try linux...

...or penguins will eat you.

A while back (okay, a LONG time ago), I wrote a brief post on some of my favorite "free" software out there. As a starving graduate student, I wanted good software that enabled me to do my work and have fun doing it without shelling out hundreds of extra dollars for software.

I still hold to the same philosophy. Back when I wrote this post, I was scared of "free" operating systems (OSs). I thought they would botch my machine up or that nothing would work right. Moreover, I also envisioned them looking clunky, with a crappy GUI, or just a command prompt to look at.

Then a friend gave me a live CD (more on that later) of Linux. I didn't think much of it back then, and stored the CD away. Then one day my computer went haywire and my hard-drive wasn't being recognized, and I got the Windows NTLDR error, an error that pops up if the computer can't find the boot file for Windows. It means you're stuck without an OS - nothing beyond the BIOS (that uncomely start-up screen the moment you fire up your computer). I emailed him asking what to do and he said to put in the live CD and reboot. Once Linux was up and running, I could actually browse the hard-drive that wasn't booting and restore its boot structure. So I did.

I was apprehensive at first. After the BIOS screen flashed by, I saw all kinds of code go flying up the screen, and then a nice, clean log-on screen appeared. I answered some questions (choose a log in name, password, etc.), and then to my amazement a beautiful OS fired up. I was looking at a fully-functioning OS that was running off my CD-ROM without the need of my hard-drive, and after trying Linux out and fixing my problem, I rebooted to Windows as if Linux never existed. While in Linux, I dinked around for a bit and noticed it had rudimentary applications and what-not. I entered my wireless internet connection info, and it instantly connected to the internet. It came with Firefox web browser. There was also a "software downloader" package in it which downloads and installs additional free software "packages" at the click of a button - and there are hundreds if not thousands of them available. It recognized all my peripherals within a few seconds. Not only that, but everything was smooth, clean, and efficient.

So now I'm a Linux user (except for playing games, which I've read has a workaround I haven't tried yet), and it has been a blast. I installed it to my hard-drive so I didn't have to use the live CD anymore (which makes it much faster). My bootup time went from about 3 minutes in Windows XP to under 1 minute in Linux. Shut-down time is about 10 seconds, if that. All I did was partition part of my hard-drive off and do a full install. And yes, if I want, at startup I can choose which OS to run - Windows or Linux.

Linux comes in "distributions," or "distros." The distro my friend gave me was the most popular at the time: Ubuntu. Each distro has features and sub-features which might make it more attractive for the potential user. Some distros are geared towards graphical user interfaces, and some toward code-intensive folks. Here are some of the distros I've tried and what I like and don't like about them:

1. Ubuntu - As I said, this was my first exposure to Linux. It was slick. I use it quite often to this day, as I'm still trying to choose between this and the next distro, Fedora. As I said earlier, you don't need to mess with your current OS to try it out, just download the burnable CD image (an "iso" file), and burn an "image" of it to a CD, then make sure your computer boots from the CD before anything else.
2. Fedora - Fedora is what I mostly use now, and that mostly becuase it is so nice to look at and also works cleanly with my hardware configuration and peripherals. For example, in Ubuntu, I had to install my printer drivers from the internet. In Fedora, all I had to do was turn my printer on for the first time, and it new what to do all by itself. There are a myriad of other cool things about Fedora that likewise follow suit. Again, a live CD is available on the website for you to try it out.
3. Opensuse - This is a really cool distro because it feels so much like Windows, and is a good first distro to try out. One good thing about it that I really liked was its driver compatibility. I was having trouble getting an old laptop to find my wireless PCI card on Ubuntu, but Opensuse had no problems loading a working driver for it. I don't use that laptop anymore, so it's a non-issue. It's not as pretty as the previous two, but neverless it can be tweaked to look any way you want, just like the others.
4. Slackware Linux - I haven't tried this one, though I hear it is incredibly fast. It's dependent on some basic Linux code manipulation, although some users have beefed up their versions of it to have a better GUI. What you see at their website is also a reflection of the attitude of its strongest adherents - emphasis on functionality and good code-writing.
5. Arch Linux - I haven't tried it, but I have read that it is also for the code-level type of person.
6. Gentoo - This is a popular distro, but again, I haven't tried it, but I have read good things.
7. Debian - Ditto.
8. Unbreakable Linux (Oracle) - I just ordered this through the mail directly from Oracle for free. They do not provide a downloadable link to burn a CD image like the others do. If I like it, I'll write up another post on it.

If you worry about what Linux looks like, just do a google search on Linux screenshots and you'll see for yourself not only the "core" looking nice, but there are some people out there that have really tweaked it too look nice and perform excellently. For those of you migrating from Windows, here is an easy guide to making the switch to Ubuntu (a good distro to try out for first-timers), and here is a page that shows common programs that have the same (or better!) functionality than their Windows equivalent (bonus - Rhythmbox actually syncs iPods faster than iTunes, believe it or not!). Remember - all this is "free!"

Well, if I feel like writing more on Linux I will. This should suffice for now. The bottom line here is that you have nothing to lose by burning an image of the OS onto a CD and trying it out on your computer without changing anything about your computer. Okay, I guess the only thing you have to lose is the CD.