I'm getting a new hard disk for Christmas I hope, I thought that I would install Linux on it. I would then, in theory, be running Windows XP and Linux. Is this just a theory, or is it doable?

Also, what distribution should I download? I have a Pentium 4ht with ht turned off, 2.8 GHz, my RAM is currently 512 MB but I might upgrade it to 4.5 GB, not right now, however.

ATI 9200 for graphics.

The computer will mainly be used for graphics. Programs like Maya 6 and Shake, and I also want to know if Linux actually support Photoshop, I read about solutions a bit earlier when I surfed the net about this issue, there is Wine and Crossover Office, but do these software’s support Photoshop CS? What about Corel Painter 9?
I am sure I would have found the replays if I searched a bit more about it, but I didn’t bother because I was going to post this post here anyway, so I thought: “I’ll just ask there and see what I get…”

Yes I will a windows disk as well, but it isn’t exactly that great if you have to boot just to do a tiny texture change.
I read about The Gimp, what is freeware, but I use Photoshop at my job, as a photographer. The Gimp doesn’t look that complex by the look of some screenshots that have caught my attention.

What Linux distribution do you suggest me to download? I was considering Red Hat 7.3, it is very old, but I thought "this is flexible and stable! a finished and complete OS that managed to render all these really cool effects" when I noticed that Weta Digital used that Linux Distribution when they made the LOTR series, however I soon realized that this was more then 3 years ago.

Also, what is this i386, Sparc, i586 and so on thing?
I believe that is got something to do with the processor or something like that as I read PPC once what basically is a PowerPC if I got the initials logically correct, but what CD version should I actually Download?

I have never used Linux before, I have never seen it in live action, and I know little about it, so use a "human" language.

Wew, now this is a difficult question you're asking laddie

Well, as for me, I am a RedHat guy. I know that some prefer Mandrake, Debian, Gentoo or any of the other 100 distro's out there. Well, for a computer like that you can run any distro I'd say. But I suggest keeping clear of Gentoo in the bginning. I used to know a lot about the different distro's but at the moment I can not remember anything very helpful.

I do suggest Fedora CORE which is the continued freeware of RedHat(since they're only making the enterprice versions nowadays).

Wine can handle most of the Win software, I have no clue about photoshop though, Corel Painter I never even heard about before. But, from what I hear, you have more functions in The Gimp than in Photoshop.

I might not be of too much help for you in this post, but atleast I gave it a try.. :P

Din post er bedre en ingenting

Har sett en del på Fedora, virker ganske inntresang.

Skal selvfølgelig prøve The Gimp, men har ikke høye håp, men er svært åpen till nye og andre produkter.

The Disk I'll get will contain about 140-160 GB I believe.

Doable.

Search LQ for the thousand other posts on this. I say this not to refuse to answer the question, but just because it's a very personal question and depends on dozens of factors. With hardware like that, most anything should do well, and you can skip the 'older machine distros' if you want.

WINE is free and probably supports Photoshop. Various commercial packages almost certainly would. Check their websites - I only have the GIMP, so I dunno. I understand about the 'post anyway' but it's generally a good idea to seach first and only post when you can't find answers.


The GIMP has a different interface and most of the power is not immediately obvious. Again, I dunno vs. Photoshop, but it's quite powerful.

Again - a personal choice. I would suggest getting the latest, though, since that will have all the security fixes and so on. If stability is very important to you, Slackware is very stable and probably nothing is more stable than Debian stable - but the software, while fully up-to-date in terms of patches, is older and tends to lack features. Also, if you have recent hardware, that could be an issue. Both Slackware and Debian can be daunting to Windows users, though, and Mandrake or even Linspire might be more familiar. Like I say - depends on what you're interested in. And no Linux distro is *unstable* or *impossibly* hard or *exactly* like Windows. It's all a matter of degree.

Architecture, yeah. If you've got a 386, you need an i386 distro. If you've got a 686, you need a i386 or up - such as i686. If you've got some other machine, you need something for that machine. PPC for PowerPC, yeah. Macs, I think.

I often think I'm speaking human when I'm not, so sorry if I didn't. Welcome to Linux and LQ. Basically, if you've got two hard drives with each dedicated to Windows and Linux, that's the easiest dual-boot scenario. And whatever distro you try, they're almost all free so it's easy enough to experiment and change your mind later and try a different one. Best thing to do is read a lot and then put one on and try to use it a lot.

