So, after years of coaxing by my friend Jacob, I have decided to try Linux.
For those who don’t know, Linux is a Open-Source operating system. Basically, it’s like Microsoft’s Windows or Mac’s OSX but it’s free and Open-Source (which means that no one owns it and anyone can contribute & change it). There are a number of different reasons to use Linux. The distribution I chose is Ubuntu. I choose it because it seemed to be the most user friendly distribution – at least from a Hello-My-Name-Is-Saman-And-I’m-New-Here kind of way. And it is pretty easy to figure out.
So far, Linux is pretty cool and there are many great uses. There are some issues though: I can’t access my WIFI at home, which is secured by WEP and I can’t use iTunes! So, I will still keep XP around for now . . .
I did have one major problem on installation: After I played around with the Live Disc for a while, I chose to install Ubuntu. There was some odd wizard that worked without any user interaction (which I thought was weird) that did what it said it was going to do – it installed Linux. After I restarted the computer I realized that, while the original partition holding XP was still there, the installer deleted XP’s Master Boot Record!! This meant that Windows was gone. I tried a few things, but couldn’t get Windows up again. Luckily, I had created a partition with a Ghost Image a few months ago and had backed up all of my data about a month ago.
I didn’t loose too much data. I know I didn’t follow Standard Computing Procedure and back everything up before doing something major like creating multiple partitions and making a dual-boot machine. I know I should have, but I didn’t.
Oops.
Lesson Learned: ALWAYS BACK EVERYTHING UP BEFORE DOING SOMETHING MAJOR!
Anyway, I got everything working now. I have a dual-boot machine running XP & Linux.
Saman=Happy
Woo hoo, Saman has joined us in Linux World Dominations. See our linux overlord’s welcome video here:
http://funstuff.digital-bless.com/index.php?view=flash_movies&gallery_num=1&view_cont=switchlinux4.swf
I’m Steve Dave and I’m a Super Villain. Anyway, yeah I have done some searching to try to figure out how to run something comparable to iTunes as well. There was a program that let you purchase songs through the iTMS (now called iTS), but it seems to have taken a hiatus. And I haven’t tried the Wine app yet. I may do that soon though to see how that works once they get it running with iTunes 7. That’s all for now.
your friend,
Vod Kanockers…….
aka Bob Loblaw…..
Thanks Vod – er, Bob. I’ll have to check that out.
Wait, wasn’t I Steve-Dave?!!??!?!
Just to clarify, your xp partition was not deleted when you installed ubuntu. It leaves in tacked. The Windows boot record is replaced with (usually) GRUB or LiLO. These detect other OS’s on the hard drive and allow you to boot to them by pressing the escape key during boot to bring up the options. Now, if you go and delete the ubuntu partition you will have a problem. You’ll find that the bios gives you an error saying there is no os at all! But thats false. Pop in your XP cd and go into the recovery console, and find the option to fix the MBR and PRESTO-FIX-O! you will have lost nothing. As far as your wifi problem, there are a few ways around this as well. I can help ya one on one if you wish. my yahoo IM id: pingtracer2000
Hi Saman,
Thanks for info. Now, i am using fedora and it is also very user friendly but i will try ubuntu as per your instruction.
Fedora’s Gnome based too so it looks like it pretty similar to Ubuntu. I like the was Fedora looks, I’ll have to check it out!