[WEB4LIB] RE: Advice on Linux

[Raymond Wood]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charlie Irwin [mailto:cirwin at world.std.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2002 12:52 AM
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: [WEB4LIB] Advice on Linux
> 
> 
> I'm thinking of trying Linux on my home machine. My thought is
> to add a hard drive to my machine and run it "dual-boot". Does
> anyone have any ideas/suggestions as to what favor Linux (ie
> Red-Hat, Mandrake, etc.) or tips, hints, etc? Since this is
> probably not really a list discussion, please contact me
> directly at cirwin at theworld.com.

Let's make it a list discussion - Linux can be very useful to
web-slinging librarians :)

> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Charlie Irwin

On Tue, Jun 04, 2002 at 04:31:39AM -0700, Cantona, Eric remarked:
> Red Hat is the emerging standard but others are better for
> learning.

I'd say that RH has been the (mostly) dominant distribution for
some time, and I have used it myself in the past.  That said I
now use Debian and wouldn't use anything else :)

> I can't decide if Mandrake or SuSE is the ultimate "For
> Dummies"  Linux.

SuSE is not.  Mandrake is almost certainly the most
'newbie-friendly' distribution of the lot IMO.

> Mandrake is similar to (derived from?) Red Hat so you would be
> learning the emerging standard.

Yes, originally Mandrake basically took RH's stuff, included the
KDE desktop, and included more bleeding edge software.  Since
that time they've made the Linux installation process one of the
easiest of all the distributions from what I've heard.

> I strongly recommend bootpart for the dual boot installation.
> With bootpart you can install more than one Linux and keep
> Win32.
> 
> http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm

I have never heard of anyone using this for dual boot.
Typically people will use the tradition LILO (LInux LOader), or
more recently many people swear by GRUB (GRand Unified
Bootloader?).

> "Congratulations, you've taken your first step into a larger
> world."  -Obi Wan

Aye :)

Cheers,
Raymond