Starting in linux

[TruePurple]

Greetings good people :)

First off I'm not a PC newbie, I've built some computers, know some basic dos stuff, at least know of the register and other stuff like that. I had windows 98 and was always tempted to go linux but intimidated by what sounded like a very technical OS. Plus I am a game addict (largely RPG with love of TB strategy games too) and without being able to run the many games I have written for windows on linux has been a large barrier.

Then XP comes out, of course much more stable then win98. Maybe I won't ever need to deal with all that hassle. But I still contemplate learning/using linux now and again. XP's hardly perfect and rather bossy :p Another obstacle in learning linux is trying to find linux forums/support. Many many hours of google and other SE searches resulted in many a dead end. I found this forum by accident. (a series of links from a linux morrowind googling)

I hope I haven't annoyed or bothered anyone with this long winded background stuff. Any recommendations for best ways to get into linux and of duel OS with linux (and win98 too, its on here slimmed down by mozilla for the old games, plus my sound card won't run on XP :p) Which linux is best to learn on etc.. would be warmly welcome. (whether second hdd is needed, which formating to use etc as well)

[happybunny]

Good evening and welcome TruePurple....looks more mauve to me, but who am i to say?

This, by far is the best forum i have come across (save maybe the gentoo forums). The mod's here are on top of things and very little RTFM responces. Join us also on irc.freenode.net.

As far as the infamous "which distro", check out http://justlinux.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=53 for a start as that topic has been covered in detail over and over again.

Also, http://www.tuxmagazine.com/ covers many different distro's this month. Its also a good linux mag to get via email.

There are also many threads talking about dual booting http://justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?t=130715&highlight=virgin for instance, so I wont cover that much here. However, the best way i have found, is to install what ever windows you want on one drive (or parition) then install linux allowing linux to manage your boot process.

There are also many liveCD's that will allow you to try out different distrobutions and windows managers. (a liveCD is a bootable cd that will run linux off the cd without touching your harddrive). Check here for a review http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=9569

This too is a good read http://justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?t=142980

1 point however :
"XP more stable than linux"? You looking for a fight on your first day? ;)

Well, i hope this help.

[TruePurple]

Oops, harebrained moment. I meant to say more stable then win98. Reformating and reinstalling win98 to recover a semblance of stability more times then I wish to recount. I thought that was the only way to go for a time :p

Mauve?

Linux on one drive, windows duel boot XP/win98 on another? They don't get along so well on the same drive? (partioned out of course) What format/partitioning systems to use? Is it worth it to get a program like partition magic for this kind of multiOS thing or is there a better ways?

I've heard of running linux off of CD, but HDD seems to be a better way, since CD is slower then HDD as far as I know. Also does it keep needing to reread the cd for this or that OS task or does it put the whole OS into RAM? In which case does that slow things down? I suppose its all to try it out anyways. I just don't want to be CD swapping if theres a game I wanna try on linux or something. Plus my old CD burner won't burn CD's any more :(

[happybunny]

the livecd is just a suggestion for testing out distro's without monkeying with your running system.

Most liveCD's run off the CD, but some allow for mounting the OS into RAM, so you can remove the CD, yet still be running linux. Try that with Windows!

There is no limit to the partitioning/booting scheme from what http://justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?t=143973&highlight=grub+100 has to say.

I have 2 harddrives:
drive 1 has 2 partitions, 1 for windows OS and 1 for linux OS
drive 2 has 2 partitions, 1 fat partition to share files between OS's and one for the linux swap partition (like a windows pagefile).

During Windows install, you can just partition the drive with "extra" partitions for future linux install. Then when installing linux, just install onto that extra partition. Or PartitionMagic, or any linux tool, can re-partition without the need to re-install Windows first.

[DSwain]

As personal preference (or at least when I started out myself) I enjoyed using partition magic to resize the NTFS/FAT32 partition to a good size, and then I used the Linux utilities to create the partitions it needed. Both on one drive should be just fine, though.

Booting wise, you've got two good options: LILO or Grub. I personally like Grub, but it really depends on the distro you're using and preferences when you try both out. In the end, if you're using an easier to use distro, it doesn't really matter which it installs because it *should* handle all that stuff for you anyway. When you get into the case of using more hands-on distros, your choice makes a difference.

