Using Linux?

[Joe Ross]

I've used Knoppix a little, and a few more specialized CD / floppy distros.

I've also used Caldera (2.3), a few versions of Mandrake (6-8), Redhat (7.3 - 9), Suse (8.1) Gentoo, LFS, and Debian. Probably a few others that I've left out.

[Raven_Writer]

What would one recommend for a beginner?

[Bharat Nain]

Originally Posted by Raven_Writer

What would one recommend for a beginner?

Mandrake is decent for a beginner, I've seen its slight more user friendly than others, but thats my view. If you need help installing feel free to IM me, I used to use dual boot a while ago, but uninstalled it because of disk space.
-Bharat

[Joe Ross]

I used Knoppix 3.2, I think.

For beginners, I like to make a couple of suggestions

Suse - just like German Engineered cars, Suse takes care of the small details very well. If I was recommending a distro for a business, this is it.

Fedora - Used to be Redhat, very nice, however they take the high rode when it comes to patent issues (which is good, except when you are trying to make the absolutely easiest use distro). They don't include MP3 or NTFS support, and a few other things. They can be easily added, though, by adding in third party packages.

Mandrake - Very up to date and includes everything Fedora/Redhat leaves out. However, in 3 or 4 version's I've tried, I've never gotten it to be as stable as linux should be (more on the level of windows).

If you were trying to learn linux very well, I'd suggest installing one of those and playing with them for a while, then installing Debian or Gentoo. I can help you with Debian, and Ian W. can help you with Gentoo. However, since you just want to get it running for you mom, I'd use one of the above three.

[Ryan M.]

I agree with the stabilty of Mandrake thing, but I'd say go with that at first.

Also, it has very nice NTFS support. So, if nothing else, get the first CD and use it to resize the XP partition(s).

And getoo is hard to install... good luck if you go for that.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Texan

Also, it has very nice NTFS support. So, if nothing else, get the first CD and use it to resize the XP partition(s).

You can also resize NTFS partitions with qtparted, which is included with knoppix.

[Raven_Writer]

Really, Knoppix is only worth it if you partition your hd, and dual-boot it, in my opinion anways.

I'll probably figure something out during vacation, and do it when I return.

[Timothy D. Ginn]

Originally Posted by Raven_Writer

What would one recommend for a beginner?

I'd recommend SuSE. SuSE's YaST is a very nice update/software install tool and makes finding software easy. The SuSE installer is quite good at coexisting with Windows partitions, it can even resize NTFS partitions to give itself some space, and does so by default (rather than overwriting your other partitions). It's also probably one of the most straight forward systems to install, as it gives you enough to have a nicely working system that's suitable for use by most desktop users and then you can get the rest of the stuff later using YaST as you require it. The FTP installer may be a bit slow (SuSE has a fair number of mirrors overseas) but with enough persistence you will succeed.

There's a 9.0 Personal version that does an install over FTP. 9.1 uses a 2.6 kernel, but 9.0 doesn't uses a 2.4 one.

If you need any help, feel free to contact me (that includes post-setup).

[Astronouth7303]

Originally Posted by Raven_Writer

What would one recommend for a beginner?

Try CollegeLinux. It's based on Slackware, comes on 1 CD, and has a doc for Dual booting with WinXP. We just installed it on my brother's laptop, that went pretty good. (Know in advance, it's virtually impossible to change the resolution)

[Raven_Writer]

I'm 99.9% sure the ansewr is yes, but I'll ask anways. It's a very safe bet to backup your computer before doing any of this, correct?

[Venkatesh]

Absolutely. Backup before installing Linux. And after. And very very often.

One more thing - make sure that you can recover from your backups as well - all my backups used to be to CDs, but I have recently discovered that I can't read my earliest CD-Rs any longer, namely ones from before 1999.

If you want to get started with Linux, I think that Red Hat Linux 9 or Fedora Core (either 1 or 2) are excellent choices. Everything is already set up for you. I found it quite easy to install Red Hat 7.2 (back when I first started) and immediately I had a development environment, excellent GUI, and office tools (KOffice).

Eventually, you will get annoyed with the fact that Red Hat/Fedora has customized everything just a little, enough to cause frustration to people who like to understand the complete workings of Linux. Right now, I'm very significantly confused by the graphical bootscreen of Fedora Core 2 (how the hell do they do that?).

But yes, backup and good luck!

[Raven_Writer]

Originally Posted by Venkatesh

Absolutely. Backup before installing Linux. And after. And very very often.

...

But yes, backup and good luck!

Is using the backup program that comes w/ Windows XP a good program? (Sorry for the newbie-ish questions here, but hey; why not). I'm going to test RedHat on a LiveCD, and see if I like it.

[Timothy D. Ginn]

Originally Posted by Venkatesh

Right now, I'm very significantly confused by the graphical bootscreen of Fedora Core 2 (how the hell do they do that?).

SuSE has that too. It's called a Bootsplash. Here's an outline of how it works (and how to change it):

http://www.bootsplash.org/

There's also more splash screens available on KDE Look (I believe it was somewhere within this category, but could be wrong)
http://www.kde-look.org/index.php?xsortmode=new&page=0

But that's a bit off topic, isn't it?

[Venkatesh]

I have never used the Windows XP Backup tool, but I have heard that its not that good.

But, why even bother with a backup tool? Find all the files that you use, will use, and have ever used (eg all documents, pictures, music, thesises, codes, novels, etc.) and copy those onto your backup medium of choice. I use CD-Rs in the absence of something better.

And btw, is there such a thing as a Redhat livecd?

[Timothy D. Ginn]

Originally Posted by Venkatesh

And btw, is there such a thing as a Redhat livecd?

There isn't one pre-packaged as an ISO distributed directly by Redhat or the Fedora Project. It is possible to make one, of course, and there's most likely either a Redhat-derivative which is distributed as a LiveCD, or an "unofficial" LiveCD somewhere.

Knoppix and DemoLinux are Debian based, SuSE LiveCD is SuSE based (of course) and that covers the ones I've seen around lately.