Will using some distro of linux teach me how to get more out of my computer .....

PeakOutput

as i go along with learning how to use it or are these things i should know before i try to use linux

im not a programmer iv never installed an os but the more i read about linux the more appealing it sounds at least for a dual os computer thing.

problem is the only people i know who use linux are very advanced programmers so will i be jumping into the deep end by trying to install and run some sort of beginners distro of linux????

thanks in advance
mark

joe_chicken

PeakOutput wrote:

as i go along with learning how to use it or are these things i should know before i try to use linux

im not a programmer iv never installed an os but the more i read about linux the more appealing it sounds at least for a dual os computer thing.

problem is the only people i know who use linux are very advanced programmers so will i be jumping into the deep end by trying to install and run some sort of beginners distro of linux????

thanks in advance
mark

The hardest thing about getting linux to do what windows will do is drivers.

So basically, if you install Ubuntu (the install is particularly easy, you can even search the web while you do it) and it installs drivers for all your hardware (the right driver mind ), then you're cooking with diesel...

This is rare however... especially if you're using a wireless card or have an ATI graphics card (well these are the 2 that caused me the most hassle)

So you do need to do a lot of detective work on how to get these things working...
But, to be honest, if you have the patience and the driver you need isn't completely obscure, then it's not that hard. (as long as you can follow tutorials)

2 bits of advice:
1) Get down with the lingo (i.e. "bash", "terminal", "super user", "tar", "kernel", "source", "gcc" etc, etc) it'll make tutorials 10 times easier to follow.
2) Learn how to install it properly.
It's not a huge amount of work, but unless you want to lose your windows partition (or at least spend days trying to recover it) then I'd suggest getting a little help at the start.

PeakOutput

joe_chicken wrote:

The hardest thing about getting linux to do what windows will do is drivers.

So basically, if you install Ubuntu (the install is particularly easy, you can even search the web while you do it) and it installs drivers for all your hardware (the right driver mind ), then you're cooking with diesel...

This is rare however... especially if you're using a wireless card or have an ATI graphics card (well these are the 2 that caused me the most hassle)

So you do need to do a lot of detective work on how to get these things working...
But, to be honest, if you have the patience and the driver you need isn't completely obscure, then it's not that hard. (as long as you can follow tutorials)

2 bits of advice:
1) Get down with the lingo (i.e. "bash", "terminal", "super user", "tar", "kernel", "source", "gcc" etc, etc) it'll make tutorials 10 times easier to follow.
2) Learn how to install it properly.
It's not a huge amount of work, but unless you want to lose your windows partition (or at least spend days trying to recover it) then I'd suggest getting a little help at the start.

theres a guy in work who used to be on a linux customer support team so im sure he would help me out.

is there much of an advantage to using linux though if your not a "power user" ie ill only be downloading, watching movies, playing games etc as i would not put it on my work laptop as i cant risk something going wrong and me losing my hard drives of music in da middle of a gig

joe_chicken

PeakOutput wrote:

theres a guy in work who used to be on a linux customer support team so im sure he would help me out.

is there much of an advantage to using linux though if your not a "power user" ie ill only be downloading, watching movies, playing games etc as i would not put it on my work laptop as i cant risk something going wrong and me losing my hard drives of music in da middle of a gig

To be honest, you've got to balance up how much you like the idea of having a Linux OS compared to how much effort you're willing to put in.

I'd look up a few install guides and see if it seems like too much work, if it does, then I'd just take windows for the moment.

Cake Fiend

Potentially, particularly if you get into compiling your apps and kernel from source. Otherwise, you can (for the most part) get away with running linux with pretty much the same level of hardware knowledge as your average Windows user.

Blowfish

PeakOutput wrote:

is there much of an advantage to using linux though if your not a "power user" ie ill only be downloading, watching movies, playing games etc as i would not put it on my work laptop as i cant risk something going wrong and me losing my hard drives of music in da middle of a gig

The most obvious is security. You'll be free from adware/spyware etc, and won't need to run an antivirus.

If you install beryl, it will also look better than windows too.

If you grab the cd from the ubuntu site, you can try it out by running it from the cd without actually installing it.