Get Familiar with Linux

Posted by on 09/30 at 02:14 PM Permalink
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If you own a desktop computer or notebook computer , chances are it came pre-installed with Windows or Mac OS X. These are the most popular operating systems in the United States today, making up for about 96% of the overall market. However, there is a third, fast-growing operating system, named Linux that also deserves our attention.

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    Posted by David Lockwood  on  09/30  at  06:22 PM

  1. I’ve been slowly trying to wean myself of Windows.  Since I use my P.C. and laptop for business I can’t take a chance on any compatibility issues.
    I’ve tried Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake, even straight Debian.  Nothing has been as painless as Ubuntu.  Next week I intend to make the switch.  I have worked myself into “thinking in Linux” and feel fairly confident.
    The biggest stumbling bloc so far is trying to go half-way and keep treating Linux like it’s Windows.  You really do need to use the command line at times.  The apps run fine in Gnome or KDE but installs and maintenance does require the terminal.

    2. Posted by John Holmes  on  10/01  at  02:27 AM

  2. I switched to Ubuntu when I started reading about the many “features” of Vista.  I’m very happy with it.  Still, there are a few limitations that should be noted.

    First, gamers might not be very happy.  Most games are written for Microsoft, and Microsoft only.  With a little work, many Windows games can be played on Linux via Wine, but it’s not a perfect answer.

    At work, we’ll continue to need at least some MS for the forseeable future.  There’s specialty apps (and not so specialty apps such as Quickbooks) that can’t be replaced by anything written for Linux...at least for now.

    I hope that Linux gains enough of a foothold that companies will begin to address these limitations.  The gaming industry, at least, seems to be taking a peek at Linux.  Time will tell.

    3. Posted by Geek MIke  on  10/01  at  10:54 AM

  3. David and John - thank you for the additional commentary on this topic. We always appreciate when our readers can add first hand insight.

    Looking forward to your future participation.

    Thank you,
    Mike

    4. Posted by Matthew Waters  on  10/07  at  08:17 AM

  4. A Slackware user for a few years now.  Don’t miss Windows at all though it took some months to wean myself.

    PCLinuxOS seems to me to be one of the more “user friendly” distros for the group of cyber friends I hang around with.

    Good luck and remember, there are many friendly forums at your disposal for help in getting started with Linux.

    5. Posted by Gordon  on  10/07  at  08:31 AM

  5. With all the various iterations of Linux, surely someone would decide to make a competing application to Quicken, MS Money, or Quickbooks to make Linux more worthwhile INSTEAD of another new flavor of Linux.

    Say you determine that brand X of Linux is good enough, have your developers create a new app or base it on free software already existing and add online banking funtionality, build a database of banks and maintain it… even charge for the updates to this database to generate revenue…

    6. Posted by Paul  on  10/07  at  09:03 AM

  6. Re: Games on Linux…

    Actually, there is an extensive list of games that
    run under Linux without having to resort to WINE
    so I don’t think you’ll be lacking for
    entertainment.

    http://icculus.org/lgfaq/gamelist.php
    http://www.linuxgamingworld.com/games-catalog/
    http://www.linuxgamepublishing.com/products.php?
    http://games.linux.sk/index.php

    Several companies such as id and Epic have
    been supporting Linux for years (there’s a Linux
    version out for almost every one of their games).

    And don’t turn your nose up at the independent
    developer offerings either:

    TORCS, VDRIFT and Racer for racing fans
    FlightGear
    ManiaDrive for Trackmania fans

    7. Posted by Paul  on  10/07  at  09:07 AM

  7. First started out with linux 6 years ago, been a serious user for the last 3. Currently have 3 computers at home and they run Arch, Ubuntu, and PCLOS. I’ve tried many distros and the conclusion seems to be: if it works on one, it works on all of them (w/ some work) because at the end linux is linux. Linux is not windows. That is a common mistake many newcomers make.

    My advice: pick a distro with a reasonably sized community and a package manager that you like. Also make sure it has a version compiled for your architecture. That is if you have a 64-bit CPU get x86-64, if you have a recent 32-bit CPU then get i686, if you have older hardware than go for i386. This will make sure that you are properly using your hardware to get the best performance.

    8. Posted by Paul Owens  on  10/07  at  09:29 AM

  8. The real problem with DVD video and HD, on Linux, is the movie industry`s “stone age views” on freedom of use.
    If they allowed The CSS decoder to be used under Linux, people would buy more of their DVDs.
    The same thing was done by the Movie industry when VHS was introduced. They said;"We will lose money because people will copy our work”, but no one can argue that Hollywood made billions on VHS movie sales.
    Humans may not be the most intelligent lifeforms on earth.

