Hi guys, long time no text..

I am a University student studying a Bachelor of Software Enginneering and always been keen on linux but only had a shit system. This weekend im building a new computer and am going to convert from windows to linux.

I have the disks for Fedora Core 2, a couple of years ago i was playing around with linux mainly coz i hate windows but decided not to do the swap until i get a new computer..


First of all, which version of linux should i get??? i think there is a fedora core 4 now , theres red hat and a bunch of other versions... I need a powerfull version thats going to let me be able to code etc... So which is the best one to choose????

Second of all, i use to play alot of online games, and now that its holidays im going to have more spare time. I use to play a lot of CS source and warcraft 3 and im pretty sure i need a windows emulator 4 them, if you could suggest a website and the best emulator to use that would be appreciated.

and finaly, can somone give me some instructions on how to update my kernel 4 when the time comes and also how to tweak the kernel to get it working sweet for my new computers speks.

Cheers, any help would be appreciated.

Well, allow me to be the first to tel you that you are goning to get alot of conflicting posts on which distro to use however I can tell you that you would be best to not use your distro from a couple of years ago. Get something more recent. For a windows emulator I think everybody will reccomend wine (winehq.com). It is the best you can get without paying. And finnally upgrading your kernel will be different depending on which distro you get so I can't help you there.

Hope this helps.

My 2 cents: I'm pretty new to linux, but what i can say is that I've tried ubuntu, and am currently using SuSE 10.0 and am having/have had ALOT of problems with this OS. SuSE's Nvidia driver auto install messed up my system, SuSE and redhat/fedora does not support mp3s (i had to add support), I am also having a bunch of problems with video playback... cant tell u why, because I dont really kno why. Also, I prefer GNOME because KDE is too much like windows and that in SuSE, the GNOME is rather inflexible... I much prefer ubuntu's version of gnome.

I've played with rpm-type distros and with debian distros, I thnk I prefer debian as at least the basis of a distro ... the apt-get just seems to work better than any other method of getting software, for me. And the system seems to be a bit more stable.

A lot depends on your hardware ... investigate the supported-hardware lists for every distro you can find; install the free versions of the distro and see how it works; keep scouting! I'm on my fifth version of Linux now, and pretty satisfied. But something better may come along tomorrow.

Don't use Redhat, the free version is like 6 or more years old, just don't. Updating your kernel is very distro-specific so when you find one you like, come back and ask then. If you want to play Windows games the only real answer is Cedega. It's not free but it works great.

I really do not think, that playing the Win32 games thru the emulator or wine
is a good idea. You can expirience problems with the performance and probably
some troubles else. There are alot of ported games. Methink it is a better
choice.

I use Debian now and like its package system very much. Firstly I used RH like
distro. It is more comfortable while installing but worse in the work. IMHO
Debian is really one you need.

I use Mandriva 2005 Limited Edition with absolutely no stability problems, plus the urpmi packaging system makes it really easy to install/remove software regardless of whether you wanna use the command line or the gui. There is a newer version out now, it's Mandriva 2006, but I can't say anything about it cause' I haven't used it. This one supports all of the major gui's from fluxbox to KDE and everything in between. Wine is probably the best Windows emulator you can get for free, but it doesn't support DirectX all that well. If you plan on doing a lot of gaming or your games don't work well with Wine you will need to invest in a copy of Cedega which emulates DirectX into OpenGL which Linux recognizes. Sometimes you may experience a bug or two but this is "the" best Windows emulator. Crossover Office I've heard is good for emulating Microsoft Office, why you'd want to with OpenOffice 2 I don't know. Hope I helped. Here is a screenshot of my desktop right now if you're interested in seeing what KDE looks like.

Hey guys, thanx for all your help!

I think im just going to go for the dual boot option and use linux only when i need it.

Call me unadventurous but i think ill wait to make the complete move to linux until there is more support in the software world.

cheers,

Joshwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Sook.

Joshwaa... here's what I would do...

(1) Get a second disk-drive and install Linux on that, leaving any existing Windows installation completely alone. Many BIOSes know how to boot the system from any installed drive, master or slave, so you can put a fresh new drive in, put Linux on it, and be completely free to switch back and forth with none of the headaches associated with repartitioning and "dual booting." In fact, two new drives is even better, so that now you have three hard disks and a CD/DVD ROM. This gives you more place "to stuff stuff," and a place to fool with yet-another-Linux, and it gives you a place to put the /home directories. It's a good idea to put a duplicate copy of the /boot partition there, too. If your motherboard doesn't have two EIDE chains, an interface card can be had for mere dirt.

(2) Since you are doing this as an school experiment, you might wish to try several distros. You probably want a fairly "turn key" system to start. Some time down the road you might want to explore Gentoo, which is an entirely source-code based distribution.

(3) If you're rigging out a new computer, I find that a USB-2.0/FireWire card (~$35US) has proven to be extremely useful. It is, of course, "yet another place to put drives," which will be just as fast (or faster) than the built-in ones. And it's handy for plugging in those little removable drives that fit in your shirt-pocket, dorm room or safe-deposit box.

The best thing to do when learning Linux like this is to rig out the machine with redundancy so that you literally have the freedom to "blow the sucker up!" ... and yet still be able to reboot into Windows, or the Old Linux, or whatever. Then, strap on your bulletproof vest and safety goggles and dive in.

As far as the emulators go, i would recommend WINE, however. The chance that wine will run fully fledged windows games is rare. You would be better dual booting windows and linux and only running windows for the games. Thats what i currently do.

for someone new to linux i would recommend SuSE Linux: http://www.novell.com/products/suselinux/

it includes LOTS of packages and uses RPM package types which are easier to work with than Debian types. You can also add apt-get to suse if you want to see what it is like. Another good distro is Ubuntu, it includes an easy (but non-graphical) installer with a non bloated supply of packages. Once you get more familiar with *nix operating systems i would recommend Gentoo, Debian, or Slackware.

and there is a lot of support in the linux software world u just have to know where to look