What
is Linux ? its an operating system, a bit like windows, but
is totally free !
No need for anti-virus software, there are
no viruses for Linux !
Open Office is a free office suite,
fully Microsoft compatible.
There are 1000's of free
software packages available to download.
Music, movie players, web
editors, games, and loads more.
Downloaded
and installed Ubuntu 7.04. It took me 45 minutes to download
and burn the CD, compared with 3 weeks for Debian, see below.
First machine was a PC World Advent. Everything installed Ok,
except the Nvidia driver which needed a small amount of effort to get
right with the Restricted Drivers Manager (I think). Plugged in a 3Com
USB wireless adapter (3CRUSB10075), and connected to the net straight
away, no drivers needed, amazing. Our son Andrew was so
impressed with the Ubuntu look and wobbly windows efects, that I then I
had to install it on his PC. Again, installed with no problems
and straight on the net with the 3Com USB adapter ! He's
already downloaded and installed an OSX theme, and is well on the way
to becoming a geek :-)
Overall I am very
impressed with 7.04. Easy installation, and looks nice and
modern.
Have just installed Ubuntu 7.04 on our main home PC. The computer has 2 hardrives, 1 x 160Gb with Win XP and 1 x 80Gb which is a backup and now also has Ubuntu on it as well. It was a bit complicated setting up the partitions for Ubuntu on the second drive, but got there in the end. If you are unsure of partitioning, check with the Ubuntu forums, they are a great help. Ubuntu installed with no problems, only needing the Nvidia drivers sorting, which was easy, and again using a 3Com wireless adapter. Epson CX3200 on our wireless network installed and works fine. I've installed, AbiWord (word processor), Scribus (DTP), Komposer (web editor), Xsteem (Atari ST emulator), and use FireFox for the net. Now using Ubuntu more than Windows XP, it rocks ! highly recommended.
Download Ubuntu here Documentation Ubuntu Forums, lot of help for the novice
Overview of Ubuntu desktop
edition
Ubuntu comes as a Live CD. Download Ubuntu, burn it onto a CD,
put the CD in your drive and boot. Ubuntu will run from the CD
so you can try it without installing! A nice safe way to try a new OS.
Installing and using Debian Linux, my story !
I hope these notes may help other people who are trying to install Debian Linux and maybe I'll get some help myself ....
Reading Computer Shopper one evening I decided to try out Debian Linux. I've had nearly 20 years experience with computers, starting with a Spectrum +2, then Atari ST (great machine) and then because of business onto PC's. I'd dabbled with Corel Linux, easy install but sold the machine before I had a chance to play with it!, and Mandrake, which I gave up on because of problems with the display flickering.
Anyway, Computer Shopper persuaded me Debian was the way to go, so onto the net to buy it …. £9.95 for a set of 7 CD's, that's the sort of price I like.
Ordered Debian Linux 3.0r1 7 CD set from www.buylinuxnow.co.uk waited 2 weeks, nothing, emailed them, waited another week, nothing, cancelled order.
Decided to try and download the CD image using JigDo (a sort of download manager) as no broadband here yet. JigDo allows you to download Debian CD images in small parts, automatically combining all the bits into a CD image. My Freeserve connection cuts off every 2 hours, but that doesn't matter, just start JigDo again and it starts up were it left off the last time.
JigDo
Wouldn't work at all on first machine. Tried it on another, worked first time. Both Windows 98. Maybe a line in autoexec.bat or config.sys ?
I use half an ISDN line for the net, 64k, it took nearly 2 weeks to download CD1 and then got a message Arrgh couldn't download 39 files ….. etc. etc. seemed to be the package developer folder and files.
Tried a few other mirrors as suggested, no good.
Downloaded ISOMagic, and extracted the JigDo temp ISO file to a folder. Tried burning a CD from this, no good. Searched Google for "Arrgh 39 files" found someone had similar probs and mentioned a mirror that fixed him up. Tried this mirror and downloaded some more files, ending up with 4 files missing, in the end downloaded the files manually with IE into a folder and told Jigdo to look for them in there, and success!, CD1 downloaded successfully !
Burn CD
Using Nero and a x8 CDRW drive. Tried 2 disks at x8 speed, disks would only come up as an audio disk. Tried at x4 speed CD burnt Ok. I've had problems with other disks, I think my burner maybe on its way out.
Install Debian
My test machine was a HP Vectra VL PIII 450Mhz with 128Mb ram, 30Gb disk, CDRW, Matrox MGA-G200 AGP display card, Crystal SoundFusion sound card.
I read some of the Debian install notes and see its important to work out number and size of partitions. My disk is 30Gb in size, and I eventually decide on 3 partitions, Windows 98 12Gb - Linux 4Gb - Linux Swap 400Mb with some spare Gb's for future use (I can, hopefully, utilise later with partition magic or something)
I already had Windows 98 on the machine so knew the type of display and sound cards.
Can't boot to the CD so use a Win98 boot floppy with cdrom driver, get into the CD install folder and type boot to start install.
All seems to install Ok, but when I type startx to start xwindows it fails with an error. Search Google for error and find could be something to do with fbdev.
Edited the etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file to change usefbdev from 'true' to 'false' re-started and KDE starts up Ok!
Had to install Windows 98 which worked fine but Lilo has disappeared, can't get at Linux.
