Moving to Linix?

Any of you have a prefered flavor of linix that is good for business Apps and gaming? I know nothing of the platform but am getting interested in it. I need to move my OS from an older slower drive to a newer faster one but would like to jump off the microsoft Flagshipship. (Echos because its so big)
Really any time or good links would help me greatly!
You know come to think of it can games like BF42 BFV and HL2 be played on Linix? I know they can operate the server but as a client I don't know.

The February MaximumPC has an article about "Taking the Linux Plunge" that was interesting. One of their writers converted to Linux (Debian I think) for 6 months and documented his trials and tribulations.

I am not sure if or how Battlefield would run on Linux.

Thanx I'll have to check it out!
Through the little amount of research I did I stumbled on a review, short and to the point, of the most popular flavors out. http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=9569&page=1
I've decied to go with BeatrIX 2005.1, downloading now!
To answer my own question: No you can't run those games on Linux any platform.
They all seem to be solely text/word, surfing and server type plateforms.
How'd ya like my spelling of Linix, ha goes to show how much I know!

Ha!. I've been debating setting up a Linux box as a file server, but really have no true reason to do that other than just because it would be interesting. I am afraid if I start another project like that my wife will come after me with a shotgun and force me to do something productive at gunpoint!

Maybe this will help with your choice of distros:

http://www.bbspot.com/news/2000/4/linux_distros.html

Hymen, my one big suggestion for you would be to be very careful what you let linux do with your boot sector if this is your main machine. Linux normally does just fine, but user error will get you everytime. I have never used BeatrIX, but I can assure you all have their quirks.

I will get the linux diehards up in arms, but alot of the heresay about linux has somewhat passed. There are many who talk a good game about linux that have never run it. They will tell you linux will run great on your old 8088 with 64k of memory. It used to be the case that linux was inherently small and ran with small amounts fo resources. In my experience, that is not so much the case now. Although, I have stuck to the larger distros, Redhat, Mandrake. I would encourage anyone to install linux and have fun playing with it, but don't do it because of the rumors you hear. Its kinda like Mac OS, it has its diehards that will tell you "it's the best period!" there is no reasoning with them.

For the record, I am a fan of Mac OS and own a mac. I think all OS's have their ups and downs, and I still miss DOS.

Well I think I'm going to run it on a spare box I have...
AMD K6 400mhz I believe
probably 3 sticks of 128mb pc133
Voodoo III (3 I think) agp card with 16mb memory
I also have an old trident 2mb pci card if the Voodoo isn't compatable.
On a chaintec or 1st MOBO.
I've been wanting to play with Linux and now I need a business computer so I think this is the best excuse I've had as of yet to play with it.
Any Linux people have any sugestions as far as the system.

HAHA thats funny!
one of the headlines:
Keebler Launches Linux on a Cheez-It
I thought it was a serious link for a min. there

I discovered that site the other day. Pretty funny stuff. There was another "News Story" about a Linux Developer getting laid and how it raised hopes everywhere.

Hymen, I have never heard of that Distro either. I would suggest going with something that will run well on your Hardware. I'm not sure what distro works the best on older hardware, but I would stick to the basic distro's if at all possible. If nothing else, those of us that do mess with it might be able to give you a hand.

I use Red Hat. I have played with other distro's, but it was 4 years ago and a lot has changed. I downloaded Xandros because I read it was a great Desktop Distro, but I never installed it. I am building a media server to store pics and mp3's that can be streamed to my Tivo and I will use Red Hat Fedora because it is what I know.

As far as games, there is a product called Cedega http://www.transgaming.com/ that will allow you to play games on linux, but it has a monthly fee and it requires a certain amount of effort on your part. Last I read, BFV was working on cedega. I know that Unreal Tournament will run on Linux and I think Doom3 will as well. I am not sure about Half Life.

Anyway, welcome to a whole new world of geekdom that you never knew existed. Bone up and I'll put you to work on the game server. :-)

I've played with Suse, Mandrake, TurboLinux, and Redhat. My favorite was redhat. But to be a real Linux diehard, you wouldn't run a GUI. :-) They can be cumbersome and flaky as Windows. Heck Windows fits on a CD, Your main distributions with a gui interface typically runs 2-3 cd's, but yeah that includes a LOT of other stuff. I've found the KDE runs great on all the distro's but redhat. On redhat it just runs ok. I've had the best experience running gecko on Redhat. I have this little problem with Linux and the Mac OS platforms, i know enough to be dangerious and usually end up breaking it. I''m the guy the goes into compusa and plays on the mac and before I know it, "lockup" i usually tend to walk away at that point. I had to use a Mac in my desktop publishing class, I was the first to be able to connect to the network printer, but I was the one that also had to reboot frequently. Raze and Mac's don't get along. I think they are fun to mess with. Sorry got off track there a bit.. :-)

Based on these things which should I go for?
Are any of the recommended bundled with software and free?
I'm going to need:
Word processor, a billing generator, and a ledger (money program)
as well as something that will support FireFox.

