For wodctr...

I'm bringing this up here from the suggestions section...

"Is Open Office and the Quicken software free or does that have to be purchased? How safe is all this free software? "

Everything that runs under Linux is vastly safer than Windows. The reason the programs are free is because they are all built under the Open Source Protocol and are supported by a huge community of programmers.

All Linux and Linux applications programmers have complete access to the source code so they can write intelligent and safe programs

Programmers writing Windows applications are only given access to a certain amount of source code and have to build on that. Unfortunately the part of the source they don't have access to is where all the holes are in the security are

Build yourself a Linux system. Try out several of the apps you think you might like; there are certainly enough with different look and feel that do the same job to choose from. Once you're comfortable with it, you'll probably never run Windows again, nor even buy any more software



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/22/2009 03:21PM by Archeo-peteriX.

Do you have a system that you run Linux on? Why don't more people use this system? I wouldn't mind helping to cause a few more layoffs at Microsoft! Do you still have to worry about your registry getting corrupted and spy ware and viruses? What about firewalls and security...I hate hackers? I am willing to try, but do not want to be vulnerable.

I can vouch for the quality and security of Linux and the associated programs. open office is a brilliant set of programs. One does not have to worry about spyware or firewall issues with linux.

the reason people do not use it more is a. exposure (no advertising), and b. it isn't as user friendly in certain areas as it could be. other than that, there is no reason why people shouldn't use it. when you install a version of linux, it usually comes bundled with firefox, open office, and other basic computer programs. but what else do you need, really?

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wodcutr
Do you have a system that you run Linux on? Why don't more people use this system? I wouldn't mind helping to cause a few more layoffs at Microsoft! Do you still have to worry about your registry getting corrupted and spy ware and viruses? What about firewalls and security...I hate hackers? I am willing to try, but do not want to be vulnerable.

Registries and all those other things Microsoft uses are just fingers poked in holes in the leaky dike that is Windows.
Linux isn't built like a makeshift submarine sheathed in chicken wire; it is a real operating system.

The main reason it is safe is because it is way too much work for the hackers to break into and simply not an easy place to unleash viruses and other malware.
It is not impregnable but pretty close to it; so you don't have to run a lot of anti-virus, anti spy ware and firewall programs...all which consume massive amounts of the computer's resources.

The reason why more people don't use it is because it is free and the programs that run on it are free; the big companies haven't figured out how to make money on this aspect of it.

Many of the Linux implementations are as easy or easier to use than Windows. There are enough different flavours out there that everyone should be able to find one they are comfortable with.

If you want to just try it out, down load on of the 'Live CD' versions off the internet. Burn it to a CD then you can boot your computer from the CD and not even touch your hard drive. The Live versions give you a hands on look at the various flavours.

Try it out; it's risk free and you may like it

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Archeo-peteriX

If you want to just try it out, down load on of the 'Live CD' versions off the internet. Burn it to a CD then you can boot your computer from the CD and not even touch your hard drive. The Live versions give you a hands on look at the various flavours.

Try it out; it's risk free and you may like it

very true. i forgot about this. it is a very handy way to test out an OS. Think it's time to explain how to burn an .iso?

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daniel

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Archeo-peteriX

If you want to just try it out, down load on of the 'Live CD' versions off the internet. Burn it to a CD then you can boot your computer from the CD and not even touch your hard drive. The Live versions give you a hands on look at the various flavours.

Try it out; it's risk free and you may like it

very true. i forgot about this. it is a very handy way to test out an OS. Think it's time to explain how to burn an .iso?

I'll leave that to you

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daniel
Think it's time to explain how to burn an .iso?

Yes, please.

Question - I have two 18g 10,000rpm hard drives in my system. The one HD is rarely used and is almost completely empty as it is only a backup for my personal stuff. Could I load Linux onto that HD and have two OS for my system? I guess the hard part would be booting from the D HD instead of the C. I certainly don't want to complicate things too much, but that way I could reformat the HD that has the OS on it that I don't want any more and not be effected or shut down for two days reloading all the programs. That way I can still use all the old stuff until I am comfortable with the new. What say you?

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Ferdinand

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daniel
Think it's time to explain how to burn an .iso?

Yes, please.

Ok...

Step 1: download the .iso file from whatever site and flavour you want to try out.
Step 2: open your favourite CD/DVD burning application.
Step 3: select the feature that gives you the 'burn' option and give it the path to the .iso file when asked.
Step 4: hit the 'burn' button, sit back and you're done

These are the basic steps but different burners will have slightly different setups. Some will have 'burn CD' on the top level menu while others may have it under 'backup' or 'copy' or other utilities.

In a nut shell, all the burner is doing is taking the compressed image file *.iso and uncompressing it while copying it to the CD/DVD. In the uncompressed format, it is directly readable and/or executable.

