Thread: Giving Linux a shot (Ubuntu I think.)

Originally Posted by dokpm0

Another option for trying out Linux would be to install it under VMWare. That way you can have Windoze and Linux running at the same time and don't have to worry about repartitioning your hard drive. I've done the opposite - installed Windoze under VMWare on my Linux box when I needed it briefly. At the moment I'm running FreeBSD under VMWare on my Linux box. As soon as I get another hard drive I'll probably switch from Linux to FreeBSD.

yuck! just kidding - i run linux in vmware on my os x (bsd wannabe). i don't know how the vmware for windows is these days, but judging from the mac version which always lags behind it should be excellent.
this would be an excellent choice for giving linux a spin and see how you like it. but long term you'll probably end up wanting direct linux install so that you don't waste half of your memory loaded with OS that you don't really use.

oh, and vmware cost me money (~$50 iirc) but i wanted linux which i use for any real work at the same as os x which has the best user interface i've ever seen. to me that kind of money is better spent on razorabilia than on an emulator for trying linux....

Originally Posted by gugi

oh, and vmware cost me money (~$50 iirc) but i wanted linux which i use for any real work at the same as os x which has the best user interface i've ever seen. to me that kind of money is better spent on razorabilia than on an emulator for trying linux....

There are free versions of VMWare available now. So, one can use it to try out Linux without having to pay anything. There are even sites where one can download VMWare images of various Linux distributions to try out without having to go through the Linux install process.

I just had a quikc run from the CD. It worked well enough that I'll install it. Probably later tonight or something. I'll still need to figure out how to install printers and such.

it's easy trust me
there is a Printers tab in the Admin menu iirc, click add printer, select the manufacturer and model... nothing to worry about (if your printer is fairly mainstream)

Originally Posted by gugi

5.) The hardest part was about repartitioning the harddrive - you have to make a separate space for linux (2-4GB is plenty to start and if you do things properly we can help you expand it very easy if you need). I do not remember exactly that part and it may have changed in 7.10, but try to follow the defaults if you can - they are good. If you have to decide on the size - there is a picture with a slider - set it to 4GB. My gripe with the prev. versions is that in the process it never tells you what is goint to happen to Windows. It does the right thing and resizes the windows part, freeing the space you need and preserves Windows, but it doesn't tell you that you need not to worry about this. Hopefully they've done it better this time. The tool that does the resizing is(was) the same gparted that was suggested to you, so no need of a second cd and preparing your disk first. If you get an option of what kind of filesystem to use - ext3 should be the default and your choice if it isn't.

Right looks like things have improved in this area a lot ... I've always done the resizing with a specialised tool, since when I started doing this the only other way was a complete reformat, so I've never tried using the recent partitioning tools.

Barney

[QUOTE=barneycg;146836]I'm kinda old school - I use a Cobalt Raq as a webserver and my web pages are hand coded using a text editor.QUOTE]

Do I detect a fellow vi afficionado or are you an emacs heathen?


Btw, I also use vmware workstation on my workstation, and vmware server to run multiple servers on my home server in the basement. vmware rules.

These days vmware server is completely free, and it has virtually the same features as vmware workstation. Unless you are a software developer or an IT tinkerer, vmware server will do everything you want.

I'm surprised you're not using ed, Bruno (i'm heathen as you might have guessed, but I use vi/ed/sed/awk 20% of the time)

anyways i wish vmware had taken an example from Gillette and made the fusion free, i guess their market research showed that apple folk considers the periodic payments they are required to do part of the experience.... and that's one of the many points where i diverge from the apple KoolAid drinkers although the only computer i currently own (if you don't count the ipod, the cell phone, and the router) is mac mini

I'm now typing from Firefox in Ubuntu...so far so good and so far it's quite a lot faster than Windhose.

wow - congratulations - you survived

don't despair there's hidden bloat in linux too - the desktop search- beagle
(it was disabled in the old versions by default) At some point i had turned it on and not paying attention of settings and it was indexing several terabytes of binary data
for no good reason but at great expense and slowness...

I take it that the installation was a piece of cake?

No hic-cups at all?