Penguin Time…it’s like Goonie Time, but without the pirate ship and the Truffle Shuffle.
When I made the switch to Linux last month, I said that I hoped to someday become the world’s number one Linux cheerleader. This was sort of misquoted, and I’ve read in numerous places that I proclaimed myself “The world’s number one Linux cheerleader,” which has caused me a little bit of grief…I mean, I can’t consider myself the world’s number 6000 Linux cheerleader if I haven’t even recompiled a kernel yet, or built a LAN…but I’m working on it. =]
Anyway, I’m going to spend a little time this morning cheerlead^H^H^H^H^H^H^H talking about my adventures in Linux, thus far, so if you’re here for the nude pictures, you should head elsewhere today.
When I made the switch to Linux about a month ago, I knew that I was entering a Brave New World, and I did it with a little bit of trepidation, but a great sense of excitement, as well. As I wrote back then, “The Open Source movement really appeals to my anarchistic and individualistic tendencies, and everyone I know who uses Linux tells me that I won’t miss Windows at all. I don’t really use any software that’s windows-specific, except Dreamweaver, and I’m told that I can run that under WINE, or find a comparable OS editor.”
Since then, I’ve discovered both the Quanta and Screem editors, which have shown themselves to be fine replacements for Dreamweaver, and the only time I ever miss Windows is when I get the urge to play some games…but a quick trip to the PS2 takes care of that, until I can upgrade this machine with more RAM and a big old video card so I can run WineX 2.1.
Oh, I should have warned earlier: this article will be a little propeller-headed, so if you’re not into that, again, you should really go play somewhere else today.
Before I get to the details, I should address something that I think everyone who makes the switch feels: Fear.
We feel afraid, because even though we’re pretty sure that everything is going to work out fine, we’ve existed on a steady diet of FUD for many years. Maybe we tried to install a distro a few years ago, when Linux wasn’t as newbie-friendly as it is now. Maybe we’re just a bunch of pussies.
I’ll admit it: I was nervous.
Nervous that I was going to do this install, and my magical connection to the largest library of free porn on the planet would cease to exist. I was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to use a word processor that was as reliable as MS Word had always been.
I was nervous, but also excited.
Excited that I was taking the first step towards joining a global movement based on ideals with which I strongly agreed. I was excited because I know that lots of people read this lame website, and if a lameass like me could make Linux work, that would dispell a great deal of FUD, and maybe empower some people who, like me, suspected that they could live MS-free, but weren’t sure if they could hack it. (“Hack it.” Har.) I was excited because I felt like I was taking a chance, accepting a risk, and anticipating great rewards.
And I had a hole-card. If I managed to completely break everything, I knew that I would be able to format the drive, reinstall the old OS, and wait for a LUG install party.
Grab a cookie…here we go!
Install
The install was shockingly simple: Open the CDROM, shut down the machine, turnthe machine back on, wait for the Mandrake screen to appear, hit return, watch the fun.
This nice, friendly, graphical install is perfect for newbies. Mandrake asked me if I wanted to use an existing partition, or wipe the whole drive. I opted to format the whole drive, let Mandrake build the partitions for me, and get on with the install. A few minutes later, I got a screen where I was asked what packages I wanted to install.
I was presented with a very easy to understand screen, where I could select options like “Game Station,” “Server,” “Office,” and the like. I was asked if I wanted to run services like ftp, ssh, and a firewall. Finally, I was given the opportunity to choose which desktop environment I wanted. I chose both KDE and Gnome, because I knew from previous experience that there were apps from both environments that I liked.
After selecting my packages, I swapped some CDs, added some users, set some passwords, and got to the part that really had me the most afraid: configuring the network so I could get online.
The last time I tried Linux, it was Red Hat 5.2 and I was on dial-up. Getting that bastard to connect was about as easy as getting laid in a convent. There were all these config files I had to edit, and all these strange text commands I had to type in, just to get the modem to turn on…getting it to connect was another problem entirely. For someone who was coming from Windows 95, this song-and-dance to get connected was simply unacceptable, and ultimately it was the main factor which drove me back to Windows.
