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Moving To Linux 384

Posted by timothy from the kiss-it-goodbye dept.
norburym writes "This is an interesting format for a techie book geared at non-techies: instead of providing a detailed installation and configuration instruction set for a particular full Linux distribution, Marcel Gagne has included a Knoppix CD with his book, Moving to Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye! The author's intention is clearly to give the reader a no-risk introduction to Linux. As such, this book is not intended for power users or professionals; there are other books more suited for this market. At the same time, this book is not really for the Dummies style audience, either. It's for the Windows user who is looking to migrate to the Linux platform and find solutions to his or her day to day computing needs." Read on for the rest of norburym's review.

Since the book comes with Knoppix and the author's purpose is to introduce the Linux desktop immediately, the first few chapters of this book only briefly describe what Linux versions are available, how to get a copy and how to install your chosen distro. Gagne gives some example installation choices with Mandrake, Redhat and SuSE. The next two chapters deal with using and customizing the author's desktop environment of choice (KDE) and exploring with Konquerer.

Chapter 7 provides a "release-agnostic" approach to package installation with examples and screen shots from Kpackage, RPM installs via shell and building from source. Most readers will become quite familiar with Chapter 8: Working with Devices, despite the author's exclamation that "Device support under Linux is excellent. No, really." Printing looms large in this chapter and there's some good advice to be had here for the newbie. The next several chapters tackle getting connected to the Internet, email and using Konquerer and Mozilla. In short, mainstream user necessities. Mandrake, RedHat, SuSE, and Ximian are all represented in the chapter on system updates along with a pitch to get involved in the Linux community (this is a good thing).

The make-or-break chapters for those readers requiring office productivity solutions come near the half point of the book. Gagne gives an overview of OpenOffice.org's suite of MS Office counterparts. These are really meant as introductory lessons on migrating from the more familiar, more ubiquitous MS suite of applications and not intended as an in-depth look at OpenOffice.org. Here is where the user will judge whether Linux is a viable alternative to Windows. Productivity is essential. Can you create a document that can be shared in a Windows dominant world? Can you do it without struggling to learn new rules and exceptions to the rules? Gagne makes a strong pitch for ease of use in the Linux world.

The final chapters on multimedia and games round out the topics that every semi-literate computer user has on their "must know how to" list. Under multimedia, KsCD, XMMS and Noatun are covered, including visualization plugins and skins. K3b, Grip and MPlayer are also described. Favorite Linux games are represented: KSirtet, KAsteroids, Frozen-Bubble, KBattleship, KPatience, KPoker ... well, you get the idea!

Care has been taken in laying out the book; from the beautiful typography, the boxed asides with Quick Tips, Shell Outs and Notes to the Resources list at the end of each chapter. The book is easy to read and the author has a crisp conversational style of writing devoid of distracting anecdotes or sophomoric humor (chapter subheadings aside!). Gagne succeeds in providing a guidebook to Linux that should enable the average Windows users to make a smooth transition to a Linux distro of their choice. At the very least, Gagne gives the nervous Windows-to-Linux wannabe an excellent bootable Knoppix CD to test drive while following along in the book. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to someone who is looking to give Linux a spin but is afraid to commit their working PC to Linux entirely. This book and the accompanying CD will ease the way toward independence from Windows.

You can purchase Moving to Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye! from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews. To see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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Moving To Linux

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  • For Those That Don't Know (Score:5, Interesting)

    by OctaneZ ( 73357 ) <ben-slashdot2@um ... ch.org minus bsd> on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:21PM (#9871547) Journal
    Marcel Gagne writes an amusing and informative monthly Column [marcelgagne.com] for Linux Journal [linuxjournal.com] called Cooking with Linux [marcelgagne.com].

  • Huh (Score:4, Insightful)

    by thephotoman ( 791574 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:22PM (#9871555) Journal
    I do kind of like these books that help ordinary people go to Linux. I know one of them even worked for me, and I'm to the point that I'm ready to ditch Windows on my desktop and go with just Linux. Furthermore, the LiveCD distro included is a good idea, just in case the person doesn't like what they see.

