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Recomend me a Linux
- Thread starter saxnbass
- Start date
This may be a dumb question... but I need to do something with my computer (an older AMD processor with 1GB of RAM and it's so slow running windows recently)...
But, if I switch to Linux, is there any way to run some Windows applications? Specifically, stuff like Nero, TivoServer, Guitar Pro 5, iTunes, Napster, and some other various applications. Or, would I need to run a dual boot set-up just to run a few applications?
90% of the time, our computer is used for internet surfing and MS Office stuff.
But, if I switch to Linux, is there any way to run some Windows applications? Specifically, stuff like Nero, TivoServer, Guitar Pro 5, iTunes, Napster, and some other various applications. Or, would I need to run a dual boot set-up just to run a few applications?
90% of the time, our computer is used for internet surfing and MS Office stuff.
Linux Distros are tricky. Some things work easily, some take time to work, and some don't at all. You can run a lot of windows programs using various tools, you can also simultaneously run Windows and Linux using programs like Wine and other things. Wine will also allow you to run various windows programs.
Honestly though, Linux will have a bunch of alternatives that you might like as well. Guitar Pro I am almost positive you can get. Napster and iTunes you can get other things that are just as good. If you have an iPod or any other Mp3 player, odds are you can get it working eventually.
You say mostly it is used for internet and Office stuff, in that regard, you will be fine. Most distros come with firefox, if you really like IE you can get that, or Opera, etc..
Overall, once you get things working, I think you will like using Linux and it is a breeze, especially for the minimal things you will use it for. Just be prepared for a little work. There are tons of forums for help, wiki's giving you step by steps, and such, but it is still a bit of work.
Honestly though, Linux will have a bunch of alternatives that you might like as well. Guitar Pro I am almost positive you can get. Napster and iTunes you can get other things that are just as good. If you have an iPod or any other Mp3 player, odds are you can get it working eventually.
You say mostly it is used for internet and Office stuff, in that regard, you will be fine. Most distros come with firefox, if you really like IE you can get that, or Opera, etc..
Overall, once you get things working, I think you will like using Linux and it is a breeze, especially for the minimal things you will use it for. Just be prepared for a little work. There are tons of forums for help, wiki's giving you step by steps, and such, but it is still a bit of work.
There's a Linux alternative for probably 99% of the software out there. I've seen alternative for each of the programs you mentioned. For example, on Ubuntu there is a program called Synaptic that will install all kinds of free software automatically for you. Synaptic has a search feature that is as easy as typing in iPod and you'll get several programs to sync your iPod with your box, etc.
I dual boot into Windows if I need to (which is rarely)--otherwise I pretty much run Linux all of the time.
Most of those programs have equivalents. K3b is an excellent replacement for nero (and there is also a nero for linux). I expect there's a tivoserver-like app. Not sure about guitar pro. There are several iTunes replacements, and I don't really know what napster does anymore, but I expect there is something similar.
I haven't had windows on my PC for 4 years and the only times I've used windows is for teaching at school (where shamefully ICT means Windows, not how to actually use a computer) where I sit down and immediately become frustrated at how limited it is and how little I can configure it.
*If I double click a window title bar I want the OPTION of having it maximised or shaded (shaded is by far more useful, it rolls the window up into its titlebar revealing what's underneath).
*I want the option of turning those annoying systray popups off.
*I don't WANT to be asked "are you sure?" for every little thing I change!!
*I don't want to have to click several options on the start menu to find what I want, I just want programs in one list, not several stupid subheadings!! Why can't I change this?!
*Why can't I start using the desktop immediately its appeared? Why does it appear and make me sit unable to use it while it continues to load other things in the background? KDE and Gnome both show me what stage of loading they're at, and as soon as the progress bar is at 100% the desktop is usable.
Just a rant. I could probably go on all night but my coffee is getting cold downstairs.
Update on my Linux experiment:
I loaded Ubuntu 6.10 onto an old PC, wireless connection to the 'net. Some random thoughts and experiences, from playing with it just a little every day or so:
*Took me 3 days to get the wireless loaded at start up correctly, but now it works great. It's not close to the antenna, but there hasn't been any connection issues or slowness.
* Took a full 3 days to get the sound card recognized. Another 2 before i could get said sound card loaded at startup. I could have sped things up by working at it longer per day, but I didn't. On board CS card. Old Dell standard.
* Once I got the card working, I realized it couldn't recognize mp3 formatted files. Not good. But I found a place to load the codecs, and Bob's yer uncle.
* VLC plays everything flawlessly, but the onboard tools, Totem & Rhythmbox are buggy at best. I'll keep messing with them.
* The Ubuntu picked up my Radeon 9200 the first go around, but doesn't support a resolution bigger than 1024x768. That seems wrong, I should be able to do better.
Edit to add: My 5 button trackball only has 3 working buttons. Apparently there's some script I can add to my mouse configuration file, but I'm not there yet.
