Which OS and how many? I seek your wisdom

[leighd8]

I Currently have Win2K pro, and Win98. But Before I got off to college next year im going to reformat. I am going to be a Comp Engineering or Comp Science Major at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. so I use my computer for most college stuff (Napster, IE, MS C++, Photoshop) I never find a use for my win 98 partition though. Can you think of anything I might come across and will need 98 for?

I have a 20 gig drive and I will probably get a 30gig drive this month for my birthday.. what do you guys suggest I do? what are reasons I might want other OS's? thanks in advance for your input.

 

[Shmorq]

If you already have Win2K, the only reason to have Win98 is for those few occasions when a game isn't compatible with Win2K. Other than that, I would use Win2K exclusive since it's the best OS for a workstation. But then, everyone has their own opinions...

 

[leighd8]

thanks i dont do much gaming so im leanign towards just WIN2K, now another question may arise.. FAT32 or NTFS... i will cross that bridge when the time comes.. keep it coming

 

[MatthiasvW]

I'd consider putting something like FreeBSD on the extra partition if you can. Linux might be an acceptable alternative, but I'd definitely consider something in the UNIX range just for the experience. If you get some UNIX experience, you'll have something that'll compliment your Win2000 skills nicely. When it comes to operating systems, I'm convinced that no knowledge is ever wasted.

At least, I tell myself that when I try to figure out why I own this indigo iMac...

 

[IamDavid]

I would go with a Win2K/ Linux setup.. Learning at least the basics of linux will help down the road..

 

[Ryan]

NTFS

 

[Shmorq]

If you listen to everyone else and decide to dual boot Win2K with Linux, I would use FAT32 since Linux cannot write to NTFS, only read it as of now, but by the time you start college, maybe this won't be an issue anymore in which case, I'd go with NTFS.

 

[leighd8]

OK I am interested in Linux.. I have DSL and want to download it. what version should I get?? Where can I get it, does anyone wanna send me a CD??

 

[Shmorq]

There a lot of distros out there. I personally have used mandrake and I liked it a lot since it was very easy to setup. You can download it as 2 ISO files for burning to CD. I believe the total size is 1 gig...

Or you can wait a short while for the companies to release non-beta version of the new 2.4 kernel. I believe SuSe already released their version of the new kernel, but I don't believe it's available as a free download...

 

[Delusion2001]

sometimes it's hard to find drivers for win2k

 

[Shmorq]

Delusion2001, did you mean Linux instead of Win2K? Win2K has great driver support from nearly all the vendors.

At the mandrake site, you can go to the Supported hardware section to check compatibility.

 

[perry]

You don't need a CD to install RedHat (and probably most other distro's). You can do an FTP install. All you need is a boot floppy, your network settings (if you use DHCP you don't even need that), a supported NIC (3c905, Netgear, etc), and ftp site/directory. Point the installer at the ftp site and proper arch directory and off you go. Might kinda suck if you mess up the install and have to do it a few times, but you won't need the CD. I installed RedHat 7.0 this way.

CheapBytes sells cheap Linux CD's.. Less than $10 shipped for most distros it looks like.

 

[aerialcombat]

I thinks Computer Science is the way to go, unless you like all that physics stuff.

hehe.

 

[aerialcombat]

I think linux-mandrake is good. 7.2 for now, and maybe 8.0 when it comes out of beta status.

 

[potz]

you can always use win2k as your base operating system and install linux inside vmware. it works great on my computer, since i play all my games inside 2k and the drivers are a little better. personally, i like the slackware linux distro.

 

[crohozen]

since you going to school for comp sci. I would run redhat or mandrake for on your other partition and just dual boot them. Which I think you were intending on doing anyways but start off with redhat or mandrake because other distros get into more hardcore self-setups and you wont be ready for all that. Especially if you have no *nix experience