Where do I get / download Linux?

Padma said:
I also just happened to have a thought. If you want to try Linux without actually formatting and writing a hard disk, download Knoppix, and give it a try. Knoppix is what is called a "live-CD": the entire system is on the CD. Just boot your machine with it in the drive, and you are running Linux, without touching anything on your hard drive.

Sounds cool. Does it slow things down though?

btw vbraun, did you ever figure out if Civ could run on Linux? :mischief:
 
cidknee said:
wow killer suggestion on Knoppix now heres a question, I can surf the web and everything just the OS is off a cd. Will i be able to save tings to my hard drive etc?
Yes, you can surf the web, read your email, all the things you would use an OS for. :) You *can* save things to your hard drive, but you have to manually "mount" your hard drive partition(s) in read-write mode. By default, they are mounted read-only. (The help files within Knoppix should explain all that. ;))
Weasel Op said:
Sounds cool. Does it slow things down though?
Perhaps a little, but not so I notice, anyway. It is a *compressed* filesystem, and runs in your RAM, basically. So if you have 512M or more, it should be pretty smooth.
vbraun said:
Weasel Op said:
btw vbraun, did you ever figure out if Civ could run on Linux? :mischief:
I think you haven't seen this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=93759 ;)
Thanks, vbraun. ;)
 
Padma said:
I also just happened to have a thought. If you want to try Linux without actually formatting and writing a hard disk, download Knoppix, and give it a try. Knoppix is what is called a "live-CD": the entire system is on the CD. Just boot your machine with it in the drive, and you are running Linux, without touching anything on your hard drive.
Also, another good live-CD is Mepis. Like Knoppix, it boots without installing to the hard drive, and uses similar software as Knoppix, and Mepis has a very good installer that comes with the live-CD.

Padma said:
Yes, you can surf the web, read your email, all the things you would use an OS for. :) You *can* save things to your hard drive, but you have to manually "mount" your hard drive partition(s) in read-write mode. By default, they are mounted read-only. (The help files within Knoppix should explain all that. ;))
If the partition is FAT32, then simply double-clicking the icon on the desktop in Knoppix will mount the drive read/write. Now, NTFS is a little more complicated, and that's probably what you're talking about.
 
YAY!!! first post from Knoppix!!
 
well ive decided that once I get my new pc ( which is ALOT faster than the one Im on), Im going to use a dual boot system, now how do u do that? Any one u reccommend?
 
Virtually any Linux distro can be dual (or *multi*) booted, with Windows or other Linux distros.

The easiest way is to install Windows first. Of course, if you buy a new machine, that will already be done. ;) Then, when you install Linux, you will get options about how to use the "empty" space on the disk. Or partition the disk ahead of time. So you will have Windows in the first partition on the disk, and Linux in additional partitions (minimum is a swap partition and a "/" partition). The Linux installer will at some point ask to replace the default Windows bootloader with a Linux bootloader. Both lilo and grub are good, standard Linux bootloaders. Both will also be set up to recognize your Windows partition(s), and give you the option to boot to either OS. Personally, I use lilo, but many also swear by grub. :)
 
Yes :p.

You don't need Windows to run your PC, its just another way of accessing it.
 
Padma said:
Virtually any Linux distro can be dual (or *multi*) booted, with Windows or other Linux distros.

The easiest way is to install Windows first. Of course, if you buy a new machine, that will already be done. ;) Then, when you install Linux, you will get options about how to use the "empty" space on the disk. Or partition the disk ahead of time. So you will have Windows in the first partition on the disk, and Linux in additional partitions (minimum is a swap partition and a "/" partition). The Linux installer will at some point ask to replace the default Windows bootloader with a Linux bootloader. Both lilo and grub are good, standard Linux bootloaders. Both will also be set up to recognize your Windows partition(s), and give you the option to boot to either OS. Personally, I use lilo, but many also swear by grub. :)
You may need to repartition the entire drive (and as a result reinstall Windows) before you can set up dual-boot, due to the habit of many pre-installed versions of Windows of putting system files at the end of the disk, making it impossible to repartition without needing to reinstall Windows.

Also, if you have any questions during the dual-boot setup process, you can ask me about it... I have a computer that currently has 15 operating systems installed in a multi-boot setup, so I have some experience with this. :D
 
holy crap, I didnt think there WERE 15 different Operating Systems. But I do have 1 question. If I was to get another Hard drive, can I just put Linux on it? and then how would I boot from the second hard drive
 
Padma said:
Probably many of those 15 are just different flavors of Linux. ;)
True. If you count all the Linux variants as all being one OS, and all the different versions of Windows and DOS as one, then I have only four (Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD).

The complete list of what I have installed is:
Windows/DOS:
  • Windows XP
  • Windows 98
  • Windows 3.11/DOS 6.22
Linux:
  • Mandrake Linux 10.1
  • Slackware Linux 10.1
  • Suse Linux 9.2
  • Ubuntu Linux 5.04
  • Mepis Linux 3.3
  • DSL
  • Xandros Linux
  • Linspire 5.0
  • GoboLinux 012
  • Yoper Linux
BSDs:
  • FreeBSD 6.0 Beta 4
  • OpenBSD 3.7
 
Weasel Op said:
:wow: How much HDD space does that consume?
I have two hard drives that add up to 160GB, but one of the partitions (50GB) contains only my files rather than an OS, so in total about 110GB are used by the OSes.

edit - note that that is the space partitioned to the OSes. The actual space they consume is considerably less.
 
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