    • Re:Huh (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:32PM (#9871668)
      Good by BSOD, Hello segfault!

      • Re:Huh (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Poking around in core files is much like poking around in the burnt entrails of a sacrifice to the elder gods. Much can be divined. Plus, the lay people will look at you with awe.

    • Re:Huh (Score:2, Informative)

      by maja33 ( 703220 )
      Same here. I (as linux user with some experience) had great help from "Linux for Non-Geeks: clear-eyed answers for pratical consumers" by Rodwriter (isbn: 0-9726867-0-3). Great book for newbies, shipped with Knoppix and had lots of chapters on word-processing.
      The perfect help for a secretary to switch to linux.

    • The wave of the (Linux) future... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by biendamon ( 723952 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @04:00PM (#9871963)
      These book/CD combos are a godsend to those of us trying to convince friends and family to switch (so we no longer have to clean viruses, trojans, and spyware from their computers every few weeks).

      I'm easing my family into it right now. The trick is to start by introducing the easiest open-source applications that are available on both platforms. Pull the old "Here, I'll 'upgrade' your browser for you, and you won't get pop-ups anymore" trick and get them used to Firefox. Follow it up with Thunderbird and OpenOffice, and they'll gradually start wondering why they put up with all the problems they used to have in the first place.

      That's when you whip out the book and the Knoppix CD, and introduce them to the same applications they're used to on a different operating system. Get them curious, get them interested, and then they'll start doing the work for you.

      • Book-Disk Combos (Score:3, Interesting)

        by JoeCommodore ( 567479 )
        I agree, the book-disk combos can be really good, shop around though if you are beyond novice stage some of the books only cover the basics like selecting printers or simple applications.

        Being more of a long toothed techie, I went for the thick "Red Hat Linux 8 Bible" last year. It's nice to have a book that describes something that you also have immediate access to (the linucx and all apps are included in envelopes on the inside covers), and which wonderfully goes into sufficient detail on many of the u

  • Irony (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:23PM (#9871562)
    a desktop OS should be easy enough to use that the idea of buying a book on how to run it would be redundant. One can dream.

    • Microsoft's not better (Score:4, Insightful)

      by RWerp ( 798951 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:29PM (#9871625)
      Compare it with the number of 'Windows XP for dummies' copies sold.

      Will this get my karma raised?

    • Re:Irony (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fantastic max ( 690355 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:29PM (#9871627)
      Yet there are plenty of books out there that teaches one how to use MacOS and Windows. So by that logic, all desktop OSes are difficult to use. And these days, any time someone writes a book about how to use these, they instantly call it "Hacking Windows/OSX".

      • Re:Irony (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Cromac ( 610264 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:35PM (#9871690)
        Yet there are plenty of books out there that teaches one how to use MacOS and Windows. So by that logic, all desktop OSes are difficult to use.

        They are all difficult to use. Have you ever participated in any usability studies with people who have no computer experience? There is nothing intuititive about using a computer. There are things that seem intutitive after years of using a computer, but to someone with no background they're all overly difficult to use.

        • Re:Irony (Score:2)

          by Lxy ( 80823 )
          According to Novell, there was a recent test of non computer users and various UIs (Windoze, Linux, MacOS, I think a couple others). What they learned was A) non users found the Linux UI to be the easiest to use but B) ALL UIs really, REALLY suck.

      • Re:Irony (Score:4, Informative)

        by Otter ( 3800 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:57PM (#9871928) Journal
        Yet there are plenty of books out there that teaches one how to use MacOS and Windows.

        Actually, if you go by "the fewer books, the easier the OS" logic, I'd say MacOS is the hands-down winner. With a larger desktop share than Linux, there are far more Linux books that Mac books in any general or technical bookstore that I've ever seen. Back in the days of Classic MacOS, you'd be hard pressed to find even a single Mac book in a lot of stores.

