It's October and I haven't posted in over a month. Been doing some non-computer stuff, interrogating the Holy Bible and looking into Black history. I plan to keep the focus on Linux and on digital art, but the background world view has changed a lot in the past few weeks.
During all this time I have had neither glitch, hiccup, crash, or shut-down. I did build a platform with small wooden wedges to lift the back edge of my laptop off the table. Now I can run it all day without overheating and I run it each and every day.
On October 10th a new Ubuntu, version 10.10 will be out. You can't get it in stores, but if you go to the www.Ubuntu.com web site it will be there for download or you can buy a CD, I think for the cost of shipping. I usually just download it. There are versions for server, desktop/laptop and netbook, 32 bit, 64 bit, etc.
There are several ways to use Linux. The live-CD is very cool as it runs directly off the CD without installing. When you remove the live-CD your computer is unchanged. What ever applications are on the CD can be used by you and you can save your work to a jump drive. You can install while running the live-CD or not. You choose to make a hard drive partition or use the whole hard drive. If you want to run both MS Windows and Linux, a program called Grub gives you a menu to choose at boot.
If you have MS Windows running when you put in the Ubuntu Linux CD a program called Wabi will let you install Ubuntu in a MS Windows folder so that it runs sort of like a Windows application. I call this a pseudo virtual machine.
For me if you want both MS Windows and Linux on the same machine, dual booting is best. That way the two different operating systems are separate, not needing extra resources. Be sure you install MS Windows first to minimise booting problems. You can select the default OS in the Grub OS selector afterwards.
Another option is virtual machines. You can run Linux as a virtual machine on a MS Windows system and vice-versa. VirtualBox is my favorite application for this. There is a MS version and a Linux version. Virtual machines is about sharing resources, so running two OSs needs more memory and some hard disk space.
The last option is called Wine. Wine is a MS Windows compatibility layer which runs in Linux. Wine lets you, within limits, run MS Windows software on a Linux system. I can't run Photoshop Professional, but my Photoshop Lite runs fine. Can't tell you if MS Office will run, I use Open Office. But a special configuration of Wine called Crossover Office seems to handle MS Office products. I don't have experience with this.
The most cool thing is that you can slide the Linux live-CD into any MS compatible system, reboot and try out Linux. I recommend Ubuntu. If you have it installed or install it yourself, you gain access to the online repository of free installable applications. Some versions of Linux have live-DVDs so that the large selection of installable software is on the DVD. With my DSL internet it takes 1 hour to download the CD and 3 hours for the DVD. Once you have it, you own it, you can install it on as many machines as you want. You can copy it and give it to friends.
Now I will warn you, Linux is not as flashy as some like. This is so that it appeals to a broader swath of users and works on a broader swath of hardware configurations. You can tweak it up or dumb it down, that is what makes it what it is. So that's boom out the box but not flash-boom. You can add flash later.
Showing posts with label experiencing live-CD Linux. Show all posts
Showing posts with label experiencing live-CD Linux. Show all posts
Saturday, October 02, 2010
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Peaking into the Linux box
I see, you are wondering what am I getting you into by suggesting you try Linux. Don't worry it's pretty painless and you might be pleasantly surprised by what you find. If not, you can back out at any time.
Part of the terror of trying something new is not knowing what to expect. It is not like driving a car with the steering wheel on the right side and driving on the left side of the street. Let's say you've downloaded and burned a live-CD version of Linux, popped it in the CD drive and rebooted. On the screen is the usual boot screens showing what is being loaded and run, some distros hide this activity with a progress bar in its' place like MS win does. Eventually, if all goes well, you come to a login screen. Info tells you how to login and then flashes some configuration screens for graphics, timezones, keyboard, language. Some distros will read your hardware and bring up the user GUI which you could adjust later. Once you get to the user GUI, "you are free to move about the country". Since this is a live-CD, it is running in ram and off the CD, so you can explore and quit and not damage your present MS Windows installation (if you have one). Just don't click the install button unless you intend to install. When I got my computer that came with MS WinXP on it, it also came with extra stuff, MS trial and demo software and internet service offers. It came with HP system and user management software and a few extra softwares for multimedia. Needless to say I deleted much of the extra software because it was mostly useless to me, sort of like the previews on a movie CD. Then I had to purchase applications to get real work done. So I am looking at my live-CD Linux desktop, let's say KDE desktop and there are icons for all of my disk drives and a menu bar much like MS WinXP. Gee, this is just like ........ What a surprise, I can do this. Hey, and not a bad looking desktop, point and click and tool tips on the icons. Now you can explore all the stuff and find out what it does. I know you probably have your favorite MS Windows applications for different functions but can you do the same stuff in Linux? That you will have to discover. Let's say you're into graphics. There is the GIMP (graphic image manipulation program), it is similar to Photoshop. Gimp doesn't do color separation for print publishing, but if you don't need that, you still have the power to do much of what Photoshop does for free. Gimp usually comes with most distros. If you decide to install Linux on your hard drive, you can download other graphics applications to fatten your tool box. Linux comes with Open Office which does what MS Office does or a combination of other productivity applications. The trick is to be able to read and write MS Office documents, no problem. Internet browsers that give you access to the net is enhanced by the fact that most live-CD's will figure out your internet connection without your help. It's like test driving a car, you get to not just kick the tires, you get to drive it too. So, use the live-CD to try it , use it for taking a break from the MS world, for emergency's (when your MS system breaks) and then for installing into a permanent situation or dual-booting, your choice. If your bringing an older PC back from the dead, live-CD Linux might work for you. If you want a set up for grandpa and grandma, the live-CD Linux is great because once you know what to expect, it won't change. Why subject your folks to the problems of older MS Windows and older hardware too. Yeah, yeah, you hear so many people nit-n-pick about the look and feel, the quality of this and that, the polish and comparison to this and this other stuff is better, more popular and.........ya know, it all gets me tired. Just try it, use it, and if by any chance you like it, install it, enjoy it. If you find it doesn't stand up to your personal scrutiny, move on, there are other choices in life.
