Re: Linux

[John Garison <john -at- garisons -dot- com>]

I recently encountered a similar situation and decided to bite the 
bullet and get some hands-on experience with Linux as well as be able to 
take my own screen captures for the Linux installation instructions.

I went to my local Borders (not just a trip around the corner here in 
Vermont!) and found a copy of SuSE Linux 10 Bible (by Davies, Whittaker, 
and von Hagen; Wiley publisher; $39.95 - even cheaper if you order 
online) which came with a bootable DVD. The book is excellent  - if 
anything, it gives almost too much information - and the installation 
was virtually painless. The only installation glitch was that ti didn't 
have a driver for my PCMCIA wireless card. I was able top plug in a 
network cable, though, so it's functional as a web browser. The DVD 
assumes that you want to install it on a Windows system in a dual-boot 
mode, and it walks you through the process of creating a Linux partition 
and installing the software. It was a piece of cake.

Linux is interesting - a lot like a throwback to my old days running 
pre-VAX DEC PDP-11s, even older IBM operating systems, and.<gasp> DOS! 
Fortunately, SuSE supports Gnome and KDE, two good GUI interfaces. While 
you can't totally avoid using the command line interface, you can do a 
lot in a familiar desktop setting. it installs a bunch of applications 
including the full Open Office suite, email clients, graphics packages 
(I'd like to have GIMP on Windows!), and so forth. Just about everything 
you need.

It surprised me at how easy it all was. I would caution you, though, to 
use a fairly up-to-date computer to install it on. Mine is a 4-year old 
laptop, so it's not state-of-the-art by any means, but I wouldn't want 
to go any older than that either (no support for PCMCIA devices which 
were fading out about then).

Good luck - and have fun!

My 2¢,

John Garison



Caroline Tabach wrote: