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Yah, it's easy. I've got a triple-boot system set up, with WinME, Mandrake Linux 9.0, and Lycoris Desktop/LX. I use the LILO boot loader that comes with Mandrake to boot to whatever OS I want.

Go to Google and look up the various Linux newsgroups for all kindsa helpul info on how to do it.

Linux CAN run some Windows programs, using WINE, and there's also WineX which works for some games. Mandrake had a 'Gaming Edition' a while back prepackaged with The Sims - it ran better in Linux that in Windows (on the same PC). But I've not had much luck with getting other games to run, although I *did* manage to install Grand Theft Auto 3 in Mandrake, and I did get it to actually run - but, not being a geek or a guru, I couldn't get the frame rate to any kinda playable level.

The coolest thing about Linux is that, if a program crashes, it doesn't auotmatically take down the whole OS with it. Windows, on the other hand, will just roll over and die if something like TS2 gets a lil hiccup.

TD

Dunno about 'best', but Mandrake is one of the most popular, and probably one of the easiest distros for people new to Linux. Ya can download it from the Mandrake website. I bought a boxed version of MDK 8.1 around February of last year, and ran it until just about a month ago, when I downloaded the ISOs for MDK 9.0. The cool thing is, I was able to keep my 'Home' partition from 8.1 and didn't lose anything when I installed the new version. Even my wallpaper was still in place, along with all my email, bookmarks, etc.

Lycoris Desktop/LX is also an easy to use Linux distro aimed at folks who have never used anything but Windows. The Lycoris people picked what they considered the best applications (out of the thousands and thousands available on the web for Linux) and got it all on one CD. I don't know for sure, but I think you can download the ISO for it.

Have you ever used Linux before?

TD

I have played around with linux some, even setup a dual boot on my p3 system. was not overly impressed with it. Very few software packages are even wrote to run on it. The hackers community seems to think its the shiznit. the best nothing else even comes close. I think :barf: on that the whole experience was bad, At the start I chose the wrong mouse, and guess what i had to reinstall the whole thing just to change it. no going to control panel and just deleting one and reinstalling another. I managed to crash it numerous times and had to restart the entire computer :roll: , no cntrol-alt-delte, end task and go on. Linux users mite say that it was my pc or the install i did. Well my pc is a p3 933 mhz with 640 meg ram and 60 gig hda 7200 rpm. More than enough system to run linux supposedly. Oh one more thing, internal modems wont work with linux. it doesnt support them, only externals and only a few models. If u just wont one to mess with I would suggest finding an older system some is wanting to get rid of, and put it on that one. IMHO

That sounds like back when I tried Red Hat 6.1 a few years ago. Actually, I tried Red Hat Linux 6.1 again, on an old PC, after I had some 'Linux Experience' and it still sucked. I don't know about newer versions of Red Hat, but I assume it's now on par with Mandrake or Lycoris.

Mandrake 8.1 has been amazingly easy to work with. The only major problem I had initially was the blankety blank WinModem that came preinstalled on this PC - and if you are using one anyway, you should get rid of it and get a REAL modem (ie, a 'hardware' modem, whether internal or external). Now, though, many WinModems are supported by various Linux distros - even that POS WinModem I had before.

In the year or so I've been using Linux, I've had a total of ONE OS crash - and if I'd known what I was doing when it happened, it wouldn't have happened. How many times does Windows crash in a year? How about in a week? Now, some Linux apps will crash on occasion, but they don't take the whole OS down with them when they do. As for available software, no, you won't find a lot in a store - but if you look around on the web, egads, there's all kinds of Linux software for all kinds of purposes, and 99% of it is FREE. Download it, install it, and there ya go.

When I bought the MDK 8.1 box (around $40 at Best Buy), it came with three CDs. What was on the CDs? A better question would be, what was NOT on those CDs. Good Gawd. Go to the Mandrake website and check it out.

The only thing Linux is lacking is the really cool GAMES like MW4 Mercs. That's the ONLY reason I don't wipe all traces of Windows off my PC right here and now. Of course, if really I wanted to apply myself, I could probably figure out how to run it using WineX...

TD

I was trying to help my dad with a PC purchase some weeks back and there was some mail order ones in a newspaper advert. I noticed they used an OS called Lindows. It mentioned Linux somewhere in the advert so i assume it is one of their OSs.

Anyone heard of it and know if its any good?

Glas

well, i stumbled acrossed a lindows beta on the net and installed it. first i think it will duel boot with only win9x OS's the installer would not work under winxp or win2k, but i think there may be a way around that. it uses a gui interface and basikly uses WINE to run windows applications. i could never get anything installed that was halfway decent, not even kali. i was forced to quite using it when it asked me for a administrator password. i typed it in and the next time i loaded it it refused to load without this password. well thats fine and secure and all, but for some reason it wouldnt allow the password to work. i tried a number of times and it just woudnt let it work no matter what. so that was the total extent of my lindows experience. i got it to work one time and didnt know enough about linux to figure anything out lol. i imagine by now they probably have alot better build to the OS. just not sure its ever going to reach their goal of an alternitive to M$ OS.

here is their website to take a look. http://www.lindows.com/

I'm using KDE 3.0.5a in Mandrake 9.0, and KDE 2.0.2 (I think) over in Desktop/LX (which looks amazingly like WinXP). I've tried Gnome and a couple of other interfaces, but I always come back to KDE.

I've got an SB Live! X-gamer 5.1 sound card and a Creative Labs 5.1 speaker system. Right now only the two front speakers and the subwoofer are working in MDK 9.0. I had everything but the center speaker working in MDK 8.1, but I don't remember exactly how I did it.

I use Google Groups to search alt.os.linux.mandrake whenever I run into a problem, so ya might check there for a solution.

What browser do you use? I use Konqueror (but I also have Phoenix and Mozilla installed). Do you know about KMerlin, the MSN Messenger clone? Have you used The GIMP for editing graphics? There's also a handy graphics browser utility called Gqview that's kinda like ACDSee, great for looking through lots of files quickly.

Have you played around with WINE much?

TD