[ims]

-RANT-
Since MS has in their Divine Wisdom decided to terminate support for lesser versions of their OS, and I am not willing at this time to upgrade my two-year-old computer to Win XP, I have been considering Linux as an OS.
-END OF RANT-

I am running Win 98SE on a P3-500.

There are considerations:

1) dual-boot system

2) only Linux: restricts what software I can download and install

3) what flavour of Linux?

4) download or off-the-shelf

I won't be making any changes until maybe the summer, but I want to plan ahead. So I'm welcome to any suggestions.

Thanks

[codejockey]

I am running Win 98SE on a P3-500.
There are considerations:

1) dual-boot system

Doable, useful and desirable, IMHO. Trying to duplicate Windoze in Linux is an exercise in futility, if for no other reason than Microsoft can change things at will, and emulation/guest O/S software is always playing catch-up.

2) only Linux: restricts what software I can download and install

Absolutely right. Even though a great variety of software is available for Linux, if it's not the software you want/need, that point doesn't count for much.

3) what flavour of Linux?

A lot depends on what you consider important. Many newcomers to Linux quite reasonably choose a distribution for ease-of-installation or similar considerations; SuSe, RedHat and Mandrake all shine here. Other users have specific requirements (must work with odd hardware or support real-time/embedded operation, for example) and choose other distributions. You can always try several distributions before deciding; check out www.cheapbytes.com for very reasonable prices on Linux distributions.

4) download or off-the-shelf

Download is great for trials and experimenting; I prefer off-the-shelf when I've chosen a distribution, because I want to be sure I have a hard backup of the official distribution. In theory, it makes no difference; in practice, the extra documentation included in the off-the-shelf distribution may pay for itself many times over. Note that off-the-shelf does not have to mean retail; it's possible to purchase official distributions on CD only for nominal prices.

Hope this helps.

[Gibble]

Personally I like to download the linux ISOs from http://www.linuxiso.org and burn them on CD, then I have my backup copy and don't need to muddle making boot disks with dd, I just pop in the CD and boot from that to get the installation going (The most useful feature Linux and Windows have as far as installation goes).

I have bought a few linux books as reference but find I use the net more often since it tends to be quicker, and you can find tutorials for anything you could possibly want to do.

If you want a recommendation on distributions.

There are a few major distros that people use.
Mandrake is a snap to install (99% of the time)
Redhat is probably the most used, and you can find help specific to your distro the easiest (most books focus on redhat as well)
Slackware is what I use now, I don't know why, I was recommended it by several sysadmins and they love it (maybe it's more stable???).

--HTH

[stnwerks]

ims,
I thought I'd let you know since your using 98se that you could use partition magic 5 an older version, I picked one up last week for under $20,and it works great !!! Also you might try Lycoris aka
redmond linux It was easier to install than win 98se, A little stripped down compared to other linux distros, but that makes it simple. have fun Steve

[ims]

Thanks for all your replies. I will consider the suggestions made.

But I would like to hear of the experiences of those who now work only in Linux and whether they feel the restrictions all that greatly.

[strawberry1]

hi......linux is great but if you are used to windows and youve used it for everything theres not much point getting rid of it at least not yet....why dont you try linux first then decide?
if youve never installed two os's at once before then i would recommend buying off the shelf so you get a book to help you, because you probably wont have net access until youve almost finished, make sure you write down all your hardware before you start because you will need all this info.

i installed redhat and it was easy to install and easy to use, but for work i use a lot of windows stuff so i had to dual boot with win 2kpro.

but if you dont need windows id say get used to linux then ditch windows.....linux is free and i dont like bill gates!

[strawberry1]

also i heard that microsoft are phasing out support for their older versions and making new software incompatible because they are planning to make their newest version a subscription based affair....ie:you pay like forever to use it!