[Parcival]

Plus I am a game addict (largely RPG with love of TB strategy games too)

No matter what distro, you will want Battle for Wesnoth (http://www.wesnoth.org/). However, be careful, it's very addictive. Oh, you said you are one already. :D

[TruePurple]

Thread about battle for wesnoth (http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?p=843942#post843942) Just so I don't end up hijacking my own thread :p

[TruePurple]

Yes it contained a question about linux versions but it also contained other questions, was it really necessary to move it? (not that I specifically have a problem with that)

[Barney_DK]

Just to add my tuppence worth, I would say that you have set out the right way, thinking of partitioning, and getting Windows XP on the machine before starting on Linux. I'm not sure about the partitioning software, as I used Windows setup to create the partition when I installed windows.

Basically though, if you install Linux second, it should find the windows partition and suggest some non destructive partition setup, and a dual boot option. Not sure about the others, but Suse Linux does this for you.

But it's a "horses for courses" question as to which distribution to choose. There are many different distributions for different types of people. I personally like Suse, as the girlfriend can easily use it (having used Windows before), and it is quite intuitive to the newer user. Of course, you can still get right in and start working from the command prompt, but the option for a nice shiny desktop is there too.

From a gaming point of view, one word of warning. If you have an ATI card, then support for 3d is nowhere near as good as Nvidia based cards in my experience.

Hope there's some useful info there.

[TruePurple]

How am I to try how well linux runs games under emulation if the OS is running off of CD? Or will the emulation software be running off the same CD? Will settings be saved in ram or virtual ram?

[Parcival]

You won't really be able to try that, at least not with satisfactionary results.


If you run a liveCD, the system will always be slow because every app has to be loaded from the CD. Gaming will seriously lag unless you try a small and simple game that can be loaded into your RAM without any need for reloads.
You won't find Cedega (the emulation app) on any liveCD since you have to buy it. The only way would be to install it from a USB stick or a second CD drive.
Anything you do in a liveCD system will be saved in your RAM and be gone after a reboot - after all liveCD are meant for trying Linux without changing anything. The only liveCD I know that breaks with this rule is SuSE, it creates one or two files in your FAT32 C: partition to save settings etc.


I am afraid if you really want to try emulation under Linux, you have to install it. Maybe it helps to know that on my computer Warcraft III runs as fast with Cedega under Linux as it does in Windows. (I did this test with the official Warcraft III demo, and once I saw it worked I bought the game. Now I have Warcraft III in Linux, yay! :D )

[TruePurple]

The book "linux red hat 7.3 for dummies" (or something like that) would that be good to purchase? Would the commands found there be useful for other destros? Or should I not bother with that book and get something completely different?

[EnigmaOne]

RH7.3, although what I consider to be a great distro (for its time), is a bit behind the times for considering a book purchase.

Why not head over to http://www.tldp.org and hunt through their documentation and HOWTO archives?

I have several books, that I printed out a while back, that I still refer to a few times a week.

[TruePurple]

Well the distro might be out of date, but would the book & commands inside be too out of date? I might be able to get one for $5 (most of that shipping cost) or so, without accompanying software.

Printing out documation can be expensive when it comes to printer cartridges. Speaking of, do you guys find that those fill yourself ink things work?

[Parcival]

Well the distro might be out of date, but would the book & commands inside be too out of date? I might be able to get one for $5 (most of that shipping cost) or so, without accompanying software.

I think for five bucks I would buy it. The core unix shell commands are the same over all distros and they don't get that fast outdated. I still have my SuSE 8.2 handbook I refer to although this one can be considered ancient by now, too. I guess with 5$ you can easily buy worse things than this book. :)

However, if you want a really fine book for shell commands and general introduction, I suggest you buy 'Linux in a Nutshell' by O'Reilly (publisher).

[je_fro]

I wouldn't buy it.... * for dummies is a crap series....it'll mostly just cover the (outdated) gui tools anyway...
if you want to read about linux head over to rute>
http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz

[EnigmaOne]

(I got to see je_fro use the word, "crap"!)

I *was* going to say that I'd pop for the 5 clams too (provided shipping wasn't something like 20 bucks or some-such); but I'm gonna be a spineless sycophant and say that you should do whut jay-frow tole-ya to du.

[aside: nice Rocky Horror config, J] ;)

[Parcival]

[aside: nice Rocky Horror config, J] ;)

How come nobody ever believes me that you two guys feature your real portraits? :confused: :D