Boy have we come a long way, baby! Mandrake did this super-cool autodetection, where it found my NIC, used dhcp to get my IP address, and built my network connection for me. This entire process took about 3 minutes.
Somewhere in there Mandrake autodetected my printer, too. The only thing I had to tell it on my own was that my mouse had a wheel!
Finally, I got to a screen where I was asked if I wanted to check for updates to the packages I’d installed. I said “yes,” and walked away to get a drink of water. When I came back a few minutes later, nothing had changed…so I sat down to play some GTA3 while it continued downloading. About 30 minutes later, nothing had changed, and my hard disk had spun down.
This wasn’t a good sign. All that excitement I’d been feeling was completely overwhelmed by the nervousness I’d had, and I felt some panic beginning to rise.
I cursed, kicked, gnashed and paced.
I decided to start over, and when I got to the “do you want to upgrade?” part, I said no. The install finished perfectly this time. I restarted the machine, and was logged into Gnome in about 2 minutes.
First Time
I was immediately impressed with the spiffy desktop. It was enough like Windows to give a sense of familiarity without making me feel like I was running some oddball derivative of W2K.
I poked around the menus for a little bit, and was drawn to a menu which said, “What to do?”
What a great question! This was exactlky what I was wondering, and here was a friendly menu to help me out. It contained sub-menus like, “Enjoy Music and Video,” and “Use Office Tools.” There was aslo “Use the Internet,” and “Administer Your System.”
I thought, “Hmmm…’Administer Your System,’ eh? Okay, I’ll take a look.”
Sitting in that menu were options like “Add or remove programs, Configure Gnome,” and “Download and install Mandrake security updates.”
Ah-hah! I clicked on “Download Mandrake security updates,” and followed the prompts. This started a really cool “Mandrake Update” utility, which is sort of like a non-intrusive version of Windows Update. I was presented with three options: bug fixes, normal updates, and security updates. I selected all three, and clicked “install,” eager to watch…the damn thing spin.
I realized that the reason the install had hung the first time was related to this spinning…the default update site wasn’t responding. I guess there was no timeout set for the normal Mandrake install, which is why it hung before. Far be it from me to tell Mandrake how to do things, but this seems pretty silly to me. A simple “Site isn’t available now, but here’s your system anyway, Jerky.” message would have been nice. Fortunately this time I was able to just cancel the connection, define a different source, and about 20 minutes later my system was up to date.
I spent the rest of the next hour or so exploring the system.
Getting Comfortable
I was eager to make the switch to Linux because mostly I use my computer for 3 things:
- Internet
- Word Processing
I had done lots of research about Linux, and the impression I had gotten was that if your primary computer use was for these three things, the only thing you’d miss about Windows was the daily reboot.
Let’s take a look.
Internet
The browser that ships with Gnome 1.4 is called “Galeon.” It’s based on Gecko, from Mozilla, and it’s really, really cool. I mentioned the other day that I’m using the latest Mozilla build more and more, but as soon as Galeon catches up with Moz, I’ll probably be back with Galeon, for the bookmark editing alone! Although many people’s experiences with Linux will surely vary, I can say without a doubt that once you use Galeon or Mozilla, you’ll be stunned that you ever liked IE. The KDE desktop has it’s own browser also, called Konqueror, but I really don’t like it as much as I like Galeon or Mozilla…but anything is better than IE, and you can quote me on that.
Email
Back when I was new to the internet, and I was getting dial-up shell access from netcom, there wasn’t such a thing as the World Wide Web, unless you were on a connection fast enough to use NCSA Mosaic. Since the ‘net was just text back then, I used it for MUDding (just say no, people!) ircing (mmm…floodbots) and email. The email client I used was called PINE, and it still ships with Linux. I really liked PINE. It was easy to understand and use, even if you were a lamer like me, and I still use it from time to time today.
