Installing Linux? (Beginer's Question)

[rpk2006]

Hi Guys,
I have never worked on Linux but want to install it. I am presently using Win98/2000 dual boot option. Can I install linux on a new partition?
I heard that Linux is FREE and can be downloaded. Please suggest from where to download it and which one to download?

What benefits will I get with Linux as compared to other OS.

Thanks,
...........
Rohit. ---------------------------------
Securing a computer system has traditionally been a battle of wits: the penetrator tries to find the holes, and the designer tries to close them. � M.Gosser

 

[krale]

>Hi Guys,

Hello.

>I have never worked on Linux but want to install it. I am presently using Win98/2000 dual boot option. Can I install linux on a new partition?

NO, but if you have free, unpartitioned space will be required to install Linux. You'll also need a swap Partition. Linux uses the idea of "Swap Partition" as it can be on another drive (unlike Windows Swap file).

A few gigs will be plenty, depending what you want to do.

>I heard that Linux is FREE and can be downloaded. Please suggest from where to download it and which one to download?

If you dont want to touch your drives untill you're 100% sure you want Linux, I'd go get Knoppix Linux. It's a boot-cd based Linux that does everything in RAM. It's a bit slow, as it has to read everything off the CD, but in terms of checking hardware (whether it works with it) it does wonders ;-).

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

There's Red Hat. It's a fine distro, but they seem to want you to upgrade every so often (pay for a new version). There's a decent package upgrade path, but I find it lacking.

I prefer Debian in terms of using and maintaining my machines. The Debian software kits are 7 cd's in length and it's dead-simple to download updates daily. There's also 3 different branches of packages.
Stable - for servers and other "I dont want this to crash" machines.
Testing - "This is nice, oops a program crashed" kind of system. You get a lot of new stuff in here, but isnt as stable.
Unstable - uptime 4 minutKERNEL PANIC This branch is extremly UNSTABLE. It's fun to play with occaisionally. Expect tons of megs of updates/changes per day.

A BIG problem with Debian is its installer. You have to know your hardware and the name of the modules to install to do this one. All other packages can scan for hardware and correctly load the driver for it. However, if you can brave the installer, it's well worth it, as Debian is fairly polished.

Packages are nicely maintained so that it's easy to install from the 7 package CD's or, if you dont have it, auto-get from the internet servers. I've seen a t-1 max out from downloading from those servers (so their bandwidth is high too).

>What benefits will I get with Linux as compared to other OS.

The biggest benefit is that darn near everything for Linux (in terms of software) is free. Network stuff is extremly advanced when compared to Windows. There's also a bunch of powerful server/clients that can run only on Linux/Unix machines. Another biggie is if you program. You get a full development suite called GCC. If I'm correct, it can compile to 20+ different chip architechures. It can also do quite a few languages (C, C++ for starters).

All of this for free - as in open source, give to anybody free. Overall Linux isnt as polished as Windows, but everything is seperated so you can figure what section takes care of "this" action (unlike Windows, where everything is hidden from you).


>Thanks

Not a problem ;-) Please let Tek-Tips members know if their posts were helpful.

 

[MrTom]

It's probably worth mentioning that Debian can be installed from the Knoppix CD Krale mentioned. Knoppix requires an 800MB CD too but contains over 2GB of software.

Krale: I don't know why you think that unstable is unreliable. All (major) software that enters unstable will have gone through extensive testing upstream, eg. Mozilla, KDE. It's maybe more of a problem for people without X86 hardware but I've been running unstable for 2 years and I've never had a more reliable system.

 

[clonny2]

SUSE also has a cd /RAM version only. It is an eval version.

If you want to download and burn

http://www.linuxiso.org

and

http://www.linuxiso.com

There is just about every version there that you can download and burn.


RedHat is the most popular in the states. It is a very good distro, as well as debian is. They are both free to download and install. You will need to pay for support if you have problems though.

the RedHat 8.0 Installer is pretty good at detecting most hardware.

 

[krale]

Mr Tom: The main problems I've had with Debian:unstable is that..
1: I'm on a modem. I cant afford (as in time cost) a 10 MB patch every day.
2: Deps are out of whack, expessially when a new project dumps all their debs in to unstable. Testing is usually better, to my opinion. It's simply a "older software" vs "Stability" issue.


Clonny2: I'd avoid Suse if you can. The test-cd is pile of crap (and yes, I've tried it).

The distro's I'd suggest are thus: RedHat, Debian, Mandrake, Slackware, Knoppix

Redhat, mandrake, and debian are full distro's suitable for desktops and servers. Slackware is a server grade distro, which everything is set up more like FreeBSD. Maintaining a Slackware server is dead easy. Knoppix is a compressed cd of a full Linux distro. Each have their purposes. Choose wisely. Please let Tek-Tips members know if their posts were helpful.

 

[wpfaff]

Do you have a connection to the internet other than 56K modem?
Do you have CD Burner and software that supports ISO file formats?
Do you have a 200MHZ or better processor?

These are necessary to be able to download and install a free distro of linux. If all you have is a 56K modem expect to take a couple of days to download the files.

For Red Hat go to:

https://www.redhat.com/download/howto_download.html

For Suse go to:

http://www.suse.com/us/private/download/suse_linux/index.html

For Debian go to:

http://www.debian.org/distrib/cd

Also try these other sites:

http://www.linuxiso.org

http://www.linux.com

http://www.linux.org

Unless you have a utility like Partition Magic you will have to reformat your hard drive and install whichever windows version that you want first. Leave 800 megabytes or more free (not partioned) on your harddrive. This should give you enough room to install the workstation option of your distribution. Phat linux can be installed on Windows although you will have to pay for this version. If interested go to

http://www.phatlinux.com.

As a precaution you should know what kind of hardware you have in your computer system and the IRQ's and base hardware address especially for your network card and sound card.

Hope this helps

 

[verit]

For a new user of Linux, it's probably worth going to CompUSA and buying RedHat Personal 8.0 for $20 this week. You can always download more software as you learn more.