in which i convince you to try linux. seriously.

There's just not a whole lot of blogging this week from me; I've been working like crazy on deadlines, and I've been a lot more interested in hanging out with my family in the evenings than doing anything computer-related.

It's actually pretty nice, and if you have to means to hang out with your family instead of the Internets, I highly recommend it.

But based on the comments to yesterday's post, there's a lot of curiosity about Linux, and until I have time to write the obligatory "Linux is a cool alternative OS that does lots of great stuff and is so easy to make go, a Pakled could do it" post, some of you may be interested in trying out a Live CD distribution, just to see if Linux could detect and support your hardware and peripherals without risking any modifications to your hard drive at all, you can run an entire Linux operating system, filled with all sorts of software (office stuff, Internets stuff, audio stuff, and a few games that, admittedly, aren't much better than minesweeper) off a Live CD. I recommend Knoppix or Ubuntu. You can get either one from those links, and WWdN reader Craig Steffen was kind enough to detail painfully simple instructions on getting Linux up and running with a Live CD yesterday.

If you give it a try, I'd be really interested in your experiences. Let's see if it really is as easy and fun for other people as it is for me, mmmkay?

Comments

[LynnK]

I am absolute non-computer geek. My husband is definite computer geek. He switched us to linux at least 5yrs ago (maybe more). Even I can use it with no problems - this is saying a lot. I have nothing else to add but yea linux!

[Craig Steffen]

In my other post, I forgot to point to Ubuntu downloads. This seems to be the best page:
https://shipit.ubuntu.com/
In which they appear to offer to send CDs to people for free. Wow.

So before the lively discussion of Linux/Windows and one distribution vs. another gets going, remember...

The OS shouldn't be the point. A computer is a tool, and its value is in what it can do for you. The OSs job is to not get in the way. The real reason to choose an OS is because it enables you to run applications that you want.

I choose to run Linux-based OSs for the following reasons:

Linux is somewhat designed around the way programmers think, and I'm a programmer.

Ever since using DOS-based machines, I've strongly been a command-line person, and Linux ix very command-line friendly.

When I started using it in 1997, it was far and away more stable and useful than Windows. That gap has narrowed.

The LaTeX typesetting system, which is of the level of software that publishers use to typeset books, runs under Linux.

It's the OS used on the vast majority of high-end scientfic computer systems.

There are definitely some drawbacks.

Large swathes of Linux OSs are poorly documented, or the documentation is totally out of date.

It really works best if you don't have any hardware newer than 6 to 9 months, because that way, the developers have had time to write drivers.

You can usually find several software packages that almost do what you want, but finding it exactly is sometimes hard. After exploring a dozen image viewing programs, I finally found "gthumb", which is a photo album creation software that does what I want.

Good luck to everyone!

[SenseLess]

Do you think you work more efficiently with a deadline looming?

[phunkysai]

I use PCLinuxOS. Horrible name, but quickly being hailed as one of the best distros around. "it just works" is the motto, and it truly does.

The current version is great, but the new 2007 test version is almost ready and has all the new eye-candy.

I recommend it, especially for switchers! And it has a Live CD too.

http://www.pclinuxos.com/

[Ezekiel]

One of the biggest obstacles that usually stop people from giving Linux a whirl (or any non M$ operating systems, for that matter) is fear.

Ask the average user if they've ever installed an operating system, even Windows, and they'll look at you funny. If most people have a critical problem where the only fix is to burn the box to the ground and rebuild it, they'll happily box it up and take it down to Geek Squad. Why? They're afraid of breaking the machine beyond where it can be fixed.

Have you ever changed the starter on your car? The first time is the hardest, and most scary. What if you fubar it? Then you have to get the car towed down to the mechanic and endure the 'you did what now?' embarassment. However, once you get over that initial fear and just DO it, its like 'hey, this was EASY!' and it's no big whoop - just go down to Pep Boys, swap out the starter in whatever parking lot, and move on with your day.

It's the same thing. No, really...

The average computer user is scared to death to break their machine. What's more, there's a whole host of computer experts who make really good money promoting that idea. The Linux community needs people to help break down some of that fear for newbies. Once they've taken the plunge the first time, it's a whole lot easier the second time around.

[SandieK]

Newbie here. Dont laugh at me to hard :P
As I mentioned in previous posts, Ive been playing with a couple different distributions on live CDs. I havent gone much further than that, mainly because Im too chicken.
If I recall correctly, the Ubunto one didnt want to read my hard drives (or something like that), I couldnt get knoppix to read my wireless, and Debian just didnt load. What little I was able to work around the first two, I was quite pleased.
I would eventually like to get to a point where my laptop has a dualboot XP/Linux on it. Then by the time I replace my desktop, itll be Linux-only.
Eventually, Ill get there.

