Author Topic: Calling all Linux haters ... (Read 10031 times)

vivman1107 · « **on:** October 05, 2006, 06:36:32 AM »

Yes, this is to all those Linux bashers and haters. If you have even a smidgen of an open mind you will give this a try to convince yourself that Windows is the $hit and Linux sucks. Then again, you might end up changing your previous misconceptions about Linux and give it a serious try. Either way, you have nothing to lose except a little download time and a CD. Mandriva has just come out with their 2007 edition and that includes a Live CD version called Mandriva One. For those that don't know, a Live CD is an OS that boots and runs direct from a CD without altering your hard drive in any way. It runs a bit slower than a hard drive installation for obvious reasons but is a good way to try Linux. Now, the big new hook with Mandriva 2007 is that it includes GUI support for a new tech called XGL. I downloaded and tried it on my PC last night and all I can tell you is that it could very well change the image that Linux-haters have towards the OS. It may not bring more game developers to the OS but the sheer coolness of XGL is just something to behold ... and on current graphics hardware to boot. So, I have posted the link to the download below for those open-minded, die-hard Windows users who think that Micro$oft and Vi$ta can do no wrong and just want to convince themselves of that. A couple pointers:

1. Download the KDE version for a desktop environment closer to Windows. It contains non-free graphics drivers needed to enable XGL.
2. Be sure to choose the XGL option when the CD asks in order to enable the eye candy
3. The CTRL and ALT combination along with the arrow keys does some cool stuff
4. Try dragging windows around and off the desktop
5. Hold CTRL and ALT combination and move the mouse around
6. For more stuff to try out, check out the XGL app in the menu

http://www.mandriva.com/en/download/mandrivaone

Carigamers · « **on:** October 05, 2006, 06:36:32 AM »

Arcmanov · « **Reply #1 on:** October 05, 2006, 06:26:34 PM »

Question: Can this version be installed to your hard-drive so you can boot as normal?

TriniXaeno · « **Reply #2 on:** October 05, 2006, 07:20:49 PM »

I've tried mandriva when it was mandrake and tried it more recently as mandriva as well.

great OS

Highly recommended if you want to try the linux world.

This new version sounds cool, especially the live flavour. Thanks for the heads up viv

vivman1107 · « **Reply #3 on:** October 06, 2006, 08:28:13 AM »

Yes, it can be installed to the hard drive. I just did it this morning and it was relatively painless and took around 15 mins. The best thing is that even the hard drive install has XGL pre-configured and ready to go. That is something that not many distros can boast (for now at least). You first need to boot from the CD and then run the install program that is on the desktop. You should also create a partition before installing it unless you want to use an existing one.

Crixx_Creww · « **Reply #4 on:** October 06, 2006, 11:32:29 AM »

dont know much about installing linux

but would i need to install this on my primary partition if i wanted it as a boot option?

or could i install it on another partition and still have it appear in the boot menu???
if that can be done ill consider installing it.

secondly..... and most importantly

DOES THIS REPLACE WINDOWS AS A GAMING PLATFORM???

no?? really?? gee iam shocked............

sooooo in other words its a cute boy toy but not ready for the mans world of gaming as yet, oh ok thats nice.....

Carigamers · « **Reply #4 on:** October 06, 2006, 11:32:29 AM »

vivman1107 · « **Reply #5 on:** October 06, 2006, 12:08:18 PM »

You are quite free to install Linux on your primary partition, if you so choose. Keep in mind that it will erase any other OS that may be on that partition. If that is not what you had in mind, you can try this nice utility called GParted.

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

It allows you to resize an existing partition and then create and format a new partition using the free space that is left after the resize. You can run it from a USB key or burn it to use as a Live CD. It is Open Source, of course.

