Linux For Absolute Beginners: 3 Easy Ways to Test-Drive Linux

By: Carla Schroder
Monday, April 13, 2009 05:51:33 PM EST
URL: http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/6727/1/

Linux is Like Tortilla Chips

The computing marketplace is nearly unique in its lack of customer choice. In most other industries we have many good choices. If you don't like your Ford, you can buy a Toyota, Saab, Chevrolet, Audi, Dodge, or any of several other good brands. If you don't like Pepsi you can try Coke, Shasta, Western Family, RC. Ever notice how particular some people are about pens? There are dozens, if not hundreds of different styles and brands of pens. Milk comes from cows that are all pretty much the same, but you still have a choice of brands. Ever count how many different brands of tortilla chips are on your store's shelves?

And yet with computers our options are deliberately restricted, especially for desktop users. Microsoft wants you to believe that their products are all you should ever have, and their lock on the marketplace is an ongoing disaster of epic proportions. Their incurably defective and impossible-to-secure products are not your fault, though they try very hard to make you believe that when something goes wrong, it is your fault.

Computer Choices

So what else is there? Apple has been around as long as Microsoft, and are known for making elegant, stylish, user-friendly computers and other products. They are also known for commanding premium price tags, though the price differential from a comparable PC running Microsoft Windows and equivalent software isn't very much. But Apple is just as restrictive and customer-hostile as Microsoft; they're just smaller and prettier.

There is a third option, and that is the one that I prefer-- nice friendly, stout Linux desktop systems. Actually there are quite a number of computer operating systems, but Windows, Apple OS X, and Linux are the top three. Later on in this series we'll talk about some of the pros and cons, but since you're here reading this I'm assuming you're ready to give Linux a test drive, and you want to know how to do it without making a mess. Linux is amazingly flexible and friendly, and offers several easy ways to give it try without horking your existing system.

Linux is Like Tortilla Chips

The Linux world is very large, and there are hundreds of different Linux distributions. You can think of these as different brands of Linux, just like there are different brands of tortilla chips. In fact the tortilla chip is a perfect comparison, because the basic chip is always the same: it is made of corn. Every brand has its own variation on this basic chip: more salt, less salt, more grease, less grease, more crispy, less crispy, thicker, thinner, different shapes, white, blue, yellow corn, different flavorings. Underneath all Linuxes are pretty much the same; the differences are things like bundled software, user interfaces, configuration tools, and customized functionality.

It runs on everything from tiny embedded devices like wristwatches, robots, and phones, to giant mainframes and clusters. Linux rules the datacenter. Google and Amazon are giant Linux clusters. Pixar Animation Studio uses a Linux-based render farm. The world's top 500 supercomputers are nearly all Linux machines-- Windows and Mac represent 1.2%; Linux owns 87.8%.

So Linux is very capable and flexible, and it makes a dandy desktop PC. It is powerful, stable, runs fine on modest hardware, and is immune to the mind-boggling tide of Windows malware that is washing over the planet.

The current popular general-use Linux distributions are Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, Linux Mint, Debian, Mandriva, and PCLinuxOS. Distrowatch.com is the motherlode of distribution information.

3 Easy Ways to Test-Drive Linux

Here are three ways to try Linux without spending any money and without messing up your existing system.

Wubi is a special version of Ubuntu that runs on Windows just like any other Windows application. You need about 5 gigabytes of disk space to install Wubi. It's very easy; just hit the download link, which downloads a 1-megabyte installer program, then double-click on the installer and it will download and install the rest of Ubuntu. How long this takes depends on the speed of your broadband connection. (See below for options for dialup users.)

Of course you should have current backups before you try Wubi; you should always have current backups.

LiveCDs are very cool, and most popular Linux distributions have them. These let you run Linux directly from a CD, without installing it. First you download the CD image, then burn it to a CD, and then boot to the CD instead of your hard drive. Most PCs are set up to boot from a CD when a bootable CD is present. Knoppix gets my vote for best Linux LiveCD. You should have at least 512 megabytes of of RAM and an 800MHz CPU or better.

Ubuntu and Linux Mint both have LiveCD versions, and are very user-friendly.

If you have a spare computer that you can use as a Linux test machine, that's even better. Many LiveCDs, such as Ubuntu's, also have a hard drive installation option. Just click a button, take a walk, and in 30 minutes or less it's done.

Different Mindset

You can't sit down to a Linux system and poke at it for a minute, and then expect to be instantly productive. You can't do this with any computer. All of them have learning curves, and it is a myth that a computer can be "intuitive". It is a completely artificial, abstract environment. Windows users forget how many frustrating years they spend learning their way around Windows and applications. Mac OS X is not intuitive either, and requires a lot of study just like Windows. The top-selling computers book on O'Reilly.com are for OS X and the iPhone-- if they're so intuitive, why are people buying so many howto books?

Linux is not Windows and it is not OS X, though all three are similar-- you get a graphical interface, you click on things, and you type on a keyboard. But they are organized differently and come with different applications, so if you expect Linux to be just like what you're used to you'll get frustrated. Just like an Apple user coming to Windows for the first time, or the reverse. Open your mind to doing things the Linux way and you'll pick it up a lot faster.

Dialup Users Want Linux, Too

From its inception, Linux depended on the Internet for distribution and updates. It is quite a bit larger than it was in the early 90s, so dialup doesn't work very well for downloading new Linux distributions to try out. However, you can purchase Linux CDs and DVDs inexpensively, and Ubuntu gives them away for free. OSDisc.com sells many different Linux discs starting from $1.95 plus shipping.

Next week we'll walk through installing Linux on a separate computer, and start learning how to do things.

Carla Schroder is the author of the Linux Cookbook and the Linux Networking Cookbook (O'Reilly Media), the upcoming "Building a Digital Sound Studio with Audacity" (NoStarch Press), a lifelong book lover, and the managing editor of LinuxPlanet and Linux Today.

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