Linux: Pitfalls for the Brave Newbies to be aware of...
Maybe not that big of a challenge
by bulldogzerofive - 11/1/05 2:18 AM In reply to: I beg to differ by kmashrafI agree with you entirely on all but one point:
GNU/Linux is not a major threat to microsoft. The reason is not the quality of the programs, nor is it the functionality. Both of these tend to be at par with or better than Microsoft. It is not the tendency for linux to lag behind a couple months on new PC-oriented hardware; it did this with usb hotplugging before and now with WLAN cards, but this is passing and realistically not that serious.
Linux is not a threat because of inertia. Most people have learned windows and think that windows=computing, so whenever they find that they cannot do something the same way they did it under windows, it must be broken on the new operating system. Therefore the new operating system is backwards and not ready for their desktop. Professionals computer users of course understand the difference between windows and computing, which is why linux is making such inroads in the server market, but this does not apply to joe or jane Q. Public.
Secondly, there is the Microsoft marketing. This is a contributing factor to the situation above, but it is also a juggernaut in and of itself. The windowsXP install screen maintains that it is secure and easy to use, and people tend to beleive the written word. They spend literally billions to get people to beleive in their operating system. GNU/Linux does not have these kinds of resources due to its development model.
For me, it is enough that GNU/Linux exists and is good. I will continue to contribute as much as i can as long as i can, but i do not think we should harbor illusions that it will someday take over the market from windows. This leads us down that road or microsoft bashing that is so bad. Instead, we should just continue to develop our OS and if it gets more popular, good, if not that is OK, too.
The post is meant to be read slowly
by jakem14 - 11/3/05 1:09 PM In reply to: I beg to differ by kmashraf''Therefore to more or less write off GNU/Linux as a useless piece of geek code is denying the reality.''
Do not forget that you are the one stating that above.
You are entitled to interpret what I put up in any way that you can, that is the idea and why I posted it especially for you.You, though, don't give any ''Newbie'' a clear and substantive reason to switch to NGNU/Linux with what you are telling me. Some of those views that you did not like are exactely the views that a lot of so called Newbies are presented with about Linux.
''He does not seem to have heard of Debian's apt-get + synaptic, Mandrakes urpmi or RedHat/Fedora's yum''
If a person does not know what these are, he should not even be entitled to be conversing about or mention the name ''Linux.'' It is that facile to deduce.
Need opinion on easy to install and use Linux distro
by silvervein - 11/4/05 10:18 AM In reply to: The post is meant to be read slowly by jakem14I'm a win98 (3yrs) upgraded to win2000 user (3 yrs now) that has also worked a tiny bit on solaris and mac computers (in engineering college).
I've tweaked my win2000 system to make it more resilient to malware (antivirus, software firewall, hardware firewall, startup program tweaking, services tweaking) and now consider myself somewhat windows knowledgeable as each tweak took some thorough research.
I've also done a fair bit of coding (albeit only in C) in a Unix environment, so i understand the difference between "computing" and "windows computing"
I want to try linux in hopes that I won't need to spend so much time trying to protect my computer i.e. I believe linux personal computers are just not targeted very much by malware. I dont mean it will be effortless, I intend to still install a free antivirus for linux like FPROT and still use my hardware firewall...
At any rate, many distros have been mentioned throughout this discussion. I would love people to name their top 3 "easy to install and use" distros. I don't need special software just office apps, burner, media player, and driver support for common devices (scanner,external CD burner, wired PCMCIA card, wireless PCMCIA card, and USB bluetooth adapter).
My hardware setup is: P3 500Mhz, 320MB RAM, 86_32 bit mobo, ATI AGP 8MB video card Dell laptop. I have a blank 20GB partition on my HD ready. Therefore, I don't think hardware will be an issue.
I hope to get some good leads that I can further research.
Cheers
A lead for you.
by Keneda - 11/6/05 7:59 PM In reply to: Need opinion on easy to install and use Linux distro by silverveinFor further research,my favourites.
by chrisENJUNSc - 11/7/05 5:48 PM In reply to: Need opinion on easy to install and use Linux distro by silverveinHullo,
My favourites amongst the Linux distro's are;
SuSE and I used 9.1 for a good while on a 500Mhz AMD K6-2 CPU with 128MB RAM and Via MPV4 (slowish) chipset.
The secret to get decent performance from the big Distro's on an older machine is to install on the EXT2 file system.During SuSE install the default FS will probally be EXT3 or Reiser FS which will slow the machine down a lot since they are both journalling file systems.But its easy to change the defaults as Yast (the installer) gives you the option to accept the defaults or change them.Alter the partioning and select 'based on this setup'then edit / (the root file system) and alter it to EXT2.EXT2 is rock solid and much faster but slow to rebuild if a crash occours (rare).The main advantage on the journalling FS is a quick rebuild after a crash (which might never happen).
Next favourite of mine is Ubuntu again installed on EXT2.Beware the default Ubuntu install is to wipe the disk clean!.EXT2 is available from manual partitioning.
You may need a swop partition.Basically I prefer KDE to Gnome for desktops so slightly prefer SuSE to Ubuntu.
As I am installing Gentoo at the mo i have formatted over the SuSE partition.The standby OS here is Feather Linux run from CD but using the save/restore function to keep personal files and settings.The files get saved to a tar.bz2 file on the games,sorry Windows, partition.Feather is real great,takes a bit of practice,but great.Untill Gentoo is finished Feather Linux is what I will run.
DamnSmall Linux is good as well.DSL and Feather are similair DSL exellent on old machines and on a HD install,Feather seems better to me off a CD since the firewall is easy enough to configure and get it starting on boot.I wasnt able to do that in DSL had to start the firewall manually.
