Do you have fast internet? You can download for free, but if you dont you'll either have to buy it.... for between $15 and $50... or get a buddy with a fast connection to burn it for you. I like slackware... its not the easiest to learn, but once you learn it, you'll know unix inside and out. http://www.slackware.com/getslack/ You have another machine right? if not you can just run an ISO of it directly off a cd, like you put the cd in and it starts up... presto you're running linux. Use this to boot linux right off a cd. http://www.knoppix.net/get.php heres an ok manual to get ya started. http://espc22.murdoch.edu.au/~stewart/guide/guide.html
As a warning, don't completely de-Windows your machine just yet. Knoppix is definitely a good way to start out, you can use an actual Linix distro without installing anything.
Right now my PC is completely free of any OS( well not completely, but it wont launch windows). Its just a set of blue screens depending on which f key I hit on boot. f2 does the set up menue, f12 starts trying to restore windows. if I let it go and hit the up arrow to launch windows xp home addition, I get a bsod with an error message 0x0000007b I believe. when I try and clean restore I get told I have no hard drives installed. I am guessing I gotta figure out what is wrong first, but I am mad at windows right now. at least I was able to back up all my live dead. took all weekend but I burnt 64 cds worth of shn, mp3 and wave files , so the only thing I have really lost was the stored games . hey will video games and other software work with Linux? or are almost all programs dependant on windows? messnegers and whatnot?
Games definitely won't run on Linux, instant messengers is a crapshoot. Most software is Windows only these days.
hmmmmmm, well actually it appears the reson I cant reinstall windows is because I am running a serial ita raid 0 configuration on my drives, and windows can figure out where to install itself. Linux would have the same problem I am sure. so how hard is it to build a partition to run more than one os? do I have to but a program such as partition magic? can one be built after the windows reinstall?
Not nessecarrily.... I had an old laptop with a weird RAID config and it wouldn't run 98 but it ran slack fine. You could listen to all your mp3's and watch all your avi's in linux, you could use IM and a network is really easy to set up. Softwares a complicated question... most stuff is windows proprietary, so for a while I woulda flat out said no, but in the past few years thres been some great advancements in emulating windows, and a program called wineX can emulate soo much, it can even handle lots of new games like warcraft3 and unreal 2004. Dual booting is really not to hard, you should install linux first, and then have windows gobbel up whatever free space you leave. When you install windows it will fill the master boot sector, so you'll need to put your linux distro back in and tell it to automatically boot into linux. Then a prompt called lilo (or something else, depends on the distro) will come up and you can select what OS you wanna go into If you already have windows installed it'll be a bit more complicated... you'll need to use some software like partition magic, and I've never seen it for free, so I've always just started from scratch. Heres a good guide from techtv to dual booting your PC http://www.g4techtv.com/screensavers/features/33367/Dual_Boot_Linux_and_Windows.html Have fun. :H
my friend runs his computer with linux...he plays all his games running on linux. he rarely uses windows. though, hes really smart with computers.
dude check out www.linuxiso.org before you can just "dump" windows you have to read about, try and try and try again to install linux on a box you don't have to have working right away. then when you have it working, see if its really worth the trouble. i use linux but not as my main machine. red hat isn't too bad for newbies
As of right now I am running a dual boot with Fedora Core 2 Linux and Windows XP (my school makes me program in Visual Studio.Net :-/) anyway it's pretty easy to set up and there are a lot of sites out there to guide and help you along the way of becoming free from the evil computer empire. I would look into Mandrake or Redhat for a first time user. As far as games go as long as your running on a 2.6 core you should be find, my Fedora is hella nice with me accelerated grafix card. If you want to get a good feel for what linux is all about, from history of it, to how the terminal commands work a great site is The Linux Document Page. Oh and one last thing, if you don't feel comfy installing it yourself or want to see what it's all about a good way to go would be to check out Groups of Linux Users and see if there is a group that meets near you. If you do put it on your system (*hopes you do*) there are tones of forums, user groups, mailing lists, and chat rooms where there is other people happy to answer your questions. Also Linux has very exstensive manuals, info, help , in it's terminal.... ~peace~ p.s. If you do go dual boot, i know for me anyway you need to put windows on first, the reason for this is that windows will want C: on your drive, and if you don't allot for that, you could end up erasing your boot sector, which isn't a huge deal, but still, it's just easier to install windows (reformat and then on Xp anyway you will have the option to partishion). Then partishion the hdd in 2 , giving plenty of space to windows hogging ass 50% 50% or so till your sure you just want linux or will hardly ever use windows. Then when you go install Linux partishion down that other half (the 50%) you have free. There is a whole tutorial on it at one of those links up there, if your computer is on the fritz as it, it's the best time to play around, the worst case sanario, you will have to try a few times to get it set up like you want.... best of luck to you......
Linux is desinged for stuff like that, a good one to start off with would be knoppix. Get a hot boot copy just in case you don't like it. Suse is the best for compatability though.