    • Re:Irony (Score:2, Interesting)

      by thephotoman ( 791574 )
      Well, nothing is foolproof. Especially when you're changing mindsets entirely. Linux commands aren't the same as DOS prompt commands, and installing tarballs can be a bit confusing if you have no knowledge of the system, somebody's got to explain it to you. Not everybody has an expert in the neighborhood to talk to. If Linux was more common, these books wouldn't be as necessary.

    • Re:Irony (Score:2, Insightful)

      by nz_mincemeat ( 192600 )
      That is one very true ideal!

      However I think the bare minimum needed for anybody contemplating a change of OS would be a functional-equivalent list of applications for both platforms, listed by file type.

    • Re:Irony (Score:5, Funny)

      by Short Circuit ( 52384 ) <mikemol@gmail.com> on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:34PM (#9871682) Homepage Journal
      It's been said before, but the only intuitive interface is the nipple [greenend.org.uk].

      • Re:Irony (Score:3, Interesting)

        by AKAImBatman ( 238306 )
        And it's been said before (including by your article) that nipples are not intuitive. You have to teach babies how to use it. Thank God they're fast learners. I don't think I could withstood someone freaking out about the kid not eating. ;-)

    • Re:Irony (Score:2, Insightful)

      by johnny_sas ( 785125 )
      True, but if something has too much 'ease of use' then it's usually not powerful enough.

      There's a balance that must to struck between the two, and Linux if finally getting there (Knoppix is a good example I think), where the average Windows "don't bother with IRQs and DLLs"-type users can actually start using Linux without a really steep learning curve, or too much trouble installing it.

  • Hardware Issues (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jacksonai ( 604950 ) <taladon@gmail.com> on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:24PM (#9871573) Homepage
    One of the main issues with Linux Live CD's is the fact that it is rare for a live cd to properly initialize ALL the hardware on the computer. (i.e. sound card and wireless 802.11) Until something happens to allow universal driver support, live cd's will leave a bad taste in people's mouths who use obscure / cheap hardware (most windows users)

    • Re:Hardware Issues (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Vancorps ( 746090 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:31PM (#9871658)
      Might add the fact that kernel 2.6 is incompatible with a lot of older hardware. My servers are still running 2.4 because my raid controller can't initialize with it. Works great for newer equipment but its a safe bet that if anyone were ready to switch they would be running older hardware. This used to be a strength of the linux platform. Not sure when, how, or why it changed.

      • Re:Hardware Issues (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Homology ( 639438 )
        Might add the fact that kernel 2.6 is incompatible with a lot of older hardware.

        Not on OpenBSD, that is for sure. And the same is most likely for the other *BSD. New code will not be introduced if it will break existing installations, and if it breaks, they fix it. As an example, when OpenBSD made changes on i386 so that you could boot with kernel above 8GB on the harddisk, alot of testing and effort went into _making sure_ that nothing breaks. This included testing on ancient 386/486 machines.

        Perhap

    • Re:Hardware Issues (Score:3, Informative)

      by SkiddyRowe ( 692144 )
      Used Knoppix lately?
      Found all my hardware quite easily...

    • Re:Hardware Issues (Score:5, Interesting)

      by CarrionBird ( 589738 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:34PM (#9871688) Journal
      They really should have a section up front that tells people, "Ok, heres what hardware is supported out of the box. Everything else is likely to be a headache".

      Don't lead people on to think that they can just throw any old hardware at it and expect it to work.

      MS and Apple have deals where HW makers get to put the logos on thier products if they can show compatibilty. It would be nice if some distro companies would step up and do something similar.

