I'd like to use Linux but...

what about Red Hat

Red Hat is for IT departments terrified of using anything they can't buy a very expensive support contract for.

(but fedora or centos are v similar, and free)

what about MAC OS and its celebrated Steve Jobbs hack of unix?

OS X is the most popular commercial Unix out there!

ACTUALLY ios is

eh same thing

Shitload of machines running Linux derivatives these days, too. Samsung televisions, half a dozen wireless router brands, video players, loads of things.

Is the PS3 operating system a unix derivative?

i think they'd be compelled to release the source if it was...

not all unix is foss though

oh sorry.. i read leenux instead of unix... it would seem like a lot of trouble to roll your own os from scratch though.

Nah, it's proprietary

I recently hacked my way through a 2nd Hackintosh install (now running OSX 10.6.8!) cos I need FCP for work. It was a huge pain, i think all the distros come packaged with kexts (drivers) and you have to pick THE RIGHT ONE and if you pick something else or say just decide to install a bunch of video kexts in the hope that one works, your machine will lock up and crash and you pretty much have to start the re-install from scratch.

I figured since it's Unix-based like Linux that you have to go through the same thing, tho the one time I installed Ubuntu I didn't have any problems. Except I just could not get my network card to recognize, and that's a deal-breaker.

As much as I hate to say it, I'm a Windows/DOS guy born and raised, and there are a number of Win-only programs that I just can't do without. Mainly Fruity Loops.

DOS is heaven

I recently updated to Onieric Ocelot. actually my daughter did it when I was nto looking by mashing keys madly - linux IS easy to use!

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/08/stephen-fry-i-use-ubuntu

My sister's got this laptop w xp service pack 3, works fine except for freezing sometimes online, worst on firefox, but also some noticeable slowing down on chrome, safari. She doesn't want to invest in more memory and windows 7, not yet so hey why not try linux. I checked zorin, burned it to disc as site instructed, but her laptop couldn't open it, neither could mine, which does have win 7. anyway, I'vr twice tried ubuntu with the Wubi installed (can also choose variants, like xpost lubuntu I think) it's here
http://download.cnet.com/Wubi/3000-2094_4-10701841.html?tag=mncol;3#editorsreview Rebooted as it instructed, chose Ubuntu as OS,got black screen, blinking cursor, did contl alt del, chose debugging mode, tried again, got black screen, w message
GNU GRUB version 2.00-7ubuntu11
BASH-Line editing is supported for the first word, TAB lists possible command completion anywhere else TAB lists possible device or file completion so I tried commmands open, start, s few others, said didn't recognize then, tried c:// and \\ with a couple more, same results. How do I open this fucker? thanks for your consideration.

I don't know the answer to your question.

That said, different manufacturers can have issues with Linux, and I've read of people have problems with Wubi. Do you have the disc to reinstall Windows XP if things go wrong?

If so, I would say get Xubuntu or Lubuntu 12.04 or earlier from the official Ubuntu site, burn to a live CD, and test on the machine. You should be able to dual boot the XP or the 'buntu from the installer on the disc. I made it work with a friends ancient desktop a few years ago.

how long did you let it sit at the blinking cursor? give it at least a couple of minutes, it doesn't load as fast from the CD as from a hard drive.

sounds like debugging mode was actually working fine. that is usually used when you have already installed linux on your box and you need to boot a minimal OS from the CD to fix something you screwed up. it's probably limited to the command line, which i'm guessing isn't what you are looking for.

there are a bunch of "intro to the unix command line" tutorials out there, I don't really know which one is best but the first couple of google results look decent.

thanks guys, i may try it with a disc again, may have to download a free program linked from ubuntu to burn and open it etc. as for the present wubi download directly to hard drive, i looked up the gnu grub 2 command line info on ubuntu's help, but username and password aren't recognized. so maybe i'll start over with the disc and lubuntu--which is also a choice you get using the wubi installer, so maybe i'll try that combination first. meanwhile, the freezing online seems to have stopped, at least while using chrome and free microsoft security essentials (she had avira free, which constantly scanned and had big and little pop-up balloons, reports and ads, arrgh) still i feel an urge to respond to the linux challenge.

i hate to say it but in a lot of cases winxp will perform better than even the low-frills linux distros.