However, since the Internet is bigger and badder these days, people want bigger and badder email clients, and Linux is happy to oblige. When I was running Windows, I used Eudora, because I hated Outlook’s interface, and I’ve always felt that Outlook’s handling of email is secondary to it’s primary purpose: spreading worms and virii. Now look, I’m not cracking on Outlook users, okay? As a matter of fact, I wrote a great new game just for Outlook users! It is my first try. I wish you would like it.
Seriously, if you like Outlook, you can use a Linux client called “Evolution” from Ximian. It has all of the things you like about Outlook, a better summary screen, and a really cool calendar. It will interface with your Pilot, and it won’t spread worms and virii like Outlook. You can even set up the summary page to load headlines from WWDN, and see if I’ve gotten off my lazy ass to update the site recently.
Personally, I use KMail, which is part of the KDE desktop. Although I am primarily a Gnome user, KDE has numerous features I like, including the calendar, the tea-timer (a silly little applet that sits in your panel, which is the Linux equivalent of the taskbar,) and KMail. KMail is a mail client which is much lighter than Evolution. KMail looks and feels a lot like Eudora to me, handles filters the same way, and deals with different accounts and protocalls nicely.
Both solutions are very, very easy to install and configure, and if you know things like your POP server, SMTP server and stuff, it’s certainly no more difficult than the other clients available for Windows or Mac.
Mozilla also has it’s own email client, but I haven’t used it. I’m sure that, just like everything else Mozilla does, it’s really cool.
Wordprocessing
This is a place where the FUD really has a firm hold. They’d have you believe that things you author on Linux won’t be readable by Word, with the converse also being true.
Well, it’s simply not true. At G4, everything is written using Word. I do most of my writing from home because it’s easier to concentrate in my quiet home office, and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to send files to work if I authored them under Linux. Well, I haven’t had a single problem. I have written 6 episodes since making the switch, and turned in countless rewrites, and the conversion from OpenOffice to Word is seamless.
Mandrake ships with StarOffice, which is put out by Sun Microsystems. It’s a very nice alternative to Word. Each time I looked, StarOffice had the familiar Word command, or it’s equivalent. The only thing I had trouble with was tables. It was grumpy about having a table wrap to the next page, a problem I also encountered in OpenOffice. A few tweaks in the preferences solved this mildly annoying problem.
Having said all that about StarOffice, I don’t use it. I prefer OpenOffice, from OpenOffice.org. In my experience, it loads faster than StarOffice, and I just like the interface better. It doesn’t come standard with Mandrake 8.2, but it’s easily downlaoded and installed, and can be set as a default word processing application with minimal effort. Update:OpenOffice.org does come with Mandrake 8.2. It didn’t install as part of my default installation, or at least I didn’t see it, so I assumed it wasn’t there. Thank you to everyone who pointed out this amazingly lame error.
Freedom of Choice
These three examples bring up a very important distinction which sets Linux apart from Windows: You are not limited to one word processor, or one desktop environment, or a small set of applications. Linux is all about choice, and putting the power to make decisions about the computing experience into the hands of the users. If you’re anything like me, you’ll live the all the defaults for about 2 weeks…and then the tewaking of things will begin: the adding and removing of things from the panel…the moving of the panel…the downloading of things from freshmeat and sourceforge…and the inevitable breaking of something. Here is the only real “advice” I’m going to give the reader: If you like to mess with the nuts and bolts of your computer, and you like to try out all kinds of new programs and toys which are still technically “beta,” do yourself a favor and set up a “development” box. This means investing 50 bucks or so in another drive, and putting Linux on it, and doing all of your fixing und breaking in it, while keeping your main install safe and reliable.
Day to day use
Some people will suggest new users do what’s called a “dual boot” system, where you keep your Windows environment on one partition, and run your Linux partition on another. The advantage of this is that if you mess something up in Linux, you can use your Windows install to get online and get help. It also means that you can access some Windows features through Linux, which is important for some people. The disadvantage of this is that having the “crutch” of Windows will prevent many users from fully enjoying everything Linux has to offer.
