For Those Who Want to Dance with Tux
September 8, 2005
6:09 a.m., MT

I tried a Linux install once -- Red Hat, before it split into Red Hat and Fedora. I liked it, as far as I was able to use it. Unfortunately, the idiots who built my computer apparently believe that Winmodems play nicely with Linux, or they ignored my instructions to make it Linux compatible. In any event my first foray into the land of Tux brought mixed results.

Seeing the writing on the wall -- the coming digital divide, where some users will retain control of their machines and others will have relinquished it to the likes of Microsoft and Intel -- I'm getting serious about giving Linux another try. Poking around at PC Mag, I discovered a good article on installing Fedora. It's fairly detailed, and offers lots of interesting information along the way. Dunno that Fedora is what I'll try, but once I have my medical bills paid, I'll be getting a hard drive to devote exclusively to Linux exploration. Suggestions, etc. welcome.

Sunni

Comments: 23 people have spoken!

On Thursday, September 8th, at approximately 9:20 a.m. Mountain time, Kirsten said:

I don't recall where I read about this, but I recently ordered up about 20 copies of Ubuntu Linux. They arrived in the mail only a few days ago, so I haven't tried installing it or anything so I can't recommend it personally. In fact, I'm not even sure I can install it since I think I have a G3 processor (I'll have to check that). However, if you would like a copy let me know if you need the version for Intel x86, AMD64, or Power PC version and I'll drop a disk in the mail to you this weekend. You can also order directly from the website (and it's completely free!), but it might be quicker to get it from me. It took me about 6-8 weeks to get mine.

On Thursday, September 8th, at approximately 9:40 a.m. Mountain time, Sunni said:

I've heard of Ubuntu ... think I mentioned it on the Real ID Rebellion site, even. Thanks for the offer; I happily accept. I'm an AMD gal.

On Thursday, September 8th, at approximately 9:44 a.m. Mountain time, Happy Curmudgeon said:

I dual boot Windows and SUSE Linux 9.3. SUSE worked better out of the box than Fedora, especially with recognizing my Windows partition. FWIW.

On a totally unrelated topic, Sunni, did you see this month's issue of Reason? It features a mini-debate between Milton Friedman, T.J. Rogers, and John Mackey on corporate responsibility.

On Thursday, September 8th, at approximately 10:23 a.m. Mountain time, Sunni said:

My old machine was a Windows/Red Hat dual boot. Thanks to a dear friend taking the time to spell out the install procedure step by step, I had no problems creating the partitions and installing Red Hat. But this time around, I don't want a dual boot; I'm planning on having Linux on a separate drive, with the goal of eventually "moving into" it and away from Windows.

Lobo gets Reason, so yah, I did see Milton on the cover. And I even opened the mag, to try to read the article ... but I couldn't. Seriously. Their slick, pseudo-libertarian stuff just gives me the willies.

On Thursday, September 8th, at approximately 10:41 a.m. Mountain time, Happy Curmudgeon said:

I think it was Wally who placed Reason in the Conservative camp a while back and I have to agree with him. I'd been a subscriber since the early '80's, but I declined to re-subscribe this year; that was my last issue. When I compare the old Reason with today's, it makes me want to cry.

On Thursday, September 8th, at approximately 10:55 a.m. Mountain time, John Newnham said:

"Seriously. Their slick, pseudo-libertarian stuff just gives me the willies."

This is true! LOL

I bought an external modem to get around the winmodem prob. I find Mandrake linux very easy to install and use.

On Thursday, September 8th, at approximately 11:06 a.m. Mountain time, Thomas L. Knapp said:

I second Mr. Newnham's motion on Mandrake (now called Mandriva for some arcane copyright reason or something).

When I went to Mandrake 9.0, it was easier to install than Windows 95 or 98, and I was up and productive with Linux and the KDE desktop in only a few hours including install and the basic "what the &%*%^ is THAT?" stuff.

Regards,
Tom Knapp

On Thursday, September 8th, at approximately 12:11 p.m. Mountain time, Bill St. Clair said:

Ubuntu and Knoppix both boot direct from CD, so you can play with them without making any changes to your existing PC.

Ubuntu is just plain beautiful. It's a good installation for a typical desktop user. Worth a look.

Knoppix is an everything-including-the-kitchen-sink installation. Could be confusing for a first-time Linux user.

Both Ubuntu and Knoppix are based on Debian, which I've never used in its native form.

I haven't used Mandrake.

I like Slackware, but you need to be a geek to get it installed, especially the boot loader.

Fedora is sorta big, four disks in the installer, but it "just worked" for me.

On Thursday, September 8th, at approximately 12:33 p.m. Mountain time, Brad Spangler said:

I started off writing a comment and then realized it was going to be long enough that I ought to make a seperate post out of it.

http://www.bradspangler.com/blog/archives/121/

On Thursday, September 8th, at approximately 1:31 p.m. Mountain time, Sunni said:

Wow. Thanks, everyone, for all the advice! Now if only y'all could be as helpful on paying this $1500 medical bill I've got to deal with first ... (It could be worse, y'know -- the doc could've actually done something for me.)

I think I'm gonna try Ubuntu first, from the CD Kirsten said she'll send me. If I don't like that, well, I'll revisit this entry and pick another.

On Thursday, September 8th, at approximately 3:02 p.m. Mountain time, freeman said:

I'll be getting a hard drive to devote exclusively to Linux exploration

Good idea! That is something I'll have to consider doing when I have time to finally take the plunge and explore Linux. The direction that M$ is headed in scares me.

