Dude, why the hell did I not install this a long time ago? <happily finally listens to all the ripped music held hostage to unsupported USB wireless adapters and recovers a few gigs on the Windows side>
This is only vaguely related, but I've thought about setting up a Linux\Windows dual boot machine before, basically so I can have Linux for a working\web surfing environment, but leave Windows around for gaming. And I just happen to figure of all the people I know, you're the one to ask about it. :p
Is there a good Linux OS that I can get for free and\or cheaply? And if that's the case, how easy is it for someone who's reasonably tech savvy (I'm not quite a CS major, but I do know my way around my computer) to set-up?
Dual-boot is pretty easy to do with most distros, particularly if you can leave Windows on one drive and put Linux on another. :)
The distro I've been using for the past couple of years is Fedora (http://fedora.redhat.com/), which is essentially a desktop version of Red Hat (one of the more popular distros for business). It has a few quirks though (as does really any distro, it just depends on what you get used to).
A lot of people lately have been recommending Ubuntu (http://ubuntu.com/), which is a weird name, but is supposed to be very user-friendly and is pretty well-supported. They've also got a live CD, which will boot you into Linux without installing anything on your hard drive, so you can play around and see if you like it before installing anything. I haven't used it, but I'm a bit tempted... it looks very nice! (I just ordered some CDs for myself, so we'll see. :)) They have some basic screenshots of the installation process here (http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=465&slide=1) if you want to take a look.
You can download the images for the CDs from both sites and burn them yourself, or Ubuntu will mail you CDs for free (in the US at least... not sure about Canada).
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-10-17 03:07 am (UTC)Is there a good Linux OS that I can get for free and\or cheaply? And if that's the case, how easy is it for someone who's reasonably tech savvy (I'm not quite a CS major, but I do know my way around my computer) to set-up?
Apologies for the mildly off-topic tangent.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-17 04:17 am (UTC)The distro I've been using for the past couple of years is Fedora (http://fedora.redhat.com/), which is essentially a desktop version of Red Hat (one of the more popular distros for business). It has a few quirks though (as does really any distro, it just depends on what you get used to).
A lot of people lately have been recommending Ubuntu (http://ubuntu.com/), which is a weird name, but is supposed to be very user-friendly and is pretty well-supported. They've also got a live CD, which will boot you into Linux without installing anything on your hard drive, so you can play around and see if you like it before installing anything. I haven't used it, but I'm a bit tempted... it looks very nice! (I just ordered some CDs for myself, so we'll see. :)) They have some basic screenshots of the installation process here (http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=465&slide=1) if you want to take a look.
You can download the images for the CDs from both sites and burn them yourself, or Ubuntu will mail you CDs for free (in the US at least... not sure about Canada).
Hope that's useful. :)
no subject
Date: 2005-10-17 05:04 am (UTC)