When I switched, I did it 100%, and I haven’t looked back since. I am really glad that I did it this way, because I’ve learned something new each day, and grown more secure in my abilities to administer my system. I’d suggest that, unless you’re a hardcore gamer, you do the same.
Which Distro is best?
There are numerous holy wars about Gnome v. KDE, Mandrake v. Red Hat, Red Hat v. Debian, Debian v. Slackware…it goes on and on, and I won’t take a side in these wars. Instead, I will say what I always say about computers: The operating system for you is the one that works best for you. If that’s Windows, or Mac, or even an Atari 800, go nuts. I think that this holds true for Linux, as well. The distro which is “best” is the one that works best for you. Over time, what is “best” for you will probably change, and maybe you’ll want to change your distro. Right now, I’m using Mandrake 8.2, and I’m excitedly looking forward to 9.0, which should be out very soon. Maybe someday I’ll switch to something else…but that’s the beauty of Linux…you get to choose for yourself what you want to use, instead of having The Borg choose for you.
Okay! I’ll switch! Get off my back! Now what?
Well, for the Newbies, I suggest something with a very easy install, and good community support. I have found this in both Red Hat and Mandrake, which is not to say that it doesn’t exist elsewhere. I just know about the support for Mandrake and Red Hat first hand.
Once you’re up and running, join a Linux User Group, where you can get help with problems, answers to questions, and a warm fuzzy feeling that comes from being around people who are nerdier than you are. You will also learn very quickly to love the O’Reilly publishing company. Their Linux books are nothing less than required reading for getting the most out of your system.
Finally…
There is a lot of specific information I’ve left out here…after all, I would like to spend some of Saturday with my family…I didn’t talk about games because I don’t play games on this box. I didn’t talk about Spreadsheets because I don’t use them, either. But I know that you can do both under Linux. Try Google for some examples. There is also a really cool desktop environment which Ximian makes, built on top of Gnome. I’ve used it, and found it to be really, really cool.
I have had a few problems, which I try to view as challenges. Most notably, I couldn’t get audio to work on this machine…but a quick call for help online yielded the answer to the challenge in about 15 minutes. I currently can’t get this box to see my router, but I’m closing in on a solution to that problem daily.
One of us
I will close with what I think is the best benefit from running Linux: when you run Linux, you join a community which is global, and ever-growing. This community is self-sustaining, nurturing, and always welcoming in new members. How much you get out of this community depends on how much you put into it, and it is very rewarding, indeed.
Come on in…there’s always room for one more.
well this is another long one, i’ll think i’ll go and read it now
Thats really way too long. Im sure its a gret like all the rest.
there’s no such thing as OpenOffice. there’s OpenOffice.org from openoffice.org *grin* sorry, I thought that was kinda funny when I installed openoffice.org on my XP machine, they actually had a screen or something that said “This product is called Openoffice.org. not openoffice. openoffice.org” which I thought was moderately amusing. Congrats on the leap; I do the same thing within the month. I’m gonna puss out and dual-boot, because I’m a Diablo II and Starcraft freak.
Yesterday was my first day as a working teacher in a working high school…first thing one of the students complained that he couldn’t do the assignment because he didn’t have internet. I told him that in my day we didn’t use the internet. When asked if the internet didn’t exist, I had to tell him that it did, but it was only in text, and it wasn’t available to me until I got to univeristy…he wanted to know how we saw porn sites if it was only in text…ah inquiring minds…..
I was going to start a Linux for Wheaton grass roots campain but you beat me to the punch and switched before I could
What does “distro” mean? I know it’s short for “distribution,” but I can’t quite get the context.
New record for longest post ever. I always knew you’d make it to the Guinness Book…
I’ll read it when I have a spare hour. :~)
the penguin haunts me…he’s evil.
Wow…I so didn’t expect that link to actually go to a porn site.
What do you mean by “the box can’t see my router”?
You can’t ping your router?
