Operating System Help
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Operating System Help
I've been using computers for about 3 years now. I've always been on Windows and I think I know the ins and outs quite well. I've been thinking about switching to RedHat lately. Any thoughts on it? I'm about to but some things are keeping me:
- Applications like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint. Is there any Linux equivalent to it?
- Webserver, I don't see an installer for Linux. I'm going to have to install everything manually - which I'm not so good at.
- Graphics design. I also do a lot of graphics. I have Photoshop 7 that I use the most, is it Linux compatible?
- Ease of use. Is there an Internet Explorer equivalent? Or do I have to use Mozilla (Which I've used before and don't really like).
The main reason I want to switch to Linux is because I just want to try it out. I've heard many great things about it - esepcially for developers. The most thing I'm worried about is hardware issues. Where do I get drivers and all for RedHat?
Thanks,
-Nay
- Applications like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint. Is there any Linux equivalent to it?
- Webserver, I don't see an installer for Linux. I'm going to have to install everything manually - which I'm not so good at.
- Graphics design. I also do a lot of graphics. I have Photoshop 7 that I use the most, is it Linux compatible?
- Ease of use. Is there an Internet Explorer equivalent? Or do I have to use Mozilla (Which I've used before and don't really like).
The main reason I want to switch to Linux is because I just want to try it out. I've heard many great things about it - esepcially for developers. The most thing I'm worried about is hardware issues. Where do I get drivers and all for RedHat?
Thanks,
-Nay
I would suggest looking at Mandrake as well, Red Hat is not the only option, and many think Mandrake is friendlier to thos who don't know anything about GNU/Linux...
OfficeSuite: OpenOffice.Org - exists for windows as well, try it out, its free.
Web Server: Most GNU/Linux distroes come with one installed (Apache), or it will be an option during the OS installation. Even if you do it afterwards it is not much mor ethan a simple download and a single command, many distroes will also have a graphical interface to download updates and new packages and install them.
Photoshop: As far as I know, Photoshop cant be run, there are windows libraries for emulated env and such (Like Wine), but I believe Photoshop is way to complex for it... The best graphical software would be GIMP, user interface and that is very different.
Browser: I assume that you have not tried mozilla lately, it is actually more standards compliant than IE, try Moz 1.4 for windows and you may be surprised, no more unwanted popups and such, no more sneak Bill Gates sw installs... Anyway, the most IE-Like browser is Konqueror which also includes a file browser and such, there are many browsers available, several of them based on Mozilla.
Drivers: EIther your distro has them, or their website has updates, or the hardware manufacturer supplies them. If you plan to buy the newest and greates videocard every 3 months I dont think GNU/Linux is for you, at least not yet.. The easiest way to find out if your system is compliant is to try it out..
Actually, you can try out GNU/Linux without installing anything, go to http://www.linuxiso.org/ and download one of the distrobutions that let you run off the CD without even touching your drives, such as Knoppix and Suse's Live-Eval.
Myself and many geeks swear to Debian, I do not recommend Debian to beginners, as it is not very beginner friendly, and setting up tricky hardware really is tricky, and choosing "Advanced" really is advanced (Not Like Microsoft where advanced means "Having a clue").
So, if I where you I would download Knoppix and try it out (comes with openoffice)
OfficeSuite: OpenOffice.Org - exists for windows as well, try it out, its free.
Web Server: Most GNU/Linux distroes come with one installed (Apache), or it will be an option during the OS installation. Even if you do it afterwards it is not much mor ethan a simple download and a single command, many distroes will also have a graphical interface to download updates and new packages and install them.
Photoshop: As far as I know, Photoshop cant be run, there are windows libraries for emulated env and such (Like Wine), but I believe Photoshop is way to complex for it... The best graphical software would be GIMP, user interface and that is very different.
Browser: I assume that you have not tried mozilla lately, it is actually more standards compliant than IE, try Moz 1.4 for windows and you may be surprised, no more unwanted popups and such, no more sneak Bill Gates sw installs... Anyway, the most IE-Like browser is Konqueror which also includes a file browser and such, there are many browsers available, several of them based on Mozilla.
