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I have determined that with only a wife, kids, job, house, family, etc..etc... that I have too much time on my hands and I need something to keep me busy.... :rofl:

Okay..not sure why, but I want to play around with Linux. I have several older computers laying around and I want to find a use for them somehow... I have a couple of older p4's and AMDs. I thought I would load Linux on to one of these... but which one? and where do I get it? Can I download an ISO? I hope it is still free. About the only thing I truely need is a computer I can setup with a couple of larger drives to provide additional backup storage for music and photos, but I have a Win7 machine to use for that as well. I just figured it is time to learn Linux and see what is out there. Maybe I will find that ultimate hacker program that will allow me to backup all my Wii games!! or Firewall maybe? Or do I just turn them all into paperweights...
Ubuntu is a decent one to start with...it is free and you can download it or they will send you CD's.
Most are free and will run well under any P4. You could also run Sun's VirtualBox software on the W7 system then load Ubuntu as a virtual machine. Both are free. You can then download and run any other version of Linux such as Mint and run them as additional VMs. No need to wipe the system clean and reload a different flavor. BTW, Mint may be the better choice for you if you want to work with a lot of multimedia stuff.
Redhat and FreeBSD are good choices. You might also consider burning yourself a "live" CD or DVD (depending on how complete you want the kernel to be) of Knoppix, Ubuntu, SUSE or whatever.

What "live" means is that you strap your PC or Mac to look to your CD or DVD burner for an OS image and load up a realtime flavor of any of several UNIX-like systems. It doesn't require you to setup dual boot or anything fancy...you simply drop the disc in your existing machine and let 'er boot.

Nothing could be easier to experiment with; AND it has very little overhead. Discs have all the needed drivers, so there's nothing to configure. And with stuff like KDE desktop as a GUI, you'll find that the ramp-up time is nil.
I started with Slackware but in retrospect I am not sure if that's advisable. What I can tell you is that using CentOS or Ubuntu will teach you how to use CentOS or Ubuntu. Learning how to use slack will teach you how to use Linux. The downside being that it's like drinking from a firehose.

If I were going to suggest a distro it would be Ubuntu, OpenSuSE, or CentOS (even though I hate CentOS). These all have decent documentation, active community, and some automated config tools. My preference is OpenSuSE but that's as subjective an opinion as they get. I might as well tell you my favorite color is blue too.

Best of luck with your endeavor. Hopefully you can learn it and add some new skills to your repertoire.
I learned on ubuntu, though in class we did everything through the command line so I'm not sure how that differs from distro to distro.
Way back I had used SCO Xenix and then went on to Unix and then OS/2. After IBM dropped OS/2, like everyone else I went to Windows.

When MS pissed me off enough I tried a variety of Linux flavors, eventually settling on RedHat with either the Gnome or KDE desktop (I could never make up my mind). Then I went to the Mac OSX. It's Unix (the best, most bulletproof OS out there) with the best desktop ever.

But if you're looking for something to use those old PCs for then I would go for Redhat. It was free and if you got into it you could spend a few bucks and get real time tech support if you needed it.


Sam
ive been using centos on my "backuppc" and "vmware" machines and am quite pleased.
start with ubuntu, then graduate to debian. Like Kumba I started with slackware, but there weren't that many options. I still will run slackware if all I need is a hardware router, but for a 'real' computer nothing beats ubuntu's ease of use and compatability. I keep a bootable pen-drive linux with ubuntu 9.1 on it for linux on the fly.
Okay, I will start with ubuntu.. where should I download it from? What about drivers?

What is the main difference in versions of Linux? is it like versions of windows? ie... home, pro, ultimate....etc?

Do you guys use Linux because it is free?
Ubuntu\'s site . Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

So what happened to your pursuit of digital photography?
Still doing some photography, but more for fun now. I was trying to make a part time living. I don't think there is such a thing as a part time photographer. Either you do it full time, or just as a small hobby. I suppose I should mention that I wanted to build a new deck, so I sold a couple of lenses to finance that. Probably a good thing since my wife found out how much money I had into equipment and I just wasn't ever able to convince her that it was all "needed" :toast:
The primary differences between linux distributions is the methodology used to connect all the dots. Linux is like Legos. You have millions of pieces and they can all be assembled in varying way. What the Distribution is is a method of assembling those lego pieces so that you have a common base to work off of.

They all start with the same pieces such as the Linux Kernel, GNU utilities, GCC, udev, etc. Where they differ is in how they compile or patch the kernel, which GNU utilities they support, where they put certain packages on the filesystem, how they layout the filesystem, etc.

Or, since I like analogies, think of it like getting a base-model car. Then lets say you give one car to Hennessy, another to Saleen, another to Shelby, and have them modify it. They will all do something different, but the pieces they started with will be the same. Similar kind of thing.
...and don't forget your free Non- OS software...

Open Office Suite
""Cheese is "always" free in a mousetrap""

nice tag line....

I think my goal is try to build this machine all with free software and see how I can do. Might change my attitude towards Linux a little bit.
The easiest thing to do with linux is a simple firewall with network file sharing. There are hundreds of walkthroughs for doing this with every linux distro out there. All you might need to invest in is a larger hard-drive. Once you do that you might as well set-up a simple web server too.

Once you do those three things you will have covered most of what linux is used for (in my opinion). The rest is all fringe stuff that is very application specific.
What do you guys think of Debian? My understanding is that I can actually load this flavor of Linux on to an older MacMini G4 that I have? Anyone done this?
Well, I did load Ubuntu on a PC and Debian on the Mac Mini. The Ubuntu was easy, the Debian was a bit more complicated, but that was probably due to the MacMini. Everything seems to be working fine on both, except the wireless card in the Mac Mini. I probably just need to do a search for one, but I probably won't use it anyway.
as you say kumba, a firewall is a great place to start, IPCOP back in the day was a good learning experience, adding modules was a challenge but fun. Ive since upgraded at the office to untangle, also quite fun.
for building a firewall, I need a machine with two ethernet ports, correct?
yes, ipcop will run on anything as well, both ipcop and untangle allow for multiple interfaces.
my untangle boxes have 4
red = outside
green = inside
DMZ
wifi, this is for public wifi that doesnt need network access
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