So I want to start using Linux...

Tobes

Tobes

Tobes

Soldato
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Howdy,

Vista is sloooooow but I cba to go back to XP because come the time when I upgrade I will want Vista again. So I was thinking I have a dual boot and install linux for my basic needs. However apart from having a play with Live CDs like Slax I don't really know that much. So I'm asking for a little bit of advice.

I assume I will be able to dual boot from my current Vista install? I want a nice Desktop but not one that eats away for no reason.

Current programs I use heavily on Vista are:
Firefox
Thunderbird
MSN
Winamp 5
CS3
MS Office 2007
Lightroom

Obviously I will need to boot into vista to use it sometimes so I want it to be able to "sync".

Firefox - Google Browser Sync plugin?
Thunderbird - Use IMAP so no problem there
Winamp - Well I wont be able to use it anyway so ratings etc will be something I wont be able to do on Linux

Obviously some programs dont have linux builds so I am going to need alternatives.

Office - OpenOffice
Winamp - ?
CS3 - Will have to boot into Vista to use
Lightroom - Will have to boot into Vista to use
MSN - ?

Drivers. I wouldn't have a clue where to start :(

So, can I get any advice please :D

Thanks,
Tobes
 
Get the latest version of Ubuntu, and you can duel boot that with vista. Very simple, and perfect for beginners. You shouldn't need to worry about drivers for the time being, other than maybe for your graphics card.

CS3 should work fine under Wine from what Ive read, so no worries there.
Winamp, you should replace with Amarok ;)
MSN, i like amsn or pidgin.
And openoffice is pretty decent as you mentioned.
Firefox & thunderbird will work fine.

The hardest part for you will probably be setting up the duel boot, but theres lots of info and guides on how to do it. Will you be installing to a seperate partition or drive? You may have to resize your vista partition if its on the same drive, but this can be done from within vista easily enough.

Hope thats some help,
Jack
 
As tntcoder said.

But if you have a lot of kewl Winamp skins then Xmms is Winamp compatible ( I wouldn't peronsally bother with it though as amarok kicks its Butt).

Dont forget to install wine afterwards as you will undoubtedly find something you need to run whilst in Linux attire.
 
Pidgin is the messenger you'll want. I've even taking to using it in Windows...

For bookmarks, look at using Foxmarks plugin for Firefox, I get them sync'ed across Windows, Linux and OS X :)
 
tntcoder said:
The hardest part for you will probably be setting up the duel boot, but theres lots of info and guides on how to do it. Will you be installing to a seperate partition or drive? You may have to resize your vista partition if its on the same drive, but this can be done from within vista easily enough.
Click to expand...

I use my 74Gb raptor for Vista and it's not partitioned. So I'm a little confused about what I should do here.
 
Easiest method.....

From within Windows, use a tool such as Partition Magic or Ranish Partition Manager. Resize your current 74Gb drive, reducing it by however much you want to dedicate to Linux. I'd say 10Gb will be fine to start with. You should defrag Windows before you partition the drive (unless Vista finally doesn't need to be manually defragged... but I guess it still does).

With the spare 10Gb in place, boot up your Linux installation CD and when you get to the point where it asks where you want to install it, tell it to use the newly created, unused 10Gb on your Raptor drive. I'd recommend using the manual option during the install rather than the automated part... all you need to do is create one "swap" partition of, say, 256Mb, and dedicate the rest the "root" (or /) partition. The Linux installer will then do the rest.

You'll then have a new bootloader when you power up your PC, asking whether you want to use Linux or Windows :)
 
Right so basically because it's me I should probably backup first :D

OK well I suppose I should download Ubuntu. Also you mention a swap partition. Does this work like Windows page file?
 
Exactly like it :) Won't need to be too big. 256Mb should cover it.

You mentioned a nice desktop... Ubuntu ships by default with the Gnome desktop. You may prefer, however, to have a look at a version fo Ubuntu that ships with the KDE desktop by default. This is called Kubuntu. I'd say KDE is more Windows-like than Gnome.

Don't worry if you don't get on with one of the... the desktop environment in Linux sits on top of the OS itself and is easily interchangeable, unlike WIndows where it's very tied-in.
 
If its the KDE environment you want ( windows looking one) that'll do nicely. Be aware though that if you do install a 64 bit Linux distro then you will probably find yourself jumping through a few hoops to get some things working.

the i386 distro has vastly more stuff working.
 
Tobes said:
lol. You tell me this just after I finish burning the ISO to disc. Oh well I like a challenge
Click to expand...

I use the 64bit version, its fine. The problems of 64bit are largely history, someone will say Adobe Flash dosn't work. It does.

Depends how much RAM you have ,if your going over 4GB use the 64 bit version, otherwise it doesn't matter one way or the other.


Also if you have a spare Hard Drive hanging around use that and don't get involved with resizing.
 
Gah it will only let me shrink my current partition 4524Mbs Yet I have 20Gb free. It says it can be restricted if pagefile or snapshops are enabled. Well I know my pagefile is 1gb and I dont know what snapshots are so I dont know how to put the size down on that.
 
make sure that you defragment your ntfs partition first. if you're using the windows defragmentation tool - you'll need to run through it a few times.

Ideally, you want all the data towards the start of the disk and as much space consolidated towards the end of the disk as possible.

any system files which have migrated to the end of the disk will cause you issues when you resize it, so third party defrag tools rule here :)


Other than that, as said above - replace winamp with amarok and replace msn with amsn.
 
By the looks of things I wont be able to use this drive as Vista and programs are just taking up too much space. So I'm going to have to use another drive. Which complicates things.

Also I have a problem when booting the disc. If I select Start/Install it does something then my screen goes into standby mode.
 
No but really I shouldn't need to. It should be a simple problem and probably has something to do with my graphics card or resolution.

Also I have no idea how to use commands in linux so I won't be going there. If it doesn't work with a graphical interface it isn't worth it.
 
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