relic you're insane. you going to go do some journalistic blogging in Iraq or somethin is it ??
edit: or maybe your some ex-swiss-secret-forces going to do covert/mercenary work in 'hotspots' around the world
come say hi if you are in Malaysistan we'll have a beer
Actually your almost spot on, I?m taking 6 months off from work to travel South America. I wanted a notebook that could stand the test of many beer spills. The PowerBooks, though tough, can?t match the bullet proof like hall of this beast. I first saw the Toughbooks a year ago at Comdex in NV, the sales/magician guy was putting a CF-29 through it?s paces; put it into a dishwasher, threw it against the wall, drove a jeep over yet (yes, you heard me!) and buried it in sand. The thing kept on ticking and I thought to my self what a cool f-cking computer to have. Unfortunately with all things cool they cost an arm and a leg, I really didn?t need it, as my job or hobbies doesn?t involve crossing the Sahara. So I withdrew the idea of walking to the nearest dealer and buying one. Until now, I knew if I waited long enough I would find a reason to buy one, sleeping in huts and traveling down rivers in South America seems to be the perfect reason.
The built quality for this notebook is one of the best I have ever seen; it?s really inspiring actually. Now if I could just get OSX_86 running on it before I trek.
back to the linux stuff. this pretty much sums up my various attempts and eventual giving up on linux this year.... personally i am glad that linux is making strong inroads into the enterprise field, but from a consumer perspective, it just doesn't do it for me and is waaaayy too confusing still. the downloading & burning part was particularly painful for me.
I recently talked my father into dumping his five year old Dell (it was running Me no less) and getting an iMac. Since he no longer needs it, it now sits beside my PowerMac on my desk at home. But I already have two Macs that handle my workload nicely and since I sure as hell won?t be running Windows (I have no desire to deal with the associated security nightmare that entails) that leaves me with one option, Linux.
The following is the first piece in a series of articles that detail my attempts at using Linux. As a long time Mac user I will be comparing the ?Linux Experience? to the ?Mac Experience? not to see which one is better (I have already made up my mind on that issue) but rather to find out what is involved in setting up Linux and using it effectively. So, for all of you Mac users out there who have thought about getting into Linux, this piece is for you.
Choosing a Distro
Let me give you some background first on my experience with Linux. I used it quite a bit during college but over the last few years I have steadily used it less and less. So, while I do know a few things about Linux I am approaching this project as if I was a beginner.
Choosing a distro is the first (and one of the most important) steps in using Linux effectively. However finding the ?right distro? turned out to be one of the hardest parts of this project for various reasons. The main one being that there is no good place to go to get information and reviews on the best distros for beginners. All of you Linux patriots out there please contain yourself as I explain. I found plenty of websites that could give me detailed information about some aspect of Linux. I found plenty of websites that advocated one distro of Linux. I found a staggering amount of sites that had forums, screenshots, reviews, tutorials and explanations of the philosophy of the GNU/GPL/FOSS ideas etc. In fact, in the end that plethora of data turned out to be the biggest problem of all because I never really found any website that was geared towards beginners looking to choose a distro.
In fact if you google some combination of the words ?what linux distro is best for beginners?? you will get either hundreds of links to forums or the philosophical answer of ?whatever distro is right for you?. In the first case someone asks for advice on picking a distro and 4,000 people respond with 100 different answers. Clearly that is no help. But even worse than that is the Linux articles (and yes, there were quite a few that I found) that have authors who truely believe that telling a beginner ?whatever distro is right for you? will actually help them.
Now, I can also list reams of sites that want to explain Linux to a beginner. Oh they go into insane detail explaining terminal commands, how to network computers, connect to the internet, play games, type documents blah blah blah but they never get to the heart of the matter, namely which distro should I choose in the first place?
So, failing at finding a good intro site I decided to look for reviews of all the current distros and pick one out that way. Sadly most of the reviews weren?t very helpful because they tended to fall into one of two categories:
Group 1: I like distro X using desktop manager Y because it?s the best. No comparison to other distors, few if any facts, annoyingly contrived data and overall useless in picking a distro for a beginner.
Group 2: I like distro X when I do this very specific task that a beginner will never do. I will now go into excruciating detail explaining why all microwave ovens should run Linux. This is also useless.
But at some point I managed to find enough reviews to help me make a semi-intelligent choice and so I downloaded Ubuntu. However, my story doesn?t end there. You see, since I couldn?t find anything on the web that was exactly what I needed I turned to several friends who are considerably more into Linux than I and asked for their advice. They suggested Fedora Core 4 and so I downloaded that as well and ultimately used that as my primary Linux distro.
Summary:
If you are going into this alone then it looks like Ubuntu is one of the easier distros to use. However, if you have a friend (like me) who knows a distro very well and can help you to learn it, go with that (which in my case is Fedora).
Overall Experience:
3/10
With no good site geared towards helping a beginner find his or her way the vast number of Linux resources can easily overwhelm one. A site that lists the top three distros for each sector would be very helpful. By that I mean it would be very nice to see a site that broke distros down into categories like Mail Servers, Programming Work Stations, Linux for Beginners, Linux for Power Users etc. And then compared and contrasted the top three so one could make an informed choice. Additionally it is very hard to find an unbiased opinion about which is better Gnome or KDE? And once again a review of the strengths and weaknesses of both would have been appreciated.
Downloading & Burning
First I had to download the ISO files for each of the four Fedora install CDs. That wasn?t too difficult, time consuming but not difficult. However, before burning these disk images I needed to look at the checksums and make sure that everything was correct. Here comes my first problem. You see if the sums don?t match, when I try to install the OS problems will occur. So, it is in my best interest to ensure that I check everything down to the last digit. To that end I follow the instructions on RedHat?s installation page and type in ?sha1sum FC4-i386-disc1.iso? and am promptly rewarded with an error telling me that I don?t have the particular sum-checking utility sha1sum. Well, no problem, I will just download it from somewhere. And so after a few moments searching on Google I come up with a blog entry that details exactly the problem I am having. Even better they provide a link to get you to the download page of the utility that I need. Beautiful! So I download the correct files, peruse the README file, glance through the installation document and I am ready to get this thing up and running. All I have to do is MAKE the files. So, I fire up the Terminal, type MAKE and . . . it dies, telling me that it doesn?t understand MAKE and would I please go do something with myself.
Ok, a minor setback is all this is. In fact, this is my fault entirely because I didn?t install Xcode on this machine (its my wife?s laptop and I didn?t put it on there because she would never use it). But that can, and is, rectified fairly quickly. Ok, so, I have installed Xcode to compile the checksum utility so it can be run to verify that my ISO files are correct so I can burn them to CDs so I can then install Fedora. What could go wrong?
I installed Xcode without a problem and soon there after my sum-checking utility was operational. I then used it and found out that one of my four ISO files didn?t have the correct checksum, thus I had to download it again, after which everything looked good. As for Ubuntu, after I had gotten Fedora out of the way the rest was quite easy. After that all you have to do is drag the images to a blank disk and burn them.
Summary:
Most of the delay was my fault for failing to have the correct utilities and compilers installed before I attempted all of this. It was easy enough to figure out but annoying none the less.
Overall Experience:
6/10
Downloading the files was very straight forward and the instructions on what to do before and after the download were clearly laid out. Though having to check the files to ensure they are viable, while a good idea, is time consuming and fairly boring.
The article smells of an amateur who doesn't know how to use Google. I mean I understand his issues with Linux - there are a few quirks and problems and it's not up to OS X's user friendliness, but some of the points he's trying to make are just not true. There are many websites geared towards beginners. I linked one (the first link). A simple "Linux reviews" in Google would give you much more. There are many, many websites with tutorials, reviews, and first glances of all major distro's out there. I linked one (the second link). There are many websites with information about current distro's, which one is the most popular, where and how to get it (the third Link).
With regards to downloading - you don't have to do it. You can easily buy pre-packaged, pre-checked and very nicely documented distro's in their cute little boxes. SuSE comes to mind. Xandros comes to mind. Linspire comes to mind. That he chose to download Fedora Core 4 (a totally bleeding-edge and unsupported distro) is his choice - and the painful experience (really, how painful is it to let Safari/Firefox finish your download and then use Disk Utility to burn an image?) is something he shouldn't brag about, because he chose to go that route when there were clearly better, easier routes.
In any case, I concurr that it is not up to OS X's standards yet in terms of user-friendliness and general usability, but the article mentions none of that.
Comments
Originally posted by sunilraman
relic you're insane. you going to go do some journalistic blogging in Iraq or somethin is it ??
edit: or maybe your some ex-swiss-secret-forces going to do covert/mercenary work in 'hotspots' around the world
come say hi if you are in Malaysistan we'll have a beer
Actually your almost spot on, I?m taking 6 months off from work to travel South America. I wanted a notebook that could stand the test of many beer spills. The PowerBooks, though tough, can?t match the bullet proof like hall of this beast. I first saw the Toughbooks a year ago at Comdex in NV, the sales/magician guy was putting a CF-29 through it?s paces; put it into a dishwasher, threw it against the wall, drove a jeep over yet (yes, you heard me!) and buried it in sand. The thing kept on ticking and I thought to my self what a cool f-cking computer to have. Unfortunately with all things cool they cost an arm and a leg, I really didn?t need it, as my job or hobbies doesn?t involve crossing the Sahara. So I withdrew the idea of walking to the nearest dealer and buying one. Until now, I knew if I waited long enough I would find a reason to buy one, sleeping in huts and traveling down rivers in South America seems to be the perfect reason.
The built quality for this notebook is one of the best I have ever seen; it?s really inspiring actually. Now if I could just get OSX_86 running on it before I trek.
back to the linux stuff. this pretty much sums up my various attempts and eventual giving up on linux this year.... personally i am glad that linux is making strong inroads into the enterprise field, but from a consumer perspective, it just doesn't do it for me and is waaaayy too confusing still. the downloading & burning part was particularly painful for me.
http://applematters.com/index.php/section/comments/494/
A Mac User Tries Linux Part 1
by James R. Stoup
Aug 12, 2005
I recently talked my father into dumping his five year old Dell (it was running Me no less) and getting an iMac. Since he no longer needs it, it now sits beside my PowerMac on my desk at home. But I already have two Macs that handle my workload nicely and since I sure as hell won?t be running Windows (I have no desire to deal with the associated security nightmare that entails) that leaves me with one option, Linux.
The following is the first piece in a series of articles that detail my attempts at using Linux. As a long time Mac user I will be comparing the ?Linux Experience? to the ?Mac Experience? not to see which one is better (I have already made up my mind on that issue) but rather to find out what is involved in setting up Linux and using it effectively. So, for all of you Mac users out there who have thought about getting into Linux, this piece is for you.
Choosing a Distro
Let me give you some background first on my experience with Linux. I used it quite a bit during college but over the last few years I have steadily used it less and less. So, while I do know a few things about Linux I am approaching this project as if I was a beginner.
Choosing a distro is the first (and one of the most important) steps in using Linux effectively. However finding the ?right distro? turned out to be one of the hardest parts of this project for various reasons. The main one being that there is no good place to go to get information and reviews on the best distros for beginners. All of you Linux patriots out there please contain yourself as I explain. I found plenty of websites that could give me detailed information about some aspect of Linux. I found plenty of websites that advocated one distro of Linux. I found a staggering amount of sites that had forums, screenshots, reviews, tutorials and explanations of the philosophy of the GNU/GPL/FOSS ideas etc. In fact, in the end that plethora of data turned out to be the biggest problem of all because I never really found any website that was geared towards beginners looking to choose a distro.
In fact if you google some combination of the words ?what linux distro is best for beginners?? you will get either hundreds of links to forums or the philosophical answer of ?whatever distro is right for you?. In the first case someone asks for advice on picking a distro and 4,000 people respond with 100 different answers. Clearly that is no help. But even worse than that is the Linux articles (and yes, there were quite a few that I found) that have authors who truely believe that telling a beginner ?whatever distro is right for you? will actually help them.
Now, I can also list reams of sites that want to explain Linux to a beginner. Oh they go into insane detail explaining terminal commands, how to network computers, connect to the internet, play games, type documents blah blah blah but they never get to the heart of the matter, namely which distro should I choose in the first place?
So, failing at finding a good intro site I decided to look for reviews of all the current distros and pick one out that way. Sadly most of the reviews weren?t very helpful because they tended to fall into one of two categories:
Group 1: I like distro X using desktop manager Y because it?s the best. No comparison to other distors, few if any facts, annoyingly contrived data and overall useless in picking a distro for a beginner.
Group 2: I like distro X when I do this very specific task that a beginner will never do. I will now go into excruciating detail explaining why all microwave ovens should run Linux. This is also useless.