    9. Posted by Al  on  10/07  at  04:13 PM

  9. I just wish somebody could tell me an easy way to uninstall Ubuntu.  I wanted to try Ubuntu but didn’t realize how difficult it would be to uninstall it.  Now I have to choose which OS to boot to evertime my computer starts up or restarts.

    10. Posted by Matthew Waters  on  10/08  at  03:54 AM

  10. Hi Al

    As my URL I have inserted a link to a very simple explanation as to how to fix your problem.

    Keep this around in case you ever want to try a different *nix.

    11. Posted by Matthew Waters  on  10/08  at  03:57 AM

  11. Sorry Al.  Gotta click on my name to get that page to display.

    Or, just copy and paste the following url

    http://airjrdn.wordpress.com/2007/03/02/how-to-remove-grublilo-after-dual-booting-windows-and-linux/

    12. Posted by Donald Carver  on  10/08  at  05:28 AM

  12. Geeks, i love your site and purchase a lot of hardware from you (much to my wifes displeasure). One suggestion, you should offer more information on linux hardware support for newbies. I have used linux for a very long time (pre ‘97 like early slackware) so I generally can find drivers and workarounds. For the novice this may not be so straight forward. Through the corruption of the winders community and the obvious bias that goes with it, much of configuration is hidden from the typical user. An example. your pc’s come either with no OS or with some flavor of windows. You should have a link to how to configure the various peripherals when loading linux, depending on the distribution.  thanks for the Sales.

    13. Posted by Orb Thompson  on  10/08  at  06:38 AM

  13. After many years of being a MS slave I first took a serious look at linux 6 years ago. Dual booting winblows to get my work done, and using linux for everyday tasks, surfing etc. All the time getting myself more knowledgeable and comfortable using Linux. I’ve tried many different distros from Mandrake, suse, ubuntu, all the major distros at the time. I finally settled for pclos for it’s ease of use, ease of software upgrades, hardware detection and the friendly community on their forums. I totally removed winblows 3 and a half years ago and I’ve never looked back at it.
    With the live distro’s that are out now, you can give linux a test drive without installing anything to see about such things as hardware support for your particular machine. More support from hardware manufacturers for drivers on the linux platform would be in their best interest, as I see it as one of the weaknesses of linux. However linux drivers for hardware do eventually come out written by the community at large. But the hardware manufacturers will be coming around as linux becomes a viable desktop OS option.

    14. Posted by Damon  on  10/08  at  07:14 AM

  14. Just wanted to correct an error in your blog.  Linus did not extend Minix.  The Minix license at the time did not allow for that.  In fact, one of the reasons that Linus decided to write Linux was that Andrew Tannenbaum was not accepting patches to Minix.  His reason for this was that the OS was designed to teach OS design to CS students and not to be a full fledged OS for general use.  Linus ran Minix on his computer that he used to write Linux, but no Minix code was used in the creation of Linux.

    In fact there is the famous debate between Torvalds and Tannenbaum over OS design.  They are in two very different schools of thought on OS design.

    http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/appa.html

    Here is Andrew Tannenbaum’s comments on the myth that Linux was based on Minix.

    http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040520021144762

    Damon

    15. Posted by Sandy Clearo  on  10/08  at  07:56 AM

  15. I am in the process of trying out some of the many Linux distros available. Currently I am using Puppy Linux which can operate without actually installing the OS to the hard drive. This lets you get the feel without the commitment. However, 90% of the people I talk to would do just fine with Linux and my experience has been setup and configuring the different distros is pretty easy to do. Keep posting articles like this its nice to hear another point of view most folks think Windows is their only choice, good marketing I guess.

    16. Posted by Eugenia  on  10/08  at  09:58 AM

  16. >The real problem with DVD video and HD, >The CSS decoder to be used under Linux

    The article speaks of DV/HDV video editing, not playback. There are ways to circumvent the CSS decoder, and most people do that (even if it’s illegal). But for *good* video editing, there’s no way around it (WINE is out of the question too), legal or illegal.

    17. Posted by Jay  on  10/08  at  10:35 AM

  17. Hi, I’m using PClinuxos2007 on a T41 ibm stinkpad and I love it.. The only issue that I have encountered is that when I goto sites that have video I can see the video with no problem, I just do not have audio.  this is with Firefox or Konqueror.  Any one have any ideas...Puuullleeeeaasssee help!!!!...I don’t want to re-install just for this.  I’ve updated all browsers and flash and uninstalled flash and still I have the same issue.