* Biggest problem: My music files are located on a shared drive hanging off my XP machine up stairs. Although I can navigate to those files, I can't mount the drive. With out mounting the drive, the music apps don't really play them they want to copy them to this hard drive on the Linux machine. There's 20gb. We're not doing that. This seems solvable.
* Biggest Joy: I have an RCA cable connected to this PC's speaker out port, and into an old 70's Technics amplifier / receiver and 2 monstro speakers. Under the old Win XP set up, there was feedback (heavy) at a certain volume. Running Linux, there is no feedback. It truly sounds great, even running 128k streaming audio, which is my wont. How does an operating system inject feedback? (Must be drivers)
All in all, it's kind of fun. This system is pretty underpowered., but it handles it well.
Surprise: 3 out of 6 times I've restarted, I get a message saying it has to download updates.
That slows this baby to a crawl. I thought the constant patching was why we Linux users busted on MS???
Oh, and the solitaire rawks...
I loaded Ubuntu 6.10 onto an old PC, wireless connection to the 'net. Some random thoughts and experiences, from playing with it just a little every day or so:
*Took me 3 days to get the wireless loaded at start up correctly, but now it works great. It's not close to the antenna, but there hasn't been any connection issues or slowness.
* Took a full 3 days to get the sound card recognized. Another 2 before i could get said sound card loaded at startup. I could have sped things up by working at it longer per day, but I didn't. On board CS card. Old Dell standard.
* Once I got the card working, I realized it couldn't recognize mp3 formatted files. Not good. But I found a place to load the codecs, and Bob's yer uncle.
* VLC plays everything flawlessly, but the onboard tools, Totem & Rhythmbox are buggy at best. I'll keep messing with them.
* The Ubuntu picked up my Radeon 9200 the first go around, but doesn't support a resolution bigger than 1024x768. That seems wrong, I should be able to do better.
Edit to add: My 5 button trackball only has 3 working buttons. Apparently there's some script I can add to my mouse configuration file, but I'm not there yet.
* Biggest problem: My music files are located on a shared drive hanging off my XP machine up stairs. Although I can navigate to those files, I can't mount the drive. With out mounting the drive, the music apps don't really play them they want to copy them to this hard drive on the Linux machine. There's 20gb. We're not doing that. This seems solvable.
* Biggest Joy: I have an RCA cable connected to this PC's speaker out port, and into an old 70's Technics amplifier / receiver and 2 monstro speakers. Under the old Win XP set up, there was feedback (heavy) at a certain volume. Running Linux, there is no feedback. It truly sounds great, even running 128k streaming audio, which is my wont. How does an operating system inject feedback? (Must be drivers)
All in all, it's kind of fun. This system is pretty underpowered., but it handles it well.
Surprise: 3 out of 6 times I've restarted, I get a message saying it has to download updates.
That slows this baby to a crawl. I thought the constant patching was why we Linux users busted on MS???Oh, and the solitaire rawks...
I tried playing around with Ubuntu tonight... and can't seem to install it (not as straightforward as I thought it would be) with the boot disc download. It seems to start OK and I can see a progress bar as it's chugging along when it's loading all the stuff, but it gets to loading the volume manager (or something like that), and it cuts into a DOS looking screen. After that, it'll load a few more things, and an Ubuntu screen will come up, but then nothing else seems to happen. I let it do it's thing for about an hour, came back, and there was no response on the computer. Did that twice, and it did the same thing...
I'm going to read a bit more and try again tomorrow night.
I'm going to read a bit more and try again tomorrow night.
Update on my Linux experiment:
I loaded Ubuntu 6.10 onto an old PC, wireless connection to the 'net. Some random thoughts and experiences, from playing with it just a little every day or so:
*Took me 3 days to get the wireless loaded at start up correctly, but now it works great. It's not close to the antenna, but there hasn't been any connection issues or slowness.
* Took a full 3 days to get the sound card recognized. Another 2 before i could get said sound card loaded at startup. I could have sped things up by working at it longer per day, but I didn't. On board CS card. Old Dell standard.
* Once I got the card working, I realized it couldn't recognize mp3 formatted files. Not good. But I found a place to load the codecs, and Bob's yer uncle.
* VLC plays everything flawlessly, but the onboard tools, Totem & Rhythmbox are buggy at best. I'll keep messing with them.
* The Ubuntu picked up my Radeon 9200 the first go around, but doesn't support a resolution bigger than 1024x768. That seems wrong, I should be able to do better.
Edit to add: My 5 button trackball only has 3 working buttons. Apparently there's some script I can add to my mouse configuration file, but I'm not there yet.
* Biggest problem: My music files are located on a shared drive hanging off my XP machine up stairs. Although I can navigate to those files, I can't mount the drive. With out mounting the drive, the music apps don't really play them they want to copy them to this hard drive on the Linux machine. There's 20gb. We're not doing that. This seems solvable.
* Biggest Joy: I have an RCA cable connected to this PC's speaker out port, and into an old 70's Technics amplifier / receiver and 2 monstro speakers. Under the old Win XP set up, there was feedback (heavy) at a certain volume. Running Linux, there is no feedback. It truly sounds great, even running 128k streaming audio, which is my wont. How does an operating system inject feedback? (Must be drivers)
All in all, it's kind of fun. This system is pretty underpowered., but it handles it well.
