Exploring the Pros and Cons of Switching to Linux: A Scientist's Perspective

[JamesU]

so... My brother has Linux Red Hat (I don't know why) and I was wondering about making my desktop PC a linux machine. what are the ups and downs of doing this, and what are the risk(s)?

 

[abdo375]

Most Linux users would say that there is no Downs in transferring form windows to Linux and i would agree with that only if you have enough experience to use it and don't mind typing a two line command to play a movie see most Linux advantages does not appeal to the regular user, a normal user won't care if it has an up-time of nine years or that you can wright directly to the kernel.

So my advice is that if you have the time and willing to learn go for a dual boot with windows first.
After your comfortable enough with using it try to work without the windows
but remember to truly enjoy Linux you must go beyond the GUI
(called x-windows) and start to use the terminal to get what you want.

I think Redhat is a great start it's relatively easy and has great support from forums on the internet and has something that will make your live easier called RPM (Kinda like .exe files).

But remember Linux does not support .exe files hell it doesn't support mp3 when you first install it so that's why i recommend a dual-boot.

About the risks there are to many to state here i would search Google if i where you to find about them and do some research or you can just backup every thing on your computer and reformat with windows and Linux form the start.

 

[JamesU]

I would do a dual boot with windows, but i wouldn't knwow what to do.

 

[ranger]

I would do a dual boot with windows, but i wouldn't knwow what to do.

I suppose you will be installing Red Hat. In order to get a dual boot setup, something called a boot loader would have to be installed. This (the boot loader) gives you the choice of which OS to boot into. And about how install the boot loader, piece of cake. It is installed and configured right after the installation of Red Hat is complete. And as far as configuring it goes, you can do that with a few clicks of the mouse. Oh yea, a linux distro would either install GRUB or Lilo. These are the two types of boot loaders. I do believe that Red Hat installs GRUB by default. Go with GRUB it does the job well.

Currently there are 386 different linux distros! Reh Hat is an excellent choice. If you want to try something else, try SuSe Linux. This distro is awesome and it is the distro choice for me. If you are interested, you can download it via bit torrent.
http://www.knetdome.com/bt/?torrent=suse93 (Huge Download!)
They also have torrents for other versions of SuSe (including verision 10)

 

[JamesU]

cool I may just install it tonight...

 

[JamesU]

SO, I think I'll be installing it tonight. My brother says GRUB is to switch GUIs, tho.

 

[ComputerGeek]

SO, I think I'll be installing it tonight. My brother says GRUB is to switch GUIs, tho.

umm, No, GRUB is a boot loader to pick OSs.

also, If I were you I would go with Ubuntu Linux. it is one disk to get and it is really nice to work with.

 

[JamesU]

All I have is red Hat... I'm going to stick with that. I have a question though: How do I pick windows with GRUB? is it uninstalled when I install red hat? and if so, would that mean I'd need windows on a CD?


sorry I'm such a n00b

 

[JamesU]

okay. when I boot linux, after startuo, I get a red dialog box that says: "out of range" any help?

 

[ComputerGeek]

your monitor settings are to high for your monitor to handle.

go and download ubuntu. it is free, or you can send off an e-mail and they will send you a CD for free as well.

trust me, it is a lot nicer than red hat

 

[Hurkyl]

your monitor settings are to high for your monitor to handle.

go and download ubuntu. it is free, or you can send off an e-mail and they will send you a CD for free as well.

trust me, it is a lot nicer than red hat

That would possibly be good advice... if it wasn't for the fact he already has RedHat, has already decided to use RedHat, has already RedHat installed on his machine, and is asking for help with his RedHat installation.

 

[dduardo]

You should have configured Xfree86 during the install.

Now you need to drop down to console mode by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1
Then type the follwoing lines:

su
redhat-config-xfree86

------------

This is what you get for running a very old distro.

 

[JamesU]

ooo...I got it working!

 

[ComputerGeek]

That would possibly be good advice... if it wasn't for the fact he already has RedHat, has already decided to use RedHat, has already RedHat installed on his machine, and is asking for help with his RedHat installation.

So what. The only reason he chose RH was because some one he knew already had the disks.

Im just giving him advice about what distro would best serve him as a new user.

besides that, all his other issues were dealt with in other posts.

 

[Nylex]

and don't mind typing a two line command to play a movie

You don't necessarily have to use the command line to open programs. Using the menus with whatever window manager you use is probably easier..

hell it doesn't support mp3 when you first install it so that's why i recommend a dual-boot.

Depends on the distro you use. I remember Red Hat (or was it Fedora.. possibly both) came with XMMS installed, but the MP3 support wasn't there. This wasn't the case with Slackware, so yeah, it's not really a Linux issue, more of a distro specific one.

 

[franznietzsche]

Depends on the distro you use. I remember Red Hat (or was it Fedora.. possibly both) came with XMMS installed, but the MP3 support wasn't there. This wasn't the case with Slackware, so yeah, it's not really a Linux issue, more of a distro specific one.

This is a thing a lot of people fail to understand. With Windows or OS X, you get what the company gives you, and its the same every time. There is only one distribution. With Linux there are about 300 distributions, each one unique in its own ways (although, they can be boiled down to the categories of Debian Based(Ubuntu, Knoppix, etc), Slackware Based(Vector Linux), RPM Based (these are too varied now to be really called Red Hat based anymore, includes Red Hat, Suse, Mandriva), and Source Based(Gentoo)).

I use Slackware with Freerock Gnome, and its a far far more functional and complete desktop system than any OEM purchased windows machine. In fact, across my 4 slackware systems, the equivalent functionality of what i get out of them would cost me about $10k to do on windows machines. It was completely free with Linux.

To yomamma:

Good Luck with Red Hat. If you need any help whatsoever, just drop me a line, I'll be more than happy to help as best I can, although I'm not directly familiar with Red Hat.