Hey guys, I was thinking about getting Linux for my laptop. I was wondering which ones were made for AMD64. And also, why are they so expensive? $350 for Mandrake 9.2? Whew..

What other ones besides Mandrake 9.2 are made for AMD64? Also, can you run Windows Programs on Linux? Such as games, or just programs?

I am a total linux noob, I've already read www.linuxhelp.net but someone make it more clear.

*ahem* can someone just tell me the basics of linux.

Welcome to the world of Linux, my friend

First of all, Linux is genuinely free. The only thing companies like Mandrake could charge you for is technical support, eg. help.

Going on to using Athlon64, Linux should work just fine, as long as you use a release for the Athlon64 platform (distributions usually distinguish between platforms). Most software just has to be compiled and slightly modified by the author to run on this platform, along with other platforms besides x86.

Finally, yes, you can run Windows apps (although not without spending some time setting them up properly) through things like Wine. As an alternative, you can use things like VMWare to emulate an entire system if you need to - run Windows, other Linux distros, BSD, etc, all under your real Linux system.

There is lots of very good info on these forums. I suggest you do some reading and ask questions if you have any!

Good luck.

Mikhail

I'm currently Downloading Mandrake CD's 1, 2 and 3. There are also two other ISO images. Mandrake Move and MandrakeSecurity-MNF, do I download all 5?

Also what kernel do I download? 2.6.3? do I also download the patch?

Also if you can list some programs like Wine that I could download that would be great. Thanks Mikhail

I was thinking of running Gentoo on my future 64 bit laptop. I am currently using Gentoo on my laptop and it works great. Gentoo also have a 64 bit distro. It might be a bit harder to install then Mandrake but it gives you at lot more freedom. Gentoo is like Slackware for beginners.

You can run a lot of windows games in linux using wine or winex. There are also quite a few games that have native linux support.

ok, I'm downloading Gentoo now. When I get my lappy you guys are going to have to give me a step by step process of how to do this :P

OK, friction1337, but you do realize that Gentoo is no newb thing. You'll be fine if youre profficient with computers in general, but you'd still have to do a lot of reading, like I did (I started Linux right off with Gentoo). Make sure to read the online installation manual and understand it completely; don't go ahead if youre not comfortable with it. Also, please read all the Gentoo threads in this forum (my 5680/8890 thread, etc.). Finally, the Gentoo Forums have lots of help (I usually start any troubleshooting off with a quick search on those; http://forums.gentoo.org).

Good luck and let us know when you get there.

Mikhail

Ditto to what Mikhail is saying. It was very interesting to install Gentoo for me. I have done a couple of LFS systems in the past. Each install has it's quirks. Gentoo is great for a good many of the people out there. It's not nearly as easy as say RH, Drake etc. But not the worst either. Personally I would recommend an easier install say a stage 2 or 3 for the first time Gentoo victim. The stage 2/3 will have compiling less of the system so you can get in and play quicker. I and the others here will help all we can. The only thing is most of us don't have a 64bit AMD to play with, and each platform makes for some real interesting things going wrong.

Yea, I think I might stick with windows a bit. My brother is dual booting on his desktop, he gets home from spring break on Sat. I guess he could help me a bit.