Very Computer

Just recently discovered Linux, and was wondering before i go and take
time to install Linux on my computer, is Linux faster than Windows?,
is it easy to use? and what would be a good version/company to start
with?

Thank you in adavance.

On Fri, 17 Dec 1999 17:09:10 GMT,

Many believe so, but the comparison is somewhat apples and oranges.
Linux is not another flavor of Windows.  You will need to run different
software.

Quote:> is it easy to use?

I believe it is.  I don't believe it's easy to learn, though.  Some
distributions hide the complexity from new users which is both good and
bad.

Quote:> and what would be a good version/company to start
> with?

My general rule: use what your friends use.  You should then be able to
borrow their CDs and even get them to install it for you.  If you don't
have friends, go find new ones at http://www.linux.com/lug/.  You then
get a free install and support (though you may have to periodically buy
pizza to get advanced support).

--
Brian Moore                       | Of course vi is God's editor.
      Sysadmin, C/Perl Hacker     | If He used Emacs, He'd still be waiting
      Usenet Vandal               |  for it to load on the seventh day.
      Netscum, Bane of Elves.

Depends.  Crude benchmarks I've noticed between Win98 and Linux:
(System K6-2 400MHz, 96M RAM, 8G HDD(win) 13G HDD(linux))
Benchmark                  Win98              Linux
boot time                  210 sec            115 sec
distributed.net            480 kkeys/sec      677 kkeys/sec
distributed.net with
one "scheduled task"
 or cron job in queue      280 kkeys/sec      676 kkeys/sec
MPEG playing, fullscreen   *DECENT*           choppy unless niced to -9
MAME/Xmame arcade emulator *GOOD*             choppy unless
resolution=minimum
MP3 encoding, 3 min .wav   0.42x (428 s)      0.61x (295 s)
word processing + playing
mp3s at same time          MS Word=choppy     StarOffice didn't blink

Your Mileage May Vary.

Quote:> is it easy to use? and what would be a good version/company to start
> with?

Caldera is supposed to have the easiest install procedure.  RedHat is
used by the most people.  SuSE includes damn near everything in their
distro, but isn't as friendly to new installers.  Debian and Slackware
are great for advanced users.

Short answer: pick Caldera or RedHat.  Spring for the $50 shrink-wrapped
package, as the included manual(s) will help you out a lot.  Consider
buying O'Reilly's "Running Linux" book, as it can help out even
medium-advanced users as well as newbies.

HTH,
--MG

From one newbie to another:
before you mess with windows, I would suggest you make some preparations
Most important: Check the hardware compatability list. Linux will run  on
even a 386-sx 25Mhz, with 4MB of ram, with a VGA card.
 But just make sure. Some CDROM drives cause problems. Like my NEC multispin
2V cdrom, which works from dos with dos driver, but Linux can't find the
drive. ( I used an ATAPI drive instead for the install).

1) If you can, get another hdd and install linux on it.  or if you have a
spare computer to experiment with, all the better.
    I still remember the chill I felt when the installer was unable to set
up the partitions properly because of 'overlapping partitions'.
    And I'd just nuked the boot partition.
    ( The problem turned out to be dos's use of hdd params from BIOS,while
Linux was bypassing the BIOS altogether. Fix : delete  all partitions. That
was a spare hdd anyway.)
2) Read up on some basic unix commands, and locate a quick-reference or
something for vi, the Unix editor. nothing fancy; just know how to exit from
vi, scroll, insert, append, delete ... the basic operations.

3)  Read the installation howto's.
4) Familirize yourself with 'irq' ( Interrupt request ) numbers , and IO
 input-output)  ports and notations like 0x300 ( meaning hexadecimal, 300) .
You'll need those to setup the ethernet card.
5) I'm guessing you use a telephone to connect to the internet : so read the
PPP howto, and the ISP howto. If not, there are appropriate howto's for
cable modems, dsl and isdn.

   A bit better than Win95, A lot faster than win98 , and really a lot
faster than NT , in terms of GUI response.