To clear up a few things, Linux is really just the kernel (heart of the operating system) and some utilities and libraries. The rest of what we call Linux is tools and applications (programs). These are what make up a "distribution" or distro. There are some very, very cool distros, easy to download from the web. Yes, I do have favorites. I like Xubuntu and I have it installed on one PC. It is good but it is not the best for portability. For hit and run computing I like Wolvix (small and lean) and SimplyMepis is very sweet and comes up fast. Puppy Linux is also worth a look and so is DreamLinux. Each has a particular look and feel, desktop tools and a focus of applications. DreamLinux is focused on multimedia for instance. Be careful as the terrible tendency is to compare and rank distros, to be picky and will have you collecting a number of assorted distro CD's. You will not know which one to pop in next. Oh, the pleasure and pain of Linux......... so many distro's, so little time. To narrow down your prospects it is wise to research the web a little bit to see "what is hot and what is not" and what might be a good fit. Even if you are a die hard MS Windows (all you know) person, you might find a live-CD version of Linux useful. Anyway, for me the Linux experience has been fun. In the words of Jedi master Yoda, "there is another".
Part of the terror of trying something new is not knowing what to expect. It is not like driving a car with the steering wheel on the right side and driving on the left side of the street. Let's say you've downloaded and burned a live-CD version of Linux, popped it in the CD drive and rebooted. On the screen is the usual boot screens showing what is being loaded and run, some distros hide this activity with a progress bar in its' place like MS win does. Eventually, if all goes well, you come to a login screen. Info tells you how to login and then flashes some configuration screens for graphics, timezones, keyboard, language. Some distros will read your hardware and bring up the user GUI which you could adjust later. Once you get to the user GUI, "you are free to move about the country". Since this is a live-CD, it is running in ram and off the CD, so you can explore and quit and not damage your present MS Windows installation (if you have one). Just don't click the install button unless you intend to install. When I got my computer that came with MS WinXP on it, it also came with extra stuff, MS trial and demo software and internet service offers. It came with HP system and user management software and a few extra softwares for multimedia. Needless to say I deleted much of the extra software because it was mostly useless to me, sort of like the previews on a movie CD. Then I had to purchase applications to get real work done. So I am looking at my live-CD Linux desktop, let's say KDE desktop and there are icons for all of my disk drives and a menu bar much like MS WinXP. Gee, this is just like ........ What a surprise, I can do this. Hey, and not a bad looking desktop, point and click and tool tips on the icons. Now you can explore all the stuff and find out what it does. I know you probably have your favorite MS Windows applications for different functions but can you do the same stuff in Linux? That you will have to discover. Let's say you're into graphics. There is the GIMP (graphic image manipulation program), it is similar to Photoshop. Gimp doesn't do color separation for print publishing, but if you don't need that, you still have the power to do much of what Photoshop does for free. Gimp usually comes with most distros. If you decide to install Linux on your hard drive, you can download other graphics applications to fatten your tool box. Linux comes with Open Office which does what MS Office does or a combination of other productivity applications. The trick is to be able to read and write MS Office documents, no problem. Internet browsers that give you access to the net is enhanced by the fact that most live-CD's will figure out your internet connection without your help. It's like test driving a car, you get to not just kick the tires, you get to drive it too. So, use the live-CD to try it , use it for taking a break from the MS world, for emergency's (when your MS system breaks) and then for installing into a permanent situation or dual-booting, your choice. If your bringing an older PC back from the dead, live-CD Linux might work for you. If you want a set up for grandpa and grandma, the live-CD Linux is great because once you know what to expect, it won't change. Why subject your folks to the problems of older MS Windows and older hardware too. Yeah, yeah, you hear so many people nit-n-pick about the look and feel, the quality of this and that, the polish and comparison to this and this other stuff is better, more popular and.........ya know, it all gets me tired. Just try it, use it, and if by any chance you like it, install it, enjoy it. If you find it doesn't stand up to your personal scrutiny, move on, there are other choices in life.
To clear up a few things, Linux is really just the kernel (heart of the operating system) and some utilities and libraries. The rest of what we call Linux is tools and applications (programs). These are what make up a "distribution" or distro. There are some very, very cool distros, easy to download from the web. Yes, I do have favorites. I like Xubuntu and I have it installed on one PC. It is good but it is not the best for portability. For hit and run computing I like Wolvix (small and lean) and SimplyMepis is very sweet and comes up fast. Puppy Linux is also worth a look and so is DreamLinux. Each has a particular look and feel, desktop tools and a focus of applications. DreamLinux is focused on multimedia for instance. Be careful as the terrible tendency is to compare and rank distros, to be picky and will have you collecting a number of assorted distro CD's. You will not know which one to pop in next. Oh, the pleasure and pain of Linux......... so many distro's, so little time. To narrow down your prospects it is wise to research the web a little bit to see "what is hot and what is not" and what might be a good fit. Even if you are a die hard MS Windows (all you know) person, you might find a live-CD version of Linux useful. Anyway, for me the Linux experience has been fun. In the words of Jedi master Yoda, "there is another".
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