new linux user

D

dannyjebb

New Member
hi i am thinking of setting up my spare pc to run linux. can anyone gie me any sites that give tutorials or anything on how to setup linux

cheers
 
Each distro's site should have a detailed explination as to how to set it up. Check out Mandriva Linux or Ubuntu if this is your first time, as both are very user friendly.
 
would it be best to set up linux as another partion on my windows drive or to do a fresh install on a seperate computer? my main aim is to learn about programming and hope to eventually make some of my own stuff
 
try setting up a dual boot...you'll have to partition your drive first though

or if you have a cd key or floppy drive then try a live boot cd

Linux is sketchy when it comes to writing to an ntfs filesystem...it reads fine, but unless you are using a fat system, then i'd suggest either partitioning it or using a live distro (unless you have an extra machine kicking around)
 
He said he has a spare... I've got both a dual-boot and a standalone linux machine.

I suggest you go here to shop for the distribution that is right for you.

Personally, I'm using Slackware and learning a lot. There are a ton of forums and tutorials out there, sometimes it can be overwhelming, but your best bet is to start with the mn pages first and then work your way through the internet.

You can IM me and I'll hook you up with the sites I frequent in my quest to learn linux.
 
i bought a magazine yesterday and it came with a free copy of suse 10.0 oss

it says it is ideal for desktops is this a good 1 to have or is the slackware u mentioned better? i have absolutly no idea what i am on about here lol

i have give up with my old pc it is very very very slow lol

so am looking to do a dual boot.

what is a live cd boot?
 
Suse is a good distro, it's a matter of personal taste of which distro you'll like. I personally thought Slackware was more oriented towards power users and liked Ubuntu and Mandriva. Personal taste.

A live CD boot is where the file system is stored on CD and the OS runs directly off of the CD ROM.
 
Suse is an ok one for a beginner....it updates itself on it's own and is a lot more XP-like
I'd recommend using the KDE environment at first until you learn more about the various commands and then try some different environments and see how you like them.
I'm personally a fellow Slacker as well (I use Slamd64 on my laptop and Slackware on my PC) but I'v also uses versions of Suse, Red Hat, Knoppix, Slax, Auditor, Mandrake.

Just try a bunch and see which one best recognizes your hardware and which one you find easiest to learn on

Go to their native webpages for information on them and manuals and forums, etc.

It will be much easier for you to have a seperate PC running beside your windows machine so you can go back and forth with tutorials and such, as your hardware may not all work properly on your first intall
 
right i tried loading suse onto my pc that already has windows on it but it never mentioned anything about partionng the hardrive? so i quit because i dont want to lose all my windows stuff. does suse have a website? i googled it and am i rigt in thinking tht the novell website is were i will find out about suse? it says i have to register my copy though before i can get any help from that site? is there any specific suse forums etc?

thanks
 
the version of suse you have is freeware and does not contain support

if you have an extra machine then install suse instead of XP....otherwise use partition magic to partiton your drive (defrag first) and install it on the new partition....or you can download something like auditor and use QTpartit
 
this might sound like am a cheapo git lol but is there any decent partion programs that are free lol. i am only doing this as a bit of fun and dont wanna have to pay out money... unless i get really interested in it. when i tried loading suse on my pc that already had windows after a few clicks it came up saying do you wanna partion summat like 45 gig of the windows partion or something like that. my hardrive is 80 gig. and it is also an SATA is this all ok to run suse on

thanks again
 
Okay SUSE Linux 10 Oss should have a partition manager in the installation file (or it does on mine)
It will resize your current Windows Partition to a smaller size so that SUSE has space for it, you can also change the sizes of the partitions in the installer, personally if you are not to good with installing or you are not sure about it then don't try or back up your data because you may lose some Hardware/Software/Data in the process.
 
Just keep in mind, that partitioning programs can take some time to work and some, like Partition Magic appear to be locked up but are still working. Resetting or rebooting a computer while the partitioning program is running will result in loss of all your data.

On that note, I recommend you back all your important data up before attempting a repartition, just in case something goes wrong.
 
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