Drivers: EIther your distro has them, or their website has updates, or the hardware manufacturer supplies them. If you plan to buy the newest and greates videocard every 3 months I dont think GNU/Linux is for you, at least not yet.. The easiest way to find out if your system is compliant is to try it out..
Actually, you can try out GNU/Linux without installing anything, go to http://www.linuxiso.org/ and download one of the distrobutions that let you run off the CD without even touching your drives, such as Knoppix and Suse's Live-Eval.
Myself and many geeks swear to Debian, I do not recommend Debian to beginners, as it is not very beginner friendly, and setting up tricky hardware really is tricky, and choosing "Advanced" really is advanced (Not Like Microsoft where advanced means "Having a clue").
So, if I where you I would download Knoppix and try it out (comes with openoffice)
OfficeSuite: As mentioned, Open Office works well. There are others as well. I like Gnome Office, myself.
Web Server: Can't get any better than Apache.
Photoshop: You CAN run Photoshop. However, you need software called Crossover Office to run it. Indeed, I have it running on Linux, and works fine.
However, I would also recommend looking into learning GIMP. Unless your doing stuff for print shops, like press work and what not, GIMP will work well for you.
Browsers: Looking for an easy to use Browser? Epiphany. It's my default browser, and is light weight, fast, and very, very easy to use.
Drivers: As mentioned, just go with a good distro. I use SuSE myself, and it pretty much finds most things I throw at it. Anyways, another thing you can do is download a LiveCD, like Knoppix, and just let it start up. From there, you can experiment, and if it's something you would like to use, you won't have to ruin yoru current setup to find out.
However, from someone who made the switch about a year ago from Windows to Linux only, I can tell you, it's well worth it. I can do everything I could do in Windows, and I am able to many things I couldn't do in Linux.
My best advice is that once you make the switch, stay there. At times, you will question yourself, and want to go back to Windows. Not because Linux is bad, but because you are more comfortable in Windows.
However, after a certain point, you will suddenly come to a realization. I had this one day when I was using someone's computer at work, and they had Windows. I was trying to do simple things, and Windows wouldn't work!! Things that would take me all of a minute in Linux simple couldn't happen in Windows.
That's the day you know you've won. =)
Web Server: Can't get any better than Apache.
Photoshop: You CAN run Photoshop. However, you need software called Crossover Office to run it. Indeed, I have it running on Linux, and works fine.
However, I would also recommend looking into learning GIMP. Unless your doing stuff for print shops, like press work and what not, GIMP will work well for you.
Browsers: Looking for an easy to use Browser? Epiphany. It's my default browser, and is light weight, fast, and very, very easy to use.
Drivers: As mentioned, just go with a good distro. I use SuSE myself, and it pretty much finds most things I throw at it. Anyways, another thing you can do is download a LiveCD, like Knoppix, and just let it start up. From there, you can experiment, and if it's something you would like to use, you won't have to ruin yoru current setup to find out.
However, from someone who made the switch about a year ago from Windows to Linux only, I can tell you, it's well worth it. I can do everything I could do in Windows, and I am able to many things I couldn't do in Linux.
My best advice is that once you make the switch, stay there. At times, you will question yourself, and want to go back to Windows. Not because Linux is bad, but because you are more comfortable in Windows.
However, after a certain point, you will suddenly come to a realization. I had this one day when I was using someone's computer at work, and they had Windows. I was trying to do simple things, and Windows wouldn't work!! Things that would take me all of a minute in Linux simple couldn't happen in Windows.
That's the day you know you've won. =)
The Gimp - The GNU Image Manupilation Program - http://gimp.org/
Dualboot is fully possible, I would recommend installing Windows first and then the Linux install will likely take care setting up a bootloader correctly...
Dualboot is fully possible, I would recommend installing Windows first and then the Linux install will likely take care setting up a bootloader correctly...
I would vote mandrake but that is just matter of opinion...
Suse, as Jason mentioned, is also an alternative, personally I dont like it as much since the installer and default X setup doesnt *move* very well on old (slow) hardware.
Did you try knoppix or suse eval? I would do that before purchasing anything..
Suse, as Jason mentioned, is also an alternative, personally I dont like it as much since the installer and default X setup doesnt *move* very well on old (slow) hardware.