If you want to install the F-Prot anti virus then first have a good look around the F-Prot website.Suse's Yast will install the F-Prot RPM file if you right click the file after downloading.Or you can manually expand the F-Prot tarball (tar file)while in /usr/local.Same in Feather except expand to /home/knoppix as /usr/local is on the CD ROM (read only!).In Feather you will also have to save to HD before shutdown and update will have to be manual.To run F-Prot (in SuSE) boot up in safe settings to the command line and type in;
/usr/local/f-prot/f-prot / -list (spaces either side of last /). / incidentally is all the hard disk and will search Windows if installed.Once done i think the startx command will complete the boot process into SuSE or poweroff to shutdown.
In a nutshell SuSE,Feather(from live CD,DSL and Ubuntu all 'from own experience and opinion' easy to use and GREAT OS's.Free is good too.Thanks to all who worked
on these and for this forum also.
Regards Chris
Very bad path for the forum
by mierr - 11/4/05 11:10 AM In reply to: The post is meant to be read slowly by jakem14I think that we are missing something here; this is a Linux Forum. In my oppinion, all the discussions we are having around your first post, should’ve taken place before. I mean, if someone decided to join the linux world, this is the place to find help and support by sharing knowledge and experiencies. (end)
Your discussion topic, Pitfalls for the Brave Newbies to be aware of... , could have been something like “Welcome to the linux world, here you will find help and support to succede in the difficult world of linux... “ or “you are going to pass a hard time ‘till you learn enougth to set up your linux distro” or “ you are going to be lost some times” BUT dont’t worry, we are here to help you.
All that would have been possitive but, instead, like it or not, you have created a wall at the forum main gate, lots of disconfort and time comsumption, and no benefits at all. Many people that is not interested in linux is entering the discussion and this is turning into an OS discussion forum.
I am not saying that we should’t take this kind of discussions, but this is not the right forum.
(in my oppinion)
Best, regards
About :Pitfalls for the Brave Newbies to be aware of...
by jakem14 - 11/7/05 7:55 PM In reply to: Pitfalls for the Brave Newbies to be aware of... by jakem14I have to go away for a little while. When I come back, I hope to be flamed a little more about this post if it's still up. I hope,though, that is not by people who think that by just screaming their own bias that they have refuted many of the things stated on that post. Again the post is really trying to be provocative
and generate a discussion about how we can advocate against such views. Unfortunately my style of presentation ticked some people off. My apologies to them.
I just put down my comic book as I continued to type this up so you might make some connections about why I am writing
like this:
There is an information revolution going on and there are entities such as Microsoft, not the only one of course, that would like to control the means that makes that possible. As an answer to this,we have the open source revolution and we are all foot soldiers in that revolution. In computing,the open source revolution is being spearheaded by Unix and its descendants.It is an understanding that if you are part of it (a linux or BSD user, for example) that you should the least advocate on its behalf.
Microsoft has always hated UNIX. Then, they even hated Microsoft-UNIX (XENIX) since they could not shaft it as they did with MS-DOS and Windows. Microsoft see the resurgence of Unix and the open source movement as
a big threat. It has extremely sophisticated means and boutless resources that it can use to try to derail this revolution. A simple post meant to generate a conversation about and gather ideas about how one can go about contributing one's own advocacy and in what form should not throw you off so much. it can not even compare with the the attacks that Microsoft is already dishing out. All you have to do is hear what their top spoke peole are saying right now.
You can have the last word:
You guys are something else
by jbndhs - 12/6/05 11:10 PM In reply to: About :Pitfalls for the Brave Newbies to be aware of... by jakem14Here I am a guy almost 70 years old who played with a computer since the days of dos. Thinking I have some time maybe I can see what ''linux'' is all about. I signed up for a class that starts the 15th of Dec. Then tonight I started reading this post. I now wonder what the h--- did I do that for. All I what to do is surf the net send e-mail and maybe learn something. But the more I read what some have posted, forget it. I wonder do you really want to make linux for a home user or not???? Do want to help or just argue???? Maybe I looked in the wrong place.
For most...
by bulldogzerofive - 12/7/05 3:49 AM In reply to: You guys are something else by jbndhs... home users it's a hobby, i think.
I enjoy it. I also like it a lot. I think you would too.
Boy, i really thought that this thread had died.
Nice troll, though.
A lot has been said both for and against
by chrisENJUNSc - 12/7/05 6:58 PM In reply to: You guys are something else by jbndhsHi,
I understand what you say in your post but seems to me opinions have been stated based on our use of Linux and that has varied so much.Yes some high feelings have been expressed.
I hope you are not put off and have a go at your course and at Linux.If you are at all like myself (I also started in the days of DOS and am near 60)I am sure you will enjoy it.Who knows for you it may become something of a hobby as it has for me.
Linux evolves mainly in communities the developers usually work without pay and on a voluntary basis.Those communities produce a distibution of the Linux kernel together with applications often for a particular purpose.There are about 200 distro's and so near first decision is which distro will suit me and my machine.
Linux can be frustrating though which also explains some of high feeling expressed here.But that frustration usually arises from trying to use the wrong distro and from trying to deviate a lot from a standard distro.Neither of those are the fault of Linux and prehaps a few people on this forum would have been better of taking a course first as you propose to do.So in a way you lead and lets hope that others will follow the example.Other frustrations can occour at times with drivers.The manufactures support isnt as complete as it is with Windows but those sort of probs are usually sorted quick and maybe helped as it is with me by useing the earlier versions of the Linux kernel(oldish motherboard 1999/2000 running a P3).
The course you are thinking of taking will explain much more but some of the easier distro's
are Ubuntu (great desktop OS and cd is free),Feather (great live Linux from a cd) and Damn Small (great as either live cd or installed to hard disk).
So good luck to you and hope you go ahead and enjoy.
Chris C.
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