Just for fun

Also known as “I do these stupid things so you don’t have to”–*heh* Or, “playing with Ubuntu/WinXP/Freespire” (I can always play with my Puppy w/o bothering with an installation :-))

Well, for a number of years, I’ve dabbled with Linux. Installed and used more than just “many” distros on some few machines. Kept it on a router/firewall (where it works very, very nicely). I’ve been pleased with the way Linux distros of various flavors have developed and become more and more “Aunt Tilly” friendly as well as more and more robust and flexible.

Recently, as readers here well know, I’ve been very pleased with Ubuntu Linux’s slick installation and interface and with Puppy Linux’s amazingly easy “install” and capabilities. In fact, Puppy Linux 2.13 is more than moderately amazing :-). A lil 84MB ISO file, burn to CD, boot and run the OS from the CD (it loads itself onto your harddrive and disappears when you power down unless you save a file of your session). Heck, I popped a CD into my Wonder Woman’s Toshiba notebook and it booted slick as all getout, found her wireless card and loaded the drivers and sniffed out available wireless networks in the area at least as slickly as WinXP.

Nice.

But. I’ve avoided a dual boot machine using a relatively modern version of Windows and a late distro of a comparablly capable Linix.

But I think I’m going to change that, maybe this weekend.

More later as things progress…

Done. Scrubbed the hard drive on a machine running Kubuntu 6.06 (Kubuntu is Ubuntu with the KDE interface). Installed XP. Installed Ubuntu 6.1 in a dual boot w/XP.

Took about an hour. No sweat. The Ubuntu install I chose was the text-based install, but I simply accepted the defaults whenever offered (cos “Aunt Tilly” wouldn’t know to do otherwise) and Ubuntu just installed. In a little less time (including the re-partitioning of the hard drive) than Windows took to install.

Very nice.

Of course, no wireless on this desktop, so I’ll have to add a wireless adapter to test that out as soon as I can find the spares I have around here somewhere… But that can wait. No need to steal bandwidth from the unsecured wireless connection in the neighborhood whose source shall go unnamed… for now.

😉

All this was really just cos I read through this thread on a CNET forum spurred by a question,

Given the mixed reviews for the new Windows Vista and the increasing popularity of open-source software, I started wondering about free operating systems. How realistic is it for the average Windows user to install and use a Linux-based OS such as Ubuntu? I bought a Toshiba Satellite laptop last fall, and I’m wondering if it’s possible to use Ubuntu on that machine instead of Windows XP. If it is a good OS for those of us with no Linux experience, what are the pros and cons of such a system? And can I totally get rid of Windows XP?

Only the first page or so of answers really deal directly with the question(s) asked above. But it was enough to get me churning on the dual boot Win/Lin thingy.

OK, that works; now what?

*heh* Scrub the hard drive. I haven’t taken a look at Linspire in a while, so…

Downloaded an ISO of Freespire, the linspire freebie version in ver. 1.04, now. On the freshly scrubbed hard drive, did a fresh install of Freespire.

Slick! In fact, so far, not only the installation slickerthe touted Linspire “10-minute install” holds pretty true at eleven minutes for the Freespire version, it seems, at least on the “old” 1.3 Ghz comp I installed it on–and easier than either WinXP OR Ubuntu but the OS looks/feels/behaves really nicely. And I like the CNR–“one-click” downloading and installation of software. Easier even than the process in Ubuntu or Puppy Linux. And apt-get is still available for command line download and installation of packages, so the power user doesn’t have to feel shorted.

Very, very nice. A real “Aunt Tilly” friendly OS, it seems. So far.

One thing I wouldn’t mind changing is the excessively verbose boot procedure. I speed read, but not as fast as that stuff flashes by. Just save the info to a text/log file, for heaven’s sake and ditch the chatter on the screen! (Well, it’s true for every distro I’ve tried, so I may be asking too much.)

Only one glitch in the Freespire install. The CD ejected, the boot process started… and hung. CTRL+ALT+DEL “fixed” the problem and no hassle since. Addendum: setting up a networked HP Deskjet in Freespire was easier than in any flavor of Windows I’ve done the same in. “Easy-peasy lemon squeasy” simple.

So, if you want to try a full install of a Linux distro, Ubuntu or Freespire might just suit you. And a dual boot between Linux and Windows is certainly doable with either.

If you’d like to just get your feet wet and don’t want to make any major changes to your hard drive, grab yourself an ISO of Puppy Linux and have a go. The thing’s only about an 84MB download, and you can accomplish a lot (and save all your work, too) with a Puppy session file of only 1-3GB saved on your hard drive. No changes to your Windows installation, boot.ini or MBR at all. You can even put ALL your Puppy installation on a 1-2 (or larger) GB USB thumb drive and carry it around with you to boot on systems that can boot from a USB drive. Very nice.