Did you try knoppix or suse eval? I would do that before purchasing anything..
Okay, here's my decision now. I'm going to dual boot with Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition; and RedHat Linux 9.
Right now, I'm downloading the RedHat ISOs. I've qued them up in FTP so I can let them finish while I sleep. It's taking about 4 hours for each. That's 6 ISOs including the services and all. Total around 24 hours.
Now, I'm looking around for some installation guides. psst: "guides". Preferably people rather than text. So right now I'm considering two things:
1) Complete new installion for everything
It has been 3 months since my last re-installation. I normally reinstall every 3 months, more or less. So I might as well back up the necessary files and wipe out the hard disks, then do a new reinstallation.
2) Create a new partition on the drive Windows is already on
I have no idea how or what to do. But I'm thinking this is a solution thea least people would take.
My computer is a:
Pentium 4, 1.7 GHz
40 GB HDD (I want to partition into 20, 20 and use it for the OS's)
10 GB HDD (Currently for all my music files, well over 6 or 7 GB)
48x/16x/48x CD-RW
52x CD-ROM
256 MB DDR RAM (Enough?)
64 MB nVidia GeForce 2 MX
2x Linksys Network Cards (Using 1 to connect to router)
2 USB 1.1 ports
Other features are the normal stuff (Keyboard, Mouse etc)
Anyone care to help me through this?
Thanks,
-Nay
Right now, I'm downloading the RedHat ISOs. I've qued them up in FTP so I can let them finish while I sleep. It's taking about 4 hours for each. That's 6 ISOs including the services and all. Total around 24 hours.
Now, I'm looking around for some installation guides. psst: "guides". Preferably people rather than text. So right now I'm considering two things:
1) Complete new installion for everything
It has been 3 months since my last re-installation. I normally reinstall every 3 months, more or less. So I might as well back up the necessary files and wipe out the hard disks, then do a new reinstallation.
2) Create a new partition on the drive Windows is already on
I have no idea how or what to do. But I'm thinking this is a solution thea least people would take.
My computer is a:
Pentium 4, 1.7 GHz
40 GB HDD (I want to partition into 20, 20 and use it for the OS's)
10 GB HDD (Currently for all my music files, well over 6 or 7 GB)
48x/16x/48x CD-RW
52x CD-ROM
256 MB DDR RAM (Enough?)
64 MB nVidia GeForce 2 MX
2x Linksys Network Cards (Using 1 to connect to router)
2 USB 1.1 ports
Other features are the normal stuff (Keyboard, Mouse etc)
Anyone care to help me through this?
Thanks,
-Nay
WIthout trying to explain in details why, here is what I would do, partitioning with a thought of future, this isnt really needed, just makes things easier later on:
-Wipe/clean
-Boot with a floppy or cd linux distro (Like Knoppix)
-run cfdisk from command line (or some other partitioning tool)
-delete all partitions
-create one 100MB primary partition at beginning of the disk, type Linux (82)
-create one large primary partition for your windows system drive, type fat32 or something
-create one primary partition, size doubling your memory, e.g. if you have 256MB memory make it 512MB, make it type Linux Swap (83)
-if you need more drives for windows. you may now create an extended partition for that, likely you want a partition where you can share data between the two OS' so it is a good idea to create a data partition that will be D: in windows, type FAT32
-reboot and install windows, select the C drive (which is actually the second primary partition, undr Linux named /dev/hda2), you may select to format it ntfs or whatever, needs to be formatted anyway.
-after install you may to format D: if you made one (the first extended drive, namely /dev/hda5)
-install redhat. When it comes to choice of install path, I dont know redhat but I would select the more advanced options and assign and partition there, easier to understand when you see it. Basically,
/dev/hda1 (the 100MB part) should be mounted as /boot
and /dev/hda3 as swap.
then you need to create more partitions for the rest of the system, starting with /dev/hda6, on production system it common to split up quite a bit, for now I suggest making two more, one for the "system" and one for your home dirs, so
/dev/hda6 as mountpoint / (meaning root of the filesystem) should be at least a couple of gigabytes, need to hold everything installed, so if you have 5 GB that should good..
