Knoppix

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Knoppix sounds good. What do you suggest for a beginning, RadioRahim ?.

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Knoppix is a "live" CD distro. You just set your machine to boot from the CD disk instead of the hard drive and you've got a whole operating system along with software and you don't install anything at all on the machine.

There are other "live" CD distros from Mandriva, Ubuntu, Suse, Mepis etc. They're all good for getting a "feel" for what a Linux system is like without actually changing anything on your machine.

If you want to do an actual installation, the simplest one I've tried is Xandros. Xandros is "sort of" Canadian. The company that owns it is based in New York but the development team is Corel's former Linux team based in Ottawa.

Xandros is a "commercial" Linux distro so if you want the full version it costs money. But they have an "Open Circulation Edition" that's free. You have to do a Bit Torrent download to get it.

Xandros is a bit "limited" in terms of the software applications, but you can install it in about six mouse clicks. Its just really easy.

It has its own proprietary file manager called "Xandros File Manager" which "looks" a bit like Window$...either a blessing or a curse depending on who you talk to.

It "plays nice" on a home network with Window$ boxes too...even with shared printers.

If you want a distro with more applications...but a little more difficult you might want to try "Mandriva" (what used to be Mandrake).

Other Linux babblers will have their favourite Linux distro. There are some Libranet fans, Ubuntu fans etc.

There's sort of the "Debian-based camp" and the "RPM" based camp.

Then of course there are fans of the "Gnome" desktop and fans of the "KDE" desktop (the two main ones)...and fans of some of the others.

Anyway, just play until you find one that you like. I always recommend that if you're doing a first-time Linux install to use a spare machine. That way if you screw something up it doesn't matter...or if you don't like one distro you can wipe it and install another.

If you've got a spare Pentium II with 128 MB RAM and say a 4 GB hard drive, along with a highspeed internet connection that should do fine for a "newbie" install. More is of course always better. You can get away with less but I don't recommend it for a newbie.

There are a whole bunch of Linux threads here on babble. If you do a search you'll find all kinds of suggestions.

Playing with Linux does get you back into learning mode again. I started out with Linux being my "toy" operating system and its now become my regular day to day home operating system. I pretty much only use Window$ at work these days.

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Originally posted by radiorahim:
If you want to do an actual installation, the simplest one I've tried is Xandros. Xandros is "sort of" Canadian. The company that owns it is based in New York but the development team is Corel's former Linux team based in Ottawa.

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Sounds good, sounds good. I'll get right on it. I'm still stymied by the whole Windows feel thing. It's like getting behind the wheel of an automatic when I'm used to manual override.[/slim pickens]

It's funny bc I ran into Mike in an Irish pub somewhere near Bank Street last year, and he was rambling on so about this idea and that. He flipped when I gave him my fake Yorkshire accent. He was with a sweet young thing (cough), not Marla.

[ 27 May 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]