Making the switch from XP Pro to Linux.

June 9, 2004 4:41 PM

Ok, so I want to make the move over to linux from xp pro and would like some pointers [mi]..

My current setup is this:

AMD XP 3200+
2 x 512mb pc 3200 RAM
Shuttle SN45G mobo (nForce2)
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro gfx
Samsung 120Gb hd
Lite-on 411s DVD-Dual writer
Samsung SyncMaster 171P LCD (1280x1024)

I am currently using XP Pro and would like a nice, clean distro that is relatively straightforward to setup (ie won't die at my nforce2 mobo), reasonably neat looking and allows for as easy updating/program installation as possible.

I have Partition Magic 8.0 and about 30Gb spare space on my NTFS drive.

Recommendations of any favourite software would be appreciated too - I am at uni at the moment, so download size/time isn't an issue. I'll need maths/programming software as well as the standard stuff (im, word processor, games etc).

I'm a comp sci student too, so feel free to be reasonably technical (I've just had bad experiences with linux installs, so gave up for a few years).

The ability to dual boot would be nice too.

Thanks for any help ^_^

posted by Mossy to Computers & Internet (31 answers total)

With a setup like that, you should use Gentoo.
posted by cmonkey at 4:51 PM on June 9, 2004

Well Fedora is supposed to be one of the most user friendly to set up, but there have been some reports of it fubar-ing dual boot setups recently.

Debian is the old faithful, being robust and easy to maintain (apt-get), but it is not as easy for a first timer to set up.

Mandrake is easy to set up, but some people complain that it is a little too simplified and bloated. It was my first, though, and was good enough.

Personally, I only look at Debian these days, for apt-get alone. If you go that route, make sure you look into how to configure xfree86 for your hardware properly.
posted by Hackworth at 4:52 PM on June 9, 2004

I'll add that Gentoo has "portage", a package dependancy updating system that makes Linux almost as nice to use as FreeBSD. Gentoo may be a bit of a pain to get going on a computer, but it makes up for in the long term.
posted by cmonkey at 4:59 PM on June 9, 2004

For someone new to linux, Mandrake is the way to go. Maybe, as you get more comfortable with it, Gentoo or Debian might be the way to go. Personally, I've been pretty happy with Mandrake and have stuck with it.

Basically, if you have the spare hard disc space, just go for it. You have nothing to lose. You can always repartition afterwards if you don't like it.

Also, I belive you're in Oxford, are you not? There is an Oxford Linux User's Group, though I have no idea what they are like.
posted by salmacis at 5:14 PM on June 9, 2004

Response by poster: What should I partition my hard drive to?

Logical ext2, ext3 or swap?

I'll have a look for the Oxford Linux User's Group - my fellow computer scientists are somewhat hardcore and scary however ^_^
posted by Mossy at 5:17 PM on June 9, 2004

I'm a big fan of Gentoo, but please: ignore cmonkey. It's a great distro and a fantastic way to learn more about Linux, but isn't the best way to just learn about Linux. Mandrake is a great first distro. Fedora is going to be an awesome distro soon, but it seems like they're still ironing out a few "not Redhat" kinks. Debian's a little easier to use than Gentoo, but suffers from the same steep learning curve. SuSE is for Europeans. Slackware is for... well, I haven't really figured out who Slackware is for.
posted by Eamon at 5:17 PM on June 9, 2004

Ignore Eamon, go Gentoo.
posted by Gyan at 5:22 PM on June 9, 2004

Another suggestion: if you have the spare cash, it might be easier to simply get a second hard drive (40 GB is more than enough, and smaller drives aren't really cheaper anymore) and install Linux on that. This way, you'll have the peace of mind in knowing that all your stuff is still perfectly safe while you play around with an entirely new OS (well, it's still pretty safe without the second drive, but it's definitely more safe with it).

Also, salmacis has an excellent point: if you can get help installing Linux from, e.g. the members of a LUG, that'll go a long way. Learning how to use Linux should probably come before learning how to install and configure it. Although you certainly wouldn't be the first person to start that way!

On preview: you'll want a swap partition (the rule of thumb is 100% - 200% the size of your memory, the limit is 2 GB), and everything else should probably be ext3.
posted by Eamon at 5:23 PM on June 9, 2004

I usually like Mandrake for first-time Linux installs. It has a lot of nice GUI setup stuff, and is reasonably stable. I would assume that it'll handle your configuration with very little tweaking, if any. As for updating, Mandrake uses the RPM system with a wrapper called Urpmi, which makes updating a snap. It'll download everything you need, while handling dependencies.

It's pretty trivial to set Linux up to dual boot using either Grub or lilo. This should be an option when you install. I suggest Grub, it's newer and a little prettier.

I respectfully disagree with cmonkey's suggestion about using Gentoo. I use Gentoo on my own machine, and love it dearly, but I don't think that it is a good first-time distro. It is not particularly easy to install, and not at all easy to configure. Besides, the advantage of Gentoo is that you have only what you want to have on your machine; the downside is that a beginner won't know what he or she does want on the machine. Better to start with something that installs a nice subset of everything.