You can’t get onto the net?
What do you get when you type “route” ? (or route -n)
Marcus
Distro (distribution) means the “brand” of Linux you’re using. It’s all the Linux kernel/OS, but the whole package (distribution) is made by Red Hat, Mandrake, SUSE, Debian, etc. So Wil’s using the Mandrake Distro.
for buckthorn – theres a diablo II linux howto for us linux users – try google.com:)
wil, nice to see you having fun, welcome to another propellerhead penguin:)
distros dont matter – newbies should, imho, start with redhat, mandrake, or other pretty gui installs. you’ll get eager to explore other distros later…
and arent you lucky to be in the linux community, so you CAN have choice?:)
scratch that. t’aint luck. smart. hoopy cool and frood even.
Dearest Wil,
I love you, I want to tinker with your Linux box all nite long. Pls reciprocate my love ASAP.
THANX.
LOL! Yeah, I remember the days before the Internet…days before I spent an entire afternoon, or evening, online. Started out learning Dos as a kid, back in the 80’s when Windows was still the newest thing since sliced bread. There were only cheesy computer games back then, and Star Trek: TNG wasn’t even on TV then. There were only classic Trek reruns, which I had gotten into at the time. Still like ’em once in a while, but I’d rather watch Enterprise.
I just got a new laptop, and am seriously converting my XP box to Linux, or at least partitioning a hard drive so I can play with it.
I’m trying to decide between Red Hat & Mandrake and am leaning toward Mandrake. Wonderfully informative article, Wil. I do understand the technobabble, but I have a computer programming degree. 🙂
Wil,
WoW a really informative article on Linux. I was thinking about switching,but I am a die hard gamer so I think i’ll stick with Windows ME. Thanks for your informative article.
Best to you and your family,
Until your next post……
Matt……
w00t w00t!
When I first read that you had switched to Linux, I did a little happy dance… that rocks! As you so nicely illustrated today, it’s not really hard at all. If you know your way around Windows, you can use Linux — especially if you’re adventurous and enjoy tweaking things. Even if you don’t, it’s still (IMNSHO) a *much* better system.
I use Gentoo, which is NOT a newbie distro, but which is much cleaner, sleeker, and smoother than RH or Mandrake (my previous favorite). I’m also using Fluxbox as my window manager (although I have Gnome 2.0 and KDE 3.1 both installed, so I can use their apps).
Take a look at some screenshots:
My desktop:
http://www.pryden.net/daniel/img/fluxshot.jpg
Listening to some music:
http://www.pryden.net/daniel/img/musicshot.png
(Sorry about the filesize on that one…)
And from the sublime… to the ridiculous:
http://www.pryden.net/daniel/img/vmwarexp.jpg
🙂
I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to switch. I just don’t know if my machine can handle running WineX for my crack gaming habit.
FUD is the path to the dark side…
FUD leads to crashes…
Crashes lead to lost data…
Lost data leads to… Suffering.
Abiword is a decent alternative word processor.
Also WINE has come a long way.. I remember playing Starcraft about 3-5 years ago (can’t remember the exact year) using WINE under linux and it ran -faster- than it did in Windows. Crazy.
Ok, so I read about half of that and realized I have NO idea what you were talking about. It sounded positive, though, so you keep on pimpin’ Linux’s shit.
DEAR SIR, IT IS “VIRUSES” NOT “VIRII” THE LATTER BEING A LAME H@>
Hey, Wil,
Nice to see that you’re having fun with Linux. It’s not worth it if you’re not having fun. Well-written and informative article, too. You’re going to have to sharpen your pencil and get in to the Linux journalism scene. 🙂
Note to buckthorn: romana said it first, but I’ll chime in – Diablo2 and Starcraft both run under Linux. No problems. Check out http://www.transgaming.com for help.
Note on Word Processors: I just downloaded Koffice 1.2 and the importation of MS Word docs has improved a lot since 1.1 – haven’t tested it with tables yet, tho.
