Linux at home

G

GordyMac

New member
Is linux hard to use as a windows replacement on a home computer.. I know Robert uses it, was just wondering what it is like and how it is to install and such.. I want to get my hands on another computer to play around with Linux on it.. I think it would be fun.
 
Its well worth it to play around with it...

Linux is viable on a home PC, the only problem is with sharing documents.... (ie - and MS product)

You can share everything in pdf, but with such things as excel and powerpoint, this gets a little annoying - besides that, Linux is far superior (in my humble opinion)

Robert, feel like sharing any experiences?
 
Actually, I can run Word, Excess and so on in Linux. There is a windows emulator called Wine and it seems to work very well. I even hear you can run IE if you wanted to.

If you got about 5 GB free on your hard drive get a copy of partishion magic and setup a dual boot.
 
Also, my Linux is a pre-load for IBM employee's so it comes pre-configured with a lot of toys. But, before the pre-load came out I could do just about the same with a fresh install and a lot of downloads.
 
Depends what distro you get.
Red Hat is 3CDs, knoppix is 1CD and I think Mandrake is 2CDs, they are all different so the size depends on which one you want
 
Around that anyway, they are normally done as ISO format so they fill up the CD but I think knoppix is compressed a huge amount because is really has a lot on it, more than I thought could ever be put onto the one cd
 
I Have Knoppix STD, its 500MB you dont need to install it or anything it runs in your memory its really pretty awsome. :)
 
Nick I would start off with Slack, Redhat, Mandrake to get used to the format.

As andrew mentioned file sharing is a bitch.... you can get open source software (OpenOffice.org) which is word processing and it allows you to save in multiple file formats (excel, word, access, etc) so you can easily switch files.

Right now I have my machine at home dual booted with redhat 7.3 and Windows XP Pro. I have a 8GIG partition for redhat to use.

As long as the computer is just for your own use go ahead and try it out. However if you are installing it on a home machine I would make sure you check with people before you install a completely new OS. Make sure you install a x-window too like GNOME or KDE so if you are used to the GUI format you can still use it.
 
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