      (even better if they tested for general Linux compatibilty, not just thier distrubiton)

      • Re:Hardware Issues (Score:3, Insightful)

        by magefile ( 776388 )
        Because of the number of folks using Linux, most hardware companies won't bother. Linux distros already do this - Mandrake has the best compatibility database I've seen so far. And if $Your_Fav_Distro doesn't have a database, google for "$hardware $your_favorite_distro". Just think of it as looking for another review.
    • Yes and no. I have had these work flawlessly and I have had them even fail to load the Kernel correctly. It's a great idea. It should be (don't have the book) stated in the book taht not everything may work. How is a lvie CD supposed to config your 802.11b card for you? It CAN'T know your WEP or shared WPA key. Best it can do is load the driver with no config. That's it. I think the next edition of this book should also throw in a memory key and you can use that for storing settings on. On first bo

    • Re:Hardware Issues (Score:3, Interesting)

      by coolsva ( 786215 )
      Another thing to be considered is that these live CDs are basically tuned for one specific purpose, live booting. Try installing one of these distros (if you can) and we encounter slow bootup (because of hardware detection each time) and conflicts if any of the modules are compiled in the kernel and autoconfig messes up the things.

      When we have a live cd that can install 'smartly' and continously optimize its configuration (pretty much like windoze) is when joe average be happy and content.

    • Knoppix is fantastic. I've never had it fail to detect a supported device. As a matter of fact, when I was struggling with a pcmcia 802.11 card on my regular debian install, knoppix configured it just fine. (they really should say in the kernel help for ISA: "this is required for 16 bit pcmcia cards")

    • Re:Hardware Issues (Score:2, Interesting)

      by cavemanf16 ( 303184 )
      I finally booted up Knoppix on my main workstation last night in fact. Booted up slowly, but once up it worked like a charm. I didn't really care if the sound card, networking, or other subsystems didn't work perfectly though. Besides, this will be a great demo disk in the future for my wife, other family members, etc. to see just how capable Linux *CAN* be if setup correctly.
      • I use Knoppix on about six machines in various configurations ranging from CD, standard and Mosix terminals, images running off the hard drive, the entire image in RAM as well as variously configured hard drive installs and I love it.
        However after having done some hard drive installs. I've backed off from pusing it on Windows users as ardantly as I used to because there are still a lot of loose ends when it comes to hard drive installations and once a windows user tries it on their own machine I find th
    • One of the main issues with Linux Live CD's is the fact that it is rare for a live cd to properly initialize ALL the hardware on the computer.

      Not very likely this is going to happen anytime soon. When some new hardware is inserted, there will be some probing by the kernel. And if the hardware is not recognized, you can see output like :

      (manufacturer 0x0, product 0x0) vendor "3Com",
      unknown product 0x6000 (class network subclass miscellaneous, rev 0x15)
      at cardbus1 dev 0 function 0 not configured

      In thi

    • I have a tendency to use relatively obscure hardware (though not cheap, quite the opposite) and yet Knoppix worked fine for me. I was playing MP3s in less than five minutes. Granted, the sound chip is the ESS / Creative type.

    • Re:Hardware Issues (Score:2, Interesting)

      by maidhc ( 795249 )

      It is rare for any Linux distro to properly initialise all hardware. I recently have had the plesure of attempting to install SUSE 9.1 Pro on my Dell 8250. I faced the following complications:

      a) Had difficulty reading the CD on my Philps DVD+RW without loading ide-scsi drivers (a command which later had to be removed so I could access the drive once I had installed.

      b) Manually install drivers for my Radeon 9700 Pro

      c) Dell use a bastardised Creative SB Live! Card with a chipset unsupported by ALSA.

      d)

  • Windows user who is looking to migrate to Linux (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:28PM (#9871613)
    Are you suggesting Linux users are migratory?

    / Don't get me started on the flight speed of African swallows.

  • Confusing title... (Score:5, Funny)

    by avalys ( 221114 ) * on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:28PM (#9871619)
    The easily-missed colon in the title, combined with the fact that there have been a lot of stories about companies migrating to Linux lately, made me read the title as:

    Linux Moving to Linux

    That definitely elicited a double-take.

  • Kiss the BSoD goodbye? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Could have been a 1 page book.