Hunted round Google for help, found that you just boot with linux boot floppy and then type lilo, which gets lilo working again. Wasn't quite that easy, the computer booted to the floppy then went into the KDE desktop. I ran the console, typed lilo, rebooted, nothing, black screen with a flashing cursor.
Booted to floppy, KDE etc. again and played around with some lilo commands, finding that lilo -P fix did the trick. I start up the PC, Lilo appears and I can choose Windows 98 or Linux, great stuff.
I've now got a machine that will dual boot into either Windows 98 or Debian Linux. Time to start playing ….
Conclusions so far.
Installation - Debian Linux has a lot of catching up to do with Windows. In my opinion, your average PC user would not be able to install Debian, because of the prior knowledge needed for partitions, etc. etc.
Partitions - if you want to dual-boot Windows and Linux, load Windows first. If you load it after Linux it will overwrite Lilo the boot manager. If Windows is already loaded use PartitionMagic to create about 2Gb of free space. Also if Windows is loaded first you will know all the hardware details, type of display, sound, modem etc.
If you mess up the Linux install just install it again, it overwrites all the previous Linux stuff but leaves Windows as it was.
Trying do get access to the internet. I can't find a dialer or internet connection setup. KDE help says use KPPP, but this isn't installed, can't find it in Package Manager either. Also tried WVDIAL from shell and run command, doesn't seem to do anything.
While I'm messing around with Package manager I find I can't access the cdrom drive. Eventually find that I have to use the shell and type 'mount /cdrom' to get KDE to see the cdrom drive and 'eject /cdrom' to eject the disk, need to look into this some more, can't be right.
Now I can see the cdrom drive I check the Debian CD1 for KPPP. The .deb files are in /pool/main/... there are a few KDE files but not KPPP. Can't find KPPP on KDE's website, find it in the end on Debian's website.
COMMENT - I installed Windows 98, plus IE6, Acrobat, Winzip, internet etc in half an hour. So far I have spent over a week installing Debian and still am not on the net. I feel the way some of my customers feel with their windows problems, frustrated that I can't see what to do to fix things, I'm getting there but its hard work.
Put KPPP on a cdr and have installed it into KDE. Next to try and set up a connection and get online.
Trying to get KPPP working with Yahoo Online (Pay-as-you-go 08456091350 username=yahoo password=yahoo) Its easy to set up in Windows you don't need to register just enter settings and away you go.
Entered the info into KPPP, try to connect and get a message about authentication failed and secret passwords. Tried various different settings, still no good, won't connect. Search Google, and find reference to etc/ppp/options file change auth to noauth. Try connecting again, success, we are connected to the net.
Next problem, Konqueror cannot access any websites, returns Unknown host. Found a few tips on the net but still no good. Ping doesn't work either, unknown host.. Spend hours searching net for clues to this, nothing so far.
I've discovered I can add a CDrom icon to the desktop by right clicking, add newetc. that makes life easier.
Hunting around on Google I find references to ifconfig when users are having problems with the net. I try playing around with this and find that if I type 'ifconfig sl0 down' I can then access the net, marvellous. sl0 seems to be an interface referenced by by ifconfig, turn it off and the net works.
Have sold the HP Vectra VL base unit - now installing on a ....
Compaq Deskpro C500/810
Notes
Use bf24 kernel
Choose sound card device driver audio_i810 on installation
Say no to frame buffer
Didn't use tasksel or dpkg, used apt-get install x-window-system kdm
kde
Install KSCD to play audio CD's and KPPP internet dialer
To cure sound server error for non-root user chmod 666 /dev/sound /dev/dsp /dev/mixer you may not need the /dev/sound bit
Printer - connected up an old HP670c printer and tried to get it working with CUPS and a PPD driver I'd found on www.linuxprinters.org - nothing at all to start with. Downloaded foomatic.rip and foomatic-wrapper and installed as instructions, still nothing. Changed the driver to HP Deskjet series and it all works.
Not sure why or how! all seems a bit complicated compared to installing a windows printer driver. I'll probably come back to this, try and work out how to do it properly.
KPPP - I've been searching the net to try and find how to setup KPPP to dial on demand as per windows. It doesn't look like its possible.
COMMENT - Some basic things that KDE should sort - internet dial on demand - add printer - add fonts - auto power down - change desktop resolution, colours - sort out the mount/unmount cdrom/floppy thing.
One install I set the res to 800*600. An easy way to add a higher res is to edit the /etc/X11/XF86config-4 file and add "1024 x 768"
Come to a bit of a halt on this machine. Its too far away from a phone socket, so I've lost interest for a while.
Installed Debian on exactly the same machine (Compaq 500) on a network at work, and it all goes Ok.
The network card is an Intel 82559 and I choose the EEPRO100 device driver which all works fine.
Everything works Ok, KDE starts up, sound Ok, internet Ok.
Things to look at - printer is an HP Laserjet 1000, might have problems here.
Shut down - KDE crashes on Logout. If I do an init 0 from shell it shuts down Ok. The exact same machine at home without a network shuts down fine. Is this where the problem lies ?
Just tried Knoppix, it installed onto the hard drive with no problems and seems to work fine. Knoppix can be run off the CD or installed to disk, so is a great way to try out Debian Linux.