As for software, the KDE window manager comes with a bunch of common programs like a spreadsheet, word processor, etc. There are other alternatives (OpenOffice comes to mind), but I've never really bothered with them. I likeMozilla for web browsing, the KDE terminal for an xterm, Gaim for an AIM client, Grip for a CD player/MP3 ripper, emacs for a text editor, and xmms for an MP3 player. I don't know much about free math stuff for Linux (I use Matlab), but here's the Scientific Computing HOWTO. As for programming software, I usually just use emacs, which has editing modes for most programming languages, and the gnu compiler tools. gdb is essential if you're going to be debugging C code; there's a GUI for it called ddd, if you want one. Electric Fence is a good memory leak detection program for C. If you're not doing C, or you just want more ideas, you should hit up Freshmeat.net's Software Development section to find some tools that suit your language and programming style. Freshmeat.net is a very useful site in general, as it lists most of the available software for Linux. You might also want to check out the Games section. Don't mistake it for freshmeat.com, though, that one is a porn site!

Best of luck with your new Linux box... please stop back in if you run into any more questions!
posted by vorfeed at 5:33 PM on June 9, 2004

Ignore Linux, get FreeBSD.
posted by five fresh fish at 5:50 PM on June 9, 2004

While I can't recommend any distos in particular, be absolutely certain that it'll work with your nForce2. There's a lot of Nvidia-proprietary stuff on that board, so be extra careful. It looks like you probably know that, though. If you have an extra network card, you may be able to use that to limp along and download the drivers you need before you can get everything working.
posted by zsazsa at 6:03 PM on June 9, 2004

Response by poster: Mmm, I haven't switched for all this time because of the config problems I had with my old nforce.

Anyone know a distro that'll certainly work with nforce2 out of the box? I just downloaded Mandrake 10 and Gentoo 2004.1, will try the former first..

Also, what's the state of the ATI drivers on linux?
posted by Mossy at 6:08 PM on June 9, 2004

Also, what's the state of the ATI drivers on linux?

ATI provides closed-source 3D Linux drivers of their own. XFree86 has native support for 2D graphics on ATI cards. I think that Mandrake actually comes with the proprietary ATI 3D drivers as well as the usual 2D ones, so you should be OK out of the box on Mandrake.
posted by vorfeed at 6:22 PM on June 9, 2004

gentoo? aren't you only allowed to use that if you have a customized honda with a 6-foot wingy thing on the back?

gentoo is for ricers
posted by dvdgee at 6:54 PM on June 9, 2004

SuSE or Mandrake are both designed to be easy to install and use. Either should work well for you. I'm a Linux driver developer and I use SuSE at work and at home on similar hardware to what you have.

Ignore the folks pushing Gentoo. They are fanatics and they are not your friend. Same goes for those Judean People's Front bastards...
posted by Voivod at 8:03 PM on June 9, 2004

Everything in the NForce2 is well supported in recent Linux kernels so as long as you go with a newish distribution you should get full IDE performance, onboard ethernet, and audio support no problem. No clue about ATI support... I always buy nVidia. :-)
posted by Voivod at 8:11 PM on June 9, 2004

Gentoo is for people who enjoy watching things compile. Debian is for GPL bigots. Mandrake and SuSE are for people who think lots of colourful icons automatically make an OS "easy to use" somehow.

The only good Linux I have ever found -- don't laugh now -- is Slackware. It's coherently organised and surprisingly easy to install. You're given easy instructions and left to do things yourself, instead of having some automatic do-it-all program mess everything up (as usually happens on other distros, especially Mandrake and SuSE) and install 5GB of mostly-identical programs that you'll never use. If you're comfortable using a command line, go for it.
posted by reklaw at 8:17 PM on June 9, 2004

I had great success recently using Knoppix with a HD-install - it basically gives you Debian with everything configured nicely, and with a few changes to the APT repository files (instructions are easy to find) you can do all your usual updates and turn it into a pretty standard Debian system.
posted by Jimbob at 8:35 PM on June 9, 2004

Actually, I'll expand a bit and say a bit more about my experiences with some Linux ditros.

Mandrake - haven't tried 10 yet, the last one I had installed was 9.1. Mandrake gives you everything and it's quite cutting edge, and the installer is very easy to use and powerful. By everything, I mean you'll end up with 6 web browsers, 4 word processors, 378 text editors etc. It really is full on. I do have issues with the "user-friendly" tag though. In the case of Mandrake, this means it has a control centre / wizards. However, I've found them to be buggy as hell in the past - the developers really need to work on making them stable and fool-proof. They are probably better now in Mandrake 10, given the rate of improvement in Mandrake that i've experienced.

Lycoris - this is a beautiful little distro - clearly intended to look like a Windows XP clone, so it will be familiar to use. Unlike Mandrake, it is a bit minimalist. It gives you one of everything, but this can be an advantage, because they've polished it so that the one of everything works really well. The control centre / wizards are quite stable and useful. One disadvantage is that it's not cutting edge - in focusing on stability and perfection, they've stuck with quite old software. Also, while installing "made for Lycoris" software is very easy, compiling / installing general packages can be a pain.