The version I'm looking at is bundled with:
Firefox 1, Evolution 2, GAIM, Open Office Org. Suite, GAIM, Gnome 2.8 desktop, Vim, apt.
and is less than 190 mb and you can run it live from a disk. http://www.watsky.net

You have to buy Red Hat right?
Are there Freeware apps that I could use?
The cost is one of the most important factors here for me and that is a big reason why I'm going to jump to linux.
I am willing to shell out for others hard work, but I'd really rather not!
I'll be the stingy old prick Shaking my fist at you! "You little whipper snappers!"
S*&% I got a lot of research to do now dam it!
Yeah like I said before I don't know S about Linux and it's platforms, so if anyone has any links they'd like to share, EXCEPT FOR SARGE, please do.

I am soooo offended!

1.) Red hat is free to download,burn and use but if you want real Redhat cds or support then you pay. The nice part of redhat is there are alot fo linux people running it, For example Raze, Atomm and myself have all run it.

2.) The beauty of linux is there is almost always an open source project for any piece of software you may want. The downfall is that many (in my experience)of them are in a constant state of being between versions. But you could always just run the last stable version.

3.) you could always download and install gaim, firfox, openoffice... for most any distro I know of.

And Raze, Mac OS is your friend, it's everyones friend, just it'll stab you in the back when you least expect it. I like Mac OS but as soon as I start to feel real comfortable with it again, I find a limitation. I don't use it as much anymore, only when i need to use my wifes mac. I used to have to phone support it as well as windows and linux. urrrg

Thanx Bubba!

Care to add some links you like?

I have always done it on my own and used google to solve all the nagging problems as they came up. So sorry no links, I defer to Atomm or Raze, who are more experienced


As for Opensource software: http://sorceforge.net

To download Redhat Fedora http://www.redhat.com/fedora/

If you want to start off easy, I really recommend Xandros. The only downside is you have to get it via Bit Torrent if you want the free version. Expect 1-2 days to download. I have it, but never installed. With that said, it is supposed to be one of the most Windows friendly versions.

As for the Money thing, that is going to be a problem. From what I have read, that is one of the main pieces of software that Linux lacks. There are things out there, but how exciting is developing a program to track your money or lack there of. :-)

I run OpenOffice on my Windows XP laptop. It's not as snazzy as Office 2003, but it was free and it works.

... Raze, who are more experienced

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA that is the funnies thing I have ever heard. I'm just a linux dabbler. :-)

and I'm somewhere above Raze, but way below ephil.......

Seriously, if you put me in front of a Linux GUI, I'll just sit there and stare at all the 'purty colors...... Command Line All The Way!!!!!

if you know the command line you can pretty much rule linux.

Cedega is $15 now, i remember when it was WineX and when it was free. Oh the days.... I need to try and see what Fedora 3 does, I notice it is suppose to have some windows executable compatability.

WineX is still available and it is still free. Cedega is the group within WineX that focuses on making games work with WineX. I could be wrong, but that is what I understand.

Think of it as Red Hat Fedora (free) and Red Hat Enterprise (not free).

Is that $15 a one time fee or monthly? That was my biggest problem with this. I didn't want to pay monthly for something I may never use.

One of the things mentioned in this post was some sort of money managment software...

http://freshmeat.net/search/?q=money§i...s&Go.x=0&Go.y=0

There are many...

I will tell you, I run Linux for everything EXCEPT games... I have always looked at Windows being the gaming OS and Linux being the productivity OS...

I will try to keep up with this thread some more if you have any questions going forward.

Thanx guys that a great start for me I'll let ya know how it goes.
I am totally willing to buy software but I just thought that there was a lot of decent programs that people put out for free!

Opensource is your friend. You will find pretty much everything you need for free. There are exceptions, but very few.

If you need help finding anything, let me know.

Atomm wrote:WineX is still available and it is still free. Cedega is the group within WineX that focuses on making games work with WineX. I could be wrong, but that is what I understand.

Think of it as Red Hat Fedora (free) and Red Hat Enterprise (not free).

Is that $15 a one time fee or monthly? That was my biggest problem with this. I didn't want to pay monthly for something I may never use.

If you can find WineX as a free download, please point it to me. plus to quote from many websites.

Cedega formerly WineX, a set of modded wine-binaries for running various Windows-based programs, especially games, on Linux.

I thought one of the distro's had it installed......

Your not getting WineX mixed up with Wine?

I might be.... Who the hell puts an X on the end of some one else's name.

Hey, I could be RazeX..... That's got a ring too it...... :-)

LOL....

Thanx guys!
Does anyone know the name of the torrent downloader that uses the blue frog logo?
Can't remember! Azereth?

Found it!
Googled "torrent programs blue frog"
Azureus!

Hymen_Slaughter wrote:Thanx guys!
Does anyone know the name of the torrent downloader that uses the blue frog logo?
Can't remember! Azereth?

<Raven voice>[b][size=18]Azerath Metrion Zenthos !</Raven voice>

I believe we are looking at a hand drawn Raze original..... Very cool!

No, that one I stole from the net. I could do it though. OK now I'm inspired.

Wow! running live CD KNOPPIX v3.6
Suprised at how easily it configured my system.
Definitly going to have to install linux on a system.
Looks great too, for a live cd. Can only hope that others are like it!