But at some point I managed to find enough reviews to help me make a semi-intelligent choice and so I downloaded Ubuntu. However, my story doesn?t end there. You see, since I couldn?t find anything on the web that was exactly what I needed I turned to several friends who are considerably more into Linux than I and asked for their advice. They suggested Fedora Core 4 and so I downloaded that as well and ultimately used that as my primary Linux distro.
Summary:
If you are going into this alone then it looks like Ubuntu is one of the easier distros to use. However, if you have a friend (like me) who knows a distro very well and can help you to learn it, go with that (which in my case is Fedora).
Overall Experience:
3/10
With no good site geared towards helping a beginner find his or her way the vast number of Linux resources can easily overwhelm one. A site that lists the top three distros for each sector would be very helpful. By that I mean it would be very nice to see a site that broke distros down into categories like Mail Servers, Programming Work Stations, Linux for Beginners, Linux for Power Users etc. And then compared and contrasted the top three so one could make an informed choice. Additionally it is very hard to find an unbiased opinion about which is better Gnome or KDE? And once again a review of the strengths and weaknesses of both would have been appreciated.
Downloading & Burning
First I had to download the ISO files for each of the four Fedora install CDs. That wasn?t too difficult, time consuming but not difficult. However, before burning these disk images I needed to look at the checksums and make sure that everything was correct. Here comes my first problem. You see if the sums don?t match, when I try to install the OS problems will occur. So, it is in my best interest to ensure that I check everything down to the last digit. To that end I follow the instructions on RedHat?s installation page and type in ?sha1sum FC4-i386-disc1.iso? and am promptly rewarded with an error telling me that I don?t have the particular sum-checking utility sha1sum. Well, no problem, I will just download it from somewhere. And so after a few moments searching on Google I come up with a blog entry that details exactly the problem I am having. Even better they provide a link to get you to the download page of the utility that I need. Beautiful! So I download the correct files, peruse the README file, glance through the installation document and I am ready to get this thing up and running. All I have to do is MAKE the files. So, I fire up the Terminal, type MAKE and . . . it dies, telling me that it doesn?t understand MAKE and would I please go do something with myself.
Ok, a minor setback is all this is. In fact, this is my fault entirely because I didn?t install Xcode on this machine (its my wife?s laptop and I didn?t put it on there because she would never use it). But that can, and is, rectified fairly quickly. Ok, so, I have installed Xcode to compile the checksum utility so it can be run to verify that my ISO files are correct so I can burn them to CDs so I can then install Fedora. What could go wrong?
I installed Xcode without a problem and soon there after my sum-checking utility was operational. I then used it and found out that one of my four ISO files didn?t have the correct checksum, thus I had to download it again, after which everything looked good. As for Ubuntu, after I had gotten Fedora out of the way the rest was quite easy. After that all you have to do is drag the images to a blank disk and burn them.
Summary:
Most of the delay was my fault for failing to have the correct utilities and compilers installed before I attempted all of this. It was easy enough to figure out but annoying none the less.
Overall Experience:
6/10
Downloading the files was very straight forward and the instructions on what to do before and after the download were clearly laid out. Though having to check the files to ensure they are viable, while a good idea, is time consuming and fairly boring.
http://linuxreviews.org/
solves all his problems.
If he wants detailed, distro by distro reviews/categories
http://www.linuxquestions.org/reviews/index.php
is where he should go.
If he wants to find out which one distro is currently the favorite of the community
http://distrowatch.com/
is where he should go.
The article smells of an amateur who doesn't know how to use Google. I mean I understand his issues with Linux - there are a few quirks and problems and it's not up to OS X's user friendliness, but some of the points he's trying to make are just not true. There are many websites geared towards beginners. I linked one (the first link). A simple "Linux reviews" in Google would give you much more. There are many, many websites with tutorials, reviews, and first glances of all major distro's out there. I linked one (the second link). There are many websites with information about current distro's, which one is the most popular, where and how to get it (the third Link).
With regards to downloading - you don't have to do it. You can easily buy pre-packaged, pre-checked and very nicely documented distro's in their cute little boxes. SuSE comes to mind. Xandros comes to mind. Linspire comes to mind. That he chose to download Fedora Core 4 (a totally bleeding-edge and unsupported distro) is his choice - and the painful experience (really, how painful is it to let Safari/Firefox finish your download and then use Disk Utility to burn an image?) is something he shouldn't brag about, because he chose to go that route when there were clearly better, easier routes.
In any case, I concurr that it is not up to OS X's standards yet in terms of user-friendliness and general usability, but the article mentions none of that.