James Bradley wrote in a message to Phil Marlowe:

 JB> PREAMBLE: Experienced Linux users, please check for facts.

-=> PHIL MARLOWE wrote to MAURICE KINAL <=-

 PM>  === Thanks for your input ON Linux. It's
 PM>  definitely appreciated, although I have to say
 PM>  I'm not really knowledgeable enough to even ask
 PM>  pertinent questions. But the idea does sound
 PM>  tempting.

 JB> Everyone starts somewhere, Phil! <-; Most of the trouble seems to 
 JB> be how deeply you want to delve into it.

 JB> RedHat did seem brainless to install on a fiends' machine, where 
 JB> the secondless-brainless (so I've heard) flavor or distribution 
 JB> (If you want to be hip, that would =  distro.) - Mandrake - was 
 JB> being adog about setting up the GUI, X-Windows on the same 
 JB> machine. I've heard Debian (Probably spelled it wrong.)

(nope. :-)

 JB>  is equally easy to use.

There's a lot of ease of use in later stuff,  and setup varies from one
distro to another,  also with the version -- the later stuff is better at
figuring things out with different hardware.

 JB> I used Mandrake here for a few months. I was in the habit of 
 JB> trying to take away more controll than I likely should have. This 
 JB> compounded my frustration, when I could have just done what the OS 
 JB> expected me to, and things would have been much easier. (EG: 
 JB> Communications ports, Printer setup...)

GUI-oriented distros like Mandrake do a number of things for you,  and if
you want to take over some of those things yourself you need to figure out
how they're doing those things and work with/around their methods.  My
brother runs Mandrake,  and has for a while.  He seems happy with it.

 JB> If you want to dig into it, maybe post a bit on one of the Linux 
 JB> echos, or just lurk around. There's a good FAQ posted there. My 
 JB> total time on Mandrake was maybe a year, so I can mostly speculate 
 JB> on most questions.

 PM>  === I mentioned the steep learning curve, which  you confirm. 
 PM> That's a negative.

Yes and no.  I considered it damn near vertical when I first jumped in, 
but I also didn't consider it a problem because there was so much stuff out
there.  It's like having a *big* toolbox,  and trying to figure out which
of those tools is best for whatever the job is.

 PM> But one thing among the positive stuff I've heard that sounds on 
 PM> the mark (and what attracts me) is that you get back some of the 
 PM> control that you had with DOS and that was lost with Windows. How 
 PM> this actually works in practice with Linux, though, I don't know.

You can have as much control as you can handle.  :-)

 JB> I suspect a distro called Slackware might be more your, and maybe  
 JB> my speed. I've read it gives you a command prompt only, and if you 
 JB> want a GUI, you add your own.

I've been running Slack since 1999, and currently run KDE with it on this
other box here.  But I've also tried Gnome,  and one or two others.

 JB> Blackbox is a tight looking system for managing X-Windows, but 
 JB> otherwise, the command prompt is *really* powerfull.

The whole point is,  the GUI sits on top of things,  but you don't have to
run it,  and you can do both if you like.  Right now I've got a session
going on one textmode console on my workstation box,  after establishing my
connection on another console,  which is actually talking to a different
box,  at the moment there are eight different textmode consoles active, 
and I'm using six of them.  AND I have KDE up and running and active on
tty9.  :-)  Different tools for different jobs.  The session on tty1 is
talking to my firewall/router which is also running slack,  but has no GUI
installed,  and is living on a 386dx40 with an 80M (!) HD...

 JB> The draw for one of the easier distros is the installation 
 JB> routines, and something called RPM. (RedHat Program Management if 
 JB> memory serves me.)

I thought it was package manager.

 JB> If you go with a Slakware like OS, EVERYTHING is up to you,and you 
 JB> will have to learn what file to edit, and what edits to make. (I 
 JB> sure hope I'll be corrected if I'm off base here.)

Slack also has a package manager,  but you don't have to use it,  and it
won't get upset if you don't,  and fight with you.

 JB> Naturally, there's some rather strong opinions amungst the learned 
 JB> on the subject, and OS wars are avoided in the Linux echoes.

Different tools for different jobs.

 PM> ===  I am however thinking: Old dog, new tricks. And because of 
 PM> the investment of time involved I may just be dreaming, because 
 PM> I'm so backed up with other stuff to do that I may never get to
 PM> it.

 JB> Benji, the dog learned new tricks for the movie. He was an old man 
 JB> by that time, and also the dog on Petycoat Junction!

 PM> === So I think I should at least read up on it a bit before I 
 PM> pester folks here with dumb questions. Then I might very well get 
 PM> back to you.

 JB> I, too tried to read up as much as I could on it. It wasn't a 
 JB> loss, but it might have confounded me more than was helpfull.

The biggest problem with this is that stuff that's printed gets dated so fast...

 JB> If you can try it out on a second machine, or even a replacement 
 JB> drive first, that should save you from making your present OS
 JB> inaccessible.

Or try one of the distros that allow you to boot the CDROM and run from
there, without having to install it first.  Knoppix is supposed to be
pretty good in that respect,  and my brother has played around with a few
others including Damn Small Linux and some others -- you just boot the CD, 
and play with it.  He used that at work when he couldn't install to a
windoze machine.

 JB> (Partitioning, and multi-boot installations being what they are.) 
 JB> Every distro, by law, comes with a complete set of docs. If a 
 JB> Linux users group is near you, perhaps a local `good-guy/girl' 
 JB> can help with the install. Just be sure others agree (s)he is 
 JB> indeed a good-guy/girl, and not just a blow-hard like me. 

 JB> Personally, I can't wait to fire up another Linux box. I miss it a 
 JB> lot! The reason I reverted back to Windows on this machine, was to 
 JB> run ONE commercial application for dad. (Don't ask why my Linux 
 JB> box is MIA. Ruddy proprietary PS!)

Yeah?  What kind of box?  The nice thing about linux in that context is
that you can take the HD and pop it into something else and it'll run. 
Nothing at all like the nonsense you get with windoze when you try that, 
though that may depend on the distro as well.

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