Mastershredder

Hey all.. I'm a computer tech and have pretty much always used PC's with MS operating systems. Lately, i've been wanting to steer towards Linux to broaden my knowledge, but the last time I did that, It wasn't very user friendly and I didnt really have anyone that I knew to help me. I saw the Mandrake has a newer 9.2 series that is supposed to be more windows like and is supposed to be easier to transition from windows to Linux. My questions is, do you think this would be a good version to start out with, or is there something that would be better? I tried slackware and redhat in the past but thought there was way too much content, without much explanation. I figure if its set up more familiar, i'll learn it faster.

Also, does Mandrake offer any kind of free trial downloads or anyting? I saw that they're charging approx $45 for it. Thanks.

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SecretMethod70

You can download Mandrake here: http://www.linuxiso.org/

As far as a distro to start out with, Mandrake is a good one in my opinion.

If you haven't, I highly suggest you sift through these threads as well - especially the first one:

<a href="http://tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4170">ATTENTION: 'Why Linux is Not for You: The Lengthy Rebuttal of a Linux User'</a>
<a href="http://tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?s=&threadid=199">Which flavor of Linux?</a>
<a href="http://tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?s=&threadid=203">Top Linux Downloads</a>
<a href="http://tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?s=&threadid=144">Linux software equivalents</a>

Linux is VERY different from Windows and Mac OS. Different distros leave various amounts of things to the end user to do, but one thing that can be consistantly said across the different distros is that they all generally require the user to pay FAR more attention to details and the inner workings of the OS than Windows or Mac OS.

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Ratman

Last week I installed Mandrake PowerPack 9.2. About 70 bucks with shipping (I am overseas). I installed on a desktop, and as a dual boot with win2k on a laptop. I had no problems whatsoever with either install, and it comes with a buttload of stuff to play with. I have had similar experience to you in the past, and this has made me feel like I can actually learn to use and love the penguin.

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darkure

My friend had a bitch of a time trying to get it to recognize his onboard LAN controller. He has an nForce2 board. I have a 3com PCI card which 9.2 recognized just fine. But I mainly boot to XP since I play a lot of games.

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Mastershredder

Thanks for all the info. I'll sit down and read it before I decide on what to use. Also, thanks for the site, SecretMethod70, I guess ya just gotta know where to go to get it

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SecretMethod70

Well, to be fair, you can also get it from Mandrake's own website, but personally I think that linuxiso is a lot easier to use and nice since it has links to many different distros.

It's true though...Linux is something that you learn and learn to appreciate over time. When I started out with it, there were a bunch of "why dosen't it do this?!" and "why won't this work?!" comments on my part. Then I learned that a lot of times it DID do that and things DID work...if you took the time to learn how. And in the cases where it didn't, it's not really Linux's fault most of the time. For example, support for hardware, if the hardware company won't make drivers for Linux, for whatever reason, then there's not going to be support until someone in the Linux community goes through the tedious process of reverse engineering, etc. So, if you want good support for things in Linux, the best way to get it is not to complain that "Linux isn't ready" because it doesn't have support, but, rather, that the company that makes the hardware isn't up with the times and tell them that. Many companies won't bother supporting Linux until people show them that it's to their benefit, and that means more and more people need to use Linux and tell whatever company that they do use Linux and that they want them to support Linux.

It's an uphill battle for us at first, but I guarantee that if everyone that has ever tried Linux and gotten pissed off that their "printer doesn't work" or their "mouse doesn't work" had stuck with it and put pressure on the makers of those products to support Linux more, Linux would be in a far different place right now.

That's not to say the Linux community can't do things to improve upon this as well, just that "it takes 2 to tango" if you will. So far, the majority of the time, the Linux community has been trying to tango with itself.

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"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling