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I am a total dummy in Linux and need some quick help.

 

1) As i understand, there are options for GUIs such as KDE. What is the most user-friendly one for someone accustomed to Windows? And what do they offer other than the interface. Is there any performance difference?

 

2) What difference do the different linux packages make. Like red hat, mandrake and fedora.

 

3)It seems that my mandrakelinux runs very slow compared to windows 98/ME. How can I improve the performance? Should I use a different Linux package? Or the settings? Or the GUI?

 

Thanks.

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Ok, sorry tinny for a long wait, i was out for a while, and why didnt anyone else answer yet?

1) As i understand, there are options for GUIs such as KDE. What is the most user-friendly one for someone accustomed to Windows? And what do they offer other than the interface. Is there any performance difference?

Some? there is so many, 2 main and biggest being KDE and Gnome, there is so many, from boxes (blackbox, fluxbox, openbox, whitebox), to 3d guis (looking glass, metisse) and anything in between.

acrually my friend was telling me about one that was a lot more user firendly than windows gui, because it made more sense, i'll ask him about that... if you want a more complete GUI, use Gnome, although some people prefer KDE over it, i just hate the bells and whissles of it, but either one works fine. Just wait a while, maybe i'll think of the name of the super friendly gui that kicks explorers buttocks really badly in its user friedability :cup: (as for me, i hate big, shiny, bloated GUIs, so i use blackbox...)

2) What difference do the different linux packages make. Like red hat, mandrake and fedora.
If you want a package, get yourself a debian-based distro, not debian itself, but a debian-based distro, or better yet Gentoo if you want real linux and want to know about the inner workings of your operating system... The difference is custimizability, kernel patches, packages that they come with, package clients, and lastly who you pay money to, and mostly how they use the money the money you pay them. (P.S. whatever you do, dont use RedHat)

Why Gentoo?

the Packge management system is crazy awesome, the installation requires an internet connection and either a live CD or knoppix, because you download most of your system, oh yeah, and you need a decently fast connection in order to operate gentoo on everyday basis, so if you have a DSL or Cable connection, at least at work (btw i have not figured out how to setup dialup under linux, but its just a matter of time)...

3)It seems that my mandrakelinux runs very slow compared to windows 98/ME. How can I improve the performance? Should I use a different Linux package? Or the settings? Or the GUI?
right back at you: when was the last time you have updated, how much space do your partitions have on the hard drive, how many big packages do you have installed, what version of mandrake are you running, how much ram and swap does your system have, and lastly how is your kernel configured, what do you load and what services do you have start and what is in your cron, are you root kitted, can you check? Linux should perform better than windows all the time, if your system has been compromised or there is something wrong, it can start bogging down, also if you are running a big GUI and your system can not handle it, you will run into huge performance losses, also if you have many services run, you will run into performance loss, and lasty if you have any drivers that are unstable, you may run into a performance loss (there's much more, but first i need to know the answers to the questions above...) to ask a series of new ones
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Alex, do expect that I don't know technical stuff about computers in general, and specifically linux. so avoid the jargon where you can.

My main question is about improving performance of mandrakelinux wiht KDE gui. it is running on P4 1.5ghz with 128 ram. takes a whole load of time just to open the file explorer.

itś not my computer but one at the library. the librarian wanted linux.. i don¨t know much about the computer settings and hardware. but i do notice the performance lag compared to winXP.

by the way, whereś a good source of material to read about migrating from windows to linux?

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that's great. thanks a lot. will go through.

so how are things going? have you gone through the linux articles?

 

in anycase, the library at my college has just removed the 3 linbux computers which they approved me to install. this isnt due to the linux slow performance (particularly in those 3 computers) but there was a new batch of computers -P4 2.8 w/t HT- that come equipped with WinXP...

 

but not all is lost, the older computers can still be salvaged (RAMs, HDDs) and I'm planing to install Linux in them.. well, not like they are of any use when being left in the store...

 

but then again, with 2 computers going to be merged into one -that is the parts of 1 are going to be salvaged into the other- i do think that they are strong enough to run Win98 smoothly...

