Why GNU/Linux Rocks

[AtreyuKun]

Like I said, I'm using a modified version of Linux Mint. Mint and Ubuntu are made for people use Windows. They're very easy to use.
I have a 1TB external hard drive with all my videos, pics, writings, and whatnots - all my media. Linux has no problem finding any of my media that may be on the Windows partition. However, Windows doesn't know what the hell a Linux is. So it doesn't work both ways as easily.

[sgreger1]

200gb to / ??? That's a crapload of room. 20gb is more than reasonable. You need the room for data, not programs. You should be able to work with your Win server with Ubuntu. I'm not intimately familiar, so I can't give explicit advice, but it'll work.

Edit:
Btw, I'm using EXT4. for my file systems.

But if I set it at 20gb than doesn't that mean I can never install more than 20gb of software? That seems risky to me. If I set it at 20 can I ever expand it?

[sgreger1]

Like I said, I'm using a modified version of Linux Mint. Mint and Ubuntu are made for people use Windows. They're very easy to use.
I have a 1TB external hard drive with all my videos, pics, writings, and whatnots - all my media. Linux has no problem finding any of my media that may be on the Windows partition. However, Windows doesn't know what the hell a Linux is. So it doesn't work both ways as easily.

Okay if I can access stuff on my external hard drive from within linux than I am good to go and don't need to allocate so much space. Can I ask why you prefer mint over say the newest Ubunto 11.5? Is there any advantage to it or do you just prefer it's layout? I was looking at the new Ubuntu desktop from the newest release and it looks like a ****ing iphone or something lol.

[lxskllr]

I'm using 7gb of my / partition. I think 20gb is more than comfortable. Mint is basically Ubuntu, but different. I don't care much for Ubuntu's new Unity shell, but you may like it. Personally, if I stay with *buntu, I'll use Xubuntu, otherwise it'll be Debian, and Xfce for me. Anything from *buntu family, or Mint would be good for your purposes.

[AtreyuKun]

Okay if I can access stuff on my external hard drive from within linux than I am good to go and don't need to allocate so much space. Can I ask why you prefer mint over say the newest Ubunto 11.5? Is there any advantage to it or do you just prefer it's layout? I was looking at the new Ubuntu desktop from the newest release and it looks like a ****ing iphone or something lol.

Nah. No reason in particular. I've used nearly every flavor of Linux over the years, and now I just want something that works. I don't geek out too much, and I only ever need to use a terminal very rarely. With the software center, it really is just like a cell phone with an app store. It's just easy, safe, and cheap.

[sgreger1]

I'm using 7gb of my / partition. I think 20gb is more than comfortable. Mint is basically Ubuntu, but different. I don't care much for Ubuntu's new Unity shell, but you may like it. Personally, if I stay with *buntu, I'll use Xubuntu, otherwise it'll be Debian, and Xfce for me. Anything from *buntu family, or Mint would be good for your purposes.

Yah the Unity shell looks like a Mac or something. Definately a different look than all the other ones. I don't really even care about the interface so much. I just want it to be secure, run fast, and not be burdened with having to run an anti-virus or all of that.

In your experience does Linux seem faster to you? I have heard stories that it doesn't slowly slow down as the years go by like Windows does.

I'd like to make the Linux partition the one used for photo/video editing, word processing, browsing the internet etc and just leave the windows partition for gaming or when the wife wants to use the computer (or if I need to run software that I can't get to run in Linux).

[lxskllr]

I dunno about the speed. Windows has treated me well in that regard. I will say that GNU/Linux tends to run faster on lower specs with a similar eye candy load if that makes sense. It takes less resources to get a modern experience than it does with Windows. For individual programs, some are faster, and some are slower. It has to be taken on a case by case basis. Not having security software analyzing everything helps, but keep in mind you could still infect a Windows machine. While a virus is unlikely to affect you, you could give it to someone via file on thumb drive or something. Vigilance is always in order.

[sgreger1]

I dunno about the speed. Windows has treated me well in that regard. I will say that GNU/Linux tends to run faster on lower specs with a similar eye candy load if that makes sense. It takes less resources to get a modern experience than it does with Windows. For individual programs, some are faster, and some are slower. It has to be taken on a case by case basis. Not having security software analyzing everything helps, but keep in mind you could still infect a Windows machine. While a virus is unlikely to affect you, you could give it to someone via file on thumb drive or something. Vigilance is always in order.

Yah it seems like it's a great OS for people with low-end specs. My windows runs fine since I have way more processing power than I need so speed isn't a huge concern at this point, but I know how windows is, it will get slower over the years. The only time I have ever used 100% of the processor's 8 cores was while encoding video trying to compress a 16GB MKV file down to a smaller MP4 format.


I see a lot of command line type stuff on linux discussions, but I am a little unclear on exactly what situations you would need to run anything from the terminal (or whatever it's called in linux). The whole thing seems almost like a simplified windows complete with an "app store" and everything. I'm sure I am missing something, I will figure it out once I get it installed tonight, assuming I can get the ubunto file to burn to disc.

