So I was at my grandma's house on Saturday clean and get everything ready to move to her new house when we came across her old PC. It is an older PC but not ancient by any means. It exceeds the minimum requirements for xp but i think i am going to try out Linux. It is not that i have given up on Windows as an operating system i am just curious to see what the other one has to offer. So wish me luck and offer me advice as i try to go into a world with out my trusty start button. (or is there a start bar add in for Linux??? I should ask Jake)
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
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3 comments:
If the machine is yours to wipe clean then that makes it a lot easier. You need to decide which distribution you want to use. Sometimes the computer hardware makes that decision for you. It seems most people these days who are new to Linux just get Ubuntu because that's what Linux is, isn't it? The short answer, no. Ubuntu is not Linux no matter what you've seen or heard, it's not Linux. Ubuntu is A Linux. One Linux distribution (distro) among many. Wait a minute, isn't there supposed to be only one operating system per company/group? Microsoft has conditioned us so well to believe that. There's no scientific evidence that says one ubiquitous operating system (it's called a monoculture) is the best thing for everybody. Though there are many Linux distributions, there are only a few to consider for personal use. And although there are many different kinds of Linux distributions, they are all very similar underneath. There's another important aspect of Linux you should know about, the window managers or desktops. Windows has one. Mac has one. Linux has about 12. You really only need to be aware of 3, KDE, Gnome, and XFce. The distro you chose will determine the default desktop. Some distros can use multiple desktops (it's kind of fun to switch for a while when you get bored).
Ok, here are the distros I would recommend in my personal order.
PCLinuxOS (http://www.pclinuxos.com/)
SimplyMepis (http://www.mepis.org/)
Kubuntu (http://www.kubuntu.org/)
Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntu.com/)
Have fun.
Dag, yo. There's a lesson.
He's right, though, there's lots of choices. I've never tried PCLinuxOS, but I hear good things about it.
As far as starting goes, just in case you get stuck somewhere with something wierd, you should always try right-clicking on the desktop. In some desktop environments/window managers that brings up the 'start menu'. My wife about went bonkers the other night b/c she couldn't figure out what to do on my computer--right-clicking would have done it.
Good luck, man!
just start talking jibberish. Seems to work for Jake and Ben.
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