How To Use Linux (And love it)

This is my first instructable.

Linux is a great operating system -If you know how to use it-, and most people don't really want to be bothered installing, and whatnot, but it's really not hard to install, and if you use it often, it'll start being extremely easy to use.





The picture is my current desktop configuration, and I'll go through the programs I used to do that.

Step 1 What is this "Linux"?

You've got many choices with linux. What do you want to use it for? Video-editing? Music-editing?

These different Linux options are commonly called "distros", and some of the most popular are Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, and Linux Mint.


These "distros" can be downloaded in .iso form, which I'll go into detail about later.

I'll be using Linux Mint for this instructable, so I'd recommend if you did too, but you're free to pick whichever you want.

(I'd recommend distrowatch.com for looking for a certain type of linux distro)

Comments

[bart245]

I just switched over to ubuntu on my net-book, which incidentally, I was just about to sell because it was getting riddled with spyware and viruses with windows, plus I had no virus protection. This was just days after I had a computer guy clear out the viruses, but they came right back a few days later. Everything is better now with Linux! It's really not hard at all to figure out and if you worry about the dreaded command line terminal, here's a suggestion that helped me. 

Go over to U-tube and watch every Linux terminal tutorial you can find and take a few notes... (I made a basic command cheat sheet as I went) I got the basics down by noon one morning after I did this! You'll learn quick this way. 

Another tip a Linux guy taught me... Linux can, and will, break being a newbie. He said to keep breaking it, over and over... The more you break and reinstall Linux, the more you will learn what it can and can't do. As long as ya got a boot disk it isn't a big deal... It only takes about 10 minutes to reinstall it on my net-book! I'm so glad I switched over... I like my PC again!

[hintss]

better idea: keep a disk image of a working install (you can make it with dd, find a tutorial for that), and when you break it, boot from the liveCD, put in the external disk that the disk image is on, then dd it back onto your hard drive.

[junits15]

i tried linux mint before, but I was having wireless internet problems, even after I installed the correct propritary drivers.  I would have to re instal them every time i reebooted the machine, and it couldn't connect to my router evan after i checked the WEP ket three times.  It would just not connect, the wired ethernet adapter worked great, but on a laptop, thats not of much use.  and ideas? 

[fireguard]

Depends on which wifi card you're using. I have a Samsung N130, which uses a Realtek card, and though the Lucid (10.04) Ubuntu was said to support it out of the box, I still had to use wired, until I found Alan's blog.

http://ajmatson.net/wordpress/?p=84

He gives links and instructions, but you have to read the readme file included, notice that you have to download updated files and THEN run install.sh. Tried it several times before I really noticed he said check for updates and replace the updated files, then it worked like magic! I used to run XP/Ubuntu dual, with ethernet in ubuntu, until my XP partition got a trojan, which when removed, took a system file with it. I figured, rather than re-install windows, just get wifi running in Ubuntu and haven't looked back! I still have all my documents available from the XP partition, and much less vulnerability to trojans and malware.
By the way, if someone tells you there ARE no such risks in Linux, smile and nod, but protect your system, as there is no invulnerable system. I worked with disabled kids at our local high school, and the "Computer Operations" teacher was a Mac fanboy who insisted that "Macs don't get viruses!" I tried very hard to convince the student to take that with a grain of salt, to realize that hackers write for macs too, as their market share is increasing. Don't know how well it took.
Anyhoo, enjoy the link, and hope it works for you!

[junits15]

I actually figured it out in the end it was very simple, I needed to re install the driver so it would work

[ninoid]

Slax is best. Try it.

[maxpower49]

i need a little help how do i set it to docky mode? i have downloaded the files but i don't know how to change it to docky

[Wehrdo]

The only thing that's holding me back from ditching Windows completely is drivers and management software.

Digital cameras, GPS systems, e-readers, and printers can often be really hard to get their specific software and drivers running in Linux.  Yes, there's ways to do it without the software, but it's so much easier to do with.  Example: TomTom HOME makes keeping your TomTom updated really easy, but there's not an easy way to get the same functionality.  Yes, wine is wonderful, but there's so many kinks and bugs in the software when you run it.

Don't get me wrong, I love linux.  There's just not currently enough support for me to move completely to it.

[FuyuKitsune]

NDISWrapper can be used to run Windows drivers on Linux, and Linux alternatives can be found for almost any Windows program. example: replace iTunes with Amarok (assuming you use KDE as your desktop environment).

[Wehrdo]

Yes, Amarok is great, but the syncing with iPhones and some iPods is a bit broken.  Regular iPods can get working with a bit of tweaking, but iPhones/iPod touches are pretty muck kaput with Amarok.

I've never heard of NDISWrapper.  It sounds interesting, so I'll have to look into it.

BTW, I'm about ready to put Ubuntu as a dual boot with XP.  Mostly because GIMP and Blender run smoother on it, and because I can use the 64-bit capabilities of my processor.

[TyMan210]

 Have you tried Wine?

[Wehrdo]

In my post I said that wine works sometimes, but usually there's usually bugs, depending on the software.  Ever tried using iTunes in wine?  A lot of functionality is lost.  I also mentioned drivers, and wine doesn't work for that.  (Or at least as far as I know it doesn't)

[TyMan210]

 Sorry, I didn't notice that. Mostly it has only taken a few Google searches to get the drivers that I have needed.

[HandyBob]

Very nice instructable.
Maybe an extra word on the partition naming. There not called C:\ or Disk0 like in that OS... what's it called again, can't remember the name.
Linux uses letters for drives and numbers for partitions.
hda1 = harddrive 1 partition 1
hda2 = harddrive 1 partition 2
...

In the screenshot I see 'sda', is that because it's a virtual drive or it's SCSI?

[dorame]

...also check out 'PUPPY LINUX' (Google it) I just love it and my favourite 'distro' flavour of Puppy is 'LighthousePup' (again Google it) - real easy to make a bootable USB Operating System. Just d/l the ISO of your choice (oh and d/l 'unbootin', which is a neat utility to create a USB o/s) run unbootin, select the place where you saved the ISO (in Windows) select the 'target' USB drive and let her rip!

Afterwards you have a bootable o/s which runs completely in RAM!!!

gotta loveit!

[MichaelMatirko]

Yep, it's a virtual drive.

I was using SUN Virtualbox to do this picture.
You micht want to see:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_file_system#Naming_convention


--Michael
 

[MichaelMatirko]

*might  

[ItsTheHobbs]

This is a great instructable. I've been running ubuntu on my laptop for a few months, and I've been thinking about trying out different versions. I'll definitely try Mint.

[wee_man]

Nice instructable.  I myself have been using linux for around a year now.  I would like to mention Crunchbang Linux.  It is based off ubuntu but is more light on the system thus being able to run comfortably on lower-end systems.

[MichaelMatirko]

Yep, and if you happen to have a really low-end system, you can use DSL.


www.damnsmalllinux.org/ 

[AndyGadget]

I've played around with Puppy, Mint and a few other flavours of Linux.
THIS is a useful resource which details utilities and instructions for booting the various flavours from USB instead of CD.

[Bongmaster]

nice :)

I been a puppy linux user for several years myself ;)
it was the only distro that actually made building my webserver easy (using xampp)

[Phil B]

I have been curious about Linux for quite a while.  Within the last year I downloaded Puppy Linux and use it from a Live disc.  For any not familiar with that, it means the whole system is loaded on a single CD.  Put the CD into the disc drive and boot the computer.  The advantage I gained is that I use Linux for going onto the Internet.  That means I did not need to shell out for anti-virus protection.  I can still boot in Windows XP when I want to use my traditional programs.