Well read my avatar
my dad doesnt let because it takes to much room and it wrecks up the computer and he doesnt know what it does, and he think XP is 60 times better then linux because "its a stupid program that cant even run!" well its dead for me and i want to be alive but how? how can i convince my dad to install this program again?

Well theres been lots of casulaties like cant go on the internet cant run, well this is the one that got me puzzled red hat 7.0 i think well we installed it finally but the screen goes all black and says [localhost@localhost] then we didnt know what to do and it stuffed up XP as well and thats all that happened. im thinking of buying a new computer but its to much money for a 13 year old

I saw this Australian website that tells you the location of this place where they teach newbies and help them, i forgot the adress and the website but it was barry road or something somewhere near the city. please help im a

I learned most of the stuff I know from here

http://linux-newbie.sunsite.dk/

Thanks for the website but how can i convince my dad to install the program! what can i say?

Honestly, if your dad has that viewpoint, then it doesn't sound like he will want to learn a completely new way of doing things. There are some similarities to Windows, but Linux is a whole new ballgame. What I would do is maybe get a stripped down version of linux like Debian or VectorLinux 3.2 (not SOHO). It's possible to load a distro on less then 2 to 3 gigs of space and have room to spare. You can do that and still have XP up and kicking, and then you can also have a linux distro to play around with too. That way you get the best of both worlds and if you dad feels like taking a crack at it, then he can choose to boot into linux.

Linux is very frustrating to a newbie (as I almost quit Linux altogether). And it's quite a leap from XP, so you may be able to convince your dad to do a dual boot config which Linux supports extremely well. That's what I have, and now I like linux so much that I hardly use XP anymore. I use it mostly for my games now. Good luck.

Well thanks but we done that once and it jsut deleted the whole thing! and linux didnt run and that made it even worse! whats the best Linux OS to start of with?

Cullber, great site

BTW culbert where can i download VectorLinux 3.2 BTW how big is it? hope its not to big because i just want a small one to start with, and i heard you can install with a floppy disk to run it.

Sorry to intrude, but www.vectorlinux.com. A boot and root disk and about 122 megs on a hard drive or CD-ROM will get it done, and it'll be 350-375 megs installed. It's got a lot of nice stuff, so you wouldn't have to have gigs and gigs unless you really wanted to. And I gather it is hard for you to get state of the art computers but people are *throwing away* computers that Linux will run great on. Maybe you can find something like that as a personal testing and learning machine that'll hold you for awhile.

It's not the easiest thing to get running, depending on your luck, but I like it.

see if you can get a cd of knoppix(download the iso and burn it to a cd if you have to)-you can then put it in your cd drive at bootup and it will take over and give you a complete working linux system-when you shut it down and reboot without the cd, you will have xp back untouched-do a search on knoppix to learn about it and give it a go-there are other bootable linux on cd's, but i forget their names.-linux shouldn't have messed up your xp-make sire you have xp on the first partition of your harddrive and then make a primary partition(at least 2-3 gb formatted to ext2) for root ( / ) and another one for swap(256mb probably enough) formatted for swap-when you get to installing the linux bootloader(lilo would be good) don't install it to the mbr, but to the beginning of your linux boot sector( / ).-now there are many other ways to do this, but i think this might be the easiest to get you started(and i hope i haven't made any mistakes here, but if i have someone will let us know)-good luck-if you can learn enough up front to point out what went wrong,you might have a chance to convince dad to give it a go.

Try Red Hat 8.0. It's pretty brainless and that's good for a newbie. I got everything to work first try. Lucky

Maybe you can try and convince your dad with these:

1) Linux is powering the Internet.

2) Those who are Linux proficient are more marketable when seeking a job.

3) Learning basic programming is easy and free with Linux. (C, C++, Java, Python, Perl, Tck/Tk, MIPS/PIC/x86/Motorola68K Assembly) (no MS or manufacturer compilers/assemblers to pay for).

4) You can learn A LOT about computer architecture by reading the kernel source code.

If you're at all interested in computer study at a university you will be YEARS ahead of your classmates. I mean it.... YEARS. When they're trying to comprehend the difference between a signal and an interrupt or what the hell a priority queue and a spin lock is you can just smile.

What you put into it is pretty proportional to what you can get out.

How does this become true i need proof please?
Thats a pretty cool idea to say to my dad but wheres the proof?

There's been a couple of good suggestions allready. First of all Knoppix. Just dowload that, burn the cd (as image!) and you can boot the cd, work in Linux as much as you want, without touching the Windows drive at all. Only downside is that it works slower from cd than if it would be on harddisk.

Second one is: get yourself an old computer. An old Pentium will work fine with Linux. Some of your father's colleages will have such a machine gathering dust in the attic... Ask around, check the ads, maybe there's even a computer store where they sell second hand machines. At least then you have a machine you can mess with and learn Linux on.

because you see the mouths of your computer teachers fall open if you fix something in linux they have never done before

SuSE & Mandrake are good newbie freindly linux OSs

Mandrake.rehat or suse, there all great os's, as alread stated knoppix is probably your best choice to convince your dad. It wont interfer with your current os and when he see how much more stable and program packed it is, you can then go to a harddrive install once your dad has been one over.