Would like to learn about linux

[horndude]

Oh absolutely, a 6yr old could sit down at my machine and be right at home surfing,playing music,watching movies etc.

 

[Trotter]

So, do they have a "Linux for Dummies" book out yet?

 

[horndude]

yes, been out for quite awhile, not a bad book either, comes with a linux distro

I bought one years ago, it came with redhat 7

 

[algu7344]

Linux is pretty much better than Windows for all practical purposes, except the gaming aspect really. Yes, I know they have some crap out to run games, but you have to pay for it or you can build it yourself. But only select games work. Other than that, Linux kicks Windows ass anyday.

 

[patrickc284]

Oh absolutely, a 6yr old could sit down at my machine and be right at home surfing,playing music,watching movies etc.

I loaded Knoppix and it looks pretty interesting. Although I couldn't do anything more than open the word processor and play some songs.

Looks like I'll have to figure out how to get my DSL up and running on it. Do I have to install the software for it again or just learn how to set up connections in general?

 

[C.Ingram]

With Knoppix running from the CD, there is quite a bit you would have to reconfigure. Although I don't recall how, you should be able to save your home directory to a file elsewhere.

 

[patrickc284]

On the Partition article on Microsoft Support it says, "Does the hard disk have a drive overlay or a disk management program?

If your computer uses drive overlay software for large hard disk support, do not use the Windows XP Setup program to partition or to format the drive until you have verified Windows XP compatibility with the software manufacturer. If you do not know whether you have drive overlay software installed, contact the software manufacturer before you continue."

Do I need to worry about this at all? I just have the harddrive, whose manufacturer I still can't figure out, that was installed way back when I got my computer from Dell.

 

[horndude]

no

 

[NIN]

To tell you the truth I have never see anything like that. Looks like a royal pain in the ass and very unnecessary. The only thing my drives have are smart technology. Speaking of that I have one that triggers the smartd daemon on my server. There is nothing on it by the way. I recommend looking at the Linux bible. It is great for noobs and has about nine different distros the dvd and cd. I'm reading so I can take the linux+. I really want a job with linux administration.

 

[NIN]

I you want to install a distro the first thing is to make room on the drive. I would hash the hole system and just make a smaller partion for windows. You won't need that for anything more than games anyway. Then install windows. If you have a Dell I most likely has the drivers on the disk that it come with. The divers you may need is network drivers. Considering you have a cable. Then you can download the rest to get you stuff working. Then install Linux in the free space.