/dev/hda7 as mounpoint /home this is where all user data is stored, as large as you like.
when the installation asks you about bootloader, using the default options and letting it add windows is fine, I tend to do it different myself so that the bootloader is not lost when needing to repair/reinstall wintendo, I install the bootloader on the boot partition instead of in mbr, this way I can just toggle a bootflag to make windows think its the master again... but thats no biggie, if you do so, make sure you set the bootflag.
This is probably insanely too much to get started with Linux, well, its to try and make things smoother down the road, the best ways to learn is try and fail and try
-Wipe/clean
-Boot with a floppy or cd linux distro (Like Knoppix)
-run cfdisk from command line (or some other partitioning tool)
-delete all partitions
-create one 100MB primary partition at beginning of the disk, type Linux (82)
-create one large primary partition for your windows system drive, type fat32 or something
-create one primary partition, size doubling your memory, e.g. if you have 256MB memory make it 512MB, make it type Linux Swap (83)
-if you need more drives for windows. you may now create an extended partition for that, likely you want a partition where you can share data between the two OS' so it is a good idea to create a data partition that will be D: in windows, type FAT32
-reboot and install windows, select the C drive (which is actually the second primary partition, undr Linux named /dev/hda2), you may select to format it ntfs or whatever, needs to be formatted anyway.
-after install you may to format D: if you made one (the first extended drive, namely /dev/hda5)
-install redhat. When it comes to choice of install path, I dont know redhat but I would select the more advanced options and assign and partition there, easier to understand when you see it. Basically,
/dev/hda1 (the 100MB part) should be mounted as /boot
and /dev/hda3 as swap.
then you need to create more partitions for the rest of the system, starting with /dev/hda6, on production system it common to split up quite a bit, for now I suggest making two more, one for the "system" and one for your home dirs, so
/dev/hda6 as mountpoint / (meaning root of the filesystem) should be at least a couple of gigabytes, need to hold everything installed, so if you have 5 GB that should good..
/dev/hda7 as mounpoint /home this is where all user data is stored, as large as you like.
when the installation asks you about bootloader, using the default options and letting it add windows is fine, I tend to do it different myself so that the bootloader is not lost when needing to repair/reinstall wintendo, I install the bootloader on the boot partition instead of in mbr, this way I can just toggle a bootflag to make windows think its the master again... but thats no biggie, if you do so, make sure you set the bootflag.
This is probably insanely too much to get started with Linux, well, its to try and make things smoother down the road, the best ways to learn is try and fail and try
I'm going to have to use a boot disk. My computer can't start up from a CD-ROM.
I see you use YIM, if you don't mind, one of these days, I can be chatting with you on my other computer, while doing what you tell me to on this computer. Is that something you think we can arrange?
Let me know,
Thanks a bunch,
-Nay
I see you use YIM, if you don't mind, one of these days, I can be chatting with you on my other computer, while doing what you tell me to on this computer. Is that something you think we can arrange?
Let me know,
Thanks a bunch,
-Nay
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Cruzado_Mainfrm
- Forum Contributor
- Posts: 346
- Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2003 11:22 pm
- Location: Miami, FL
If you using graphics a lot stick to windows...
NO. I am not microsoft representative....
but i have used Linux.. great OS, loved it till I was coding PHP and palying with apache... but lost when wanted to do grpahics and stuff...
flash and sort of. GIMP is good but Photoshop remains undoubted king of graphics sw. so Linux is good for Developers and windows is for GRaphics ppl.. allthough MAC is best (bloody can't afford it right now.. $#^@^$)
BEST THING : buy MAC, get OSX, it's linux based with comfort of MAC interface and do everything... TADA...
NO. I am not microsoft representative....
but i have used Linux.. great OS, loved it till I was coding PHP and palying with apache... but lost when wanted to do grpahics and stuff...
flash and sort of. GIMP is good but Photoshop remains undoubted king of graphics sw. so Linux is good for Developers and windows is for GRaphics ppl.. allthough MAC is best (bloody can't afford it right now.. $#^@^$)
BEST THING : buy MAC, get OSX, it's linux based with comfort of MAC interface and do everything... TADA...
-
Cruzado_Mainfrm
- Forum Contributor
- Posts: 346
- Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2003 11:22 pm
- Location: Miami, FL
