04.15.07
Computing differently
Obviously, anyone reading this blog has at least a passing interest in computers - or you’d not be on the Internet reading this blog! ;-) A recent spate of e-mails on an e-mail list I belong to was sparked by yet another new windoze based virus. It shows that we also care about security and usability when it comes to computing. However, not all of us are tech savy -some are barely able to switch on the box and connect to the internet to download e-mail.
Lately we’ve been hearing about this Linux stuff, but it can be a bit daunting to folks who aren’t sure how their computer works and reallydon’t want to mess anything up. If you’d like to get a taste of whatLinux is, but don’t want to commit to a long term relationship, you can use one of the “Live CD’s” or “Live DVD’s” with some version of Linux installed on it.
These CD’s and DVD’s are available for download in an ISO format (That’s an image of a CD or DVD that allows you to make an exact copy with your CD or DVD burner) Right now I’ve got various generations of Linux in different flavors. Ubuntu, Knoppix, Fedora Core 6, and a couple others I’m to lazy to go look at right now to remind me what they are. The way they work is you put them in your CD or DVD drive on your computer and then restart the machine. You’ll have to set it to boot from the CD/DVD drive and each computer works differently there. I’d suggest you look in your manual for information if you don’t know how to do that. Anyway, once you reboot to the CD/DVD the Live CD/DVD will start right
up and run the program right on your computer. This will let you see how things work without worrying about installing or overwriting your windoze installation.
For newbies to Linux, there’s a few things to keep in mind. If there’s a glitch on your computer some versions of Linux simply won’t run. But neither will WinXP. I’ve got one motherboard that Linux simply will not install to a hard drive connected to it. Nor will a Live CD work with it - but I also can’t install WinXP on it either. Yep, it’s on the way to the dump someday - perhaps. I still haven’t tried it with Win ‘98 - and I’m a glutton for punishment and refuse to give up until a piece of hardware is confirmed to be 100% dead.
For those of you who are interested in messing with video, etc. Take a look at Video Linux. It’s a version of Linux setup to allow you to mess around with Video. So far I’ve just downloaded and burned the ISO but haven’t had time to play with it. The concept is intriguing and we’ll see what happens when I get a chance to play with it.
There are more distributions out there than you can shake a stick at. All kinds of “flavors” of Linux that will do different things or are set up for certain applications only. I’d suggest you stick with one of the major distributions at first, Fedora Core 6 (based on Redhat Enterprise) or SuSE’s latest. You can get both the full ISO (For DVD or CD) or a Live CD ISO for either of them. That’ll let you at least get a taste of what you can do with Linux.
And Linux can breath new life into an old computer. We were able to upgrade our work machines to fairly recent technology. This frees up a couple of older boxes to play with. 