Test Drive Linux

tomhath

If you want to try out Linux, I highly recommend downloading or buying a copy of the Knoppix distribution (search on Google). I bought a CD for $5, popped it into the drive and it booted right up. No installation, it runs right off the CD. Everything works: Optical mouse, modem sharing, etc. And you get all the usual applications (word processor, spreadsheet, games, several browsers, blah, blah, blah). Haven't found Apache or php on the disk; but I suppose it would be silly to have them without installing to a hard drive first :rolleyes:

pyro

So, if it runs like that, is there a way to install it on your computer without setting up a partition and multiboot envioronment?

tomhath

I haven't tried it that way. I know you can install Red Hat and a couple of other distros in a dos file and boot from a floppy, so it might work.

LordShryku

There's also the highly popular Cygwin, which is a bash terminal for Windows. Has a lot of packages with it, including an rpm install so you can use the rpm package management...

jstarkey

Originally posted by pyro
So, if it runs like that, is there a way to install it on your computer without setting up a partition and multiboot envioronment?

Knoppix actually runs loads into RAM and runs from there. No need to partition anything. It's great for making a Windows machine useful 😃

I carry a copy in case something goes wrong on a a server and I'm not near a linux machine. I haven't actually had to use it in that scenario though.

pyro

Awesome... I think I'll have to get myself a copy of that, then! If it runs as such, could I load Apache on it, as a testing server?

stolzyboy

i downloaded it, it is pretty cool...

pyro

I agree. I just downloaded it last night and installed it this morning. I've not had much oppertunity to play with Linux, so this should be nice. I do have a copy of Red Hat 8.0, but don't currently have a hdd or partition to use it on (read: I'm lazy). Out of curiosity, can Linux be made to run Windows programs, or are you out of luck in that aspect?

LordShryku

Most distro's com with a copy of Wine or you can download it. But it is fairly limited. Best thing I have used so far is VMWare. It's a virtual computer....so in X, you run vmware, it opens a window with a complete operating system in it. It's fairly limited for graphics though. All depends what you wanna do....

piersk

Originally posted by jstarkey
Knoppix actually runs loads into RAM and runs from there. No need to partition anything. It's great for making a Windows machine useful 😃

I've done the same with a version of Suse

jstarkey

Originally posted by piersk
I've done the same with a version of Suse

Made a Windows machine useful?

😃

The_Chancer

I made windows machines useful....

Put three of them on top of each other and they are a perfect heated chair when used with a lightweight cushion... 😃

piersk

Originally posted by jstarkey
Made a Windows machine useful?

😃

Nah, made it even worse... 😃

Sxooter

Knoppix is a great little distro to carry around for when you're stuck somewhere with only windows boxes. Just pop it in and boot from CD and you've got a useful machine. I use it for demoing the gimp and other programs to folks who are ascared of linux. Just tell them to put it in and boot off of it, and when they're done, they can just remove the CDROM and reboot into their original Windows OS without worrying about breaking something.

LordShryku

Yep, and a new Knoppix was just recently released. While the Knoppix site is closed at the moment (Damn SCO), you can grab it off of linuxiso.org

Merve

Yeah, Windows is annoying, MSWord keeps crashing. better save now....

piersk

Y'see, this is what I don't get. I can honestly say that I can't remember the last time I had windows crash on me touch wood, and thats both XP and w2k server.

LordShryku

Where do you get that one-in-a-million non crashing version? I can honestly say that I'venever used a version of Windows that hasn't crashed on me multiple times. Of course....I've crashed Linux too....just usually because of something stupid I did.

stolzyboy

<off topic>
Lord, what happened to the Ranting thread!
<off topic>

Sxooter

Originally posted by piersk
Y'see, this is what I don't get. I can honestly say that I can't remember the last time I had windows crash on me touch wood, and thats both XP and w2k server.

I think the biggest problem with windows is that its reliability is determined to a large extent by the hardware it's on.

Fer instance, I had a machine where the power cable to the SCSI tape drive was iffy. I.e. the tape drive would lose power every so often and reset.

With linux, the only issue was that the tape drive was unreliable. Sure, you'd see SCSI timeouts go by in the kernel's syslog, and occasionally, the machine would kind hesitate for a second, but Linux never crashed.

Windows, on the same box, would crash EVERY SINGLE TIME the tape drive power connector juggled enough to cycle its power.

That's just one example, but you get the point. Windows behaves well when it's on perfect hardware with perfect drivers, and anything else is a recipe for disaster, Linux can run on marginal hardware and still be stable, as long as the memory / CPU aren't producing errors.