Wanting to dip my toes into the waters of Linux

I did a gentoo amd64 install a few months ago. I went back to 32 because I live bleeding edge, and 32 bit code tends to be more optimised than 64bit at the moment. So stuff like x264 encoding was actually faster in a 32bit environment at the time.
 
Given Ubuntu and Kubuntu a try, and they both stay stuck at the same place "retrieving base-installer" at 4%. :mad: Burnt CDs at 4x, 8x, 16x - same old story.

Going to try Gentoo now.
 
Greeny132 said:
see you in a few days lol And good luck, if you get nowhere you might wanna have a look at Slackware it isn't as easy as ubuntu but a whole lot less difficult than gentoo :)
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Can't work out which one I need to download. :o

Looking into the slackware.
 
You need the first two disks if you want to run in a gui (kde in this case) or just the first disk if you wanna run from just the command line.
Being your first time I recommend the first two disks and picking the "install everything" option, you can always remove anything you dont want at a later date
 
BillytheImpaler said:
I think somehow it boils down to a snooty air among *NIX users that somehow they fgured it all out and that new switchers should have to put in the same time and effort that they did. They don't need any of this newfangled automated stuff. It's somehow less manly. That might be the case but wouldn't it better if it was easy to begin with? Wouldn't it be better if it welcomed new users rather than scaring them away?

My 0.02
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Exactly how I feel everytime I install Linux on a PC with the intention of learning. Invariably I give up and go back to Windows. This has happened probably 10 times at least, tried many different distros too. :o

Wish Linux was easier to get into.
 
null said:
Exactly how I feel everytime I install Linux on a PC with the intention of learning. Invariably I give up and go back to Windows. This has happened probably 10 times at least, tried many different distros too. :o

Wish Linux was easier to get into.
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Haven't had another since my last post in this thread.

But I agree. People whoop and cheer about how much better it is. Helps if it installs.

I'll say this for Microsoft. You can backup their £90 software, use your backup and no problems.

Download a free, legit ISO of Linux, burn it, and I have more problems than I can shake a stick at. :rolleyes:
 
Don't lose heart mate, you dont wanna know how long it took me to work out where I was going wrong! Remember how confusing windows was before you got used to it and figured it out? It's the same for any other OS.

People think linux is hard because its different IMHO if you get a good distro it is no harder to learn than windows, just different!

<awaits flaming>
 
null said:
Exactly how I feel everytime I install Linux on a PC with the intention of learning. Invariably I give up and go back to Windows. This has happened probably 10 times at least, tried many different distros too. :o

Wish Linux was easier to get into.
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Linux is geeky, idiosyncratic and none of the distros were really designed to be used by people who an OS that 'just works' in the same way that Windows does, although some are heading that way. At the moment, there's 3 reasons why you'd run Linux on a desktop machine - cost, fun or to stick 2 fingers up at Bill.

If you really want to 'learn' Linux for work, etc, use it for what it was intended for - server tasks. Set yourself a target (ie. build a corporate mail server with all the bells and whistles) and set about accomplishing it. It's far more fun than buggering about with video codecs, honest ;).

Good luck :).

Edit: For the record, while I personally maintain scores of Linux boxes, all of my desktop machines and my personal laptop are Windows.
 
Some errors are really annoying and fiddly with Linux. I've even had to change m/b just to get Linux to run (MSI RS480 has so many ACPI and double speed clock problems), but I'd say if you are deadly serious about Linux as a full time desktop, then at your next upgrade you should look at Linux-compatible upgrades. It certainly made my life easier and although you certain bleeding edge hardware isn't available (X-FI, Ati X1xxx series), you still can get a very high quality system which works pretty well. Research is the key but can be very time consuming.

I also don't like how people say Linux can't be a desktop enviroment. It's like saying Windows 2k3 server can't be used as a server enviroment because it has a desktop. GNOME, KDE, Fluxbox, XFCE, E17, etc.. are all perfectly fine and work great. Linux has everything I need for uni, I can still play some games (Quake 4, UT2k4, Quake 3, RTCW:ET) and I still have access to DVDs, movies and my music collection. Why should I pay for software when their is a cheaper and in some cases better supported application? I understand this isn't the case with most users, but there are tens of thousands of linux desktop users who would never go back to Windows (or Mac OSX however if I had the choice between Windows and OS X, I'd go OS X due to the BSD base and the terminal it provides). We are the proof that a Linux system is a viable system if it meets your needs as an operating system.
 
I don't think anyone has ever said that linux can't be a viable desktop o/s, it's just that you have to put the effort in to get things running exactly as you'd like whereas, with Windows, you can have a working system from scratch in under 30 minutes.
 
Adz said:
If you really want to 'learn' Linux for work, etc, use it for what it was intended for - server tasks. Set yourself a target (ie. build a corporate mail server with all the bells and whistles) and set about accomplishing it.
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I realised this myself a few months ago now, but everytime I give in to some 'time pressure' that I create for myself.

In the past when trying it as desktop OS, I had to install it in dual boot on my main PC (due to lack of other PCs). Thus when I didn't get very far I would give up and go back to Windows for my music, games, MSN etc. etc.

I then realised I had no real need or reason to use Linux on the desktop anyway and so decided to only try it for server stuff. I've been running a very functional Windows XP server for a few years now, with Apache2 [+virtual hosts], PHP, MySQL and E-Mail servers (using MailEnable free edition). It does most things that I need but there's one thing I simply can't get working on my Windows server; webmail. I searched and searched but couldn't find a webmail package that was free and worked. Tried Squirrel Mail and Horde but were too difficult.

So now my miniature Linux goal is to create a nice mail server (with IMAP - 'cus I can't get that on Windows without paying) with webmail. A few days ago I finished the construction of a dual CPU server with 1ghz P3s. Installed Debian but when I wasn't getting anywhere I gave into another time pressure created by myself - that I should be Folding@Home on it, and so went back to Windows just so I can fold.

However, I won an old P3 mobo on eBay the other day and so hopefully when that arrives I will build another system out of that, and since it's only gonna be 866mhz I won't feel guilty for not running FAH on it immediately. Yes that's right, in a few days I shall be trying Linux... again. Fingers crossed I won't give up but from past experience the odds are I will :S
 
Another Linux n00b here :) seems like quite a few around recently, I'm trying to set up ClarkConnect on a Netgear NAS I picked up off the MM (Not having much luck though)

I did have a red hat box set up as a SAMBA server but I somehow messed something up and I have no idea what as it now refuses to boot

I'm hopefully going to have another crack at this linux malarky after I've done my Cisco PIX training course in May. (seing as I have parts for 3-4 PCs kicking about)

Pretty much all the people I have spoken to have reccomended Debian tho
 
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