    Get off pre Windows 2000.
    Update drivers.

    • "Update drivers."

      That's the only time I ever did see a blue screen when I had a 2000 box. I went to post-98 but then went back because I just got tired of patching things on my home machine. I do plenty of that at work. I keep thinking I might go back to 2000 now that automatic update has been out for a while, but my wife insists I keep 98 on "her" machine. For what she does on it, we don't see blue screens too often (twice last year and once so far this year).

  • Live CDs don't always make good impressions. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Picass0 ( 147474 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:32PM (#9871659) Homepage Journal
    As great as Knoppix is, I stuck it on my wife's machine when she was having some hardware problems (as a stop gap until I could do a rebuild). All she could do was bitch about how slow everything loaded from CD, such as Open Office. Combine this with the change in gui and CD distros are not always the best way to intro new users.

  • Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The Bungi ( 221687 ) <thebungi@gmail.com> on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:34PM (#9871687) Homepage
    Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye!

    Way to go, this is a fantastic argument to use to get people to switch. When was the last time I saw one of those... hmmm. Let's see. Since 1998 when I switched to NT4 and later through W2K, XP and 2003 (yes, as a desktop) on literally dozens of machines, I've seen four blue screens, and they were all on the same W2K box (the one I use for gaming and crap). Two were caused by stupid Creative drivers, and I forget what caused the other two.

    Yeah, four blue screens in (I guess) hundreds of thousands of hours of operation on multiple machines is a definite reason to switch to Linux. I'm sold.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • First off, you'd be amazed how many people are still using W95, W98 and NT4.

      Second, while I have seen only a handfull of BSODs in the last few years, I have seen more than 4, across a variety of systems (maybe 50 systems total). I think I've only seen one on XP, but then I'm not around many XP machines. So 1 on XP, half a dozen on W2K, and a ton on NT4, W98 and W95. I'm not counting those caused by failing hardware.

      OTOH, during the same time period, I've been around hundreds of Linux systems running (i

    • Re:Interesting (Score:3, Informative)

      by the_mad_poster ( 640772 )

      Hmm. I've seen maybe two or three on my game box since I installed XP Home on it last November. To be fair, that's about the same number of kernel panics I saw in the same timeframe back on the first release of Linux kernel 2.2. I've never had a BSD crash, but I haven't used it as heavily (yet) either.

      Microsoft will always be dogged by the fact that Win95, 98, and ME were all tepid pieces of dog crap when it came to stability. XP and 2003 will always suffer from the thousands of curses that the last genera

    • My experience of XP is that BSOD is very rare. Unfortunately, this is because XP just locks up and has to be forcibly rebooted at regular intervals. Not a great improvement but, technically, you're right: no BSOD.

      TWW

      • Re:Interesting (Score:2, Insightful)

        by The Bungi ( 221687 )
        A couple of months ago I had a machine start act weirdly. When you logged in and walked away, it would lock up solid after a few minutes. No video signal, nothing. Not a BSOD, just mojo lock-up. When doing certain things it would also lock up, but not always. For about a week or so I thought it was a problem with DirectX or something like that.

        Then I noticed that when it didn't lock and I managed to shut it down normally I'd get the "It's now safe to turn off your computer" thing. This is an Abit mobo wit

    • That whole "Windows is Crashy" thing must be a myth. Regular users must not really be getting them at all.
      That whole meme must be a conspiracy by the powerful Linux cabal.
      Thanks for settling that.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:35PM (#9871699)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Yeah. I've put Knoppix on 4 computers and each one has fully identified and setup all hardware. One was a POS laptop (300Mhz, 64 MB RAM). It ran slowly until I installed it to the hd, but it all worked. Others are a Micron POS desktop (600 Mhz, 128 MB Ram), Dell desktop (2.6 Mhz, 512 MB RAM), and a home made behemoth (Dual 600 Mhz Xeons, 1 GB RAM) using some funked up hardware- video and audio. External CD/DVD burners, a digital camera, 2 different printers and a scanner.

