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How I started with Linux


Darkelve
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So I was searching the web and suddenly I encountered a post of mine, my very first 'cry for help' on how to install Linux. Up to now I installed and tried at least a dozen of distro's and bought 3 distro versions (Mandrake, SuSe, Linspire).

 

Installing Linux with Pmagic 8

 

Hi all

 

I'm finally installing Linux on my PC and want to do it with Partition Magic 8 to have an easier time. I'm not really into a lot of technical stuff, just practical, so I'd like some advice on how to do it right and how to AVOID doing it wrong. I'm thinking about installing or Mandrake or Redhat. I heard SuSe is really good also, but that's not free, is it?

 

There's an option in PartitionMagic 8.0 that lets you 'install a new OS'. So after I pick that (I suppose it makes a new partition to install Linux on then) what problems and tasks lie ahead? I want a dual boot with Win XP, which runs currently on my PC. I have the 3 ISO files on my hard disk (should I burn them on CD-Rom?) and Pmagic 8, so I guess I'm ready to go but I'd hate to mess up and install WinXP all over again...

 

I'd appreciate any help on this.

 

 

Thanks for your time,

 

Darkelve

 

 

That was -I think- about 2 to 3 years ago (date posted: 20 October 2002)

Ah, the memories B)

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hehehe... me, too, i had never heard of iso-files before using linux.

i won't find my first cry for help on the net again, 'cause it was launched in a chatroom. :D

 

before i ever installed a linux system, i once found a redhat cd at the university. it was, i think, redhat 5.1 and i had no clue what to do with it. i threw it into my cd-rom drive, clicked here and there and nothing worked (it was the second cd, not the first install cd. :lol:). after that, a long break until i got my hands on redhat 7.2 and suse 8.0. till suse 8.1 came out, i knew absolutely nothing about linux.

... today i don't know anything at all :dunce2:

 

:cheesy:

Edited by arctic
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I can properly find my first help post somewhere on the web. It was the first time I ever used linux and couldn't get my modem working. I was using Corel Linux at the time Corel linux was on the highest (but we all know how that story end). But at the forum I'd asked I didn't get any help and a month later I switched back to windoze. A sad story....I need a :beer:

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i got my start over some five years ago. at that time i was relatively new to windows. crashing it regularly due to user error. i hadnt even heard of NT, and didnt know what NTFS was. all i knew was DOS, win3.1, win95, win98. even then i was into security. wanting to know how to secure my machine, even though i knew nothing about viruses, spyware, worms, and trojans.

 

a guy at work was into linux and introduced me to linux. i would see it running on his machine, and i thought it was cool. (i also used to pronounce gnome as G-nome (hard G)). i went out and bought slackware 7.1. found out later that that wasnt a n00by friendly distro. i did end up calling tech support for help with the install, only to find out i was making it to complicated.

 

i did end up going back to windows (ME). then i tried mdk, and a whole bunch of others. but back then there was no urpmi. no apt, yum, swarget, emerge and so on. so chasing down deps was a real nightmare, and a good way to hose your system. so again i went back to windows (XP).

 

my wife had been watching me, and yes i was trying to convert her (even though i didnt know what the hell i was doing). she had determined linux was to hard. it was windows itself that actually converted her. she got tired of windows acting the way it does. she got so tired of it, she considered learning programming so she could program windows to do what she wanted. then she found out windows is closed source. she said "get me into linux!". i was so surprised, i held off for 3 days. then set up a dual boot system. we rarely went into windows, and finally windows just died. now we're straight linux.

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lol, linux_learner, you've got a smart wife ...  :D

 

 

indeed i do :cheeky::headbang::banana:

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Well I did a little search.

 

I typed Linux Help plus my Nick in Google and a bunch of stuff came up. I'm tryin to think if this was the very first place I posted or not. I know I started using Linux about 1 1/2 yrs to 2 years ago. I had ftp premissions to a buddy's server in exchange for some games that where on mine. I noticed RH7 on his server and asked him what it was. He told me and it kind of interested me. So I downloaded it and tried it and was like. eeeeeew!!! lol. I was telling some of the racing guys about it and they laughed at me, but at the same time told me that 7 was pretty old and there was newer distros out there. So I went on a hunt and came across distrowatch and looked around and downloaded MDK 9. Played with it for a bit. I wanted to learn more so one day while out of town the wife and I went to Barnes and Noble and I came across Redhat 9 for Dummies with CD's. Well when we got back to the room I installed and read the book. I think thats why I never really posted much in the beginning. The book did a good job of explaining stuff. Basic stuff anyways.

 

Anyways here is my very first post here.

 

http://mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=5745&hl=

 

Not sure still if this is the first place I posted at or not. I think it is. I looked at Linuxquestions.org and nothing over there goes back any farther.

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I got started in Linux via plain old Curiosity. I was in Software Boutique in the City Center Mall (Columbus, Ohio), and saw these boxes called Redhat Linux. Way back in 1998. My thought was 'WTF is Linux?' (censored by Sarissi. hehehe)

 

I decided to do some research on the WWW. All I had at the time, was a CTX EZBook 700E, 32 MB ram, supposedly 4 GB hdd (actually less), which I was using as a desktop PC (Win98 First Edition - IE4). On this notebook, I could forget Linux, even back then.

 

I decided to wait unitl I had better hardware, and, Linux improved. According to my research, Redhat was out of the question, due to lack of hardware support, SuSE's hw support wasn't all that great, BUT, Mandrake had the best hw support of all Distros I looked at. So I bought Mandrake Linux 7.0 Powerpack Edition, knowing I would have a couple of issues (video card and modem).

 

Once Mandrake 8.2 arrived, I was totally hooked.

 

Dump Windows? Not unless the apps I use are ported to Linux.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My soon to be ex-wife and I bought a 200 Mhz(1997) PacHell w/ Win95 in early 1999 so the kids wouldn't be too far behind their peers. The ISP we were using said that we needed to upgrade to Win98 to get online.

After we upgraded (it was her machine) and after all the headaches with the most usless piece of to ever be printed ->the winblows user manual<- I was determined to find something better. So I started searching the web and found Linux. I went onto yahoo auctions and bought another PacHell that had two different distros with it. One of them was RedHat/Mandrake Linux 6.2 put out by McMillan publishing. Of course I had trouble with the modem. I did have a USR hardware modem but the kernel wouldn't support it. But I kept on.

I bought Mandy 8.1 from WallyWorld only a few months after it came out and dual booted that little packard bell. By then the wife had upgraded her machine so it was mine. I lived without sound for almost 2 years (integrated crystal sound) just so I would not be beholden to the Lord of Redmond. had to do some dual booting for school at the time but I was messing with the "dark side" whenever I had a chance. I tried upgrading with Mandy 9.1, Woody, FreeBSD4.6, RH9 but I thought I had reached a hard plateau in my learning curve. (a.k.a. could I actually be that stupid?) Finally, after almost a year, I found in the XFree86 wihite papers that the S3 video chip was no longer supported. A short time after that I got this box as a gimme, loaded 9.1 and had things like sound and playing DVD's. Of course, after getting Mandrake10, it's almost not fun installing anymore.

The other thing that convinced me to try Linux was that early on a Sunday morning I got a chance to read the M$ EULA all the way through. And this was only the one for Win98SE.

So that's my story to date. An oldn00bi3 learning old dog tricks. Still, I'm somewhat limited by the hardware and the learning curve, so the next project is to build a micromachine and see how low we can go.

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