You know what the best thing about galeon is? Tabs, man! Tabs are the best. And you can open links in *new* tabs behind the screen your reading, so you don’t get interrupted.
Seriously, wil, I was a bit disappointed by the spelling this time around. I *know* Mandrake ships with a spellchecker. Rock on, man; keep living on the bleeding edge.
But you can’t beat those tabs.
I can’t wait to switch to Linux myself. I hate windows more and more every day…although I do plan to keep a Windows machine around so I can play stuff like Mafia, GTA3, and other PC games.
Wil: Have you ever considered looking into Lindows?
Hey… maybe you should make a Linux “Switch” commercial, like Apple’s switch commercials 🙂
I’ve always been both a Mac & Unix geek, which is why I love OSX – it’s like having the best of both worlds. I even have X11 running along with native apps.
I’ve had Redhat or Mandrake partition on my for last 3 or 4 years, but your right my Win98 partition is a cruch that I should rid myself of. Currently I have Redhat 7.3 and I’m looking forward to installing whatever Redhat’s beta(NULL) becomes.
This is a little off topic but I was wondering what other punk bands you listen to.
Was the spelling really that bad?
I wrote the whole thing in MT’s composer window, so I din’t use the speelcheckers.
You know that Moz 1.2a has tabs, right? Tabs, type-ahead find, and mouse gestures.
So until I compile the new Galeon build, I’m sticking with Mozilla.
And not having a speellcheckert.
Spellcheckers don’t catch those pesky “its” “it’s” errors though. 🙂
I like the term virii… same as I like to say penii. I ~know~ it’s not correct, but it’s darned fun to say.
My honey caught me reading this blog entry and immediately started in on the “let’s switch to Linux” spiel. Damn you Wil Wheaton and the penguin you rode in on!
Well I think you have me sold on this Linux switch. And Mike Cohen was right, you should do a commercial on it, you’re that good. 🙂 I could easily read and understand what you were talking about. And your little personal comments made it that more interesting. Not that I knew all the programs you listed not being that into programstotally myself. But I do just basically the same thing you do on my computer. The problem is, the people I have around to help me get it and install it, as I do need a major upgrade to my computer, are all diehard windows xp fans. I think they might fall over in a faint if I said I wanted something different. And these are all guys so that would be pretty funny. But it is definitely something I am going to possibly change over to in the near future. Thanks Wil! 🙂 *remembers to mark this entry for reference*
FYI for all of those interesting in Mandrake, 9.0 will probably be released next week. If you thought 8.2 was nice, just wait until you try 9.0. It ROCKS. I’m using beta4 of it now (they’ve already done 4 betas, and three release candidates, but beta4 worked good enough for me until the final release).
Course, you’ll probably have to wait a week after the fact to download it since the FTP sites tend to get hammered with new releases. 🙂 They plan on having boxed copies in stores in October.
I’ve used Mandrake since 7.0… and will never use anything else. 🙂
DEAR MISTER WHEATON
JUST YOU WAIT UNTIL FREEBSD 5.0 COMES OUT IT WILL 0WNZ J00
ALSO I AM HOLDING THE OTHER L IN YOUR NAME HOSTAGE IF I DO NOT RECEIVE 400 QUATLOOS BY STARDATE 5301.7 IT WILL SUFFER THE SAME TRANSPORTER ACCIDENT AS JEAN “PATRICK STEWART” LUC PICARD’S TOUPEE
LOVE,
P000
Wil, thanks for taking so much time and effort to make an unapproachable subject more approachable. I probably qualify as a geek, but I’m pretty user oriented when it comes to computers. Having a bigger geek (in the good sense) chart the path is a real help. Best, Rob
Great post Wil,
I’m happy you make the switch, and from the sounds of it, it is suiting you well. I haven’t used windows at home for quite some time now, and as far as work goes, nearly two years. Yeah, I got lucky and work for a company that doesn’t use windows.