  >is it easy to use? and what would be a good version/company to start
  GUI is simple to use. If you caught on to the windows GUI, you will catch
on to which ever windowing system you use.
 No problem there. I'm not an authority on the GUI since my setup did not
need it, so I did not install it.

Quote:>with?

I started with Redhat . Played with 5.0, upgraded, then changed to rh6.0
By default , after the installation, it reboots and comes to a command
prompt.
That way, if your GUI is messed up because you chose the wrong monitor or
something, you can still recover.

By the way, the admin account on Linux is called "root", and not "admin" .
Something to watch out for.
good luck.

Quote:>Thank you in adavance.

That's always my recommendation.

Quote:>You should then be able to borrow their CDs and even get them
>to install it for you.  If you don't have friends, go find new
>ones at http://www.linux.com/lug/.  You then get a free install
>and support (though you may have to periodically buy pizza to
>get advanced support).

The good news is that geeks aren't very picky about their
pizza, and you can get a surprising amount of help in exchange
for even the worst pizza...

--
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  WHY are we missing
                                  at               KOJAK?
                               visi.com            

Go to the store and pick up a box set: Red Hat Linux

It will come with a manual and it is relatively easy to install.
You will need to partition your harddrive, which will all be explained
in the book.

You must accept that there will be a learning curve and you will likely
run into frustrations. But also recognize the same thing happens with Windows.

Also, there are relatively easy to use windows managers such as KDE. KDE is
about as easy to use as Windows 9* though there is a learning curve and you
need to get used to it.

The bottom line is you have some learning ahead but it is interesting and you'll
enjoy the process.

--
Neil

On Fri, 17 Dec 1999 14:14:47 -0500, Dances With Crows

[snip]

Quote:>Caldera is supposed to have the easiest install procedure.  RedHat is
>used by the most people.  SuSE includes damn near everything in their
>distro, but isn't as friendly to new installers.  Debian and Slackware

                                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Quote:>are great for advanced users.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Quote:>Short answer: pick Caldera or RedHat.  Spring for the $50 shrink-wrapped
>package, as the included manual(s) will help you out a lot.  Consider
>buying O'Reilly's "Running Linux" book, as it can help out even
>medium-advanced users as well as newbies.

>HTH,
>--MG

I'm not sure that this is true for Debian. Admittedly the initial
installation is perhaps more difficult using dselect, although there is
good handholding available on the debian users' mailing list. But once
over this hurdle, Debian is probably easier to use than some of the
others, at least IMO. This is because (1) the Debian packaging system is
better than rpm, and (2) apt-get makes upgrading the system virtually
foolproof. All you have to to is to point it at the source (e.g. an ftp
site) and it fetches the program plus any required supporting files and
then installs and configures it.

Also, the text-based scripts for setting up PPP, printer etc. do work;
and I think it's better to have them in this form.

Debian takes its time in putting out a stable system; this means that
when it does come out thr system really is stable, which is more than
you can say for some of the others.

I'd say the main thing about moving to Linux from Windows is that you
need to accept that there are other ways of doing things than MS
prescribes. This takes some getting used to but is worth it in the end.

Anthony

--
Anthony Campbell - running Linux De
bian 2.1 (Windows-free zone)
Book Reviews: http://www.pentelikon.freeserve.co.uk/bookreviews/

"It's no go the Yogi Man, it's no go Blavatsky"  - Louis MacNeice

On Fri, 17 Dec 1999 14:14:47 -0500, Dances With Crows

Do you use mtvp or xanim? mtvp does a better job. It is not free software,
though.

Quote:> MAME/Xmame arcade emulator *GOOD*             choppy unless
> resolution=minimum

Try the svgalib version of xmame (a compile time option).
It runs full screen, amd should run at least as good as the windows
version.

Quote:> word processing + playing
> mp3s at same time          MS Word=choppy     StarOffice didn't blink

On linux, unless I play with niceness levels, xmame and mpg123 (mp3
player) together mean choppy xmame.

--