Knoppix / Debian - a very complete, stable, compatible distro. Lacks the kind of easy-to-use configuration utilities of the two distros above, but everything is stable, it comes with lots of software, and it's easy to update. Try it if you don't mind getting your hands a little bit dirty while configuring it.
posted by Jimbob at 8:48 PM on June 9, 2004

We use The nVidia stuff in the lab and Red Hat Enterprise works wonders even if I did manage to crash it today (you can get it for free at whitehat.com or something like that IIRC).
posted by jmd82 at 8:59 PM on June 9, 2004

Interesting thread. I got a new box with XP Pro and a spare 40 gig hard drive, and would like to install Linux, which I've never used but wish to learn.

However, I am so mollycoddled by years of Windows use that I have no wish, interest or aptitude in compiling, getting my hands dirty, configuring or any of the other scary stuff mentioned above which puts off people like me from making the switch.

Can anyone recommend a distro and tutorials that will let me install linux in addition to the current O/S with no tears and windows-like ease of installation?
posted by Pericles at 12:34 AM on June 10, 2004

If it's Windows-like ease of installation you're after, stay the heck away from Gentoo and Debian and even Mandrake and SuSE -- you will have to get your hands dirty. The best graphical installer, in my opinion, is the one in Lycoris. It detects most things automatically and is actually easier to use than the Windows XP installer -- it has all sorts of attention to little details, like a clickable map to select your timezone and letting you play solitaire while the files are copied. You really don't even need a tutorial -- just burn it to CD, stick the CD in and reboot, then follow the instructions.

The freely-downloadable version of Lycoris is available from these mirrors. I think the most recent version is update3.iso.

The only pitfall I can think of is that you might want to use something like Partition Magic to create a Linux partition (or at least some unpartitioned empty space) before you use the installer, if repartitioning in a Linux installer would make you nervous.
posted by reklaw at 1:15 AM on June 10, 2004

I can vouch that Fedora Core 2 works perfectly with my nForce 2 Chipset, although it DOES screw up the drive geometry. Either go Mandrake, or wait for Core 3. (or 2.5, whatever it takes to fix that bug.)
posted by cheaily at 1:18 AM on June 10, 2004

Pericles: Every Linux distribution will give your tears, it's a sad unavoidable fact. Redhat, SuSE and Mandrake are all easy to install but often a bitch to configure.

I have Redhat 9 on my desktop (network doesn't work, modem detects but the dialer software crashes) and on my laptop (network doesn't work, doesn't detect modem at all, sound doesn't work). In short, although I can be productive with it - it takes a fair while of tinkering to get set up to an acceptable level - far more than you would with Windows.

If you really want to try Linux, use Knoppix. It's a bootable CD which lets you at least have a play with Linux without installing it. Then make your own mind up. The biggest problem Linux has is the shear volume of choices you have of distributions, each with differing installation methods, packages and location and setup of files.
posted by ralawrence at 1:18 AM on June 10, 2004

I'd second the thought about getting a Knoppix disc for testing and evaluation purposes.

In fact, *everybody* - XP users, linux users, Mac users - should have a Knoppix disc handy. It's invaluable for rescuing borked systems. The fact that it's as cool as hell is just a bonus.

Mossy, I think all of your original queries have been answered. If you go with Mandrake, feel free to email me if you run into any problems.
posted by salmacis at 3:21 AM on June 10, 2004

I've plugged it before and I'll plug it again:Libranet is a Debian-based distro with a new-user friendly graphical installer. Hardware autodetection, apt-get and easy installation - it doesn't get much better.
The latest version is not free (as in beer); you can try the older version or pony up $30 bucks for the latest. It's well worth the price for a hassle-free install of a usable system. I've found it to be more stable than Mandrake and quicker to install than Gentoo.
posted by sardonista at 5:55 AM on June 10, 2004

So I can burn a Knoppix CD, put it in my drive and wonk around, and when I remove the CD I'm back to Windows again? And no danger of all my files being overwritten with jpegs of Finnish bearded men who know more C++ than is good for them?
posted by Pericles at 6:02 AM on June 10, 2004

Yep.
posted by ralawrence at 6:28 AM on June 10, 2004

you see, that's why I want to learn Linux. i'm in love with open source, philosophically. Thanks!
posted by Pericles at 7:17 AM on June 10, 2004

knoppix is cool, but it is still an Instrument of Babylon. For true rasta righteousness, dyne:bolik is the only way to go, as it is the only Linux distro which is 100% rasta software
posted by dvdgee at 9:37 AM on June 10, 2004

For someone new to Linux, I highly suggest going with

CoLinux

This runs a fully functional linux under windows, and allows you to play around with it before you decide to take the "big step."

I have a "very verbose" step by step tutorial to getting coLinux up and running with a Debian core here which is unformatted and unpolished, but very thorough and I would hope easy to follow. I was too lazy and tired to link to some stuff mentioned in it, sorry. Working on that.

I'm going to be adding more to it eventually. I realize there's a colinux wiki, but it seemed to be lacking some step-by-step cohesion. There's tons of stuff there though that you should definitely read.
posted by precocious at 6:50 PM on June 10, 2004