TECHNICAL CRAP
First of all, neither Linux® nor GNU are operating systems (although Stallman likes to disagree). Linux is a kernel or "heart" of an operating system. The appropriate Windows equivalent to Linux, would probably be
ntkernel32.dll, but I'm not at all certain that it does everything, that Linux does. GNU started out as a project to build an entire OS, but today is a set of free implementations of low level Unix programs, together they are tools for creating an operating system, like Ubuntu. There are several hundred operating systems based on a combination of GNU and Linux, and more coming all the time. GNU/Linux-based operating systems are often referred to as simply "Linux" to make things easier, as will the rest of this post.
APPLICATION SUPPORT
A lot of people try out Linux, expecting to be able to run all of their old Windows applications, which isn't always the case. There is a way to run Windows applications on Linux, through a compatibility layer called
"Wine", but it doesn't work for all applications and only very few games work flawlessly with it. If you want to switch to Linux, then you will need to find alternatives to the applications, you are currently running. Sure you can get a lot of desktop applications to work with Wine, but it's still a bit messy to do so.
There is a paid fork of Wine meant specifically for games,
(formerly known as RipoffX,) called Cedega
(which I assume must mean "******* child"),
DO NOT BUY IT. Most of the time, if a game wont run on Wine, it wont run on Cedega either, or will get one step further in the loading process,
and then crash. Of course I'm not the boss of what you decide to waste your money on
(, but there are cancer-research centers and children in third-world countries that could make better use of your money 
).
See
this thread, for an incomplete list of applications that work under Linux. Also see
linuxjunkies.org/articles/win-gnu-alt.html and
help.ubuntu.com/community/SoftwareEquivalents for more complete and up-to-date lists.
LINUX APPLICATION QUIRKS
Free software applications often get away with shipping with absolutely lousy interface layouts, by using the excuse that, "you can customise it", and while customisability is definitely good and it is true, that if you rearrange some of the GIMP's tools until it looks nothing like the default any more, you can make it fairly usable, it
still is a point that scares many new users away. One could guess that the reason, that the GIMP specifically doesn't ship with a more friendly (usable?) layout, is because the developers themselves aren't graphical artists or have a very strange definition of "usability". Nevertheless, the GIMP is a fine application once you get used to it.
Mind you, not all free software has lousy interfaces,
Miro (formerly
Anarchy Player) is the direct opposite, with a pretty interface and lousy stability OMGIMSOFUNNYPLZDONTKILLME
Gnome-mplayer is a good example of a less popular application that has a better laid-out interface, than the current standard, Totem.
Firefox is an example of a middle-of-the-road application, that has a fairly usable interface-layout by default, but can be made much better with a bit of customisation.
HARDWARE SUPPORT
Recent versions of the Linux kernel has support for most name-brand hardware out there, but once in a while you may come across a modem, network-card or other small piece of hardware, that only works on Windows, so-called "Winmodems", there are ways for making some of these work under Linux, through the help of an compatibility layer called
"NDISwrapper", but it usually requires a bit of messing around. The easiest thing to do, is to replace the piece of hardware, but in the case of a laptop this isn't very easy and may even be impossible, so if you're buying a new laptop with the intent of running Linux on it, then make sure that all the internal hardware works with Linux first.
There are plenty of websites, that keep lists of laptops and other hardware that works with Linux.
Linux-drivers.org keeps a good list of them. The lists of course are never complete, as support for new hardware is added or improved regularly. A lot of lesser known (not necessarily cheaper) brands often use the same chipsets as more known hardware, so you may get lucky even if your particular card or dongle isn't listed.
When installing a new piece of hardware under Linux, you usually don't have to install any new drivers to make it work, there are exceptions however, like video-cards from Nvidia and ATI, that work fine displaying only 2D graphics, but will require that you install a proprietary (as in "gratis", but not "free") driver to get 3D acceleration working. In Ubuntu, there is a tool specifically for installing/removing proprietary drivers, located under
System -> Administration -> Hardware Drivers, these drivers do not come installed by default. You should also note that the proprietary drivers that are in your distribution's repository can be outdated, so if you're having graphical issues, you should always try to get the latest version directly from the manufacturers website
I JUST WANT A FREE VERSION OF WINDOWS SO I DON'T HAVE TO PAY MICRO$OFT A PENNY!!!!!111!!!
You're out of luck. There is a project called
ReactOS, which aims to create an OS, that is binary compatible with Windows 2000, but it's still very early in development. Also, it shares code with the Wine project, so if an application wont run on Wine, then it probably wont run on ReactOS either, I'm afraid.
LINUX SECURITY
On Linux viruses are a very small problem, since Linux has a relatively small userbase and crackers (not hackers, dummy) therefore rarely target the platform, this doesn't mean that there aren't threats to Linux, but just that for now you really don't need to worry about viruses, except in the case where you are sending files to other computers running Windows. Applications like Spybot S&D or Ad-aware do not exist for Linux, because they deal specifically with Windows-related issues, that aren't present on Linux. There are anti-virus applications and rootkit scanners for Linux, a current popular one is ClamAV. You don't have to worry much about firewalls either, as the Linux kernel itself comes with a built-in firewall that can be interfaced with several GUI applications, like
Firestarter (good name btw). Considering that most routers today come with their own software firewall built-in, messing with the Linux firewall probably isn't even necessary, except maybe to verify that your router(s) is doing it's job.
