Moved over to Linux at home

[wizzard]

I have finally taken the plunge and moved over to Linux full time.

All started with a hard drive that decided to fail on me and then my Windows XP disc wouldn't work, so instead of forking out a load of money just to get another copy. I decided to use my Ubuntu Disc that had been lying round gathering dust.

Only took me 5 hours to finally get access to my NTFS formatted second drive

Also managed to upgrade to latest version of Ubuntu without a hitch.

I'm still going to build a windows box in the future to keep my hand in.

[dhicks]

Originally Posted by wizzard

I'm still going to build a windows box in the future to keep my hand in.

Personally, I prefer to keep my hands on the ends of my arms - I've grown very attached to them, and hate to let them out of my site.

--
David Hicks

[richard.thomas]

lol. I like how you got thanked for that dhicks. Obviously some advice that wizzard needed :P

I've just started playing with ubuntu on virtual box. I've used fedora before for FOG and ive used IPCop. But only because I've needed to- and with guidance from the web. Best way to learn is to play with things... and thats what i've been doing with my virtual machine

On that note, anyone know of something I can sink my teeth into that I can't do on windows? I only ask because at the moment I do everything on windows and i'm just messing around on linux, but I want to actually *need* linux so that I have to play with it :P

[wizzard]

I've only really dabbled in Linux on and off over the past couple of years, it's only yesterday that I decided to use it properly.

It's a bit of a steep learning curve as I have been in the bosom of windows for as far as I can remember

[CyberNerd]

Originally Posted by richard.thomas

On that note, anyone know of something I can sink my teeth into that I can't do on windows? I only ask because at the moment I do everything on windows and i'm just messing around on linux, but I want to actually *need* linux so that I have to play with it :P

This is a very interesting question. Because most of the application on linux are opensource there is no one killer app. As the source code is free, if any application becomes 'killer' they will soon get ported to windows because of the nature of the openness. I think the closest applications that you *need* are collections, such as the collection of applications that make zimbra, or indeed the collection that make linux distributions. I'd put the question rather differently, why would you choose to do something on windows when you could do the same thing on a free system - I understand the using windows because a business application requires it, but not for the sake of it.

I migrated my home systems to linux 2 or 3 yrs ago, I haven't looked back. Initially the biggest hurdle was a change of mindset - I was used to keeping 'uptodate' with the latest prirated version of photoshop (that I couldn't use even 15% of) or flicking through magazines or shops looking at the latest applications or games - now I flick through google,sourceforge, freshmeat.

[dhicks]

Originally Posted by richard.thomas

On that note, anyone know of something I can sink my teeth into that I can't do on windows?

"Customise it" is the obvious answer, that's the thing that Linux is good at, but "customise it" how and to do what is the tricky bit. I can see Linux being used more and more for people to develop and distribute their own all-in-one VM-based software packages - no need to mess around sorting out licensing, just pick a Linux distribution, develop your server-based web application and give/sell the VM to as many people as you want. I mean, can you even do that with Windows?

I'm sure we can think up a bunch of applications that need writing (web-based video editing for a start), if you're looking for something to do.

--
David Hicks

[richard.thomas]

Those are two very good answers. I've just started reading some tutorials that others have done with ubuntu just see how it all works. It's starting to grow on me.
The only reason I wouldnt install this as my main operating system is that I do sometimes enjoy abit of TF2 :P

[CyberNerd]

Originally Posted by richard.thomas

The only reason I wouldnt install this as my main operating system is that I do sometimes enjoy abit of TF2 :P

How To: Run Team Fortress 2 (TF2), Portal, Half-Life 2, HL2 EP 1&2, and Counter-Strike In Ubuntu Using Wine | fsckin w/ linux
Wine AppDB - Team Fortress 2 - Steam

[Geoff]

Half Life 2 and it's mods work fine under Wine.

Wine AppDB - Team Fortress 2 - Steam July 29, 2008

[richard.thomas]

you guys are pulling the microsoft carpet from beneath my feet!! I don't have an excuse now....

[somabc]

Originally Posted by wizzard

Only took me 5 hours to finally get access to my NTFS formatted second drive

I find the best way to use other NTFS drives / partitions is to specify them when partitioning the drive in the installer for Ubuntu.

ie pick custom / advanced partitioning

you should create at least these partitions

/ -the root folder where linux will be installed, as big as possible format as ext3
swap -this is virtual memory, format as swap say 2GB+
/windows -this is your existing drive, choose format from the menu as NTFS, this will leave the data alone but will mount as ntfs when the computer boots up.

if you have multiple ntfs drives or partitions you can add them as well

eg

/data (ntfs)
/games (ntfs)
/video (ntfs)

and so on

So if you had 3 SATA hard drives - sda = linux stuff, sdb = windows stuff, sdc = other misc data

then sda has
Partiton 1: / (ext3)
Partiton 2: swap (swap)

sdb has
Partiton 1: /windows (ntfs)


sdc has
Partiton 1: /data (ntfs)

[powdarrmonkey]

I always used to install a linux distro on a partition, get it set up, and then go 'now what?' and go back to Windows. I got around it by physically taking the windows drive out and forcing myself to use Linux at home and work, and I've never looked back.

[RabbieBurns]

the programs that keep me booting back to windows are mIRC and newsleecher and flashfxp and admuncher.

none run well under wine or crossover, so until they improve fish support for xchat, develop a decent newsgroup client and finish making a version of admuncher then I still feel that most of my time will be spent in windows.

[wizzard]

Originally Posted by somabc

I find the best way to use other NTFS drives / partitions is to specify them when partitioning the drive in the installer for Ubuntu.

ie pick custom / advanced partitioning

you should create at least these partitions

/ -the root folder where linux will be installed, as big as possible format as ext3
swap -this is virtual memory, format as swap say 2GB+
/windows -this is your existing drive, choose format from the menu as NTFS, this will leave the data alone but will mount as ntfs when the computer boots up.

if you have multiple ntfs drives or partitions you can add them as well

eg

/data (ntfs)
/games (ntfs)
/video (ntfs)

and so on

So if you had 3 SATA hard drives - sda = linux stuff, sdb = windows stuff, sdc = other misc data

then sda has
Partiton 1: / (ext3)
Partiton 2: swap (swap)

sdb has
Partiton 1: /windows (ntfs)


sdc has
Partiton 1: /data (ntfs)

I already had loads of data on the drive that I didn't want to loose, that's why I didn't mess with any partitions on that drive.

[Geoff]

Originally Posted by RabbieBurns

the programs that keep me booting back to windows are mIRC and newsleecher and flashfxp and admuncher.

none run well under wine or crossover, so until they improve fish support for xchat, develop a decent newsgroup client and finish making a version of admuncher then I still feel that most of my time will be spent in windows.

As for xchat + FISH, there's been a perfectly usable FISH plugin for xchat for ages.

FiSH - Encryption for mIRC, irssi and xchat

As for binary news readers, I use BNR2. Scroll down a bit on the download page for the linux versions.

BNR = Binary News Reaper = Binary News Reader

As for admuncher, again, it's going to have to be a switch to alternative software. I'd suggest privoxy.

Privoxy - Home Page


Besides, don't forget, this isn't a black and white either/or choice between Linux and Windows. There's nothing stopping you running one on the top of the other thanks to VMWare. Or the old school approach of dual booting or even having two machines and a dual port KVM switch.