      I'm not saying that it will w

  • Incorrect price on BN (Score:4, Funny)

    by GillBates0 ( 664202 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:36PM (#9871706) Homepage Journal
    Paperback, August 2003
    List Price: $34.99
    Our Price: $27.99 (Save 20%)
    Barnes & Noble Member Price: $26.59

    It should be $733.99 (Save -95.23%).

  • Please Help (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I've installed Linux but I can't find solitaire. Does this mean I have to reinstall Windows?
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I've installed Linux but I can't find solitaire. Does this mean I have to reinstall Windows?

      um, no... go to the kde menu, then select:

      games->card games->

      and then choose the type of solitaire you want.

      (shrug) doesn't seem all that hard to me...
    • If your particular distribution doesn't include solitaire to your liking, load up a XUL-capable browser (aka Mozilla, Firefox, etc.), and go to games.mozdev.org [mozdev.org], scroll down to "Cards", and click play online. It will come up defaulting to "simple solitaire", which looks and plays very much like its Windows counterpart. I am addicted to Xulmine, myself.

  • Kiss the BSOD? (Score:5, Funny)

    by callipygian-showsyst ( 631222 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:41PM (#9871760) Homepage
    Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye!

    And replace it with a Kernel Panic!

    • I have to admit, the blinky keyboard lights are only slightly more cryptic than the incomprehensible jibberish of a BSOD.

      And at least they BLINK. A BSOD just sits there.

  • Linux (Score:5, Insightful)

    by the_Bionic_lemming ( 446569 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:46PM (#9871809)
    Lately I've been thinking about moving to linux to check it out - Gaming is still important to me , but I'm sorta interested to see how linux has evolved in the past 5 years since I last tried linux - and burned up a monitor since I didn't know what I was doing.

    With that said - the big thing that puts me off from trying Linux (apart from switiching gears) is this "BSOD" reference from folks that are trying to tell me that their software is better.

    Before you mod this "flamebait" just listen for a moment. I've been working as a programmer, and have used win 2k pro extensively over the past five years on at least 7 different machines. The only time I got a BSOD was on a Western Digital Hard Drive failure.

    When I see someone tell me that their software will free me from the "BSOD" - I can't help thinking that they haven't seen or used win2k - or haven't configured their installations properly - and they are trying to tell me "Linux is Better" based off of 95/98/ME or poor computing practices.

    And while that certainly is most likely the case that Linux is Better- I'd like an honest comparison on how it fares against 2kpro? Honestly - if you want to convert folks over to Linux - Do it positively - Tell me what's good about Linux - Don't tell me what's bad with windows - I know what's bad with windows and a Linux guy telling me what's bad with windows will get an eyeroll from me, and will outright be dismissed from conversation if they mistate or are erroneous on the latest platform.

    Campaigns based on Negativity are self defeating. They won't sway the extremes, but they will force the fence sitters away from moving to the negative side. I want to know what I will gain. I want to know why it's right for me. Tell me the good parts and how and why they are so good.

    But above all, Please - Drop the "BSOD" it left with Windows ME.

    by the way - Microsoft does drop the ball - Windows CE

    Win CE

    WinCE - lol
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • A good test I usually suggest is to run your current OS, and install an OS you want to switch to in a virtual machine environment (VPC or VMware on Windows). If you do not find yourself repeatedly switching to that new OS to complete the tasks, then why bother?
    • That's funny I used to work in a Uni computer lab (business school -- ugh) and we ran 2kPro and then XPPro, and we had bluescreens somewhat frequently. More frequently the computers would just stop working due to overloading of spyware or whatever, take forever to do simple things as windows ground to a halt or the like. When I got to work, I used my PowerBook or dropped in a Knoppix CD, depending on whether I felt like lugging in the laptop. And I laughed silently every time a windows machine crashed. I

    • Re:Linux (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jimicus ( 737525 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @04:05PM (#9872020)
      I'm probably not the best person to tell you, since the thing which caused me to drop Windows was a job in which I administered 120 9x machines. But, here goes...