    18. Posted by Eugenia  on  10/08  at  10:46 AM

  18. I think your problem is no mixer in ALSA. Another application is using the sound card at the time (even if it’s not outputting any sound) and so Flash can’t get access to the sound card.

    There are ways to add an alsa mixer script and kinda go around the problem, or I would suggest you move to Ubuntu 7.10 and have the distro fix it for you out of the box.

    19. Posted by CCL  on  10/08  at  07:06 PM

  19. I considered switching to Linux. I started by making a list of the applications I must have and Linux alternatives. The top of my list was TurboTax Deluxe and there is no Linux counterpart.
    End of discussion

    20. Posted by Emilio  on  10/09  at  10:32 AM

  20. Hi everyone, well I can tell you that I’ve been using Windows since Windows 95, before I used some old Panda and Comodore “computers”, the idea of having Linux in my systems has been in my mind for a lot of years now, but, I also have some concerns, and it’s that I’m not sure that everyone at my office would be able to work with Linux (becouse every school always teach how to use Windows and not any other OS), so I found some nice tools to let you try before using it, one of those is WUBI, this tool let’s you install Ubuntu Linux without having to patrtition your disk or making it difficult, it’s as simple as running any application setup in Windows.
    The installation it’s as easy as cutting butter with a hot knife but what mekes it difficult is selecting wich Ubuntu you want to install, here’s the link to download WUBI>
    http://www.download.com/Wubi/3000-2094_4-10702316.html?tag=lst-0-1
    “just coy and paste it”
    and here are some cool videos I’ve seen about comparison between Vista vrs. Ubuntu Linux>
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC5uEe5OzNQ
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzfxHCr1ggc&mode=related&search;=
    Check this one, Windows XP running under Ubuntu Linux>
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01OqyzEyV9M&mode=related&search;=

    But just like you, (after seeing the videos) I’d like to know how to configure Ubuntu to get that results!

    Thanks geeks.com for all the cool stuf and great prices! keep it on!

    21. Posted by GeekMike  on  10/09  at  10:37 AM

  21. Emilo....thank you for the feedback!

    -GM

    22. Posted by Patrick Day  on  10/16  at  07:36 PM

  22. I finally got around to reading this article and appreciate the extra things I leanred. I tried Ubuntu a few times and have mixed feelings. It was amazing how I didn’t have to install any drivers. The new 64-bit version doesn’t easily support some plug-ins like flash-player, but the i386 version is very easy to use. You said it was easy to install, but, ironically, that’s the only time I ever had a real problem with Ubuntu. Fixing a generic error message is hard becuase it’s hard to even find the problem. But my only big beef about Linux is its inability to playback DVDs. I know I’ve heard they can illegaly, but is there any movement toward a legal solution or even a purchaseable player that supports linux?

    23. Posted by GeekMike  on  10/17  at  08:17 AM

  23. Hello Patrick,

    We are glad you enjoyed this recent tech tip.  I will have to do a bit of research about the DVD playback issue.

    Stay tuned for other upcoming Linux topics.

    If you are not receiving blog posts via our RSS feed please do so.

    We will be posting content directly to the blog soon, that might not make it through our email channel.

    Cheers,
    -GM

    24. Posted by BH  on  10/18  at  05:44 AM

  24. I have often wanted to buy gear from Geeks but could not tell from the ad if it was Linux “friendly”.
    For example, network cards, the actual name and model name on the card means next to nothing as the vendor uses more than one chipset in a card line.
    Some chipsets work very well under Linux and others just don’t.
    It would be nice if Geeks would put the card into a computer and let us know what “lspci” or “lsusb” says the chipset !!is!!.
    The root problem here is a bunch of media peabrains who state in print the Linux has only about 4% of the OS market.
    I would bet that the actual number is more than ten times that.

    25. Posted by GeekMike  on  10/18  at  08:18 AM

  25. @BH, at one time, we had a Linux tester on staff, and a check box to mark items as “Linux Compatible”
    :(

    26. Posted by Free builts  on  11/26  at  12:00 AM

  26. At work we are going to install Linux on all computers because of frequent viruses we get in Windows. Actually I am thinking of this with some fear, i will have to change many software(

    27. Posted by Meli  on  05/20  at  06:57 PM

  27. I bought a new computer with win chista jaja, but since I saw ubuntu installed on a my computerś friend I have decide that I want to have it on my computer

    I will try to find wich of this linux OS is the best for me

    28. Posted by Al  on  05/23  at  05:14 AM

  28. I finally figured it out.  I used KILLDISK which was a free download and reloaded my Windows OS and it eliminated all signs of UBUNTU and gave me back my entire hard drive space also.

    29. Page 1 of 1 pages

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