[SandieK]

See? Like Ezekiel said...chicken.

[Ezekiel]

Well I didn't exactly mean it THAT way :) Seriously though, what would push you over the hump to take the final plunge? Just being able to dink around a bit and get comfortable with the platform?

[SandieK]

Eh, besides finding a distrib that will read my HDs,and my wireless? Im not exactly sure how to load/install a dualboot. Next on things to do list is figuring out exactly why Ubuntu is not liking my HDs, and what info either of them are missing to read my wireless. Piece of cake.

[Mike]

Your knoppix link is wrong in the article, it should be:

http://knoppix.com/

[Zee]

I'm not afraid of the install process (I installed "Windows Me" while it was still in Beta; later I installed Windows XP's beta versions and have even upgraded HD hardware; Ezekiel is right - it's only scary the first time) I worry more about installing something that doesn't work (or doesn't work quite right) with my "must have" apps. Like Photoshop, Dreamweaver and several others I use for school and web design purposes.

If I had second machine I'd definitely stick Linux on it. I've always wanted to try it but just haven't had the extra cash to buy a second laptop for mucking-around purposes. Sighhh... if only...

[Mewfymewf]

You influenced me to start my own blog, since it looked like so much fun. So I can totally understand what you mean not being able to post frequently.

(sometimes the codes and fiddling with picture placement is frustrating, but otherwise, it's great! Thanks!)

I usually post about things 1.5 days after they happen on average. ^_^;

[Shamanix]

Ubuntu makes me a sad panda. I *really* liked it when I tried it shortly after the inital release of 6.06 LTS, but it does NOT play nice with my laptop's video card. For whatever reason, whenever I have the ATI driver (ie: the proprietary driver, not the 'ati' X drive) going, my USB support craps out inside of 5 minutes. I suspect it has to do with some sort of IRQ conflict, but to my knowledge, ATI has never bothered to fix the issue in their drivers since it only affects Xpress 200M users and apparantly Toshiba has never EVER bothered to release a driver update for my particular model of laptop.

Read: No happy Compiz shiny graphics for me without buying a new machine.

Stupid integrated video cards.

[Pierce]

I recently decided to experiment on my dad. No nothing dangerous, I decided to replace his XP with Ubuntu. All I did was tell him that it was going to look a little different and a few things would be in different places. Normally I have to help him get something or the other back on track every few days, but now it has been over a month and I have barely gotten any questions at all. I call that a successful experiment.

[Ezekiel]

SandieK: it's somewhat surprising to have problems with distributions not reading the HDs right. The only thing I can think of is you may have a SATA chipset that's not well supported. What kind of machine do you have? Also, take a look at this piece on dual booting, see if it helps: http://www.devhood.com/tutorials/tutorial_details.aspx?tutorial_id=405

Zee: have you looked at vmware? www.vmware.com -- VMWare server is free, and depending how much memory you've got in your laptop, it might get the job done for you.

[Andrew]

The LaTeX typesetting system, which is of the level of software that publishers use to typeset books, runs under Linux.

Wrong on a couple of counts, Craig. First, there are versions of LaTeX for pretty much every major OS out there. Second, outside of publishing for science and engineering college texts, I doubt you'll find LaTeX used at all. What I hear from the troops in the field is that InDesign is slowly strangling Quark, with other DTP applications so far behind that they don't matter.

[IanKen]

Looking at the magnitude of the nerd talk here I think its safe to say that Linux is still a vertical nerd niche thing, unless you wanna cluster in ye olde datacenter.

Ya know there's stuff I like to DO with my computer other than run the OS. I like to game. I like to edit video. I need to batch scan from my HP scanner /w photo feeder. I got Sony Vegas and SLI goodness on my Windows box. It's rock solid stable. I feel no compelling reason to switch and replace the tools I use with a bunch of command line apps written by some dudes on sourceforge who may or may not abandon them on a whim. As I write, this weeks BSG rerun from NBCHD is being processed down to 720p/24 with avisynth and VDub, then it'll be WMV encoded and dropped on my Linux based media server which runs on a low end box with dual nics and serves as my home server and firewall/router.

So I really don't subscibe to the MS hater Linux creed. That just reminds me of all the Amiga vs. Atari ST 'tards from the 80s and 90s. It's not a religion. It's a machine. For my desktop and the things I do with it Windows works great. For my server needs Linus works great, although I have a machine running WIndows Home Server beta 2 now as well and it is very nice. I use what works well for me based on needs not some hipster agenda to stick it to the man.

