Technology Linux

[Sirrush]

Hey Everyone, I am new here but I love computers, I also love music, graphics, and computer security.

I am not sure how familiar you guys are with unix/linux/bsd .. and or the many other variants out their. I have been a linux user for over 10 years now, and have used it for editing images, editing video, and editing music. Also it includes software that is all free, including mp3 encoding and CD ripping software.


First lets get a few words of jargon out of the way.

Distribution basically that is just a linux base system but with it's own style/look/software packages to make it unique. There are a few main distributions that are very common, Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, Redhat ( Fedora ), and Madriva ( Mandrake previously ) . Each of these different distributions have their own way that they deal with packages, the packages from one linux system to another are usually the same. See all software under linux and unix systems are free you don't pay for them. Also you can get the source code to learn how the program was put together, and even add to it if you feel like it.

Linux in the past 5 years has been really maturing and is now a viable alternative to Windows, and also it can be run from CD/DVD and not be installed on the computer itself, so you can give it a try and see how you like it before you commit to an installation.

Linux is not going to directly run Windows applications, but with a little bit of play a user can get Windows to run underneath linux, using a Virtual Machine ( VMware image). This can give you the stability and security of linux and you also can run the application that you absolutely need under Windows. Gaming is not a strong point of linux though and hardware is also sometimes hard to get recognized and working. Some wireless cards do work with linux, though it is a good idea to know which ones do and don't so you are not left in the dark.

If you are interested in the music, video, and image manipulation you might want to take a look at UbuntuStudio, which can be found here http://ubuntustudio.org .

Musix is another linux flavor that is also perfectly free and has lots of software geared at music composition, it can be found here http://www.musix.org.ar/en/index.html .

If you guys are looking for any more info feel free to ask I will check in and try to help you with any questions.

 

[Jeremy]

I have dual booted with XP/ ubuntu or kubuntu before. Linux is pretty cool even tho I haven't used it alot.

 

[Sirrush]

Sweet Jeremy, I suggest you join the Ubuntu Forums, it's a great knowledge base to find answers to your questions or problems. Here is a link:

http://ubuntuforums.org/

Also Linux is a great way to be able to recover information from a screwed up Windows drive. Say that Windows decides it's going to puke, well your documents are their right, well you put in a linux cd, boot off that and you can move that info to another drive, or say you have a USB memory stick, you can use that aswell.

This has worked for me in the past lots of times, since I can never time a Windows puke, I have used linus to recover whole hard drives. Here are a few Linux CD's that are good to have on hand:

http://www.ubuntu.com/
http://www.mepis.org/
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html (5.1.1 is a little old but 5.2 is comming out soon)
http://kanotix.com/index.php?&newlang=eng


The Following are "Rescue" CD's, say you have a virus this is the way to go. Let me explain why, firstly you should not boot the computer anymore you need to use something other than your hard drive to boot. See some viruses start when you start the boot process, meanwhile some others they might have what you call a time bomb when you maybe boot a certain number of times or they are activated a certain number of times they start doing whatever they are made for be it to display a message or delete files. These linux CD's come with documentation I suggest strongly that you check that out since it can save you time and frustration.

http://ubcd.sourceforge.net/
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page
http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.php?wpid=1&front_id=12
http://grml.org/ ( little bit advanced)
http://mutagenix.org/

Alright I think that should cover the breadth of the rescue CD's that are "easy" to use. Here are a few Linux CD's for gaming:

http://tuxgamers.altervista.org/Llgp/
http://live.linux-gamers.net/

OK I think that covers most of it, maybe next post I will include some stuff about security and forensics.

 

[Prize Gotti]

im looking for a way to run linux from my desktop without a virtual machine, something with very easy installation, its been a while since I have had a system running linux so ive forgotten installation commands. Can you point me in the right direction?

 

[Sirrush]

You got many options that have installation wizards:

http://www.pcbsd.org/ ( Pc BSD is a desktop BSD)
http://www.ubuntu.com/
http://www.kubuntu.org/
http://www.pclinuxos.com/
http://www.granularproject.org/ ( based on pclinuxos)
http://www.mandriva.com/
http://www.opensuse.org/
http://fedoraproject.org/
http://www.zenwalk.org/ (slackware based very awesome)
http://www.kateos.org ( Slack based aswell)



Now most if not all the different distributions for linux do have a GUI install. Worst case scenario is a text based install but those are not too hard either.