[shikitohno]

I see a lot of command line type stuff on linux discussions, but I am a little unclear on exactly what situations you would need to run anything from the terminal (or whatever it's called in linux). The whole thing seems almost like a simplified windows complete with an "app store" and everything. I'm sure I am missing something, I will figure it out once I get it installed tonight, assuming I can get the ubunto file to burn to disc.

The sort of situations where you'd use the terminal are quite frequent. In many cases, the terminal is more powerful and efficient than any GUI you could throw over things, so you can save yourself a great deal of time by learning how to use it properly. There are also users who tell me it's more secure for things like package management, but I don't know how accurate that is. CLI programs are also quite a bit easier on system resources in many cases. I've got an IRC client, mail-client, torrent client, music player, system monitor, file manager, and two web browsers open, and I'm only idling at around 10% of my CPU being used. And this isn't a power machine, it's a laptop that's about 4 years old by now.

Also, I'm going to be a dissenting voice on the topic of which distro to use, and say avoid Ubuntu. If you want a decent, noob-friendly system, got grab a Fedora iso or something. I didn't really like Ubuntu when I was using it, and I wouldn't be so quick to recommend a distro that seems to take such joy in pissing off its users by either drastically overhauling how it handles basic stuff with a new release, or just shipping a half broken release in their haste to be able to say they included all the new features they said they would.

[lxskllr]

Also, I'm going to be a dissenting voice on the topic of which distro to use, and say avoid Ubuntu. If you want a decent, noob-friendly system, got grab a Fedora iso or something. I didn't really like Ubuntu when I was using it, and I wouldn't be so quick to recommend a distro that seems to take such joy in pissing off its users by either drastically overhauling how it handles basic stuff with a new release, or just shipping a half broken release in their haste to be able to say they included all the new features they said they would.

I like Ubuntu cause it's like instant Debian; install it and you're done. Well, that's the way it used to be anyway. They've changed, and I've grown away from it. Fedora's a fine distro. Not to my taste, but it works too. I pretty much keep my recommendations to Debian based systems, as that's what I use personally excepting micro distros.

[sgreger1]

The sort of situations where you'd use the terminal are quite frequent. In many cases, the terminal is more powerful and efficient than any GUI you could throw over things, so you can save yourself a great deal of time by learning how to use it properly. There are also users who tell me it's more secure for things like package management, but I don't know how accurate that is. CLI programs are also quite a bit easier on system resources in many cases. I've got an IRC client, mail-client, torrent client, music player, system monitor, file manager, and two web browsers open, and I'm only idling at around 10% of my CPU being used. And this isn't a power machine, it's a laptop that's about 4 years old by now.

Also, I'm going to be a dissenting voice on the topic of which distro to use, and say avoid Ubuntu. If you want a decent, noob-friendly system, got grab a Fedora iso or something. I didn't really like Ubuntu when I was using it, and I wouldn't be so quick to recommend a distro that seems to take such joy in pissing off its users by either drastically overhauling how it handles basic stuff with a new release, or just shipping a half broken release in their haste to be able to say they included all the new features they said they would.

Thank you for the clarification. I look forward to learning something new here hopefully.

As far as the distro I will have to check out Fedora. I know Ubuntu's new "Unity" interface seems to have pissed a lot of pople off from what I gather on the forums.

[lxskllr]

Fedora uses Gnome3. That's drawn an equal amount of bitching :^D

I don't like either. I've pretty much settled on Xfce. If I could find a good panel system, I'd probably use Enlightenment.

[shikitohno]

Fedora uses Gnome3. That's drawn an equal amount of bitching :^D

I don't like either. I've pretty much settled on Xfce. If I could find a good panel system, I'd probably use Enlightenment.

True, but as sgreger hasn't used Gnome2, he doesn't really know what there is to bitch about. And that's the last major gripe I've seen most people getting up in arms about being implemented in it. Personally, I favor using Arch Linux with ratpoison for now, but I'd imagine that's a bit overboard for recommending to someone who just wants to try things out.

I can't really see him being too thrilled about popping in the install disk, and being greeted with a tty and told, "Yeah, we'll get to that whole GUI thing later, but for the next 45 minutes or so, you're going to be doing everything here at the command prompt." Of course, the one thing that can make it a lot easier is that the install disc comes with the complete beginner's install guide from their wiki on it in a .txt file, so you could hit ctrl+alt+F3 and open it up with vi or nano, and just read the instructions as you do it. I think it's at /usr/share/docs/aif/beginners_guide.txt or something like that. And I do like just having a tiny install that only puts what I actually need on my machine. I think that a typical install with a GUI and just about all the programs I use takes about 2.5Gb-3GB, fully installed. I just need to find a way to get yaourt working from the live disk so that while I'm installing, I can go ahead and pull the BFS-kernel from the AUR, and have it compile that and use it from the beginning, rather than wind up with the vanilla 3.2.0 kernel.

[lxskllr]

Arch has great documentation. I've used it a couple times for my system. Even if no one used the distro, it would be worth keeping around for the documentation :^)

[wa3zrm]

lxskllr- have you been around long enough to remember the Linux original 0.09 install? Or even better, did you ever do a a first release SCO or Free BSD install? Those were the days... it took all day, two pizzas and a case of beer to get it running