Complete Newbie Wants To Give Linux A Go

I've come to the conclusion that I need to give Linux a try. I've never touched the thing before, but I'd like to dual boot my PC between Win XP and one of the Linux distros, probably Mandrake, as it seems to be a good one for newcomers - am I right? While I'm far from a technophobe, if the learning curve is too high (for example, the Terminal on my Mac scares me to high heaven) I tend to give up. So if there's a good middle ground between the simplicity of Lindows (well, so I've heard anyway) and the UNIX-realistic Slackware (again, speculation from what I've read) it'd be great if you would let me know.

I've got three HDD partitions on my hard drive at the moment. XP is installed on C. D is full of Windows apps and is, like C, formatted with NTFS. If, say, I wanted to format E into FAT32, this would make it ready for Linux, I assume? And would it be ok to dual boot between two OSs on different partitions?

Sorry for tedious little questions, but these are the specific questions that Google just can't answer.

By the way - is www.linuxiso.org the best source for up to date Linux ISOs?

Cheers all in advance.

#57793

Well, I for one want to thank you for putting this in the right section.

On your questions:

Yes, mandrake is a great choice, some people will stay redhat because its "standard", but redhat is an inferior distro with good support. As a home user, you don't need that.

I suggest you wait for Mandrake 9.2, it will be out in a few weeks.

Linuxiso.org is a fine place, though be sure to check MD5Sums before burning the ISO, they're known for corrupt files.

NTFS is readable by Linux, but not writable. FAT32 is read/write, but Linux cant be installed onto it (easily).

You want to format the partition in ext3 or ReiserFS. Any distro you install can do this.

Linux also needs a seperate swap partition, which is like Windows "page file". Mandrake will set this up for you if you choose "use free space on harddrive".

To set up linux nicely, be sure to leave AT LEAST 5GB for Linux. Distros come with thousands of programs that can take up a lot of space, but as a ****ie, you want to try them all.

As for "hard", linux is NOT harder than Windows, it simply is more customizable. Throw all your preconceptions about the command line out the window. UNIX has the most advanced command line out there, and in many (most) cases, its easier than a GUI.

Why? Lemme explain:

GUI - Is basically one big "wizard". IT gives you choice A, B, and C. Thats great if you want to do one of those. But what if you want to do D or X? You either have to dig down through 5-10 menus, or you won't be able to do it at all.

CLI - You can do everything. You are given a prompt, simply tell it what you want to do (usually in one line), and its done. Simple.

The command line is different than a GUI,so it does take some getting used to, but don't be scared. Its not "ancient", it has stayed for a reason.

That said, you will find a GUI for most things.

Suggestions:

Dont expect it to be like Windows/OSX , its not (unless you are talking about the OSX underpinnings, which are almost identical)

Dont be afraid to search google or read the docs, UNIX comes with a built in documentation system, simply type "man command" and you will recieve loads of info on how to use that command. Every problem you could possibly have has already been answered somewhere on the internet.

Have fun!

#57795

all i can say good luck and never give up!

#57807

Since you've never had any chance to try Linux before, I suggest you download Knoppix iso and burn it as a bootable CD. The neat thing about Knoppix is that you don't need to install anything on your computer. It is a self-booting linux system with almost everything you need to get you started. Office apps, internet, games, etc. are already included. Give it a try and you'll find it easier to decide if you want to dive deeper.

Cheers

#57879

Thanks for the words people, much appreciated.

I'll definitely look into fiddling with Knoppix before I do anything more permanent- a great idea, thanks.

#57955