I've struggled with xubuntu on my 6 yr old laptop for the last 6 months, and it's definitely more sluggish than xp. I'm gonna have to go back.

> GNU GRUB version 2.00-7ubuntu11
> BASH-Line editing is supported for the first word, TAB lists possible command completion anywhere else
> TAB lists possible device or file completion

the Grub command line is not the linux command line - it's just a tiny bootstrap program that'll let you examine and mount boot images, and change boot parameters. you shouldn't ever need to use it, especially not on a live cd.

that said, my older laptop wouldn't boot livecds without extra boot parameters, specifically acpi=off. also removing things like 'splash' from the command line might give you better visibility of what's happening.

and, yes, patience is needed with livecds.

trying out Mint linux - slick interface!

@dow, - maybe late but could try to boot from llinux on usb stick

My weekend project:

http://lfsbook.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable/

Thanks Latham, the laptop owner just wanted some way to add speed and avoid freeze, so I gave up on getting linux the way I was asking about, and deleted some stuff never used; that seemed to suffice, so far. But I wouldn't mind having linux as backup on my own Windows laptop (405 GB free). Maybe I'll try the usual disc method, but how would I get it on a USB stick?

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/help/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows

Thanks!

I installed ubuntu side by side with windows XP - you have the option of which to boot into when you startup. or if you have a big usb stick just run it off there if you like.

BTW Mint linux is really impressive so far!

i dual-installed Mint 13 a few months ago and plan to migrate over to it between now and when support for ubuntu Lucid LTS runs out (april). i can't get on with Unity and with Mint 13 the Mate alternative supports all the stuff fussy old me likes / requires.

not keen on mint's enormous menu though, seems to involve a lot of movement to get to where you want to be.

Unity is annoying. I dont get the appeal

I switched my 5 y.o. laptop from windows xp to Mint 14 (with xfce) on an SSD last week and i really like it so far. I was going to get a new computer to replace it, but this is running well enough that I'm probably not going to bother.

Los, how much memory do you have for it on yr laptop?

Not too get too nosy, just wondering how much is required--and how much I'd need to keep Win 7 and add something like Mint 14 etc

OH SURE, just poke around my medicine cabinet a bit while you are at it

Right now it takes up a little over 5 gigs, but you should probably set up at least a 20 gb partition

Get a raspberry PI for Linux!

i've 3 different linux distros on this laptop and i give them 10GB each for the operating system (which is 70% used on this one) but /home is separate (and huge because that's where all my files are). and, i think, 2GB of swap (for 4GB of ram) but i'm not sure that's applicable for an SSD

I was wondering today if you put a linux virtual machine on yor upc how encrypted the files on it are from other users- like is it a way of encrypting your data if you felt like it

If you used an encrypted filesystem in the VM image, sure.

using Oracle virtualbox

koogs, would you have a smaller swap for an SSD?

no idea. all the schemes i knew for sizing these things were relevant in the days of MBs of RAM, not GBs.

but it was more the limited writes of ssds that has me worried - isn't the swap partition written to more frequently than other parts of the disk, which would suggest it'd wear out sooner. yeah, i know, wear levelling algorithms in the hardware and all. would be interesting to know.

here's something: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwapFaq

but even that seems outdated given

"High RAM and high disk space With 2 GiB RAM and 100 GB hard disk, use 2 GiB for swap since hard disk space is plentiful."

and neither 2GB ram nor 100GB HDD is particularly "high" imo

in 2013 nobody really knows how big to make a swap partition

It was ever thus

was always HALF RAM, or maybe TWICE RAM (i forget). but then ram and disk became orders of magnitude cheaper and faster and more available, maybe to the point where things just don't swap out anymore. (also, a lot of linux machines are now single user so there are fewer processes running)

I jsut spent the morning screwing with shared folders with virtual box/mint linux and -I failed

shared between virtual box and the host? have had trouble with that in the past. it works for one combination of guest additions / kernel and then you update and it all breaks. i ended up using a samba share, effectively copying everything over the network even though it's the same disk.

am several minor versions behind with box virtualbox and ubuntu but am sticking with something i know works.

Booting my raspberry pi for the first time right now. I used Linux as my only OS from 2002 til 2006 but haven't really touched it since so this feels strange.