[wolfger]

IanKen says "I feel no compelling reason to switch and replace the tools I use with a bunch of command line apps"

Dude, you're just showing your ignorance. Command line apps are a thing of the distant past. Download a LiveCD. Give it a try. I personally recommend Mepis ( http://www.mepis.org/ )
No command line apps to be found here. If you go with version 6.5 and select the 3D desktop, you'll get eye candy that puts Windows to shame. Applications that come by default are things like Firefox, Skype, Gaim (which replaces any and all IM tools you used to use), Akregator for RSS feeds (better than any Windows program I ever found), Amarok for all your music and podcatching needs (many say it's better than iTunes, and I agree), digiKam for all your photo organizing needs, and The Gimp for photo editing comparable to (but not quite as good as) Photoshop. This (and much more) is all free software that comes installed with the OS. No $200 for Windows +$100 for Photoshop +$whatever for whatever...

[Amber J]

I just wanted to let you know that Wednesday it was 65F here, then we had a blizzard overnight, leaving us with several inches of snow, and then it got back into the 40s and all of the snow is gone. I hate Kansas.

To justify this post though - I'm noobsauce when it comes to Linux, and played a bit with Knoppix just to see what it could do... and it was a learning experience. Sadly then I went back to XP so I could play WoW without too many problems.

[Neil Greenwood]

@ Craig Steffen
I can confirm that ShipIt will send free CDs to the UK. The main questions they ask are: where to, and how many (5, 10, 50, 100, etc.) It took a couple of weeks, but you can't argue when it's all free!

[ChazB]

I really hope this doesn't get missed by people, but I just wanted to mention that LifeHacker has a ton of information on Ubuntu for n00bs. It is going to be my go to resource once I get my laptop fixed and turn it into an Ubuntu only machine.

[Hisham]

I installed Ubuntu into this here home computer early this year. Here's my blog entry commemorating the new OS usage (plus a bonus picture of my son as the wallpaper).

Since the blog entry, I thought KDE was a bit too flashy so I removed KDE and reverted back to GNOME and Nautilus. But I'm still using Amarok to listen to my tunes (and Kopete for IMing) cause as you might know... Amarok RAWKS.

I just got home today from an Open Source seminar here... job related. During the Q@A session I told them I used Ubuntu at home and it's 100% Ubuntu and not even dual boot, the speaker (a Compiere expert) told me while standing on one foot, "If I was sitting down I'd give you four thumbs up. Since I'm standing I'll just give you just three."

True story which happened today, that.

[Stephen]

I have tried Linux several times, but have not really been able to stick with it. Now I've installed Ubuntu, and it really is great. The only difficulty I've had is with wireless networking (mainly due to manufacturers not releasing drivers or specs), but I've got it working on both my laptop and desktop machines. I've even got encryption working (WPA). See my blog for my experiences with wireless networking. There is also a lot of help on the Ubuntu forums, and its generally very welcoming of n00bs.

Oh, and Shamanix - I have a laptopn with the ATI X200 graphics adapter, and I've got it working with all the pretty XGL/Beryl effects - it might be worth you persisting.

[Craig Steffen]

Andrew:

Wrong on a couple of counts, Craig. First, there are versions of LaTeX for pretty much every major OS out there.

I'm sure that's true now. That was one of my reasons for using it in grad school. Truth be told there are a multide of reasons for my Linux use; I just wanted to get a few down in a comment quickly, and that was one I picked.

Second, outside of publishing for science and engineering college texts, I doubt you'll find LaTeX used at all.

Bingo. Not that I'm in the process of typesetting a text book, but that's the field that I'm in.

So...better reasons for why I use Linux. Hmm...

Because I do like the multitude of tools that are available, all for free. If I want a package that will blink the lights on by keyboard like KITT, then there is a package that will do that.

And with all due respect, IanKen and Wolfger, I like programming and controlling an OS with the command line. It just makes sense to my way of thinking and doing things on a computer. Too much game playing under DOS, I guess.

Actually, one of the real reasons I use Linux is because it's the native habitat for emacs.

And really, the bottom line is that everything in a Linux OS can be reprogrammed if you so choose. Most things I wouldn't want to...but I could if I chose. Windows, as a mattery of policy, will sell you what they will sell you and they make it difficult or impossible to modify it. Linux OSs make that possible.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the reasons for using an OS have to be the applications software, and they are; I program computers at work and Linux is the best way for me to do it. However, these are some of the additional reasons that I use it, which may not apply to most people.

[Craig Steffen]

Yeah, Wil, your Knoppix link in the post is broken. It reads:

"http://http//knoppix.com/"