Now, if you just want to try Mandriva One and are not sure you want to install it:

1. Download the ISO
2. Burn it
3. Boot straight from it and run the OS without altering your hard drive in any way
4. When you shutdown, your PC will be as it was before with no changes

If you want to install it:

1. Create a new partition (possibly using GParted or other software)
2. Download the ISO
3. Burn it
4. Boot from it and run the OS
5. Double-click the install link on the desktop
6. Choose custom partitioning during the install
7. Choose the new partition in the GUI and assign the mount point / (/ means root)
8. Continue with the install
9. When it is done, Linux will configure a boot manager that will include other OS's on other partitions.
10. You can install this boot manager to the Linux partition (if you want to use another boot manager) or install it to the MBR
11. If installed to the MBR, you can use the boot manager to boot into Linux or other OS's

I don't know much about too many other boot managers but one that I use and definitely recommend is GAG, the Graphical boot manager. It is straightforward to use and can boot up to 9 OS's with a nice graphical menu.

http://gag.sourceforge.net/index.html

Crixx_Creww · « **Reply #6 on:** October 06, 2006, 12:17:02 PM »

hmm i guess yu answered the question

i know if it was installed on my primary it would wipe it,DUH

i was just wondering if linux leet enuff to boot from non primary partitions
i guess it is.

and i guess having a boot manager is neat.. probably something you linux people get all excited over and stuff... yeah..

sooo, using this thingy

what happens to any "work" i do once the machine is restarted?

vivman1107 · « **Reply #7 on:** October 06, 2006, 12:19:24 PM »

People who use Live CD's generally use a USB key to save work. That would seem to be the best approach. If you find that you are using the CD more often, you might want to think about installing it.

Crixx_Creww · « **Reply #8 on:** October 06, 2006, 12:21:03 PM »

vivman1107 · « **Reply #9 on:** October 06, 2006, 12:29:22 PM »

Another option is to try something like this:

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

DSL is a very versatile 50MB mini desktop oriented Linux distribution.

Damn Small is small enough and smart enough to do the following things:

* Boot from a business card CD as a live linux distribution (LiveCD)
* Boot from a USB pen drive
* Boot from within a host operating system (that's right, it can run *inside* Windows)
* Run very nicely from an IDE Compact Flash drive via a method we call "frugal install"
* Transform into a Debian OS with a traditional hard drive install
* Run light enough to power a 486DX with 16MB of Ram
* Run fully in RAM with as little as 128MB (you will be amazed at how fast your computer can be!)
* Modularly grow -- DSL is highly extendable without the need to customize

This one does not have the nice eye candy but the usability is amazing. An OS that can run from a USB drive ... thas just cool.

Crixx_Creww · « **Reply #10 on:** October 06, 2006, 12:33:03 PM »

i used to think about running the os from ram

then i heard that there were os that could
so this is one of them?

can it run from ram from within windows?

vivman1107 · « **Reply #11 on:** October 06, 2006, 12:41:00 PM »

Well, to run inside Windows it uses a virtual machine so it is a hell of a lot slower than running from RAM or even from a CD or hard drive. It works ok, though, if you have a lot of RAM. The option to run from RAM is one that I have not tried. I would guess that you load it onto a CD or USB drive and when it is booting, you specify some parameter that loads the OS into RAM.

Arcmanov · « **Reply #12 on:** October 08, 2006, 02:33:45 PM »

Downloaded it and ran it, and I must admit it IS cool. a lil slow, but it was running off the CD-drive, so no biggie.
What WAS a biggie though, was the lack of wireless device support, but at least I was able to connect to my network via ethernet.

This has completely changed my view of Linux (never had ANY experience with it whatsoever) and I will definitely
install it when I get another laptop HDD. I dont want to mess up my existing XP installation.

