Spin Ink

attribution: This article was written by Jessica Jay.

OK, so you are new to the Linux world and you are thinking of running Linux in you PC.

In this process you may find a lot of new technical terms that you don’t understand and confuse you, and may persuade you to not install Linux and just stay with the your old pal Windows.

So we must first understand what Linux is.

What is Linux?

Linux itself is a kernel.

A kernel? What’s that?

The kernel is the core of the operating system. It is software that handles communication between your hardware and your software to handle the available resources like memory, CPU, drives, etc.

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Therefore to get the actual operating system, you need to choose a distro.

A distro?

Yes, a distribution (or distro) is an operating system that uses the Linux kernel and also it bundles numerous applications, sometimes optimized for the distribution in question.

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So now you may be wondering what distribution to get or which one is the best. But first we have to state what a desktop environment is.

Desktop Environments and Window Managers.

A desktop manager is the graphical user interface (GUI) that lets you operate and move around your computer like browsing your directories and files, listing your installed applications. It also includes applets and additional software that nowadays can be considered indispensable like calendars, email clients, internet browsers, text editors, etc.

A window manager is only a GUI that lets you place the windows of your application, however some of the window managers inclueds a little bit more than that.

What distro should you use?

Gentoo: It is a distro for those that like a lot of control and don’t mind a few extra steps to get there. Packages are up-to-date and we found it perfect for programming, and very reliable as a server.

Ubuntu: Nice well-integrated desktop (GNOME), easy to setup & admin. Great for beginners, it uses apt-get (software for extremely easy software installation.)

SuSE: An easy to use, highly configurable distro, with a big community and supported by Novell, one of the main leaders in the Linux world. Great integration with the KDE desktop.

Mandriva: User friendly, very GUI oriented distro.

CentOS: The ultimate server distro based directly on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but CentOS is free.

Debian: Nice stable distro with over 15000 packages ready for easy install.

Fedora: The desktop version of the RedHat products family. This is the distro for you if you are curious about RedHat

Slackware: Simplicity, stability and speed. Less GUI oriented for the ones who want to go deeper with Linux

Linspire: Easy Windows-like distro, perfect for newcomers that don’t want to learn much about Linux It cost $60 retail and $50 to download it.

What Desktop Environment should I choose?

The most popular are KDE and Gnome, others are XFCE, ROX, EDE, etc. Maybe you’ll prefer just a window manager like Enlightenment, FVWM, Icewm, Fluxbox. etc.

Actually most distros use one Desktop Environment, for example SuSE uses KDE as default and most will agree KDE fits the best with SuSE; on the other side Ubuntu is GNOME only and therefore its well integrated to it.

The vast majority use either KDE or GNOME, but others may use icewm, enlightenment or others as default, others don’t even ship with any desktop environments or window managers so you can freely choose.

For a Windows user KDE might be easier to use, while Mac users may prefer Gnome. For those looking for a different way to use things with lot of eyecandy, try Enlightenment, or if you want to become a guru Fluxbox may be your thing.

What file system should I use?

In Windows you use either FAT, FAT32 or NTFS. A file system stores an organizes your files and data. Each file system has its advantages and disadvantages, for example: FAT and FAT32 partitions can’t handle files bigger than 4GB (Which is very common nowadays for DVD burning/authoring, DVD ISOs for games, data, etc; Recording video from TV or handling your DV camera files.)

For Linux, no matter what, you will need a small swap partition and another to store OS and personal data. At the time of installation you may choose what file system to use, and how many partitions you want to create (most distros create automatically the swap partition, so you don’t have to mess with it.)

ext3: It is what FAT is to windows, a good reliable old pal for Linux ext3 is the successor to ext2, ext3 was released in 2004 and its main advantage is the backwards compatibility with ext2 and good recoverability.

ResierFS: Very fast and reliable, it has advanced journaling features and its perfect for any kind of use.

XFS: File system by Silicon Graphics originally for IRIX. It is fast and it has the most advanced journaling system. Its recommended if you know you will use big files, but go with ResierFS if you have a slow processor.

Overall these file systems are much better than FAT32 or NTFS. They don’t need defragmentation, all of them are resizeable and all of them have advanced journaling wich is faster and more reliable than running chkdsk in Windows

There are other file systems but availability depends on the distro you choose.

(If you didn’t understand a single bit of what I was saying, don’t worry, the defaults are OK.)

What kernel version should I install?

It is not recommended to upgrade to a newer kernel version, because of stability reasons. Actually If you want to experience the intended stability of your distro, you should use only official packages and updates. So in most cases updates will only be from version 1.12.5 to version 1.12.6, that means those are only bug fixes or patches.

Only if you really have some hardware issues and you are sure that it’s because of the kernel, you should upgrade or downgrade the kernel.

(If you didn’t understand, don’t worry, the defaults are wok

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Special Cases

Hey! All distros looks very nice but my computer is old and can’t handle them. What do I do?

Don’t worry, there are also distributions for you. Try Vector Linux or Puppy Linux or Damn Small Linux.

If your PC is really really old (386/486) and has less than 16mb RAM try BasicLinux or muLinux.

Can I install Linux in my Mac?

Yes you can! Distros like CentOS, Debian, SuSE, Fedora, Gentoo, Mandriva, Ubuntu are also available for the PowerPC platform. There are also distributions specifically designed for Macs like Yellow Dog Linux and Slackintosh. Other distros available for Mac: PLD, SourceMage, TA-Linux and VLOS.

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Other Interesting Distributions

MEPIS, Knoppix, PCLinuxOS, Kanotix, CAOS, Xandros, aLinux, Turbolinux, Archlinux.

If you just want to know every damn distro that exists/existed go to distrowatch.com.

What is BSD?

Just like Linux, BSD is another Unix-like kernel, you can find different descendants like FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and DragonFlyBDS.

How much Unix-like systems exists?

Linux, BSD, Solaris, Minix, OpenSolaris, Plan 9, Phoenix-RTOS, HP-UX, AIX, IRIX, Mac OS X, Tru64, LynxOS, QNX.

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Still have doubts?

You can install Linux on your machine and a Virtualization Machine on top of it. The Virtualization Machine, lets you run another OS in your current operating system. So you will have all the nice features that Linux brings and the Windows software that you need. Try using VMware.

You can also use Wine (not a windows emulator), a native windows API for Linux to run windows application directly on Linux Wine is free, you can also try CrossOver Office, if you really need Microsoft Office. And as a little add install wine-tools.

If you are in the whole gaming thing, try Cedega, its not free but it really works and its getting better everyday.

Also I think that for home users a dual boot is the best thing.