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Linux on your desktop?!
What kind of hardware do i need to run Linux?
Linux will basically run on almost all hardware you can think of. from a usb-memorystick up to a big mainframe. For modern distro's a PentiumIII/Celeron or Athlon computer with 128mb ram (256mb recommended) are good enough to use.
I thought Linux was free but there also packages for sale?
Thats correct you can get Linux for free from the internet but there is also a option to buy it at a store. When you buy (for instance) suse linux at a store you will be provided with a handbook and support from suse itself. When you get it for free on the internet you will need to use irc-channels, the site from your distro, google or irc to get your info.
Some sites (like http://www.osdisc.com/ ) also give you the option to buy linux for a small price so you don't have to download it (note the distro's bought from osdisk.com don't come with a handbook)
Where can i download linux?
A good place to start your search is http://distrowatch.com/ which has links to almost all distro's out there and also give some info about them. You could also go directly to the website of the distro of your choice.
Can i install linux and windows on the same computer?
Sure you can that's no problem at all
You can use a partition program like Partition Magic to make some room on your harddisk (if you partition your harddisk don't forget to defragment it first). I recommend at least 5GB of space to use for your linux installation specially when you want to use a graphical interface. Most of the time when installing linux you will have the option to let the installer use the free space on your harddisk pick this option and the free space you created will be used for linux. During the installation you can also setup a boot loader (most modern distro's do the setup automatically) just make sure all other OS-es are recognized. After the installation you can use the boot loader grub (or lilo) to choose between linux or windows.
Whats the bootloader?
A bootloader is the first software program that runs when a computer starts. It is responsible for loading and transferring control to the operating system.
On linux there are two main bootloaders namely Grub (GRand Unified Bootloader) http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/
and LiLo (the Linux boot Loader). http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/workshops/linux_install/lilo.html
For info about howto setup grub or lilo I point you to the websites given since its allot of work to write a complete howto on that to. But perhaps in a later stadium I will do that to
What linux program do i use for *this* windows program?
for most windows programs there is a good alternative on linux I will hand you a few options here: (W= Windows L=Linux)
W: Winamp -> L: Xmms, Amarok
W: ICQ -> L: Licq, Gaim, Kopete
W: MSN -> L: Kopete, Gaim, Amsn
W: IE -> L: Opera. Mozilla, Firefox, Konqueror
W: Photoshop -> L: Gimp
W: Office -> L: OpenOffice, Koffice
W: outlook -> L: Evolution, Kmial, Thunderbird
W: Mediaplayer/dvd-player -> L: Mplayer, Xine, Totem-movieplayer etc
Can I access my windows partitions in Linux?
Yes you can without any problems, but you will need to mount them to be viewable and writable to you. But first some small (but important) information about partitions.
In linux you can view which partitions are available to you by typing 'cat /proc/partitions' into a terminal (in windows known as command prompt/dos box). This will provide you with info about the partitions that are on your harddisk(s). When given that command on my box for instance I get the following output:
CODE
pbrugge@mybox:~$ cat /proc/partitions
major minor #blocks name
3 0 20010312 hda
3 1 12058168 hda1
3 2 1 hda2
3 5 7952080 hda5
3 64 58633344 hdb
3 65 10241406 hdb1
3 66 20482875 hdb2
3 67 498015 hdb3
3 68 1 hdb4
3 69 17679501 hdb5
3 70 9727326 hdb6
hda is the first IDE-channels harddisk (master), hdb is the second harddisk (slave). Hdc is the first on the second IDE-channel etc..
As you can see in my output there are numbers behind it (hda1) this are the partitions on the harddisk. A drive can have up to 4 primary partitions (hdx1-4) and unlimited logical ones which go on a extended partition (hdx5 – hdx?) So hda1 means the first primary partition on the first IDE disk.
Note: A extended partition acts the same as a primary partition so setting up a extended partition means you loose one primary.
Note2: Logical partitions always start @ hdx5 and up
Oke back to mounting now
in linux a partition gets mounted in a directory so before mounting a disk make sure you have setup a mount point where it can be mounted. Most common is to set a mount point in the '/mnt' directory. make sure its easy to remember. For instance for your windows 'c' partition you could set: '/mnt/c' this is done as root in a terminal with the command 'mkdir /mnt/c'
most pre-build kernels have support for almost all common file types.
which are:
- ext2/ext3/reiserfs/xfs for linux
- vfat en ntfs for windows
- iso9660 for cdrom
These are important to mount a partition in linux. to mount a ntfs partition that is on your C in windows the command to give is 'mount -t ntfs -o ro /dev/hda1 /mnt/c'. where 'ro' stands for 'read only' if you want to give read write access you should set ' -o rw' instead.
Another way to mount a drive is by use of the file '/etc/fstab' you still need to make mount points but if you set the mount options in the '/etc/fstab' file you can mount a drive whit the much shorter command 'mount /mnt/c'.
An example of the '/etc/fstab' file
CODE
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hdb5 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/hdb6 /home ext3 defaults 0 2
/dev/hdb3 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hdd /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom1 udf,iso9660 ro,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto 0 0
/dev/hda1 /media/c ntfs rw,user,noauto umask=0000 0 0
the last line is the line we where talking about before so i will keep using it as reverence point for this section. i will explain what it all means here:
'/dev/hda1' is the partition we would like to mount on the mount point' /mnt/c' since it is a ntfs partition we need to set the ' type' to ' ntfs' we want 'read-write' access and the possibility for all users 'user'+' umask=0000' The noauto option means it wont be auto mounted at boot so you need to give the mount command to mount it. If you like to auto mount the partition during the boot just set 'auto' instead of 'noauto'.
Installing software.
Depending on what type of distro you are using there are a few options to install software on it. But notice that linux is not windows so .exe will not work on it. Linux works a little different.
Most linux distro's use a package manager to install or remove software. The best known are RPM and DPKG. Rpm or .rpm is the Redhat Package Manager and commes with Fedora, Redhat, Mandriva and Suse for instance. Dpkg or .deb is the package manager for debian based distro's like ubuntu, debian and xandros. There are also .tar files on the internet sometimes they are special pkgtool which is a installer tool on Slackware but most of the time they are just a kind of zipfiles with the program.
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