 

so actually im divided whether to choose win98 (the computers came with the license) or Linux...

 

personally, I do like linux's GUI interface, but as Tinny has mentioned, I did notice performance lag, espacially in the booting process and the launching of application

 

they are: P2 400, P3 500 and P4 1.5.. however they are equipped with only 64MB (for the formers) and 128MB (for the latter) of RAM.

 

so do you think i should just abandon Linux and opt for win98 since enough hardware sources can be gathered...?

 

I guess i should make a thread abt this as it already involves sth other than linux

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not many people are comfortable using linux at libraries. Especially over in my country, Malaysia. So if those comps are to be used for public, then go for win98. Anyway, not many are that good in destroying the computer as long as the appropriate software is used.

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Anyway, not many are that good in destroying the computer as long as the appropriate software is used.

No way... but before I start to argue, please define 'appropriate software'... and please shed more light regarding your point, i dont quite get it..

 

appropriate software.. huh :friday:

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among the approriate software include:

up-to-date anti-virus, anti-spam, adaware etc

a rollback software to reset system configurations, similar to those you find at cyber cafes. hmmm.. if cyber cafes can survive with windows, there's no reason you can't. All the do is employ 'appropriate software'.

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U gave a very good point with the Roll-back softwares used in cybercafes. In fact, that's what im planning to impliment on all computers under my command (those slow P2s and P3s)

 

Anti Virus, ad awre and anti spam are only or almost only good againts external threats.. From my 6 months experience as the computer admin for the library, I found that the students are very sharp.. no, they are tricky, they know what to do to disable this and that... anti virus and the other 2 softwares you have just mentioned are of no use againts them...

 

to be honest, I'm more afraid of the students and the way they tweak the Windows as compared to external arttacks... some of them installed Bitcommet which is used to download stuff and that could make me in hot soup... he's very tricky at that, changing his Bitcomet folder locations every now and then..

 

some installed keyloggers, while I can use the adawre to remove them, with 10 computers under my wing, i'd rather bar them from installing the keyloggers than to scan for the keyloggers...

 

There are ways to bar the students from doing this and that but a lot of early post-installation steps must be taken and I'm not prepared for that yet as I'm not actually a full admid... but I'll do my best for the students' desire to use the computers smoothly...

 

rolback software is a good idea, we have the resources, i just need some means to impliment it...

 

do u have any good 'free' rollback software in mind?

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so do you think i should just abandon Linux and opt for win98 since enough hardware sources can be gathered...?
NO, no no, absolutely not!!!! for a few reasons i mention below:

1) Unlike windows, Linux is made for CRAPPY hardware, it was originally built on it, so hackers put it on any box they have, and since most of them are poor, any box should have done, so anything you have will run it, the performance lag is due to the boatiness of the gui interfaces, but I have friends who run Gnome on their old 233 laptops and some even going as far back as i486(which, if propperly overclocked will do about 100mhz).

2) The true lag is due to the amount of graphic and other processing that the computer has to do to output all the shine of guis.

3) You have to optimize linux in order for it to perform great, and trading in things that are somewhat convenient but will never be used in for things that are somewhat harder to setup and run, but will make your system perform better is many times a must on the slow machines.

 

Finally as to your machines: P 400 - might have a little lag in compiling, P 500 is better, but still time-consuming, the P4 should have no ptoblems running even the shiny GUIs, for the rest of them i think yu should consider something like http://www.xfce.org/, or even fluxbox, yes in case of fluxbox, you cant open up menus to deal with system anything, but you get much more speed out your system, and a little shine with semitransparent menus and shortcuts for applications.

 

Another thing when installing linux on a slow machine is what distro you setup and how you build your packages. If you are using an out of the box distro, with shiny installer, you are not using true Linux, yes it should still be faster than windows, but not by much as everything is optimised for the general public that runs faster PCs, what you really want to do is build a Gentoo or Slackware box, speciffically optimised for the machine you are building it for, optimise your kernel config, dont load things that you dont need to load or will ever use (like floppies, but if you have one on your system, module it, dont build everything in is the point) your end kernel should really not be anything over 2 megs. Dont use binary packages (unless you are installing something like OpenOffice) compiling takes longer, yes, but once compiled your app will perform a lot better than a binary can ever hope. For guis, turn off the shine and stick to productivity, you say you are building it for a library, then turn off sound effects, some button rollovers, things that can eatup processor usage in other words.

