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Thinking about making the switch to Linux...
Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 3:19 pm
by Luke
With the onset of Windows Vista and because I am not very happy with the current setup on my laptop, as well as just a never ending desire to learn, I am finally considering making the switch to Linux, but before I do, I'd like to get everybody's opinion on how I should go about the switch. What would be the best way for me to ease into it from Windows? What distro should I choose? What questions other than these should I be asking? Thanks guys.

Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 3:23 pm
by feyd
All that you seek has been asked and answered.
viewforum.php?f=30
Easiest transition: blow Windows off the hard drive. Find alternatives to things you "require" and make sure they are installed. Pretty much that's it. It'll just take time to get used to.
Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 3:26 pm
by Kieran Huggins
Download Ubuntu - you can boot directly from it (it's a live cd) without having to install anything.
Test your most heavily used software, try out multimedia playback, etc... get comfortable with it. Maybe then you could install on a second partition.
Once (if) you never boot into Windows anymore, resize your partitions accordingly and you're done.
I use Windows FLP (finally, a better XP) and Ubuntu on my laptop and I like both. Linux still has some power management issues with my thinkpad, and video doesn't like being played over the network, but aside from that it's a good OS. Editplus works via Wine which makes me happy.
Cheers,
Kieran
Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 3:27 pm
by MrPotatoes
i can't wait to make the switch on my main machine. i'm tired of windows and thier screwups. XP has been great but it definatly could have been upteen-million times better. anyways, i'll be switching
tell me how it goes
Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 4:07 pm
by jayshields
Never thought about changing to linux before. Just watched some vid's on YouTube with Ubuntu + XGL and it looks ridiculously sweet. I also found
a tutorial for modifying Ubuntu to do all that sweet stuff. I'm downloading Ubuntu now and hopefully I'll have a desktop to show off to my uni mates (especially the ones with OSX) for when I get to see them again soon!
As a person who has never seen/used/read about Linux before I'll probably be starting a new thread with problems in the ever-so-near future

Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 4:36 pm
by Jenk
Honestly, the best way to get into Linux is, as feyd says, just remove Windows all together and start a fresh (not before downloading and burning a cd, of course!)
Otherwise you'll find your self never using it and using Windows all the time.
Jump in the shallow end, you'll learn to walk in water.
Jump in the deep end, you'll learn to swim. (or drown

)
Ubuntu has a 2-step, fully automated install, literally pop the disk in, tell it which partition to use, and that's it. Come back 15mins later to a fully working install.
Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 4:41 pm
by John Cartwright
I think you guys have inspired me to install Ubuntu

Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 4:53 pm
by Weirdan
Jcart wrote:I think you guys have inspired me to install Ubuntu

I thought you were using gentoo...
Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 5:23 pm
by Jenk
Sure you are not thinking of me? *points at avatar and signature*
Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 5:29 pm
by Jenk
Ok, so I lied.. it's more than a 2 step install - but it's still easy:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GraphicalInstall
Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 6:00 pm
by feyd
It's more than two steps, but it's about as painful as installing Windows XP.
Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 6:19 pm
by Chris Corbyn
I have to agree. I tried switching to linux several time starting from 2001 onward and every time I made the fatal mistake of keeping windows "handy" on the computer. Bad idea. You never force yourself to learn because after half a day of struggling to do something seemingly basic you just boot into windows and your linux experience has been ruined. Destroy windows... just install over the top (after backing up important stuff of course).
You'll learn what you need as you go and like with anything, once you've done something a couple of time it becomes natural. The great thing with *nix is that you learn how to do one simple thing, and another simple thing, and another; then all those little things actually do tie together so you can actually do something useful on a larger scale by combining several small tasks into one.
Once you've got a grip on working with a relatively small set of commands you have an immense amount of power at your finger tips and you will seriosuly wonder why you didn't switch sooner.
Oh... what was the topic again? Distros, yeah, umm... anything that's got a lot of users really so you can get support on forums. Both Gentoo or Debian (go for ubuntu) have a huge user-base. Gentoo is a bit full-on for a new user though at the install stage. Speaking as somebody who used to promote Gentoo no end (a bit like Jenk

) but subsequently moved to Ubuntu I would suggest trying Gentoo but perhaps not first. The reason I moved to Ubuntu was: time-wasting (omfg gentoo, nice as it is just takes far too long to install anything large since it's all compiled on your machine), respository maintenance (updating portage on gentoo can take up to several hours), stability (I can't count the number of times I had to manually correct issues with portage... I've done two full distro updates on ubuntu and still have not had one single conflict).
I used Gentoo on a VDS of mine for 2 years, and on a desktop for 18 months but have just got a new VDS and I run debian sarge on that (i.e. I'm avoiding gentoo).
Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 9:41 pm
by John Cartwright
Well I'm running Ubuntu from CD right now, and all I can say is I've never been so impressed with a piece of software. It had no problem configuring all my drivers, including wireless drivers. Wondering what kind of software I can get on this now..
For whatever reason I heard it was problematic installing Ubuntu on laptops.. I am very pleased to see this was simplistic to get working.
Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 10:20 pm
by RobertGonzalez
Ubuntu is my next trial. I installed Fedora Core 4 on a laptop of mine and I really enjoyed using it. Then my laptop died (I kinda knew it was coming) and I haven't messed around with it too much at home. I spend about half my day on a nix machine of some sort at work (either a Solaris Unix machine or a FC5/RHEL4 machine(s)).
Once you get into it you will fall in love with it. Getting ahold of the CLI will really help out a lot as well. Good luck. It is a fun and scary experience all at once (if you dive in full bore).
Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 10:05 am
by jayshields
Here I am sat on Ubuntu right now. This is awesome. My other desktop (!) is just installing all the 79 updates for the version of Ubuntu (6.10) that only got released on 26th October. That's amazing.
The only thing that's annoying me at the moment is the graphics driver, but that was obviously gunna happen (same on Windows). As soon as these updates are on I'm gunna put my graphics driver on and look into this GLX/compiz stuff.
If you haven't got Ubuntu already, you're missing out!
Ps. I'm dual-booting with Windows, I didn't do as some said and scrap Windows completely! Heck, if it wasn't for games compatibility I'd be highly considering it right now.
EDIT: Just finished getting the nvidia driver on! Dear me that was a struggle. It makes it harder when you have to wait for the screen all the time

Ended up following a tutorial and getting bored of it, found a new and much easier one which seemed to work fine. Sadly I've just lost the links I had and can't find them again...