Hovever, one small correction, OpenOffice.org is functionally equivalent to StarOffice. Just like Netscape 6.x/7.x is functionally equivalent to Mozilla. One just happens to be open sourced, the other happens to be commerical software. Sharing documents between openoffice and staroffice is easy, same format, and I haven’t encoutered any problems, and then of course sharing files with the MS Office crowd works well also.
Wil hunny you use to many big words for my mind to register!! I love your site and it is fun to read, but this one was just way to confuseing for me to read all the way through!! Love ya!!!
This is definitely a good sign!
Enjoy Linux Wil!
Penguin Time
The next time you header that, you’d better be in Pittsburgh… watching hockey!
I’ve been on the fence for a few weeks about a new OS. My ‘ole rig died a few weeks ago, and i’ve been doing nothing but getting Win set back up ever since. Grass looks greener over there…
(anyone care to do a parody of the apple/switch commecials starring Wil?)
Another log technical boring post that says nothing about you. Big deal. Some writer. ;-/
Hey Wil,
nice post! I’d really love to see you as a spokesperson for the movement — besides Linus (who doesn’t say much), the figureheads aren’t really very charismatic. But you’ll need a thick skin for this job, there’s a lot of zealots on both sides. Then again, nothing probably beats the experience of being Wesley Crusher.
Speaking of zealots, I’m afraid your closing statement is a little misleading: “This community is self-sustaining, nurturing, and always welcoming in new members.” Have you ever been to one of the popular Linux IRC channels? Well, I have. And I know how they “welcome” newbies. It’s like one of those Klingon painstick rituals. “Read the damn manual!” “You’re too stupid!” “You’ll never learn!” You see, there are all those emotionally and sexually repressed geeks who are using this as an outlet to deal with aggression they suffered as high school kids. Note to other readers who consider switching — don’t let this get you down. Just stick to the official support (if you pay, you get it) or one of the forums explicitly labeled as newbie-friendly.
Which makes me wonder whether one could build a more friendly mutual tech-help community, the basic rule being: “We don’t care how much you know — if you behave like a jackass, you’re out.” I see some business potential there.
Heh. Maybe we’ll see you in IBM’s or Sun’s version of “Switch” commercials once the desktop wave really gets rolling.
Anyway, you may want to start thinking about whether you want this to be part of your regular blog, as you’re bound to alienate readers with all the tech talk (it’s like those Trek episodes where they were only talking about how to convert those damn subspace transmitters in order to fluctuate the ion wave emitting from the warp drive to reduce the impact of the tachyon emissions .. er, sorry, got carried away there). Besides, you deserve to have a copyeditor for your rants 🙂
This article has me strongly considering LINUX (for the first time). I had been hating Windows for quite some time now until XP and since have been pretty happy.
Though you make it sound as if I could be happier.
BTW, what is LUG install party? I would assume that it’s when everyone gets together to install Linux at once but it sounds almost silly.
I like linux more and more, but i did not install it so far.
Instead i am using knoppix a Linux Live File System. You have just download the leatest iso image burn on a CD, restart your machine and
3 minutes later you have Linux runing with KDE the browser Konqueror pops up.
It is not some kind of an joke it is real. It based from an Debian distribution, so Gimp, Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, plus many more programs and even Gnome are ready for use.
I think there is no need to make the big swicht as the first steep. I can evaluate Linux, get familiar what is behind Linux without to change
anything.
What, it should not be one for gamers ? Linux/Unix is the biggest text advanture of man kind. 😉
related url http://www.knoppix.de
* Erik: ” Which makes me wonder whether one could build a more friendly mutual tech-help community, the basic rule being: “We don’t care how much you know — if you behave like a jackass, you’re out.” ”
The Mandrake Linux mailing lists ( http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/flists.php3 ) are very much like that. They are great for both newbies and experts alike. Also check out http://www.pclinuxonline.com 🙂
* WilliamKnight: ” BTW, what is LUG install party? ”
A LUG is a Linux User Group. There is probably one in your area. Take a look at http://www.linux.org/groups/index.html
I’m one of those that got burned trying to make the switch from Windows to Linux – mainly due to difficulties getting my printer and internet connections to work. Today, the software that my ISP uses for my cable internet connection will only ever survive under Windows. >_
wow, i could read all of that and managed to understand at least half of it! Wil, thanks for such a newbie friendly and still supergeeky entry… 🙂
maybe i too will someday switch to linux… i’m kinda bored with Windows.
