A question about delving into the linux world!

Hello! Recently I have become very interested in using linux, so I installed Debian on an old pentium computer.. after hearing about how hard it supposedly is to install debian, I was surprised at how relatively easy it was! Except for the GUI; I could not get x server to work. So I decided I need a more user friendly distro. Now this brings me to my question, I am 17, I play video games, I do schoolwork with word and excel, I make party invitations with photoshop and inDesign, and I CONSTANTLY surf the web, and I am always looking for a faster way to surf and run my programs, so my question is.. should I use...
1. a computer that runs linux and then have windows programs emulated
2. run windows and use an emulator to run linux
3. just use linux
4. just use windows

And also! I was very interested in using SSH to access my files from any computer with web access, would that still be possible with option 2?

Debian is pretty easy, but I'm surprised that xserver didn't get installed. There is a step in the installer where you have a list of 'bundled' options, such as desktop, file server, mail server, etc. If you had "desktop" checked you should have been good-to-go with a graphical interface.
To address your questions-
you play games, use word & excel, photoshop and inDesign- for word & excel openoffice is an excellent open source office suite, compatible with documents written with MS office. Photoshop and some games can be run in Linux using WINE, not sure about inDesign.

If your machine has hardware that supports Virtualization Technology you could use it to run a Virtual Machine, using either Linux or Windows as the Host OS.

I always ask before recommending. What kind of video card do you have? This can make or break an experience. ATI = teh lose!

Yes yes, some people have good experiences with ATI, but there are far more who have horrid experiences. I myself have an ATI based laptop (dont ask...) and its hit and miss. For example I get java crashes during certain java games, and a combination of combing through logs and googling has pointed out that it is ATI who is the culprit. This has been reproduceable across multiple computers with ATI in my personal experience.

Having said that, my ATI card (4670) is sufficient for almost everything I do but games are hit and miss.

If you are a heavy "gamer" you may wish to stick with Windows and put linux in a virtualbox/vm. Most gamers dont want to be bothered with tinkering they just want to double click and go. This may or may not be the case in linux.

Personal aside: my extended family (parents-in-law, aunts, uncles etc) all use linux daily now and they are FAR from a savvy group. Its easy to use for just about everyone

Its worth a go if you are curious or like trying new things

I'm running Mint Debian right now, with an ATI card and it works great. Have it installed as a separate partition and in a VM inside Windows. The only reason I keep Windows around right now is for gaming and Photoshop (haven't gotten used to Gimp yet).

you should check out the gimpshop

Also your ati works good inside of a vm because the vm drivers are in control. Like I said, ATI seems hit and miss. I have uneven experiences myself... seems to go fine until i run into something like java that segfaults because of the video drivers

ihrsetrdr said:

Debian is pretty easy, but I'm surprised that xserver didn't get installed. There is a step in the installer where you have a list of 'bundled' options, such as desktop, file server, mail server, etc. If you had "desktop" checked you should have been good-to-go with a graphical interface.

Click to expand...

Ah, that is where I went wrong, I deselected the desktop option trying to cut the crap out of the install.

And yes, the computer I was experimenting on has an ATI video card. But, let me get this straight, If I run windows as the host and linux inside it as a VM then I should not have problems with the ATI drivers? Because the build I am working on is going to be ran off two 4870 1gig's.

pinkles said:

Ah, that is where I went wrong, I deselected the desktop option trying to cut the crap out of the install.

And yes, the computer I was experimenting on has an ATI video card. But, let me get this straight, If I run windows as the host and linux inside it as a VM then I should not have problems with the ATI drivers? Because the build I am working on is going to be ran off two 4870 1gig's.

Click to expand...

That is essentially correct. Linux talks to the VM drivers (which I have found to be pretty solid) the VM then translates it to the OS and then hardware

linux -> vm drivers -> OS -> actual hardware

This is the reason that 3d excelleration is "experimental" because the vm drivers are still catching up to proprietary ones

Ah! Thanks for the help! I heard somewhere that Windows can run faster while emulated on a linux machine, is this true?

i have started to use Ubuntu and really like it. it can run from a live cd if you want to try it out. also you could try running them seperate(dual boot) then just use windows for gaming and try using linux for everything else, or slowly switch over as you get more used to everything.

pinkles said:

Ah! Thanks for the help! I heard somewhere that Windows can run faster while emulated on a linux machine, is this true?

Click to expand...

I can't imagine that such would be the case, as a matter of fact, VMs usually take a bit of a performance hit, since they are not allotted 100% of the system's hardware resources.

pinkles said:

Ah! Thanks for the help! I heard somewhere that Windows can run faster while emulated on a linux machine, is this true?

Click to expand...

Not as such, no. But I wouldn't be surprised if some windows programs ran better in wine

I tried a few distros with virtualbox in windows (including vbox portable on my flash). My system is not really powerful enough to run them together unless I use a really small light distro and then I am stuck with trying to figure it out compared to the norm's such as ubuntu or debian. I ran the latest kubuntu live cd and it did not see ANY of my sata drives which is all I have. Kinda pathetic.
So far I've tried toorox, sabayon, aptosid, slax, puppy, tinycore, several ubuntu flavors, wattos, and a couple others I can't recall.
I've come to the conclusion that regardless of how powerful my system is, I NEED an appliance to run windows from so I can run linux as my main rig properly and that includes a separate monitor.
I'll never buy nvidia again though. They follow the gaming industry which I have absolutely no use for at all.

WHAT, nvidia is by far the best manufacturer for running on linux. They have the only decent proprietary linux drivers out there. Puppy linux is also not a real distro, it's missing quite a bit.

It's kinda hard to get a feel from running them that way, you really kinda have to make a new partition and start installing