      Speaking as a techie, the thing which is good about Linux is that if something goes wrong (and it will - those who tell you it won't are either lying or inexperienced) the error messages tend to be more useful, as do the error logs.

      You can usually communicate directly with someone fairly closely involved in developing whatever software/driver is broken. You're not stuck with Microsoft's "support", and I find that the signal/noise ratio in mailing lists tends to be significantly higher. Basically, you don't generally have a bunch of MCSE monkeys telling you what the problem is and getting it spectacularly (and obviously) wrong.

      Programs tend to be relatively small and self-contained - an obscure bug with a particular package in userland won't usually affect much else in the system (unlike Internet Explorer).

      The developers are generally far more open & honest about bugs. You're more likely to hear "Oh, that's new. Looks like a bug..." from an open source developer than from a Microsoftie.

      I can sleep at night knowing that not a single byte of software on my computer is pirated.

      It may be that none of these are convincing reasons to switch. Fine, then don't. The best operating system is the one that does what you want it to. (Hear that sound? That's my karma evaporating)

      It may be that you find these things sufficiently interesting to take another look. Great. If there's a Linux user group in your area, get to know them. They will be able to help if (when) you encounter trouble, and you can return the favour by helping the next new person to send an email saying "Hi..."

  • saw it (Score:2, Informative)

    by KB1GHC ( 800065 )
    I went to barnes and noble to look at some books about linux, I always have problems with installing programs and stuff, and i read quite a few "newbie" books about linux, but i keep running in to problems

    it seems like a good book, but for a non-geek, try linux for non-geeks

  • Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye! (Score:3, Funny)

    by AgntOrnge ( 718563 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:50PM (#9871840)
    And say hello to segmentation faults and core dumps! woohoo!!

  • Not Debian (Score:3, Interesting)

    by leandrod ( 17766 ) <l@d u t r a s . org> on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:51PM (#9871852) Homepage Journal
    Funny about how the guy speaks only about RPM-based distros, and then his demo is based on Debian!

  • Captive NTFS and Wireless (Score:5, Insightful)

    by the_riaa ( 669835 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:53PM (#9871874) Homepage
    Until they start packing better NTFS support (Captive NTFS is a pain in the ass, and still doesn't work for me most of the time) along with 802.11b/g/a card support in Knoppix, it's hard for a lot of current Windows users [XP users, mainly] to switch over. I'd love to try out more in Knoppix as I love that you can pop in a live CD, learn some Linux, and if needed, reboot and go back to Windows - and when I sufficiently knew enough about what I was doing in Linux, only then would I make the permanent switch.

    One thing about all these articles is that they expect users to quit Windows cold-turkey and immediately jump head first into Linux. But from what I've seen personally, that's not necessarily the best approach. Those that I've seen try making the hard switch install their distribution of choice, then after a few hours of trying to regain the functionality of their last OS [figuring out what does what, where it is, etc] they get frustrated with Linux and wonder what made them give up their previous OS when it worked "just fine". I like the gradual approach that Knoppix and other live CD-based distros can afford. You can pop it in, screw with it for a while, learn some, then pop it out and go back to your old OS if you get frustrated or tired. I commend Gagne for using Knoppix as the teaching tool of his book.
    • "they expect users to quit Windows cold-turkey and immediately jump head first into Linux"

      Actualy, I think they're targetting users who grew tired of spyware/bugs/viruses associated with Windows, people who'd do the jump if only they knew there was an alternative.

      I, for exemple, am such a person. I design websites for a living, and I'm looking for sort of a "turn-key" solution to switch to Linux. I need an article that is actualy convincing enough to switch right-fucking-now.