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wodcutr
Question - I have two 18g 10,000rpm hard drives in my system. The one HD is rarely used and is almost completely empty as it is only a backup for my personal stuff. Could I load Linux onto that HD and have two OS for my system? I guess the hard part would be booting from the D HD instead of the C. I certainly don't want to complicate things too much, but that way I could reformat the HD that has the OS on it that I don't want any more and not be effected or shut down for two days reloading all the programs. That way I can still use all the old stuff until I am comfortable with the new. What say you?

Yes, you can use the second disk as your Linux system. When you install Linux you have the option of either creating a boot floppy to start Linux with or create a boot manager on the primary disk(the other one in this case) . If you go that route, you will be given the option at startup as to which OS you want to run.

To keep it simple, I would use the boot floppy option then you don't have to mess with your Windows disk(Microsoft often finds ways to screw it up :X )

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Archeo-peteriX

To keep it simple, I would use the boot floppy option then you don't have to mess with your Windows disk(Microsoft often finds ways to screw it up :X )

yep, i tried to dual and triple boot my computer (although with one partitioned hard drive, not separate hard drives), and the windows partition wouldnt accept it. i did a lot of internet research and many other people were having the same problem.

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daniel

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Archeo-peteriX

To keep it simple, I would use the boot floppy option then you don't have to mess with your Windows disk(Microsoft often finds ways to screw it up :X )

yep, i tried to dual and triple boot my computer (although with one partitioned hard drive, not separate hard drives), and the windows partition wouldnt accept it. i did a lot of internet research and many other people were having the same problem.

What OS were you trying to add? If it was Linux, what flavour was it?

I currently have Win XP and Ubuntu dual bootable from my hard drive. Actually, it's triple bootable because I can also start up in Vista if I want.
Perhaps it's the order of the install. I started with Win XP, then added Vista. Ubuntu came along later and there was no trouble at all.

On an older computer, I had Win2k on one drive and Slackware on another. The system was dual boot capable as well as by floppy.

Putting a Microsoft OS on after Linux usually blows away the boot sector so that Linux is no longer accessible except by floppy.

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Archeo-peteriX
In a nut shell, all the burner is doing is taking the compressed image file *.iso and uncompressing it while copying it to the CD/DVD. In the uncompressed format, it is directly readable and/or executable.

But how does it know to uncompress the iso file, rather than just copy the iso file onto the CD?

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Ferdinand

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Archeo-peteriX
In a nut shell, all the burner is doing is taking the compressed image file *.iso and uncompressing it while copying it to the CD/DVD. In the uncompressed format, it is directly readable and/or executable.

But how does it know to uncompress the iso file, rather than just copy the iso file onto the CD?

It is the sole function of the 'burn' program to read compressed files and uncompress them before copying the contents to the CD/DVD.
The 'burn' program isn't used for anything else If you just want to copy something, you use one of the 'copy' routines

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Archeo-peteriX

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daniel

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Archeo-peteriX

To keep it simple, I would use the boot floppy option then you don't have to mess with your Windows disk(Microsoft often finds ways to screw it up :X )

yep, i tried to dual and triple boot my computer (although with one partitioned hard drive, not separate hard drives), and the windows partition wouldnt accept it. i did a lot of internet research and many other people were having the same problem.

What OS were you trying to add? If it was Linux, what flavour was it?

I currently have Win XP and Ubuntu dual bootable from my hard drive. Actually, it's triple bootable because I can also start up in Vista if I want.
Perhaps it's the order of the install. I started with Win XP, then added Vista. Ubuntu came along later and there was no trouble at all.

On an older computer, I had Win2k on one drive and Slackware on another. The system was dual boot capable as well as by floppy.

Putting a Microsoft OS on after Linux usually blows away the boot sector so that Linux is no longer accessible except by floppy.

i did several combos.

Vista -> Ubuntu
Vista -> 7 alpha -> Ubuntu
7 alpha -> Ubuntu

currently running just 7 beta.

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daniel

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Archeo-peteriX

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daniel

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Archeo-peteriX

To keep it simple, I would use the boot floppy option then you don't have to mess with your Windows disk(Microsoft often finds ways to screw it up :X )

yep, i tried to dual and triple boot my computer (although with one partitioned hard drive, not separate hard drives), and the windows partition wouldnt accept it. i did a lot of internet research and many other people were having the same problem.

What OS were you trying to add? If it was Linux, what flavour was it?

I currently have Win XP and Ubuntu dual bootable from my hard drive. Actually, it's triple bootable because I can also start up in Vista if I want.
Perhaps it's the order of the install. I started with Win XP, then added Vista. Ubuntu came along later and there was no trouble at all.

On an older computer, I had Win2k on one drive and Slackware on another. The system was dual boot capable as well as by floppy.

Putting a Microsoft OS on after Linux usually blows away the boot sector so that Linux is no longer accessible except by floppy.

i did several combos.

Vista -> Ubuntu
Vista -> 7 alpha -> Ubuntu
7 alpha -> Ubuntu

currently running just 7 beta.

Could be that Vista doesn't work just like it won't work with so many other things