CHOOSING A LINUX DISTRIBUTION
Linux based operating systems are often referred to as distributions or the abbreviation "distro". There can be many factors in choosing a distro, but for new users the most apparent difference between distros is the desktop environment that comes installed by default. Ubuntu has always used
GNOME, but also has separate versions called Kubuntu and Xubuntu bundled with
KDE and
Xfce respectively. If you are the type of user, that prefers KDE, then you would probably be better off by choosing a distro like
OpenSuse, as Kubuntu isn't really the best effort at a KDE implementation. Likewise, if you fancy Xfce (and that cute little rat logo
), then you better go for
DreamLinux instead of Xubuntu.
GETTING AND INSTALLING LINUX
The current stable versions of some of the most popular distros are
Ubuntu 8.04,
Fedora 9,
openSUSE 10.3 and
DreamLinux DE 3.1.
Most Linux distros come as ISO images, that take up an entire CD or DVD, so you will need a CD or DVD writer, however, most distributions can also be ordered on CD for a small fee.
You will either need some free space on your harddrive or a spare harddrive to install Linux alongside Windows, however if you don't care about keeping Windows, you can simply overwrite the partition that it occupies.
While modern GNU/Linux based OSs can read/write to NTFS partitions, they cannot boot from them. You cannot install Linux on your Windows-partition, if you choose to replace Windows. If you want to keep any data on your Windows-partition, either resize the partition when you install Linux (the Ubuntu install can do this for you), or copy all of your important data to another medium, like a CD or DVD or an external harddrive.
WHAT TO DO AFTER INSTALLING LINUX?
Well, why don't you install some of the fine alternative applications mentioned earlier in this post? Then go on and use your computer as you normally would, but of course now that you're using a new OS, you will need to get used to a few new things.
One of the first things you will want to do after installing Linux will probably be to replace the horrid theme that comes installed by default. If you're using GNOME, then
GNOME-Look.org is the URL you want to fondle. If you're using KDE, then
KDE-Look.org is the place to lurk. Not all the themes you will find at those sites are remarkably better than the default, but I'm currently working on a theme based on "Dark-Ice", and the Ubuntu community is planning to re-skin Ubuntu for the 8.10 release later this year, so there is definitely hope.
If you're using a CRT monitor and you don't have bad eyesight, then then second thing you'll probably want to do, is to turn off font-hinting, in Ubuntu this is done under
Preferences -> Appearance, then click on the
Fonts tab. You may also want to set the DPI to 72 points.
INSTALLING APPLICATIONS ON LINUX
On most Linux distros, most things including applications, drivers, fonts and other things are installed from packets via a packet manager, instead of downloading setup.exes or similar installation programs from websites. The notion of installation programs isn't unheard of on Linux, but is often frowned upon as they are seen as being inferior to the package managers. On Linux, installing drivers (the rare times, that you need to do so) is roughly equivalent to installing an application.
If you're using a GNU/Linux OS derived from
Debian, like Ubuntu, then all software installation is done using a package manager called
dpkg. No, you don't have to interface directly with dpkg, there are several tools for doing that like, Synaptic. Synaptic is a graphical application, that makes installation of packages easier for new users, however when you ask someone to show you how to install a Linux application on a forum, you will often be told to use a tool called either "apt-get" or "aptitude". When using Synaptic, you are supposed to search for the name of the package you want to install and it'll show you the results and allow you to install any of the packages it found.
apt-get is a commandline program that does roughly what Synaptic does, but it is faster to use for experienced users than a GUI application like Synaptic. Telling users to
"sudo apt-get install yourmom" or
"sudo apt-get remove porn-aggregator" is also more efficient than telling them to open Synaptic and click on a bunch of buttons and menus. aptitude is very similar to apt-get, but with small differences in how you use it, that aren't worth mentioning here.
You want a quick command to get you started? OK, then:
sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install inkscape wine compizconfig-settings-manager flashplugin-nonfree
Just copy that verbatim to your terminal and press enter! That'll install Flash (for viewing advertisements on websites), WINE, Inkscape (a vector-graphics editor), and a configuration center for Compiz.
BACKING UP UNDER LINUX
Under Linux there isn't a big variety of backup-solutions (if any at all), and this is mostly because backup applications are rather unrecommended,
even under Windows! The best thing you can do, is to keep all of your important files in
/home/<username> and FTP your home-folder to several servers at least once a week, as wide distribution lowers the chance of data-loss. To avoid getting huge unimportant files backed-up, configure all your browsers and download-managers to save their files in
/usr/local/share/downloads, if this directory doesn't exist, you can create it with the command called
mkdir, like this:
$ sudo mkdir /usr/local/share/downloads
Then change the permissions of the directory/folder:
$ sudo chmod 777 /usr/local/share/downloads
And optionally create a symbolic link to it in your home directory:
$ sudo ln -s /usr/local/share/downloads ~/Downloads
On Unixes and Unix-like operating systems like Linux, the administrative account that always exists by default, is called
root.
sudo is required to give the commands (mkdir and chmod) root-level privileges, so that you can create a folder outside your home directory, and
no, you aren't supposed to type the dollar-sign. If the system gladly executed the commands without the use of sudo, then you either, (a) have something
seriously fouled up, or (b) are running as the root account, which you really
shouldn't for security and system-integrity reasons.
If you are using Miro, then you may also want to configure it, so that it saves new episodes in
/usr/local/share/downloads/Miro instead of
/home/<username>/.miro/Miro, unless of course, if you don't want other users to know what you're downloading
WARNING
Some parts of this guide were written while under the influence of "Hip-Hop"; read it
carefully. Whether it was
real Hip-Hop or if I just took a hit of the
cheap stuff from down the corner is absolutely
none of your business. Other parts were written while listening to
Laura Veirs.
This thread should be used only for discussing the contents of this sticky and things, that could be added or changed. For general Linux questions, start a new thread.
Submit Your Article 
Forum Rules 
FAQ 
About Us 
Main Menu
Contact Us