 

As to win98, dont under any circomstances install that operating system and connect it to any kind of external network, win98 is one of the most insecure, and helpless OSes ever made, it takes all of a minute for a newbie script kiddie to get into a Win98 box, the only thing that's worse is probably WinMe. The beauty of running Linux is not giving the students root access to the box (never, under any circomstances) and making sure that you are not rootkitted (easy enough, there are many rootkit sniffers out there). You dont have to deal with viruses or spyware or adware, as long as the box is up to date, since you wont need your box to be up 24/7 running a cron job of updating the box is probably the easy, set it and forget it option for you. What you need is a good distro with a decent Package Management System, so shoot for Gentoo or if you really need the setup menus and dont want to do a hardcore linux install, use a debian derivative (Portage is awesome for dealing with packages (gentoo), and so is apt(debian)), oh just whatever you do, dont run vanilla Debian, as i said a Debian-based system (good source of info: http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20040119#1 )

 

Well, enjoy, if you got any questions, please post :friday:

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SuSE 9.2 Pro. Came on a DVD with a magazine. I tried it out, uninstalled it, and found out that it had messed with my SATA drive setup so I lost a 250 Gig drive. :friday: Working on retrieving the lost data - it will take all night.

 

But I am going to try out Knoppix - probably better for someone with my lack of insight into the world of Linux.

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Alexander, that was very nice of you to give all those rsuggestions and insights about linux. The only problem left now is for me to get myself familiarize with the world of linux. You are right, i would like them to not access the root folders and change any other settings. And you are right again as what I installed in the computers previously was Mandrake which was bloated with all those GUIs..

 

One question, from you opinion, where do i really need to start klearning about linux? I'm lost, I dont know where to start. I would like to learn system configs that will allow me to set things indipendantly...

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As for your overloading comments in the above post, I think we can safely say that SuSE loads just about everything there ever was.

 

Not really, if you have a box that is unheard to man kind (architecture and hardware), Net BSD is the system to run :), actually me and my friends were thinking about setting it up on a Tandy 200 laptop, and that is 200 not 2000 or anything, but we'd need a tape drive with the older interface to run install it (its similar to the old mouse/keyboard adapter in the back), and i'm almost sure that we would have succeeded :) (For those of you who have never heard of tandy 200, it is a second generation of tandy 100 laptops (that were really popular when they came out), although tandy 200 lacked popularity, as some of the machines that started making it out to the market at the time were aleady runung Microsoft DOS, and were a bit more powerful. tandy 200 comes with a whapping 8 mhz (intel 80186 or 189 i cant remember) and 20k of ROM memory, it runs Microsoft Basic III and has a text editor, spreadsheet application and a calendar, as well as a basic interpreter. also due to the fact that it has no HD and instead has ROM, it powers on in literaly less than a second, MsBasic III is probably the best MS operating system ever made (funny but true and sad) )

 

One question, from you opinion, where do i really need to start klearning about linux? I'm lost, I dont know where to start. I would like to learn system configs that will allow me to set things indipendantly...

Ok, do you have a box at home, how many? Do you have a broadband connection available? I'll wait for an answer before i continue, but even before that, if you expect to really learn linux you need to be prepared to read a lot, learn to research, understand command-line, not be afraid of being put in a situation where you want something to work, but it doesnt, so you dont give up and do more research, ask around and try to figure it out, and lastly, there is almost no reason why you would need to reinstall linux at any point, no matter how broken it is (and yes that has limits, but 99% of time it is fixable), you need to recover from the windows sickness of, oh it doesnt work, reinstall the system, cuz that most of the time will only make things worse.

If you agree to the outline above, and can answer the 3 easy questions on the top, i can give you a 3/4 decent outline of how to actually work and learn linux (and eventually switch to it and forget windows)

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