Linux Guide #1: Making the Switch

The first thing you will want to do is to determine what you will be using your system for. Do you use it to play games? Do you use it to edit photos? Do you use it for business applications? Does it double as a server? Because Linux is essentially free, there are many different distributions of Linux. One might think of a distribution (distro) as a flavor of Linux that is tailored for a certain group of tasks. There are several general-purpose distros out there, however, that should work fine for anybody. These include SuSE, Red Hat, Mandrake, and Turbo Linux. Each of these has many, many software programs included with them. Unlike with Windows, once you’ve installed the OS you’ve also installed a boatload of software (if you tell it to) and you should be pretty much ready to go.

Which Distribution is Right for Me?

I cannot answer this. My personal favorite is Mandrake Linux, but there are so many Linux choices out there that I can’t name them all. A good place to get a general idea of the current Linux distros is at Distro Watch www.distrowatch.com. Once you’ve decided on a distribution, you must somehow obtain it. However, first, we need to get our feet wet with Linux.

Where Knoppix Comes In

Easily one of the coolest free things ever, Knoppix allows you to run a full Linux distribution with a large collection of software right off of your CD-ROM drive. Simply pop it in, and when it asks you to boot from CD, say “Yes.”

Knoppix can be downloaded at http://www.linuxiso.org/download.php/327/KNOPPIX_V3.2-2003-07-26-EN.iso as an ISO file and can also be bought online for a small fee. A great place to buy it is at http://www.easylinuxcds.com/linux_systems/knoppix/knoppix.shtml, AKA “Easy Linux CD’s.”

If you do not know how boot from CD-ROM, that’s an entirely different issue, but we will continue. You pop the CD into the drive and allow it to boot. Press enter when the Knoppix screen comes up. Then, just sit back, relax, and enjoy watching Linux – yes, real live Linux – load. Don’t worry yourself over the kernel messages and dialogues you see – nobody understands those, and everything is done automatically anyways. After Knoppix has loaded, play around with it a bit. What you will have is a complete Linux installation running from RAM and the CD-ROM. I highly recommend you try this out.

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Alan
Oh, so you think you’re happy with Linux, eh? How about the half-day you spent getting the video to work and the new card that you had to buy? How about the assumption that you are an expert and the consequently shorthand instructions that are useless to anyone but an IT graduate? How about the instructions that are just plain wrong (“All you have to do is download it and burn a disc…”) How about having to go to four different forums to find an answer because the first two of them tell you that it’s easy and you should be able to figure this out after you klemtate the horgel and doesn’t tell you that it won’t unless you fleeg first, and the third one starts talking about some other issue like how evil Microsoft is for providing the world with OSes that work. How about unspecified dependencies? How about the whole attitude that people really want to spend their time solving puzzles instead of getting to accomplish the work that they got their computers to do?