Seriously. Their slick, pseudo-libertarian stuff just gives me the willies.

Yup, I'd have to agree with that as well, although Jesse Walker often writes good stuff for them. Cathy Young, on the other hand, makes me sick.

On Thursday, September 8th, at approximately 4:55 p.m. Mountain time, Ricardo said:

I'd like to recomment Ubuntu as well (Kubuntu, actually, since it comes with KDE, which I like better than Gnome). I used Mandrake, but system updating nightmares sent me over the edge.

Ubuntu's was one of the few distributions that I tested which had no trouble with any hardware on my desktop machine. Its debian-inherited apt package management is just beautiful, and keeping the system up to date is absolutely transparent. I've used it both on desktop environments (mostly for my girlfriend, who is not a tech expert) and servers. Thoroughly recommend it.

On Thursday, September 8th, at approximately 5:28 p.m. Mountain time, Brad Spangler said:

I can't pay off your medical bill, but you don't necessarily have to wait until you get your other hard drive either.

Provided you have enough space available, you can resize your Windows partition and create new Linux partitions on the same hard drive using any "Live CD" (boot from CD, run in ramdisk) distro that comes with qtparted (a Partition Magic clone). The Ubuntu and Knoppix live CDs fit that bill.

http://simon.incutio.com/archive/2003/11/30/repartitioning
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-8136.html

The Mandrake Moves LiveCD reportedly has a similar GUI partition tool.

As always, make a backup before playing with partitions.

No need to thank me. A beautiful woman wants Linux advice? I am so there, man...

On Thursday, September 8th, at approximately 5:41 p.m. Mountain time, Brad Spangler said:

Correction: qtparted doesn't come stock on Ubuntu, but is an easy install.

http://www.tuxme.com/node/340#QTParted

On Thursday, September 8th, at approximately 8:19 p.m. Mountain time, Billy Beck said:

Has anyone ever heard of AutoCAD and 3D Studio running in any variant of Linux?

That's really the only thing that's stopped me from looking into it.

On Thursday, September 8th, at approximately 8:48 p.m. Mountain time, Jorge said:

Kubuntu or Mandriva for a first timer.

AutoCad R14 is supposed to work under wine, but I haven't tried it.

I really need to make the move myself. I just need to take a week to convert a bunch of stuff. Pure grunt work, which I keep putting off. All my machines except one are Linux.

On Thursday, September 8th, at approximately 9:11 p.m. Mountain time, Brad Spangler said:

Billy: Generally, you'll want to investigate whatever alternative applications are available for Linux.

However, this architectural firm in South Africa reported getting AutoCAD R14 running under Debian GNU/Linux with about 24 hours worth of work -- and it ran even faster than it did under Windows, according to the article. They did it with a tool for running Windows software on Linux called WINE. Configuring WINE can be difficult and not all Windows software likes it, so...

I'd advise looking at Linux-native applications like the commercial VariCAD or LinuxCAD and also spend some time investigating what open source alternatives are out there (such as QCAD).

VariCAD in particular has both Windows and Linux versions and free demos -- so download the Windows demo and see if the program meets your needs or not.

My advice is largely the same regarding 3D Studio. You could look into whether or not it can run under WINE. However, you'll probably want to at least evaluate Blender and see if it meets your needs. As Blender is free and has a Windows version as well as a Linux version, you can try it out on your Windows PC without even worrying about the OS.

On Friday, September 9th, at approximately 6:18 a.m. Mountain time, Sunni said:

Freeman, I don't think I've read much by Jesse, but I like Jacob Sullum.

Brad, you deserve cookies for calling me beautiful; and I appreciate all the help. Sweetie says he has a drive or two lying around that I can use, so I'll probably take him up on that. What's the gig you mentioned in your blog entry responding to my request? Are you a freelance consultant or somesuch?

On Friday, September 9th, at approximately 7:56 a.m. Mountain time, Billy Beck said:

Thank you, Brad. I've actually spent time with Blender, and I think it's just hopeless in terms of pro-grade work.

I haven't looked into any of the CAD apps that you suggest. I will, but I have to say that fifteen years of work with AutoCAD amounts to a standard that will be extremely difficult to beat. There is a lot more to this than just being able to throw spheres and cylinders around in 3D space. When I draw something, my clients know that they can take it to the real-world bank with resolutions way lower than a sixteenth of an inch if they need it. If I say it's going to fit, it's bloody going to fit.

But I'll start taking a look.

On Saturday, September 10th, at approximately 6:29 p.m. Mountain time, Kirsten said:

Sunni,

Probably Real ID rebellion is where I noticed it then

I am putting your Ubuntu into a mailer right now. I see that the second CD in the package contains a test Ubuntu system that you can try safely without altering any of the files on your computer.

On Sunday, September 11th, at approximately 8:34 a.m. Mountain time, Sunni said:

Thanks, Kirsten! I'm looking forward to trying that test system before making the grand move.

Anybody know of a good RSS aggregator for Linux?

On Monday, September 12th, at approximately 7:46 a.m. Mountain time, happy curmudgeon said:

I use bloglines. I used to use Sage, which was an extension in Firefox.

On Monday, September 12th, at approximately 8:02 a.m. Mountain time, Sunni said:

Isn't bloglines a web-based app? I try to stay away from those, as much as possible. I will check into Sage, though; I'd not heard of it. Thanks, HC!

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