Testing Out Linux. Part 1
A windows users' journey into the world of Linux
Thursday, May 19, 2005 by thedon808 | Discussion: OS Wars
I've known about GNU/Linux , and the whole open source thing, for sometime now.
About a year ago I bought the 'Dummies Guide to Fedora Rore1' book. Hoping to
get more into using Linux and also as my girl friend worked on Saturdays
(the only day I could go to visit) I spent a lot of time in the town, so
this book gave me something to do. I spent a few weeks flicking through
it reading bits and pieces I then decided to try it out. I installed it on
my test PC an old PII 350Mhz 128ram 3Gb drive. The install process of
Fedora is quite easy with a nice GUI installer guiding you through what
packages you want installed etc. After it had done its business installing,
about 45-60mins install time, I was thrown into the deep end, with a
rather dated looking desktop theme, my first mission was to connect to
my main XP PC.
'Ok, how do I do that? Ah ha network tool. Oh, no card installed! Humm ok!
Well I tried, where's my XP CD?'
After getting married and moving house I thought it would be great
to have a file server for our music etc. I had already set up a network
between my PC, my wife's, and her Mac. So adding a file server should be
easy enough. Again out comes the old PII install Fedora on it again.
This time I was more careful what I installed as I needed more space
rather than toys, after the install I checked the space left on the
3Gb drive, only 400 or so Mb. Well there goes my conception that Linux
was a smaller operating system than XP.
So now I'm on the hunt for a smaller distro, so google for 'lightweight
Linux distro' all I come up with are the tiny distros eg50Mb. What I
was after was something a little more fuller but not bloated. Then I
came across
Distrowatch.com in the packages list Ubuntu had all I needed, apache,
php, samba, etc. and its on one CD (Fedora Core 3 is 4 CD's).
So set it up downloading overnight. The next night I had planned to install
it (as long it downloaded ok, which it did). The next night I burnt it to
CD and then got carried away designing a cover to print onto the CD. That
was a week ago, last night I actually did the install. Even though it
hasn't got a fancy installer like Fedora I actually found it easier than
I thought to install. The only hard bit would have been disk partitioning
but as it had Fedora on it previously I just reformatted the partitions
that were already there. The only down side to the installation was the
time, over 2 hours later I eventually had the login screen in front of me,
(my only worry was I didn't remember putting the root password in?)
anyhow login fine.
First objective, check root password, 'Great the same as my login password,
really secure!' So promptly change it and then have a little nose around,
the GUI still isn't as nice as XP or OSX it still needs some work, I then
check the network, well the internet works so looks hopeful.
Next objective set up shared folder on the network. 'Oh, samba isn't
installed'. At that point I decided to leave it for another day, as it
was an hour later than I was expecting due to the lengthy install time.
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Reply #42 Sunday, May 22, 2005 7:19 PM
Reply #43 Sunday, May 22, 2005 7:20 PM
| I'll tell you what, it's a whole new bunch of words to learn and I hope I'm not too old to learn a whole new OS |
Nah, you can do it. Just remember it isn't Windows, don't expect it to be the same and you'll be fine. Keep an open mind. If you want to learn more, ask questions, etc., check out www.linuxquestions.org
Reply #44 Monday, May 23, 2005 1:26 AM
Yeah, yeah
I'll check out that website, but tomorrow...errr later today after work
Reply #45 Monday, May 23, 2005 5:51 AM
The different distros just offer different software, customizations like wallpapers, etc..... (Like the Berry cute cat)
Reply #46 Monday, May 23, 2005 10:56 AM
I'm currently using XFCE. It's much more lighter than KDE, which is very important on 500 mhz 56 mb ram laptop. It also has everything I need and none I don't need.
Reply #47 Monday, May 23, 2005 6:51 PM
How do I get that Winamp looking player to see my drives where my music is stored? Can't get out of the Linux partition with its open dialog box.
Reply #48 Monday, May 23, 2005 7:00 PM
linuxbeginner.org seems to be down and the url redirects to some search page.
Reply #49 Monday, May 23, 2005 9:20 PM
Mostly talking about terminal commands at the moment. But it did explain what those dang folders are.Some of the term commands are nicely familiar to an old DOS guy.
Reply #50 Tuesday, May 24, 2005 8:55 AM
)Is there a linux media player which plays .wma files, other than xine?
I'm just trying to get my daughters basic computers needs completely solved before I install linux on her machine. This distro has everything else she needs already.
Thank you
Reply #51 Tuesday, May 24, 2005 9:59 PM
Reply #52 Tuesday, May 24, 2005 10:05 PM
How do I install it?
Reply #53 Tuesday, May 24, 2005 10:16 PM
Reply #54 Tuesday, May 24, 2005 10:22 PM
I know that some distributions such as Fedora or Redhat don't ship with MP3 decoders due to patenting issues. But I know that SimplyMepis and other Debian based distros will. In any case, with Fedora/RedHat, you can always install MP3 playback doing the following:
Alt-F2, gg:redhat mp3 kde, ENTER
Reply #55 Tuesday, May 24, 2005 10:25 PM
Reply #56 Tuesday, May 24, 2005 10:34 PM
Reply #57 Wednesday, May 25, 2005 12:46 PM
Reply #58 Wednesday, May 25, 2005 12:59 PM
Reply #59 Wednesday, May 25, 2005 1:04 PM
I can get amarok to play the wma files if I go there and select them, but I can't figure out how to get all of it in my 'Collection'
Reply #60 Wednesday, May 25, 2005 1:41 PM
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Reply #41 Sunday, May 22, 2005 6:56 PM
I'll tell you what, it's a whole new bunch of words to learn and I hope I'm not too old to learn a whole new OS