Check the screenie:

disciple · « **Reply #13 on:** October 08, 2006, 10:27:20 PM »

what wireless card you runnin, arc?

the GPL ( the license linux uses) does not allow for the cds to be distributed on the same media with closed source binaries ( or sumthin so..lol), and a lot of the wireless manufacturers have kept their drivers or firmware closed, so the live cds don't support wireless off the bat ( intel, however, has open sourced their wireless driver and firmware, so i think theirs is usually recognised immediately)

depending on your card, you can either get the driver/firmware and install it yourself when you runnin off the HD( i do this for my broadcom chipset)
usually, when you enable the non-open source repositories (just think of a repository as windows update, but with a plethora of third party software, not just os updates) you'll find it in there..

you can also use ndiswrapper to wrap around your windows driver..

but even on your existing HD, you could install linux and dual boot...the majoriy of the cds allow for non-destructive,on-the-fly partitioning of your drive, and it installs a boot manager

should you tire of it, you just run 'fixmbr' from the win xp cd recovery console, and that gets rid of the boot manager.. then you can use gparted, or partition magic to restore the now-free space to the rest of your drive ( again, non-destructively)

or you could even run it as an image through vmware....
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/cat/45,25

glad to hear that it impressed you, and you plan on giving it a serious run

Arcmanov · « **Reply #14 on:** October 09, 2006, 06:48:01 AM »

My notebook uses a Broadcom wireless card (internal), and I saw the ndiswrapper feature within the device configuration dialogs.
I did not know about the dual-boot, so I will definitely install it now.

I suppose there are tutorials available on how to enable the repositories, but how will I know which one to look for?

This OS seems like a great alternative platform when Windows f@#king up.

disciple · « **Reply #15 on:** October 09, 2006, 08:23:31 AM »

i not too savvy with mandrake repositories ( i rock ubuntu these days)
but you can give these a go
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/walter/geek/rpm-howto.html

and http://mandrivausers.org/easyurpmi/ to generate sources ..

PLF ( penguin liberation front ) , which provides a lot of non-oss stuff, ( like dvd and mp3 codecs) seems to be on the fritz this mornin, tho..

plf.zarb.org

TinyGrasshopper · « **Reply #16 on:** October 12, 2006, 11:52:28 AM »

Also the latest version of GParted (0.30) now supports non-destructive moving of the partition on all filesystems, which it only did on 0.25 for FAT32. That's bloody fantastic. So now it's basically better that PartitionMagic. That also comes in a LiveCD. I've tried it. It's easy as pie.

As for any work you do once a machine is restarted you'll be able to read the drive without problems if it's NTFS but you'll have to go through this tutorial first: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=217009&highlight=ntfs . It's straightforward but it doesn't come out of the box with it since it's beta software. Having said that I've been using ntfs-3g for months and it works just fine. Pretty much everything you need to do will have an app for it, 'cept for games

Also the GRUB bootloader itself which is default on many distros supports graphical backgrounds. check here on how to do it: http://tldp.org/LDP/LG/current/jayanth.html

DSL does have a version that's preconfigured to run from a virtual machine using qemu. You can get it directly from the site.

And of course for enabling repositories you can always check http://www.easylinux.info

Prowl · « **Reply #17 on:** October 21, 2006, 10:30:31 PM »

You guys all need help!

if you reall want to try linux, download the suse live dvd, give it a spin! I installed it over vista and am much happier with it!

as far as productivity all good linux installs give you EVERYTHING! you need to work on, open office ( better than ms office! ) gimp which is almost as good as photoshop, and media editors, basically short of games your fully functional and it's free!!!!!!

There are linux games to, but not COD or DOW etc, I'm sure it will get there tho.

TinyGrasshopper · « **Reply #18 on:** October 23, 2006, 10:16:06 AM »

For those who don't know Serious Sam 2 for Linux is coming out soon (http://linuxgames.com/news/feedback.php?identiferID=8733&action=flatview), and that Penny Arcade game, Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, is gonna have a simultaneous Win, Mac and Linux release.

So that's 12 games for linux now

Prowl · « **Reply #19 on:** October 23, 2006, 08:12:08 PM »

Actually quake 4 is for linux as well, Any game that runs with open GL can be ported to Linux REal easy plus they are working on oblivion just using shaders 1 ( linux doesn't support shaders 2, YET! ). From what I've seen linux might be able to play games better than windoz

Carigamers · « **Reply #19 on:** October 23, 2006, 08:12:08 PM »

Author Topic: Calling all Linux haters ... (Read 10031 times)

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