Noob To Linux

[Guest Jeremy]

Yeah, I tried Fedora before, but ended up screwing up my harddrive. Would you guys reccomend Fedora Core 3 as a good noob distro?

Also, where are some good guides to learn it?

Edited March 16, 2005 by Jeremy

[cold_snipe]

yes it is pretty noob friendly, and as for kde vs. gnome, ive always used kde and now im used to it, i would never switch to gnome. (i tried it once, wtf a foot?!?! ) Just try them both, customize them as much as you want, then just pick one. Or write your own. C++

[BiPolar]

true, it's really a user-preference thing, but i swear that kde ran slower.

 

anyhoo, fc3 is very noob friendly and there are lots of good resources online, just google'em.

 

fedoraforum.org is one, and many other linux help forums. but it's real easy to get going.

[aaronamd]

Ican't seem to notice a difference, but I like gnome's clean look so i use that.

[viralSHARK]

Ok i dont know if anyone has mentioned this in a later post, but i think anyone looking to get linux should go to linuxiso.org. They cover several linux operating systems there, as well as plenty of mirrors to the ISO files you need. Also keep in mind, if you dont already know, that the files are .iso , a cd image, which means a whole cd is on one file, so downloading could take a long time. I have downloaded so far: Mandrake 9, Fedora Core 3, Knoppix Live, and Red Hat 9 (which was my first linux dual boot os). Download each ISO neccessary, then get a copy of Nero, or another program for burning ISO images. When you burn an ISO image, dont just burn the file to the disk, IT WILL NOT WORK. You have to select the special "Burn Disk Image" option. When you finish burning each image, you should partition your hard drive. Some linux setup programs can do this for you using Disk Druid, or another partition program. If you are unsure, get a copy of Partition Magic. Then set how much space you want on each partition. A standard setup for dual booting windows xp and linux, would be to set the windows partition first, then the linux swap partition, then the linux partition. The swap will be the smallest partition, about 500mb. Keep your windows partition at or above 10gb, and your linux about the same. I have dual booted xp and red hat 9 successfully on a 40 GB hard drive. 20gb for XP, 15gb for Linux, and the rest is swap. I created the swap partition larger, so i can downsize it for a shared partition, so i can use it to transfer files between linux and windows. If you are going to do the same, make sure you format that partition to a file system both linux and windows can reckognize. I think both operating systems can read from FAT32, but i know linux does not (to my knowledge) read from NTFS file systems. However windows can read from FAT16, FAt32, and NTFS. Furthermore, you install linux to your linux partition. If the installer asks to run a check on the installation disks, but gives you the option not to, ABSOLUTELYL DO THIS!!!! I cannot stress that enough! I did not check the disks the first time i went through, and the installation process froze several times on me before i realized i had 2 "bad burns" When burning ISO images, you will encounter an occasional bad burn; a disk that wont work properly. Just take the time to check each disk, it will save you a lot of headaches. ALSO! MAKE A BOOTDISK!!!!! After you install linux (sucessfully) you now need a boot loader. This is why you need a boot disk. If for some reason your boot loader does not let you boot into linux, you can insert the boot disk and you can load up linux no problem. Some linux distros include a boot loader, although i'm a little shaky on using GRUB or LILO. Thats just me though. I use this program at osloader.com. IMPORTANT! OSL2000 does not boot into linux, for me at least. I insert my floppy disk, then when OSL2000 boot loader comes up, i select the option to boot into the floppy, which then boots into linux. By now you should successfully be able to boot into linux with the boot disk, or whichever boot loader you chose. Well i hope this helps anyone who wants to install linux or dual boot, if anyone has anymore questions feel free to reply!

[alown]

yah, i got CD RWs

i am going to try to get suse

[viralSHARK]

lemme know how that goes, i'm interested in SUSE as well