I'm posting this in the newbie section because newbies are the target audience. Thank you.

If you are a newbie and want to test linux and you are considering a virtual machine then this is for you.

Don't try the virtual machine. Why? Because there is a large chance that it won't work? Not really, but most things won't work anyway. Because VM's are insecure? Well, i wouldn't know about that, but I will tell you why:

Because having 2 OS's running at the same time makes the computer lag, run out of RAM, processor usage is high and running KDE and running windows at the same time can be a pretty painful experience. That means that you, the newbie, won't be as keen to try linux for real then, and you won't be forced to learn linux. Not true? Look around that window! it's still windows and you can use it's tools if you can't figure out a way to do it in linux!.

The solution? Download Knoppix or Phlak live CD's, insert them into your CDrom and reboot! It's painless, you can't screw anything up and it offers a lot better linux experience than VM driven linux. This way you can decide a lot better what is and isn't for you.

I hope I made at least some of you reconsider using VM's...


Anyone else, post your thoughts here, i'd like to hear them.

And no flaming please, i'm dead tired right now and i just had to get my rant out .

I'd suggest knoppix over phlak anyday of the week. Phlak (Professional Hackers Linux assault kit) is aimed for hackers and not newbies. Look around for a live cd that fits your needs. Most distros have them availible. Also I have both phlak and knoppix. I prefer phlak but I'm not a n00b.

try damnsmalllinux (www.damnsmalllinux.org)...its a pretty nifty live cd, and its invaluable especially when you screw up your comp and the os wont load...you can even surf the web ! i heard about feather and puppylinux, but never tried them myself.

One thing that Linux distribition's should do is once Linux is installed a nice(neutral) theme should be already setup, just like in windows.

I have tryed 2 distributions and both have the same basic theme setup for KDE and Gnome, everything is relatively black and white. I have seen KDE/Gnome look better than the preinstalled theme on WindowsXP.

first off let me clear one point up, is partitioning the harddrive a different way of saying a virtual machine (if newbies are your target audience, make sure you speak to them...cause i have no idea what a virtual machine is...)?

secondly...i have word docs and excel spreadsheets i would like to keep, can i burn them to cd and then transfer them over to linux when i have it installed?

thirdly, i have literally days worth of music in i-tunes, how would anyone recommend salvaging this from a total linux overwrite, will they still be there when i reboot into linux or should i save them somehow beforehand?

thanks

I'd suggest if you got cd's put anything needed on them. Then you always have a backup copy.

Dah! virtual machine will take some processing power, but they are a lot better than running an software emulator like WINE which Windows users first use when adventuring over to Linux. VMware is fast actually even on an AMD Athlon 700 MHz with 512 MB of SDRAM running Linux as the host OS. Windows is slower than Linux in I/O speeds and has limited memory capacity. You can add more than 1 GB of memory for Windows, but it is useless because it will just bog down. I suggest using Linux as the host OS to run virtual machines to really take advantage of them. Virtual machines like VMware needs certain permissions that Windows users do not understand or have not encounter yet. The Windows users that can not get VMware going are ones that do not read manuals. Start get in the habit of reading the manuals and documentations.

VM (virtual machines) do isolate one OS to the other OS. If you use Linux as the host OS to run VMware, then run a VM that has Windows. The virus that Windows caught will not effect Linux. Also hackers will have a hard time figuring out if he or she has control of the computer, but reality they have control over the VM. You can then at a flip of switch turn off the network in Linux or tell VMware to disconnect the NIC for the VM. VM save more time than people think. If a VM has a corrupted filesystem and the VM image was copied to an off site data server, it can be up within minutes instead of hours or weeks. Yes, I have VMware and I know how it works.

With Knoppix and Phlak, you can screw up your computer very easily. Enabling write access on the Windows drive and selecting it to delete it is very easy to do in both GUI and console (aka BASH) even though writing to NTFS in Linux is experimental. Knoppix and Phlak should be in your computer repair box because they help you fix your computer and to setup a secure computer.

A good description of a Virtual Machines go to http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,10403,00.asp

Thanks Atom,

Anything that helps put the puzzle together helps newbies like me.

I've been around computing since the CP/80 days (pre msdos) and I find Linux reminds me of those days: can't get the rpinter to work, nor the modem......

I appreciate any experienced users advice on traps to avoid (or be wary of).

regards
John