      "Maybe, perhaps someti
  • What is this blue screen you speak of? I vaguely remember it from my Win 9x and NT 4 days, but alas I have yet to see one in a long time. In fact the last blue screen I had was in 2001, the heat sink fell off of my CPU and Windows bluescreened at me..

    Oh wait, I remember a second one - last year, when the hard drive died, I got the page fault blue screen.

    Other then that, I haven't seen one in a looong time - and I use Windows a lot at home and work at a company with almost 1000 Windows servers. But hey, st
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Good point. I only got one blue screen from windows xp after 2 years of use. It was when I connected my cell phone to my computer and tried to do something. I am going to assume it was entirely the poor driver's fault. Now that I'm running linux, I see the artsd segfault all the time.

      Linux zealots continually babble about bsod and clippy and I can see how the "community" gets a bad wrap. I guess if the only forum you read about linux is slashdot then you're getting a one-sided view. The gentoo forums

  • AT LAST - A NON-UBERGEEK approach! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @03:54PM (#9871891)
    I read his book. I am a newbie (sorry: 'noobie' is it?). I like his approach. He is about the only Linux user who doesn't scoff at new users. What irritates me in the Linux "community" is that each time a new user asks a question, it is clearly lablelled ad a *stupid* question. He, we're not all uber-geeks. I just want the thing to work.

    I also think that the haughty attitude portrayed by some Linux users actually puts people off - and gives them reason to stick with Microsoft.

  • The only reason I have to use Windows at work is that all our mail/contacts/schedule is in Lotus Notes and I could not find a client for Linux (weird if you think on IBM's commitment to Linux).

    Using wine is so painfully slow that is not a solution.

  • Is good. But.... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by smchris ( 464899 )
    Just put a senior citizen who only wanted web and email on linux. Tried a Knoppix hard drive install to experiment, but:

    1. Modem driver didn't claim to work with Debian, and, although the install script was "Debian-aware", it didn't.
    2. How do I get _user_ level icons for mounting and unmounting removable media that a computer newbie can understand? Seemed like "auto" was broken after a hard drive install?

    Fedora Core. Simple process. She's happy.

    My conclusion was that Knoppix isn't quite there for th

  • Kiss the BSOD goodbye... (Score:4, Funny)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @05:18PM (#9872737) Homepage Journal

    And shake hands with your new friend, kernel panic.

    Who is panic, and what is he doing in my computer?

  • Who reads anything? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Trailwalker ( 648636 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @05:46PM (#9873093)
    There are a great many non-readers who have gone from TV to PC. When they screw up their windows install, I just give them a Knoppix disk and tell them to click yes to everything. The only hard part is explaining how to change the boot sequence to boot from their CD player first.

    "What's a bios, is it dangerous?"

    I do not mean illiterates, but people whose lives were formed around staring at a tube. To these people, a PC is just another tube with more variety.

  • I've been using Linux as my primary desktop at home since 1998, but I picked up the book primarily for my wife (who made the leap to Linux somewhere around 2001 due to a magical combination of getting tired of having to constantly reboot and the availability of StarOffice). My hope was that she would find Marcel's style approachable enough to dig into the things she was interested in on her own. That didn't pan out, though; she's happier just asking me a quick question when she runs into a dead end.

    However, I found myself learning a few things about KDE from the book that I wasn't aware of due to my WindowMaker / Gnome past:

    • Kooka is a good front end for scanning, a little nicer than xsane
    • K3B is a kick-butt CD burner, miles ahead of xcdroast: look ma, I can burn DVDs! (This is the one part of the book my wife refers to occasionally)
    • KDE's printing configuration console is well thought out and works well

    So I went from being a primarily command-line oriented guy to trusting a little more in the nice GUI apps that KDE supplies... and it has been good. I'm happy that I picked up Marcel's book.

    By the way, he didn't write this book using the French chef schtick that he uses for his Linux Journal "Cooking with Linux" columns, for which I'm quite thankful. I enjoy the columns, but a full book of that would be too much. Instead, he adopts a personal tone that is straightforward and pleasant to read.

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