Congrats on the switch to Linux! Glad you enjoy it over here on the dark side. I’m in the process of helping my brother switch using Debian — I like the ease of upgrading between versions — but as it’s all being done over the phone (he’s many miles away) and Debian can’t seem to find his network card, I may have to try out Mandrake.
I am now blessing your hard drive…
stop it. this is too geeky. back to life stories. no more computer stories. pleeeeease.
About the ‘checking for updates’ part:
The utility it uses (Mandrake Update) doesn’t usually work very well. There’s a couple other update utilities for RPM updating (rpm-get, errr, I forget the other). Maybe try one of those.
Good luck.
– Ben
Whoa. LINUX warp bubble, and we’re all trapped inside with Wil.
I’d know more about Linux if more easier “distros” were available for my ol’ PPC604e Mac Clone. I haven’t had enough free time to switch my shaman’s headdress (I use that when I keep all the Macs in the agency in line) for my old, dusty propellor hat (after BASIC in 1982, I learned 6802, Z80, and 6809 assembly, so high-level languages like Pascal just seemed too luxuriant) to download an old distribution and “make” it work. It would be really cool to see Linux run on an old, old box like PCjr, or an Apple IIg. Breathe life into the dragon, ya little penguin.
If a LUG has an install party at a French cafe, is it called a “bistro distro”?
If “Linux” is for boys, is “Lucyx” for girls?
Is the Linux community held together by die-hards called “LUG Nuts”? Does this help explain the reliability of Windows, as it must be held together by “Wing Nuts” that just keep flying off?
You know I was admiring Steve Jobs and the UNIX underpinnings of Mac OS X the other day. I never thought I’d see the day when graphic designers would be comfortable typing “sudo chown root:wheel Hevetic*” into the command-line.
Later,
The Latest version of Unreal Tournament 2003 is shipping with the Linux version on the 3 CD set with the windows version. I tried Redhat 6.x about a year ago on dual boot With win2k.I had a 1 GHZ Amd t-bird
with 512MB ram.it ran like a 200MHZ with 64 megs.
(deadly slow)at the time I also had a usb based dsl modem that wasn’t supported under linux.
it was an abortive attempt.
I’ve since upgraded my modem so it connects thru ethernet.
I have heard good things about the Mandrake distro from others as well, and you’ve convinced me to make that one my next attempt.
in order to dual boot (in my job I occasionally support window users from home)I’ll have to install a floppy drive in my new machine, a feature I left out when I built it as I was leaving behind “legacy” technology.
Wil, I don’t know if you are a pentium user or AMD
but you get more bang for the buck from amd.
I can get you a wholesale account with my local supplier if you like, they save me an average of 70$-150$ on processors and similar savings on other components.it’s handy for me to check their price online before I make a purchase because they usually have it cheaper.shoot me an email if you wanna check this out,I’ll give you my login so you can see what I mean.
Starshadow said “the software that my ISP uses for my cable internet connection will only ever survive under Windows.”
I doubt it. I use cable, and they handed me this big packet when I signed up. I pulled out the specsheet and threw the rest away. I’ve never had any trouble getting it to work under Linux. Really.
It’s probably a DHCP-based system, so config is a breeze. If you’re using RoadRunner or some other proprietary login-based system, there are lots of people who have gotten that to work as well; check Google for details.
Drakensykh says: “I’d know more about Linux if more easier “distros” were available for my ol’ PPC604e Mac Clone.”
Have you checked out Mandrake PPC ?
Penguins? I don’t see no stinkin penguins!
Linux? Dude, say it isn’t so. What about OS X?