What is the easiest way to try Linux?

Zascar

I consider myself a relatively capable computer user, but I've just never really been bothered to give linux a go. I've always wondered what all the fuss was about. Right now Iim bored so I'm interested to see what it is like for the hell of it.

I really cannot be bothered making serious changes to my PC, but I was just reading about Puppy Linux and it says you can run it off a USB key! That isn't difficult and might be worth a go!

Can anyone give me a few pointers on what I should do to bring linux for a test drive?

Thanks

Karoma

Google "LiveCD".

Download .iso
Burn said .iso to CD.
Pop in CD and boot.
No hassle. No mistakenly writing to a HDD partition as opposed to the USB drive. You can see whether the Linux distro. actually works OK with your machine before you go down the installation route.

Have a look on http://distrowatch.com and see what distro. with a live CD takes your fancy. (The vast majority can be downloaded free of charge from their respective homepages.)

Kali

Yep Karoma's hit the nail on the head... Knoppix is probably still your best bet even these days for a fully-functional livecd.... download, burn, reboot. www.knoppix.org

watty

Then download free VMware server or free VMplayer and install Linux in VM.
Linux desktop IN your desktop...

Taildragon

puppylinux
knoppix
ubuntu

Try a live CD and just have a play - you won't hurt anything on your PC and when you are finished just remove the CD and reboot back to your current OS.

Have fun:)

Capt'n Midnight

Don't forget that a live CD will be much slower than a hard drive install so don't get too worried about the speed.


if you have > 1GB of RAM you can load the cd to RAM slow to load but nice and nippy then
knoppix dma lang=uk toram desktop=beryl
boot options for Knoppix http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Cheat_Codes
haven't tried lang=ie yet - will do soon

Aseth

try (k)ubuntu

and here's a good reason why

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC5uEe5OzNQ

you can download it from www.ubuntu.com - from Download section

Khannie

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Don't forget that a live CD will be much slower than a hard drive install so don't get too worried about the speed.

This is worth emphasising again. I think the ubuntu livecd is pretty decent. You could try a virtual machine too as this allows you to run linux within windows. I use virtual machines all the time in work. There are pre-built ones available on the vmware site and they'll be faster than the live-cd (but again, slower than the real thing).

Zascar

Thanks that sounds like a great idea. Ok I've just installed the VMWare Player - however on the site, it links to the pre built images of Ubuntu - but none of the links work and I cannot find it anywhere else! Anyone got a working link?

brian_rbk

you could also try wubi http://wubi-installer.org/ which installs linux under windows and gives you an option when booting. It can then easily be uninstalled in add/remove programs

Anti

Just dont get knoppix with the "honeypot" unless you know what yoru doing xD

Zascar

brian_rbk wrote: »

you could also try wubi http://wubi-installer.org/ which installs linux under windows and gives you an option when booting. It can then easily be uninstalled in add/remove programs

Thanks that looks like exactly what I'm after now. Downloading now will let you know.

One Question: You have the Option for Ubuntu and Kubuntu and Xubuntu - what is the reason you would use any of these over normal Ubuntu?

Blowfish

Zascar wrote: »

Thanks that looks like exactly what I'm after now. Downloading now will let you know.

One Question: You have the Option for Ubuntu and Kubuntu and Xubuntu - what is the reason you would use any of these over normal Ubuntu?

Basically the only difference between them is the desktop enviornment, underneath that, they are all the same. It's all about what you prefer really.

bman

One that wasn't mentioned here but I use is PCLinuxOS. IMO it has the best hardware detection of all the Linux distributions (although I haven't tried Ubuntu in a long time so I may be wrong). It's also been top of distrowatch.com over the last 6 months so it must be doing something right (Ubuntu is second by the way so you're still trying a good OS anyway). If your having problems with Ubuntu I'd advise you to give PCLOS a go and see what you think. I almost gave up on Linux when I installed Ubuntu and I had all sorts of problems with hardware but luckily enough I tried Fedora Core 5 and had more luck.

mackattack

VMware Player only allows you to play/run Virtual Machines if you want to create and install an opeating system in to a virtual machine download VMware server. The best way to test out linux I think is to use the pre built appliance's from vmware's website. Ubuntu is a great linux but give them all a whirl it's safe as houses in a VM. this is a link to the Ubuntu appliance.
http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/1068

Paul

Zascar

Thanks, yeah that's the exact one I have got.

What others are worth trying?

ethernet

Zascar wrote: »

Thanks, yeah that's the exact one I have got.

What others are worth trying?

Try Elive. It's still in heavy development but it looks wicked.