Planning to get Linux

General Forums Off-topic Chat
1

Should I get linux? What are the pros and cons? Is it true that blender runs/renders faster than in window?
Does it cost anything? Where can i get it?
I was planning to get it, until i realized, i know nothing about it! So i decided to ask here, where a lot of Linux users are. Judging by what i’ve heard, it pwns compared to windows.

I wanted to put another hard-drive in my comp, but im not sure how to go about doing that either, i want the one now to be windowXP, and the other Linux.

Any link, or info would be great.

thanks

2

If you’re going to use linux you should posess the ability to problem solve and learn yourself, and therefore you should have answered your own questions: www.google.com :stuck_out_tongue: j/k

I think it depends on what you use your computer as to whether you should get linux. If you play a lot of games I’d stick with windows or dual boot, as despite using cedega and other things to get them to run, it’s not always perfect. And as a CS addict this means I stick to windows, though I’ve frequently used linux in the past.

Linux is good for lots of things (including games, problem is only a few games are ported by developers), if you’re a programmer it’s great, or just for normal everyday use. Linux is essentially free, though of course there are paid distributions which have additional support for paying this money. A few good starting distributions (versions if you like, though all distributions of linux have the same essential parts, such as kernel, gnu tools, and gcc compiler etc.) are fedora, mandriva, or ubuntu (my personal recommendation).

These are the easiest to setup for a new user (imo). If you want to be hardcore you could try and use debian or gentoo (hmm… maybe not for first time). These require more understanding and knowledge on your part to setup. Gentoo imo is the hardest to install bar linux from scratch (basically making your own linux system by doing everything manually).

A good place to find distributions is here: http://distrowatch.com/

A good site generally is linux.org: http://www.linux.org/

Feel free to correct me anyone btw, I’m by no means that knowledgeable compared to other elysiun users. To be perfectly honest I don’t think I’ll go back to linux myself, I like my system to “just work” as cheesy as that sounds, my laziness means I really can’t be arsed haven’t to search forums to get something to work, or having to download decss just to play my dvds. Pretty much everything on my system is opensource except for the OS, you don’t need linux to enjoy the advantages of this.

3

I think you hit all the main points aquaglow. I started using Linux about 6 months ago and as much as I’d like to say it’s been easy, it really hasn’t. As brief as I can be:

  1. Biggest benefit to Linux is a) Internet security and b) open source software. There are other benefits, but that varies from distro to distro, user to user, etc.

  2. Biggest negative to Linux is a) steep learning curve and b) lack of good (ie. easy to follow) documentation.

If you’re the type that doesn’t hesitate to open a text editor and edit a config file or tweak regedit, then you’ll be fine with Linux. If this kind of stuff scares you and you want to get away from Winblows, get a Mac with OSX.

And as aquaglow suggested, you need to do your homework. The topic of Linux vs. other OS’s has been discussed here many, many times (last thread was just a few days ago).

Good luck.

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get ubuntu, a great place to start

it will do most everything right out of the box
:smiley:

5

I would like to offer a little friendly warning and some advice.

While it’s great to install an easy-to-use linux that gets you going straight away
it’s often an achilles heel.

Pro’s:

The “Easy to use” linux package that comes with everything makes it
a smooth start, everything you basically need - right out of the box
makes linux seem easy.

No hassle compiling stuff
No hassle with drivers
Lot’s of ready to use programs, mostly free even!
No Dependency-hell.

Con’s:

Makes you a “dumb” user, learning is steep because of all the comforts already given
to you. Nothing encourages you to learn anything.

And - When you finally want to learn, so many things have already been installed
for you that learning just a percentage of it seems like mission impossible and
you become a “package-junkie” looking for already compiled and packaged packages
for your particular distro (which in turn makes you a distro-slave).

So if you plan on using linux as an alternative to Windows…and just
use it for surfing the net, running the official blender-releases
and playing a few games. Then distro’s like Ubuntu, SuSE, Mandrake etc.
will be a breeze and the best choice for you.

BUT…

If you’re an adventurer like me…and want to compile the latest blender versions,
and learn Learn LEARN all the way…and spend nights on configuring out
the absolutely maximal computer and tweak the last processor-cycle out
of your computer… Then SlackWare 10.1 is the ultimative choice.

Be warned tough - if you are new to computers in general…and new to
things that have to be done manually…stay FAR AWAY from slackware
because it will start teaching you low-level Linux before you even get
started…it will give you text instruction…teach you step-by-step how
to stand on your own… And you will curse like mad…sweat…and
really be annoyed the first two weeks (probably…depends on who you
are really…hehe)…

But it will be worth it in the end - only if you can see the fun in that
you’ll rake in the benefits later.

JoOngle
Compiling everything.

6

arch is better than slack… try it, you’ll like it :smiley: it is complicated like arch, as in commndline-ville, but it is mechanically a very simple distro.

7

I downloaded ubuntu the otherday - ready to install on to my new machine when my case / heatsink arrives… but… what is the compatability like for hardware? as most CDs that come with motherboards alike are for gay arsed windows; as far as im aware. is linux pretty good with keeping motherboards, graphics card /hardware drivers upto date?

with that said, i’ve been looking at ubuntu and it looks very nice. should make my graphic design /webdesign 1000 times better.

