Linux-Uses?

[gam3r]

Im toying with the idea of "Experimenting" with another OS, i've never done it before. I am aware that linux is open source, and there are countless different distro's availible on the net for next to nothing, the thing is what are the uses of linux over windows? I mean shouldn't software compatibility be a big issue with linux .

Basically, what can you actually do with linux and why do so many people favour it instead of windows? I know most people complement its stability but don't you need more than that to satisfy your needs?

Also, would you recommend using a linux OS on a machine which will be probably used only for web browsing, bit of word processing? The machine in question is a Celeron 800Mhz 386MB ram and 8MB on board graphics...What distro?

So many questions...so little time. I've never installed a linux distro or let alone used one...

Thank you in advance for any help guys

Edit: I would probably set up this as a second OS on that machine. I can do multiboot with windows but i have no idea with linux..On this machine i got Win 98SE, Win2k and WinXP..

 

[SKILL]

Linux can do a lot of stuff, the one main area it isn't so good at is gaming, very few games work natively and getting stuff to work through wine/cedega is a pita...

For general web surfing/word processing i'd actually say linux was as good if not better than windows for, for web surfing FireFox is available on linux and linux has the big benefit of not being affected by much(any?) spyware/adware etc

For word processing i use OpenOffice, it can read in .doc's and can write them out but they're aren't going to be perfect, it does however have the ability to export your files as pdf making them readable easily on any machine


For dual booting you'll need to install and setup grub or lilo, depends on the districbution as to which it will prefer/install and if you choose a distro like ubuntu it will set it all up for you, with the one note that it will set ubuntu to the default boot (not necessarily a bad thing )

 

[BillytheImpaler]

For my purposes, a desktop Linux with a GUI is the perfect platform for web browsing and light office work. I find that older, slower machines like the one you've described are made fast again by simply switching over to Linux and using a fast GUI like Fluxbox.

For multibooting you won't have much trouble at all. Most distros (pretty much all the ones I've used) give you many options when installing a bootloader. The bootloader lives on the MBR and can boot many many OS'es. I triple boot Ubuntu, FreeBSD, and Windows XP with no trouble at all. You might consider nuking one or two of your Windows installations, though. I bet they're hogging up quite a bit of the hard disk.

For dual booting you'll need to install and setup grub or lilo, depends on the districbution as to which it will prefer/install and if you choose a distro like ubuntu it will set it all up for you, with the one note that it will set ubuntu to the default boot (not necessarily a bad thing )

Remember that you can always change the default boot option in the bootloader configuration file found in /boot.

 

[gam3r]

Ok, i installed Ubuntu on my machine..It all works but its a bit slow and i can't get the internet working on it by networking via my CAT5 cable to another PC which has a wireless USB to access the router.

It seems pretty good, but i thought it would be a lil bit faster. I got grub loader working as well..

 

[SKILL]

Remember that you can always change the default boot option in the bootloader configuration file found in /boot.

I know, was just making note of the fact that the default was ubuntu


Ubuntu uses the Gnome desktop as the standard one, this isn't bad but imo it's a bit bulky and could be causing the slowness you're experiencing, might be worth looking into using a more lightweight manager, Fluxbox is very light weight and configurable, IceWM isn't quite lightweight and a but more usable 'out of the box' than fluxbox, I prefer icewm out of those two. There is also XFCE which is meant to be quite nice, but personally i've not tried it...

With regards to the networking, does it appear to be detecting the network card, and can you ping the windows box ip, or is there nothing at all?

 

[BillytheImpaler]

I know, was just making note of the fact that the default was ubuntu.

I knew that you knew. I was just pointing it out for the sake of posterity.

 

[gam3r]

Hi guys..got the internet working on it. Yeah...its super slow, as slow as it was on windows XP. I will have to change to IceWM but how? What about KDE is that any good?

 

[Dunky]

KDE has some nice features and probably the better selection of programs but GNOME has a bit more style. Personal opinion of course. I've been playing with Fluxbox on my laptop and I am addicted It's so simple and looks great with transparency set up. Very nippy for a P3 800 laptop.

Also are you using Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy) or 6.06 (Dapper)? Although dapper is still in testing (up to Flight 6), using on my desktop atm and it's much better than breezy. More polished and a bit nipper. Of course there are a few tweaks which can be done (bootup, make sure you have the correct kernel installed, etc.)

 

[gam3r]

Im using Breezy, how would i get rid of GNOME and install Fluxbox?

 

[leezer3]

Hiya,
That lappy should be of a more than adequate spec to run Ubuntu & Gnome with no complaints. Your first stop should be to install an optimised kernel- If you feel confident, I would highly reccomend compiling your own, following the guide here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=84174
If not, then even the i586 kernel should be better than the default.

You'd also probably be better served with a post on the Ubuntu forum, I'm not totally coversant with speed tweaking Gnome.

-Leezer-

 

[gam3r]

The processor and ram isn't holding it back, its the 8MB onboard GFX which is...a lot of ghosting(if thats what its called)and freezing windows. Maybe i need something thats easy on graphics but looks good and is easy to use.

 

[Dunky]

Have a look here for a fluxbox tutorial: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=116759&highlight=fluxbox . This is maybe a bit advanced, but it's worth a try. I didn't actually follow this (since Dapper has the more up-to-date version of fluxbox so not needed) but from the responses it seems to work. Also DSL (Damn Small Linux) installs Fluxbox by default iirc but it uses an older kernel which doesn't always work well with new hardware (especially SATA and PCI-E gfx cards).

 

[gam3r]

seems like such a complicated process..

 

[gam3r]

I got xfce its very nice and fast but the user interface sucks. I guess ill just have to get used to it. has anyone tried Automatix for ubuntu? I got it, but it requests some key thing when i run it and just stops there..