red hat newbie - Page 2

I run Redhat and XP on my Sager 5650.

I've got Mandrake 9 and I'm going to install XP and mandrake on the 8886 I have. We'll see how it works out, I've never touched linux before so I expect to run into tons of new problems and challenges :-) I can't wait!

Linux is definitely confusing, as the a few of the arguing points against it are...
1) Folder names take some getting used to (usr, bin, lib) ... on mandrake I swear there were 5 bin folders.
2) Installing takes much too long (as there are usually too many CDs or too many things that computer newbies don't know about)
3) Incompatibilites with the large majority of programs
4) Terminal use is confusing for those who have never used one (UNIX Based)

But a few pluses are...
1) All linux software is free
2) WINE (Windows Emulator) runs .exe files
3) Takes less memory than windows
4) You get to join the ever-growing Linux community!

Mandrake (www.mandrake.com), Redhat (www.redhat.com), and Debian (www.debian.org) are probably the most popular, but good luck downloading if you have a slow connection.

I gave it a shot and I found it much too confusing; I prefer the simplicity of Windows. Linux has never crashed on me as my outdated Windows 98 SE has, but the world sadly revolves around Microsoft, with an occasional visit to Apple and Linux.

In my opinion the best way to dual boot between linux and windows is to install windows first. use something like partition magic to create a new partition (I use partition magic 8 on XP and it works perfectly) and then restart the computer with the linux disc in the cd-rom and boot from the cd--follow the steps and install linux . It is much easier to install linux onto an empty partition instead of trying to create the partition during install. I have set up a dual bootin XP/Linux machine many times and have never had any problems dual booting. VMWare is also a good virtual machine program that will allow you to run XP from Linux or you could run Linux from Windows.

I think so too. Windows likes to take over the whole boot process, whereas I suppose Linux should not. I guess it varies whatever Linux version it is.

Cheers.

Partition Magic is Commercial Software.....

I agree that Partition Magic is the most powerful program for resizing and creating partitions of all kinds and sizes. After spending a few days on this forum, it seems that everybody recommend to reinstall XP if it came pre loaded. So where is the need for Partition Magic ? Make a 20 gigs partition on a 40 gig drive in the Windows XP installer and off you go

Linux Bootloader is ...well as usual with linux we have CHOICE, which means ya can try differents programs for it. The most well know is LILO bootloader, but the one growing at the moment is GRUB. I use lilo personnaly. Mandrake uses Grub.

Sorry i don't mean to bring any kind of OpenSource vs Commercial flame wars, but i can be considered as a Unix Guru, having working on it for the last 10 years. For all who haven't installed linux, try it. Hard disk are large nowadays, we all have a 5 gigs somewhere to give it a whirl.

I run exclusively Linux, and Unix related OSes. I only run Windows ( 98, NT4, XP, 2k Adv Server ) in VMware as virtual machines. Overall, with linux, all my machines are responsive, fast, multitasking and preemptive. No more Windows bloated waiting loops, no more reboot, no crashes. I run games, DVD, Burning, Databases, all kind of server services....

The downfall, well, linux isn't easy. If ya have no notions of shell, or Unix previously, it is a VERY STEEP LEARNING CURVE. Takes courage, time, addiction, masochism and LOTS LOTS of READING. As for a lot of things reading is the KEY. I strongly encourage anybody to pass the barrier.

As well remember that when hardware is harder to make it work on Linux, it isn't Linux fault. The situation is getting better and nowadays latest major releases linux distro have VERY performing hardware recognition, but the reason is that Hardware manufacturers are bind to Micro$oft, and do not release internal chips specifics to anybody, forbidden by the commercial contract. Therefore, a linux driver for it, is gonna be the work of 'Reverse Engineering' of thousand of people, online. Example of these companies, the ones who do not release internal specs are Creative or SiS. Anyhow enjoy linux, i will be around to help anybody needing it.

By the way, yes MS OSes are totalitarian and monopolistic in their install too, as they like to overwrite the linux Bootloader. The rule of Thumb is to ALWAY install MS first, then linux Damn long post ....

laclasse -
how good is vmware for linux? I've used vmware on XP to install linux and windows server 2000 to mess around with, but I'm thinking about using linux more as a primary to get used to it and to learn it, and use vmware to run XP. When you run Windows from vmware on linux is it pretty much the same as using Windows in its own environment? I know that there is prob a lack of performance since its not using its native resources, but besides that is there anything that can't be done on a XP virtual machine that XP would normally do? As much as I want to spend more time in linux I still rely and am dependent on windows.

Here's some info that might be useful:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,13787,00.asp

Cheers.

skot

Honestly i have benchmarked VMware on windows hosts and on linux hosts. It seems that the natural multitasking of linux makes the virtual machine performs much better. Definately i would recommend linux as host OS. FreeBSD and NetBSD works too

WMware is virtual !!!!

The only thing to realise is that VMware create a generic hardware layer and your virtual machine CANNOT see the real devices. Do not try to install Accelerated grafic drivers under VMware as the program provides a SVGA driver WHICH do not support accelarated graphics. Therefore, sorry NO fast games under VMware. I play under linux thats why it isn't a problem

Re: WMware is virtual !!!!

That sucks, though. One of Windows' greatest strengths is all the latest games. If you take that away, you might as well chuck it. Well, I guess Office is also important. What do you use it for?

Cheers.

Thanks for the info

I really want to give linux a chance and I want it to be the base OS on my machine (because of its strong stability and real multitasking capabilities) but imagining being without windows is a little scary,lol....thats what VMWare is for

I reformatted my drive recently so I haven't booted in linux for awhile (and even then I didnt really boot into it that much--Im fairly new to linux and its sometimes a little intimidating,lol) but i'm going to install Redhat 8 again and I want to use KDE 3.1...do you know how to install KDE 3.1 under Redhat 8? I've been looking around and I guess Redhat doesnt have an official RPM for it. What's the best way to do this?

I'm going to start another thread on this topic also.

Thanks in advance

Hope you could read the answer in the new thread you started

Yale2006,

Mainly for Dreamweaver and for testing IIS services of MS. I am not that creazy to run MS servers online and natively

Ah... touché!

Cheers.