Re: Newbie looking for a UNIX

From: SpamLover (n1jpr_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 11/18/03

  • Next message: Andrew Ho: "Re: Newbie looking for a UNIX" 
    Date: 18 Nov 2003 11:24:14 -0800

    KEEP TRYING OUT DIFFERENT SYSTEMS

    For peace of mind, add a slave HD to your system to try Unices on, and
    learn to nuke / restore the "master boot record" so it goes back to
    booting Windows. (Note 1). You can also use the 2nd HD for backing up
    data and an image your Windows system partition(s) using Linux or
    Unix, which is also a good thing. (Note 2)

    MY PERSONAL ASSESSMENT OF VARIOUS ALTERNATIVES I TRIED
    IN GROWING ORDER OF COMPLICACY

    Lycoris: very easy, light but complete (they choose best-of-kind
    applications for user, and reasonably well), works as advertised, cute
    eye candy (nicely hacked KDE). Described as an XP clone (less the crap
    and the world domination). Normally installs without compliers
    (available on 2nd CD). Slick productivity pack. Good multimedia. $40.
    New edition (Update 3) just out. If it's like Update 2 it must be
    quite mature.

    Red Hat: corporate and going to be even more so, said to be solid but
    not really in my brief experience. A bit of bloat. Prolly the best
    interface around (hacked both KDE and Gnome). $$$ for the corporate
    editions. (Fedora, the new development edition is free but said to be
    highly experimental). Can be installed from CD images on HD.

    Libranet
    Debian based and 100% compatible, very nice install and management
    tools. More aggressive than standard Debian in selecting newer apps,
    yet quite stable. My current favorite. ~$70.

    Debian
    Not that difficult, rather conservative, a deluge of available
    packages, very good net-based install, excellent package management,
    perhaps less loved than it deserves. Can be installed from the net.
    Supportive and fairly large community. Free.

    Vector
    Slackware based, very good on old iron (or very fast on newer comps).
    Quick install. $30?

    Gentoo
    You decide what you want in, you compile from sources (if you want).
    Can be tough and long winded, and a learning experience too. You get a
    system highly optimized for your needs and hardware. Free.

    MY NEXT TRIAL: NetBSD.
    Really lightweight, fast, equipped to run apps from Linux and all
    other BSD's under emulation, excellent memory management, ridiculously
    modest minimum hardware requirements, supposedly broad range of
    supported HW. But: smallish user base, unsure how hard to imbibe (and
    install). Other +ves: it's been around 10 years and it's only at
    version 1.6.1 (i.e. very light on bull***), there's a pretty cool
    Live CD for v. 1.6.0.

    Both Debian and NetBSD run on a large number of platforms, which is
    usually a good sign of solidity.

    If I were in your shoes, I'd go for Lycoris first.

    I mentioned prices. Almost all the above can be dl'ed and installed
    for free and require $ and registration for update services and / or a
    degree support.

    I strongly recommend paying for software anyway, even if free, as soon
    as you can afford it and get something useful out of it.

    NOTE 1
    Restoring the MBR
    - In Linux: you can save the boot record with :
      dd if=/dev/hda of=/<path>/<filename> bs=512 count=1
    It can then be restored with:
      dd if=/<path>/<filename> of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1
    If you do not want/need to overwrite the partition table:
      dd if=/boot/boot.MBR of=/dev/hda bs=446 count=1
    as the partition table is kept in the last 66 bytes of the MBR.
    It's easier to boot Linux from a floppy disk than to recover an MBR
    from DOS.
    Use eg tomsrtbt Linux from toms.net.
    - In DOS, FDISK /MBR will nuke the MBR and let the PC boot from the
    1st partition on the master drive. But backup and recovery is a darn
    mess.

    NOTE 2
    Using Linux to back up Windows
    At its simplest (for Win9X) you can copy the whole _content_ of the
    system partition on a Linux partition, and copy it back if the s. hits
    the fan.
    You can also use more sophisticated means and back an image of that
    partition onto the other HD or onto CDs:
    http://mondorescue.norsklinux.no/

  • Next message: Andrew Ho: "Re: Newbie looking for a UNIX"