Mike
Well-Known Member
As many of you know, I'm close to the point where you can't walk in any direction around here without bumping into another computer. Actually, I just put two ancient PCs to rest, but there are still 4 up and running. The desk I am sitting at has a 32 bit PC and a 64 bit PC running on it. Right around the corner is another desk with an iMac running on it. And somewhere, there is a laptop floating around in the great room, for when I want to kick my feet up and work.
Again, as many of you know, I am not a fan of Microsoft Windows or Apple OS X. About 3 years ago, I decided to try a Linux distribution and set up Ubuntu Linux Feisty Fawn on one PC. I was stunned, because Ubuntu was considerably faster than Windows XP. I was running Ubuntu within Windows which isn't the most optimal method, but it let me get used to using Linux, without actually committing to it full-time. The install was really very easy, as I used a script called Windows UBuntu Installer, or WUBI for short. You install WUBI in Windows, run it and it installs all the necessary components to set up a dual-boot installation of Ubuntu. When you start the computer, a script called GRUB (Grand UNified Bootloader) asks if you want to run Windows or Ubuntu.
A few months later, Ubuntu released Gutsy Gibbon, so I removed my WUBI install and set up a true dual-boot. This gave me the ability to set up a /home partition on my hard drive, so I could always keep my data and not have to copy it off, overwrite it and then restore it.
I used Ubuntu for a couple of years and then decided to look for something better. Ubuntu Linux is a fork of Debian Linux, so it comes from a very good bloodline, already. But I found Linux Mint, which is a fork of Ubuntu. The Mint developers say from freedom came elegance and they were right. Mint has a very smooth and elegant feel to it. There are others that might be a bit better, but Mint looks and feels a lot like Windows, so it's easy for Windows users to get used to it.
I have one PC dual booting Windows XP and Mint 9, another PC dual boots Windows 7 and Mint 9, the laptop dual boots Windows 7 and Mint 9 and the iMac is dual booting OS X Snow Leopard and Ubuntu Lucid Lynx. Or I should say that how it 'was'. The developers at Linux Mint were developing a fork of Ubuntu, which is a fork of Debian and so they were always somewhat limited as to what their release schedules were like. They would have to wait for Ubuntu to be upgraded, so they could upgrade Mint. Until two days ago, when they released a brand new Mint distribution, called LMDE, short for Linux Mint Debian Edition. There is no longer a middle-man between Debian and Mint.
To date, it is only available as a 32 bit installation, but a 64 bit version is in the works. But rest assured, my 32 bit machine is happily running LMDE.
I've recommended Linux time and again, but as things improve, I'm talking even louder. Gone are the days of using Linux through a command line interface, the Linux desktop distros now all come with graphical user interfaces that are at least as nice as the Windows interface.
And the entire Linux concept is to keep everything free and open source.
Windows 7 Home Premium Edition - $99.00
Linux Mint LMDE - FREE
Microsoft Office 2010 home and Business Edition - $220.00
OpenOffice for Linux - FREE
Photoshop CS5 - $200.00
The Gimp - FREE
People have a lot of myths about Linux. One is that it is hard to install. Absolutely not true. I installed LMDE in under 10 minutes, last evening. It needed some updates that took about an hour to download and self-install, whilst I used the computer for other tasks. A complete, fresh install might take you 30 minutes. When was the last time you installed Windows of any variety? 3-4 hours is common and it can run even longer than that. If you are looking for ease of installation, go for Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora or openSUSE.
Linux is not just for computer experts. If you want to open a program, you click on it, same as you would in Windows or OS X.
If it's free, it must be pirated is another claim that is false. It is free because thousands of people, all over the world donate a bit of their own time to upgrade scripts and improve things. Since there is no development cost, why should there be a price tag?
But if there is no official company, how can there be any support? I just checked the Ubuntu support forums and there are currently 13,512 users online. There are 9,258,399 posts on their forums. If you have a support question, dollars to doughnuts it has already been asked.
But nothing is compatible with Windows. Well, with Debian Linux, you have over 25,000 free programs available to you. No trips to the store to pay a couple hundred dollars to buy Office, you just enter the software manager in the operating system and tell it to install OpenOffice, for free. And OpenOffice can open, edit and save Office documents. And then you wait until the download and install are complete, you do nothing. And for hundreds of Windows programs you can't live without, there is WINE, a WINdows Emulator that will allow you to run the program within Linux.
If it's free, it can't be secure. Actually, quite the opposite is true. If you're running Windows, how many open, public-facing ports do you have open? You don't know, do you? Truth be known, most of the software designed to manage Windows ports can't tell you, either. Want to know how many ports my Linux box has open? Zero. If Linux needs to open a port, it closes it when it is finished. Much tidier and completely safer than Windows, isn't it? What virus software do you run on your Windows computer? I run zero on my Linux boxes. All those .exe files you keep getting in your e-mail, that infect your machines? Linux never auto-runs anything, just because it leads to problems like the ones you experience with Windows. A .exe file won't even run in Linux. No firewall, no virus scans, no drive de-fragging, no hassles and no worries. And you're running Windows because...?
I hope some of you will start taking a harder look at Linux. When something is this stable and this secure, nothing but good can come from more people running it. Go to the Linux Mint site, download the LMDE .iso file, burn it to a DVD and then re-boot your machine from the DVD drive. You'll be able to get a feel for Linux without installing anything, as the operating system will run (slowly, mind) from the DVD. If you like it, it is deadly easy to install as a dual-boot, or you can install it over the top of Windows entirely, your choice.
If anyone is interested, I will make myself available to answer any questions or to walk you through an install. I'm that confident you'll appreciate Linux. And you'll thank me for giving you a better computer tool to use.
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Again, as many of you know, I am not a fan of Microsoft Windows or Apple OS X. About 3 years ago, I decided to try a Linux distribution and set up Ubuntu Linux Feisty Fawn on one PC. I was stunned, because Ubuntu was considerably faster than Windows XP. I was running Ubuntu within Windows which isn't the most optimal method, but it let me get used to using Linux, without actually committing to it full-time. The install was really very easy, as I used a script called Windows UBuntu Installer, or WUBI for short. You install WUBI in Windows, run it and it installs all the necessary components to set up a dual-boot installation of Ubuntu. When you start the computer, a script called GRUB (Grand UNified Bootloader) asks if you want to run Windows or Ubuntu.
A few months later, Ubuntu released Gutsy Gibbon, so I removed my WUBI install and set up a true dual-boot. This gave me the ability to set up a /home partition on my hard drive, so I could always keep my data and not have to copy it off, overwrite it and then restore it.
I used Ubuntu for a couple of years and then decided to look for something better. Ubuntu Linux is a fork of Debian Linux, so it comes from a very good bloodline, already. But I found Linux Mint, which is a fork of Ubuntu. The Mint developers say from freedom came elegance and they were right. Mint has a very smooth and elegant feel to it. There are others that might be a bit better, but Mint looks and feels a lot like Windows, so it's easy for Windows users to get used to it.
I have one PC dual booting Windows XP and Mint 9, another PC dual boots Windows 7 and Mint 9, the laptop dual boots Windows 7 and Mint 9 and the iMac is dual booting OS X Snow Leopard and Ubuntu Lucid Lynx. Or I should say that how it 'was'. The developers at Linux Mint were developing a fork of Ubuntu, which is a fork of Debian and so they were always somewhat limited as to what their release schedules were like. They would have to wait for Ubuntu to be upgraded, so they could upgrade Mint. Until two days ago, when they released a brand new Mint distribution, called LMDE, short for Linux Mint Debian Edition. There is no longer a middle-man between Debian and Mint.
To date, it is only available as a 32 bit installation, but a 64 bit version is in the works. But rest assured, my 32 bit machine is happily running LMDE.
I've recommended Linux time and again, but as things improve, I'm talking even louder. Gone are the days of using Linux through a command line interface, the Linux desktop distros now all come with graphical user interfaces that are at least as nice as the Windows interface.
And the entire Linux concept is to keep everything free and open source.
Windows 7 Home Premium Edition - $99.00
Linux Mint LMDE - FREE
Microsoft Office 2010 home and Business Edition - $220.00
OpenOffice for Linux - FREE
Photoshop CS5 - $200.00
The Gimp - FREE
People have a lot of myths about Linux. One is that it is hard to install. Absolutely not true. I installed LMDE in under 10 minutes, last evening. It needed some updates that took about an hour to download and self-install, whilst I used the computer for other tasks. A complete, fresh install might take you 30 minutes. When was the last time you installed Windows of any variety? 3-4 hours is common and it can run even longer than that. If you are looking for ease of installation, go for Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora or openSUSE.
Linux is not just for computer experts. If you want to open a program, you click on it, same as you would in Windows or OS X.
If it's free, it must be pirated is another claim that is false. It is free because thousands of people, all over the world donate a bit of their own time to upgrade scripts and improve things. Since there is no development cost, why should there be a price tag?
But if there is no official company, how can there be any support? I just checked the Ubuntu support forums and there are currently 13,512 users online. There are 9,258,399 posts on their forums. If you have a support question, dollars to doughnuts it has already been asked.
But nothing is compatible with Windows. Well, with Debian Linux, you have over 25,000 free programs available to you. No trips to the store to pay a couple hundred dollars to buy Office, you just enter the software manager in the operating system and tell it to install OpenOffice, for free. And OpenOffice can open, edit and save Office documents. And then you wait until the download and install are complete, you do nothing. And for hundreds of Windows programs you can't live without, there is WINE, a WINdows Emulator that will allow you to run the program within Linux.
If it's free, it can't be secure. Actually, quite the opposite is true. If you're running Windows, how many open, public-facing ports do you have open? You don't know, do you? Truth be known, most of the software designed to manage Windows ports can't tell you, either. Want to know how many ports my Linux box has open? Zero. If Linux needs to open a port, it closes it when it is finished. Much tidier and completely safer than Windows, isn't it? What virus software do you run on your Windows computer? I run zero on my Linux boxes. All those .exe files you keep getting in your e-mail, that infect your machines? Linux never auto-runs anything, just because it leads to problems like the ones you experience with Windows. A .exe file won't even run in Linux. No firewall, no virus scans, no drive de-fragging, no hassles and no worries. And you're running Windows because...?
I hope some of you will start taking a harder look at Linux. When something is this stable and this secure, nothing but good can come from more people running it. Go to the Linux Mint site, download the LMDE .iso file, burn it to a DVD and then re-boot your machine from the DVD drive. You'll be able to get a feel for Linux without installing anything, as the operating system will run (slowly, mind) from the DVD. If you like it, it is deadly easy to install as a dual-boot, or you can install it over the top of Windows entirely, your choice.
If anyone is interested, I will make myself available to answer any questions or to walk you through an install. I'm that confident you'll appreciate Linux. And you'll thank me for giving you a better computer tool to use.
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