Surprise: 3 out of 6 times I've restarted, I get a message saying it has to download updates.
Oh, and the solitaire rawks...
Congrats on getting started in Linux. Are you using GUI-based config tools or the command line? The latter is more direct/powerful but more arcane. You'll need to sudo commands (IIRC you can't sign in as root in Ubuntu).
For instance, to deal with the screen res and mouse problems you can edit your xorg.conf file which is usually in (or close to) the /etc/X11 directory. Or you can run xorgconfig on the command line. Of course you'll have to check on Ubuntu forums or Google for the proper settings but it's a good way to learn and build confidence.
Regarding the shared XP you'll probably hafta change the permissions, which can be done by editing the corresponding line for that drive in /etc/fstab. Accessing NTFS (XP native filesystem) is not difficult, but NTFS write support for Linux is still a work in progress. Can you mount it with a sudo command?
For sound problems usually running alsaconfig works. Instead of fancy GUI mixers I've found alsamixer in the shell to be more consistent.
And re: the downloading of updates, I'm not sure what the default package manager is in Ubuntu--is it Synaptic or some Ubuntu-specific GUI program? You should be able to turn off automatic updating in the preferences of whatever program it is.
For anyone with problems with installation, be sure to check the MD5sum of the ISO image before you burn it. This isn't hard to do if you're alreasy using Linux, otherwise you'll have to download a MD5sum checker for Window$. Almost all Linux distros have the correct md5sum listed on their download pages. Also it's an option on many installation disks--on bootup if it asks to "check disk/image integrity" or some such, say yes...
Hope this helps.
Get the actual official Radeon drivers from ATI's website, that should solve your resolution issues.
The mouse problem should be solvable by editing:
/etc/X11/xorg.conf and replacing your mouse config with (Section Input) with:
Code:
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Buttons" "7"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
Option "Vendor" "Sysp"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "6 7"Don't change your mouse identifier (i.e. if your version says "Identifier Mouse" then leave it like that, don't change it to Mouse1. Oh, but back up your xorg.conf file first just in case you have any issues with this. PM me if you need anything.
I'm currently working on a centOs build right now. It's going along nicely. You know what's fun...changing all suid permissioned files...it's a blast!
Sorry for the late response. When I finally turned my attention to this, it appears my sudoers file had picked up some bad entries. Took me a while to figure out how to get permission to use my machine....
This machine has 2 mouse inputs: 1 is a standard MS Intellimouse, PS2, the other is a 5 button Trackball hooked via USB.
My xorg.conf file has one mouse device listed.
Both work, but the two "outside" buttons on the trackball do not work, which is the problem I'd like to fix.
Given those parameters, is altering the xorg.conf the way you suggested still the way to go?
Thanks.
I set up my daughter's old Dell Optiplex GX1 with a dual boot of XP and Edubuntu 6.10. Originally it had a 350Mhz PII, a 6.4GB HD and 192MB of RAM. Edubuntu ran fine on it but Windows was little slow at times. I have since upgraded the processor to a 500Mhz PIII, a 30GB HD and 384MB of RAM. It runs great. It's stable and my 7 year old is proud of her computer.
Surprise: 3 out of 6 times I've restarted, I get a message saying it has to download updates.
One of the huge differences between Microsoft and Linux are the frequency of updates. With Windows weeks or even months could pass before there are available updates which makes it more of a security risk. With Linux bugs or security flaws that are recognized are jumped on right away. A patch to resolve those concerns might be ready to download a few hours after recognition.
I've never used a machine with two mice, so I don't know for sure, but from what I know I don't think it could do any harm. Only one way to find out...try it! Just backup /etc/X11/xorg.conf first:
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup
jkritchey, you probably want to create two 'Section "InputDevice"' sections. One for your Intellimouse and one for /dev/input/mice, which will catch any USB mice you plug in. One of these will need to be mentioned as your CorePointer (see the existing file), and the other will need to have the line 'Option "SendCoreEvents" "on"' in it. A USB mouse (or trackball) should work just fine using the "mouse" driver and no special configuration. I suspect the Intellimouse needs to use the Intellimouse driver, which is why it gets its own entry.
There's are some multimedia distros out there. A couple are 64 Studio and Link Removed. I've not tried either one, but I use the software in 64 Studio and it's very nice and powerful. Might be worth your while to try out. I'de imagine the 64 Studio would work like a champ on an AMD system. I've been running OpenSuse (evaluating it for work) running it on both an Athlon and Sempron system. Man, they are FAST! Even the Sempron.
I installed Ubuntu in an old pc, I can't make it go online.
How are you connecting to the Internet? Dial-up, cable, DSL? I have a cable connection with a router/switch combo wired with Cat5e and RJ45s. Prior to installing I made sure that everything was setup. My access was auto-configured during the installation process.
