Linux? Explain this... Linux...

[PhoenixMDM]

Lol, I know perfectly well that it's an OS, and I'm more fluent in DOS than english it seems. I'm used to working with all versions of windows (minus XP) and there's a cable LAN in my house. Can anyone explain the BASICS of what Linux can and can't do? I'm interested in the following:

Games, networking, low-end-developing, overclocking (duh), and music.
Can anyone tell me about this? And if possible, a freeb version to DL?

Thanks

~Phoenix

[PhoenixMDM]

Also, one more thing I forgot to ask, is there any way to run windows apps in Linux? That answer will help alot, lol.

~Phoenix

[phantom punisher]

im no expert but ive been messing on and off for a while.
-forget any games other than chess:)
-mandrake comes with a prog for almost all programing languges
-all the networking tools you need are built in
-you can use vmware to ruin most win apps fine inside linux. (no games though)

this definatly seems like itd be worth your while to look into. all that nework and programing stuff is the same no matter what os your on so you should hit the ground running. its neat looking besides. red hat and mandrake are the too most popular for free download

oh yea and youll clock farther with linux cause you wont be gaming and they have a winamp lookalike built in

[PhoenixMDM]

Red Hat is free? Then why can you order it from places like Global? Hmm...
Just started DLing red hat, about 1.5 hours left. So does this vmware thing come with red hat, or is it just a seperate download? And how exactly does it work? Does it trick the program into thinking it's running on a windows machine? Also, when you say no games, your probly talking about high-end games, right? Or would even Half-life be out of the question? Lol, thanks for the info so far!

~Phoenix

[sfa ok]

VMware costs money. You can use WINE, but it doesn't work well on all apps. There is limited 3d support, depending on your video card, nvidia cards tend to work best. http://www.lokigames.com/ has games for Linux.

[PhoenixMDM]

hmm, loki has tribes 2 for linux... Would it be possible to run a reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllly low end game in that WINE or vmware thing? low-end like games made way back in 98? lol. Only 5 minutes till red hat finishes DLing :)

~Phoenix

[PhoenixMDM]

Ok, I made the red hat cd, and i have no clue as to what to do next. Can anyone tell me how to start the installation thing?

~Phoenix

[PolyPill]

There are actually a lot of fun games for linux, I'm addicted Jagged Alliance 2. www.linuxgames.com has a large list. There's a really fun bomberman clone which allows like 30 people to play each other, that's a blast. (pun intended)

The reason you're paying money for Red Hat and other boxed distros is because they come with a handy book and installation support. If you just download it then you're support is reduced to what you can dig up on a search engine and forums like this.

WINE does an ok job of running windows games if you can get it configured correctly. I have played Total Annihilation with it and I have Word 97 running.

VMware is more of a virtual computer, you need to install windows and it's not interactive with your linux desktop. Also since your comp has to run 2 OSes at once the proformance isn't very good and no hardware accelleration for gameing.

[PhoenixMDM]

After I finish setting up linux, i'll try it out with a game or two.

I figured out how to start the installation, and i'm at the point of making a partition. It needs to know the mount point, and I have no idea of what that could possibly be, lol. Can anyone tell me how to do this step? I only have 1 drive in the comp too, a C drive, unpartitioned. It also has windows 98se on it, in case that matters (probly does, arg).

~Phoenix

[David]

games -quite a few check out www.lokigames.com
networking - Linux is in its element
music - there are quitge a few good apps
overclocking - not really OS dependant
development - name your language!

[PhoenixMDM]

Red hat install is whirring away as I write this, lol. Hopefully my next post will be from linux :) ! thanks for the suggestions and help everybody!

~Phoenix

[PhoenixMDM]

NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! Red Hat kept freezing during the file copying part!!!! Now it looks like i'm gonna need to DL a diff vers, like mandrake...

~Phoenix

[SpeeDj]

Another program to check is win4lin, which can be found at www.netraverse.com which allows to run anything windows but games =( It has no DirectX support which for right now seem's to be the holy grail of Linux interoperatibility. They are currently working on it, and hope to have it worked out, but as someone else suggested Loki games is a good stop as well as checking out Wine, wine should get those games running somewhat well too =)

Let me know how it goes =)

J

[David]

buy a linux distro if your a newbie. SuSE, Red Hat and Mandrake are all easy to install.

DL versions aren't vert good - they are very small and useless.

[rugby]

http://www.linuxnewbie.org is a great linux website with great forums for asking information. Check out the NHF's on installation. If you want an easy distro to install and config then check out Mandrake 8.

[PhoenixMDM]

As of this second, Madrake 8 is installing itself. Heh, mandrake installation is alot better looking than redhat's :D. I think i'm gonna like linux heheheh!

[Superman53142]

Originally posted by PhoenixMDM
As of this second, Madrake 8 is installing itself. Heh, mandrake installation is alot better looking than redhat's :D. I think i'm gonna like linux heheheh!

Yes, I love Mandrake 8, too. I always lose my Linux Boot Disk so I've had to reinstall like 6 times now, but it's so fast compared to Windows install.

[ken257]

Originally posted by Superman53142


Yes, I love Mandrake 8, too. I always lose my Linux Boot Disk so I've had to reinstall like 6 times now, but it's so fast compared to Windows install.

This is one of the things that is great about SuSE. Just boot off of the second installation cd and you can recover your boot manager no need to re-install!

[David]

SuSE is THE best. I couldn't live without SaX, SaX2, YaST, YaST2, ...

[parkan]

I love SuSE too, it's 100% compatibler with Redhat, easy to use and professional version comes with over 6 (i think) GB of software!