Indeed. I have read a few questions about the same issue, everyone asked what hardware it was for, and what the computer should be used for.
I would need something with sound support as it would make video editing easier.
I read just now that red hat dint come with sound support by default, but it is fixable, so there's no big issue right there.
I fully agree
But the world runs on advice, specially if it is a new experience.
Yes I agree there. I am not afraid to leave "the windows look" tough, the Mac looks better and is just allot easier and cleaner to handle then windows I think. But 'I'll add your suggestions and notes to my decision list.
The fact that they are different from Windows is a very good thing, Windows use over 270 MB RAM just to run, I read that Linux is better with ram, what is very benefiting for 3D makers and similar.
Macs, yes.
I love to look silly right now, but what architecture am I on right now? Should I download a i386? i686?
You did good The architecture part was a big hard, tough. Thank you for the warm welcome
Yea I agree about the experementing. I'll do that.
As for the easyest way to dual boot thing, you mean like, bout HD's on bout Operative System's, or one HD to Linux, one to Windows?

I think they're calling everything PC an i686 these days. So anything for the PC architecture (x86) will work and something specifically optimized for i686 will work best. For instance, Slackware is generally compiled as -march=i486 -mcpu=i686. That means it won't really work on a 386 (no Linux works on anything under a 386) and that it is optimized for i686. But the iso's will say 'i486'. Some (like Mandrake, I think) are i686 -march and -mcpu, which means they *only* work on i686 and the iso's say i686. Basically, as long as you get an x86 iso, you can't go wrong.

Yeah - have Windows on hda (your primary master, or main drive you've got now) and then add Linux to your new hdb (primary slave, or new drive) and that's about the easiest scenario. You can have Windows on the second partition or the second disk with or without a Linux on the same disk, but that can be a lot trickier. So, in Linux terms, hda all Windows and hdb all Linux is the most straightforward, with Linux installed after Windows. Good luck!

Thank you for your excellent support, and your friendly replays. I'll start the download right away.

Great forum.

You will need to consider a very modern distrobution as your video card may cause a few problems in 3D. Its a card which seems to show up a lot in these forums, check out the HCL ( Hardware compatibility thing ) on this site for more information.

hope this helps
live long and prosper
floppy

I could not find the hcl that easy, but I would take it as Fedora Core 3 is modern, I have no idea tough, I am no expert at all in the Linux world.

It's bad news however. Is there any Linux distro that'll actually support my card? I hope Fedora Core 3 does, it's 62% done already.

I think Fedora handles it... I can't say for sure.. But check the Linux Hardware forum, you're bound to find someone there that either whines about it or just asks about it. There's also the Fedora Distro forum

er, ati do linux drivers but they are rubbish, i use nvidia but thats what I've heard. FC3 found ALL my hardware no probs inc sound (windows didn't so that) so there should be no probs there. When it comes to installing the boot loader put it on your MBR or master boot record, beleive me didn't and it is a pain, just put it on the MBR and enjoy. I reccomend Gnome but you may want to go for KDE as it is more windowsey (and looks nice too).
If you have seen a mac running you have seen linux, as far as I know Mac OS X = comercial version of linux.
Good luck!

I have a dual boot box with 2 seperate hard drives. Drive 1 I have SuSE 9.1 and Drive 2 I have WinXP SP2. The GRUB bootloader allows me to pick which OS I want to boot into when I turn the machine on. I suggest SuSE 9.1 because of it's ease of use for the first timer and also for it's easy setup and hardware compatibility. I invested the $89 to have the set of disks and the manuals. It was a great help to me as a newbie to have the complete OS and included programs on disk and the manuals were also a big help to me as well. You may or may not want to pay for your distro but that is the great thing about linux, the choice is up to you. I think SuSE just released ver9.2 with the latest kernel build and hardware compatibility.
As for Photoshop in linux, I'm not sure but it may be possible with VMWare but thats expensive. I do not think Photoshop has been tested in Wine which is another windows emulator. I may be wrong. I am an amateur digital photographer and I have Photoshop 7 installed in windows, however, I find myself using GIMP 2 more often than Photoshop. Unless you are using Photoshop in a particularly professional manner I don't think think you'll notice too much of a difference. I love using the Gimp but I remind you I am an amateur. That's my opinion, for what it's worth. I hope it helps. Have Fun

Crossover will run some PhotoShop versions. Don't know if it'll run the latest version... Have never needed PS - Gimp does the trick for me.

If you refer incorrectly to a GNU/Linux distribution I recommend debian. If you mean the kernel I'll tell you to grab the newest 2.6 kernel and -cko patch for it.

At the moment, the 10 distros with the most hits at DistroWatch are:

Mandrakelinux
Fedora Project
SUSE LINUX
Debian GNU/Linux
MEPIS (Debian-based, even)
KNOPPIX (Debian-based, even)
The Slackware Linux Project
Gentoo Linux
Ubuntu Linux (Debian-based, even)
Damn Small Linux

I see 9 out of 10 distros also refer to themselves 'incorrectly'. He's in good company.

Still, Debian's a decent distro, even if it is the only one to follow RMS' whims with the awful name. I think he's already sold on the Fedora Project, though, and their Fedora Core. (Not even GNU *or* Linux there.)