasks, to gain maximum flexibility and control over linux, you will need to learn to use the command line.Tuxfiles is a good place to start learning about the basics of linux usage. A good forumis linuxquestions.org . Another thing is that installing and uninstalling linux programs can be a real pain in the ass. Some programs have specific documentation on how to do both; others have none. Sometimes you'll find yourself searching a lot online for information. One thing you have to keep in mind, is that using linux is a learning experience. Many times, there won't be pretty dialogs and wizards like in windows, and you'll be editing config files directly. If you get frustrated with anything, just take a break. Use one of the online forums if you simply can't figure out how something works. All in all though, I think you might enjoy the experience. I'll list more URL's below.

Kernel.org Linux installation How to

The Linux Documentation Project

 

[Artek]

Partition then re-format it. My suggestion to you would be Suse. Great distro and easy to use but yet, really advanced

 

[JDCentral]

I always recommend people use Debian as their 'first linux'.

Are you an engineer or in a computer-related field? (Which usually use a lot of unix).

Debian has an EXCELLENT package-management system, but if you're used to XP (ie.. just stick the disk in and let it install), then an RPM-based distro is much better for you (Suse, mandrake, or redhat). Debian requires a more in-depth install (as I recall...), and doesn't really work 'out of the box', as do the other distros.

If you're just going to monkey around with linux for awhile, I'd suggest the RPM-based distros. If you're going to be spending a LOT of time in linux, go with debian.

If you want to 'spend 3 years' getting linux to work...and then spend three more years getting it to work like you want it to, then try gentoo (which is what I run. Mostly because the packages from debian are compiled with vanilla options... usually no SSE or altivec... which makes LAME go 3-4 times faster. And because the PPC linux port is constantly changing, so being on the bleeding edge of things really does help).

EDIT: don't try gentoo... that was a sarcastic remark, but didn't transfer well via text.

(my $0.02)

 

[P0ldy]

Originally posted by: JDCentral
Debian has an EXCELLENT package-management system, but if you're used to XP (ie.. just stick the disk in and let it install), then an RPM-based distro is much better for you (Suse, mandrake, or redhat).

Why do you say that? If anything, I think Debian would be better than RPM distros because it does take care of dependencies, things someone on XP wouldn't even think about.

 

[ruffilb]

Point in case, WTH is a dependency?

(Ok, I really know what it is, but what to do about it? Not so much)

 

[Nothinman]

Point in case, WTH is a dependency?

The meaning is literal. When one package is dependent on another there is a dependency between them. For instance if you try to install package A and it depends on package B, it will fail unless you have package B installed already or install both at the same time. At the core this is a great thing, it allows packages to be much smaller and just tell you which other ones you need instead of having every package include files from every other project that it uses but from a usability standpoint it's annoying to deal with. So people started working on ways to automatically deal with this annoyance.

AFAIK Debian was the first with their release of apt. You setup apt with a set of repositories (i.e. a server containing lots of packages) and when you tell it to install a pacakge it then grabs all of the dependencies for you, i.e. you say 'apt-get install mozilla-firefox' and it automatically installs:

"fontconfig, psmisc, debianutils, libatk1.0-0, libc6, libfontconfig1, libfreetype6, libgcc1, libglib2.0-0, libgtk2.0-0, libidl0, libjpeg62, libkrb53, libpango1.0-0, libpng12-0, libstdc++5, libx11-6 | xlibs, libxext6 | xlibs, libxft2, libxp6 | xlibs, libxt6 | xlibs, zlib1g"

And it anything those dependencies depend on and so on recursively. The downside is that your package must be maintained in the apt repository, feeding apt a package that you downloaded off of some random web page won't work. But that's also an upside because it forces you to use a much higher quality and controlled environment. Instead of downloading dozens of random things from around the Internet you're using packages that have been built by people with a clue and run through some rudimentary QA procedures.

And yes that's the real dependency list from mozilla-firefox on Debian sid, minus the versions for readability.

Now there are a handful of tools to deal with dependencies other than apt like yum, up2date, urpmi, etc but the one common thing they all do is that they require you use repositories for whatever distribution they're included with. If you use yum on Fedora you most certainly will not want to add a Debian apt repository to your list because it just won't work.

I would recommend Debian or Ubuntu. I'm heavily biased towards Debian and Ubuntu is an off-shoot of Debian. But no matter which distro you choose, you're going to be spending a lot of time reading and learning.

 

[TGS]

Microsoft has the same issues, if you ever check the services some list multiple dependancies. Though you still get all necessary services, when you install MS related services. More of less what Linux distros have been gearing towards.

Package managers in my opinion have been one of the biggest strides in the Linux domain. Seriously who really expects end users to download multiple packages, track down some obscure dependancy and make sure they are installed in the correct order. Admins, maybe. End Users, no way. Nothing quite like the convience of being able to open a package manager, check for new updates, click a program to update and it just works.

 

[Nothinman]

Microsoft has the same issues, if you ever check the services some list multiple dependancies

While those are dependencies, they're not in the same context. Service dependencies are when one service needs another to be started before it can start, package dependencies are at the installation point. Although there are some similar circumstances like when an app says it requires a specific version of the .Net runtime or DirectX. Ironically Windows doesn't handle thos nearly as well as Linux though, with Linux and something like apt the dependency is satisfied automatically but on Windows you have to go download the installer, install whatever, most likely reboot and then install what you wanted to install in the first place.

Package managers in my opinion have been one of the biggest strides in the Linux domain. Seriously who really expects end users to download multiple packages, track down some obscure dependancy and make sure they are installed in the correct order. Admins, maybe. End Users, no way. Nothing quite like the convience of being able to open a package manager, check for new updates, click a program to update and it just works.

You have the right idea, but you're looking too high level. The package manager is what complains about and enforces the dependencies (i.e. rpm, dpkg, etc) but the automatic resolution happens a layer above that (i.e. apt, yum, etc).

 

[ruffilb]

Ok, well debian sounds pretty cool... But I still know nothing and it seems like I'll have to work with the linux command line, which I don't know about at all.

So what are the first steps I should take? Is there a good tutorial?

Thanks a lot guys.

 

[n0cmonkey]

basic commands

For more, look in drag's sig.

 

[skreet]

Ubuntu is an 'out-of-the-box' debian-based OS, it gets you going then you can play, and if you mess it up it doesn't take long to reinstall. I recommend it to all first time linux users.