8

Hardware compatibilitys good, though not perfect. Problem is, as you said all drivers made by the manufacturers are for windows, linux users have to create their own often by grafting together bits of knowledge. I’ve never had a problem with getting things to work personally though, always ran smooth as anything.

If you’re a webdesigner won’t you need to test your sites with IE? Since despite being out of date and ignoring the W3C standards it’s still used by the majority of people.

9

I’ve used redhat and fedora for the past three years, but recently shifted to ubuntu, a very impressive package.

This, you want learn anything if you use already installed packages, is bollocks in my experience. There is still more than enough new things to learn. At a later stage you can then look at compiling packages, which is easy enough to do, since most such packages come with detailed instruction. But I personally don’t want to waste my time finding and installing packages. And this is what I like about Ubuntu all the packages I use are there, including more obscure ones like boa-constructor and eric both python ide’s and rosegarden a music sequencer.

I know for me eric was a pain to install on fedora. It took several hours to track down all the dependencies, and make sure they were the correct version. This is a learning experience I can do without.

10

i also recommend ubuntu, i’m running it right now and it is a great and easy distro. (the best you can have at this moment)

-the hardware recognition is quite good, drivers are good,altough ati drivers sucks a lot.

as for IE, you can run it with wine. In fact it’s the only program i could run with wine. :slight_smile:

11

Yep, have to test it in IE… however i’ve never ran across any real problems with IE yet. The only issue I have had with it so far is the fact IE treats <body>'s height based on the content by defult, so 100% (on a CSS block) will never touch the bottom unless you set “body {height: 100%;}”

All the main problems people are complaning with are the defult values, and if they arn’t clear - people will interpret them wrong (browser Devs) i’ve personally got into the habbit of, even if it’s not needed write it down… so i always set margins, padding etc… in CSS and it’s all fine. Then theres a couple of “issues” such as center aligning a CSS block… never had to use one “hack” myself… to do things and there people with “hack” all over thier source/page…

in all honesty, if you want a page to be 100% height, no margins or padding then you should say… defult values should only be there if it’s been missed out accidentally to give a value /the most common value so the page can display “properly”, and not even that justifcation to use defult values, as the software should just say missing value on line 245… thats where IE went wrong by allowing people to not even write their code properly and still display it.

I expect they probabily have some form of IE clone for linux for testing - or i’ll just use another computer or get my friends to check the site, not going to dual OS my new system… MsW will probabily mess everything up.

12

Just thought i’d chime in here with my $0.02

I moved to linux about 3 years ago, because i felt it was high time i learned how to use my computer. i started on redhat 9, then to each of the fedora cores as they were released up till fc2. i have pretty much branched off onto my own tangent after that, and maintain the system from there. some things i have noticed:

  1. you will have to learn. if you don’t want to learn about your computer, and how it works, stay in windows.

  2. you will have to learn. but how did you learn is the question. When you first approached your computer, did you really know what you were doing in windows even? probably not. you probably had to be taught, or learn on your own by trying. even the so-called “easy to use ui” of windows required you to learn how to use it at one time.

in short, once upon a time you had to learn how to use a computer from the basics forward. now you are used to using a windows system, so it “seems” the easiest to use, but that is really just familiarity talking. if you were sat down in front of a UNIX machine, or IRIX for example, you would have had to learn how to use it in much the same way you did with windows, but you would have eventually gained familiarity with it, and it would probably be the “easiest to use” to you.

ex: ask a person who is used to using only a command line interface to learn windows, and they will probably hate it just as much as a windows user would probably hate having to learn a command line interface…

most of the modern distros do a great job of supporting, at base, most of the hardware you are probably going to use. it may not be tweaked to the tilt right out of the box, but you can learn how to do that. it will probably be stable, and “just work” like windows. however, you can now have the option of really doing anything you want with it, and as a bonus, you might actually learn something about computers besides what someone else wants to sell you…

games? there are a couple of supported games out there (quite a few, actually, just not all the commercially hyped hot-for-this-season games, though they eventually do get supported in one fashion or another).
Transgaming has done a great job of supporting some of the more popular games out right now (hl2&cstrike, WoW, etc…)

and there are actually a couple of development houses that support linux directly (all hail the mighty id software for their infinite wisdom to have native linux binaries). So you could play games like quake3, doom3, and other id titles directly in linux! Nvidia also supports linux with binary drivers for their cards (not open source).

i could rant for hours, but thats enough for now. if you are curious, then give it a shot, you’d be surprised i think. heck, for a really good adventure, just use linux only for a while! when you are forced to learn something, you’d be amazed at how fast you will pick it up and become proficient at it (didnt anyone else HATE the blender interface until they used it??? now it seems like, "why doesnt EVERYONE use the same interface darnit, its great!)

13

It certainly runs more free. :wink:

Depends. My personal suggestion would be Ubuntu, it is downloadable gratis and they will send you a CD if you wish.

14

…you can do all the compiling and customization in any good easy to use distro (certainly all of the mentioned). If you don’t need exterme customization (you probably don’t on a desktop machine) an easy to use distro will rarely get into your way.

15

You mean you are getting a new machine to run GNU/Linux on but didn’t check hardware compatibility? :o