Have I ever told you the story about how an Apple computer made me fall in love with the Linux Operating System? I think I have but I give you the synopsis:
I bought a used iMac one of the candy-colored original ones. I killed it within 24 hours of unpacking it from the box. I had never owned a Mac. I was an idiot. I actually thought that the operating system was hard-wired into the motherboard. Boy, was I wrong. One firmware upgrade and poof, this horrid black screen with a blinking icon. Taunting me...
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"Maybe what's preventing you from playing with Linux is that you just don't know how to find the version right for you. I'm here to help." |
Naturally, I had no backup OS. It's tough enough to buy a new computer that includes hard-copy software as part of the deal, forget used. Anyway, that dead iMac sat for a couple of months. Every so often, I would search for recovery programs or some help page that would get my Mac running. I sure as hell wasn't going to buy a copy of OS X. The darned comp cost less than Apple's frigging software. Then one day, I ran across some boot commands would load this thing called Open Firmware. Turns out that Open Firmware is Macspeak for BIOS. Huzzah! And it only took me a couple of months! In reading all these help pages and command tips, I kept running across this funny word
GNU.
GNU stands for GNU's Not Unix. GNU was an operating system! A free operating system! Wheee! I may be a loser with Apple computers but I knew there was no way I was getting Windows to run on Power PC architecture. This GNU thing sounded perfect. So I did more research. GNU was a Unix-like OS. Linux was also a Unix-like OS. There were shitloads of Linux distributions out there waiting for me to burn to disk. I fired up the CD burner and went nuts. I burned Darwin, Gentoo, openSUSE, Mandriva, YellowDog and many more until I settled on one I liked. The one I liked is the one I managed to get working. That is my story of how an Apple computer made me fall in love with Linux.
You can fall in love with Linux too and you don't have to kill your machine. I already did the hard work. You get to reap the benefits. The only thing keeping you from trying out a Linux version is that you haven't done it. You can find distros (distributions versions of Linux) that will work on almost any computer, from old to new. If you don't own a CD or DVD burner, there are distros that will boot a Flash drive or even a few floppy disks. If you don't want to format or partition your hard drive, you're covered there as well. You can find distros that run entirely off a disk or thumbdrive. Heck, there's even a distro you can run from inside Windows that comes in an executable file. The cost can't be the deterrent because there are hundreds of Linux distros that are free, free, free. Maybe what's preventing you from playing with Linux is that you just don't know how to find the version right for you.
I'm here to help.
First, consider your machine. Don't let this whole dual-core processor business confuse you. You can run two completely different operating systems off the same computer as long as one of them is Linux. It's all about your architecture, your CPU. That old iMac of mine has PowerPC architecture. My IBM desktop has x86 architecture. You want a Linux distro that will work for your architecture. (I wasted a lot of burned CDs learning that, thank you) So, figure out your CPU/architecture. Then you can move on to the next step.
Reconsider your machine. Is your computer kind of old? Are you trying to revive a tired old PC? Do you have new and robust hardware? What about your hard disk space? Do you want to format the whole thing or do you want to share two operating systems on the same comp? Do you have room? Would you maybe like to sample a little taste of Linux without installing anything? What do you plan to do with your Linux? Do you want to experiment or are you looking for a serious way to overhaul your computer without buying a new one?
I want you to consider these questions before I send you off to find the Linux distros. You see, I have a favorite distro but it's my favorite because it was the easiest to install for my machine. It was also the easiest for me to figure out how to use. Your experience may differ greatly from mine. While I really have a lot of love for YellowDog (it's designed for PowerPC architecture), I ended up settling with Unbuntu, Kubuntu actually. I liked Kubuntu because I can access root more easily. Then again, there are thousands of fans of Mandriva and openSUSE. Puppy was kind of neat and booted up like charm. So does SLAX. I had a brief fling with EasyLinux.exe because I could install it from inside Windows. I always came back to Kubuntu. It is full-featured and the Packager Manager is the bomb.I'm just trying to save you some grief and some disks before I let you free to run wild amongst the wild software. Do you think you're ready? There go here:
DistroWatch is a searchable database of all the past and present Linux distros you could ever need. All you do is go to the top right of the page and click that link that reads: Search. There you will find some categorical links as well as an advance search with several drop-down choice options. Search by architecture, desktop environment, release status or any other number of options. Or go back to the front page and browse the top visited distros, located in the right sidebar. Read the description pages for the distros that show up in your results. Visit their websites. Read their FAQs and check out their screenshots. You'll notice there are well over one hundred Linux distros. There is a Linux distribution for you. All you have to do is get it.
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