Perhaps, the time has come?

[Howard Kaikow]

Uncle!

Yes, that's Howard yelling Uncle!

Perhaps, the time has come to multiboot Linux.
It's been about 9 years since I (ab)used Unix.
Never used Linux.

But there are oh so many from which to choose.
And then there's the question of which books are worth getting.

I have some old Unix books lying around,

Unix for VMS Users by Philip Bourne (ISBN 1-55558-034-3)
Unix for the Impatient by Paul Abrahams and Bruce Larson (ISBN 0-201-55703-7)

Both books are quite old, and there may be better stuff available now, and more Linux oriented.

My immediate needs are quite narrow.
I may wish to help with GnuCash.

Currently, I have a heavily loaded multiboot Windows 2000 system, and no entirely free partitions. Do I need an entirely free partition?

1. How much space would be required by Linux and the essential programs such as Firefox, Thunderbird, GCC and associated programs? I would back up by using an image based program in Windows. In this case, True Image 9.

2. When I get a Vista system, there will be lots more disk space. Are there any issues with multibooting Linux and Vista?

Is there a summary somewhere of the differences/benefits of the main Linux alternatives? Which are free?

I have no interest in running Windows software from within Linux.

[linux_man]

Hi Howard,

I have been using Linux off and on for several years. I think it was around 1995 or 1996 when I first tried it. I have maintained a Linux desktop for daily use now since 2005. Over the years I have tried all the main distributions including RedHat, Debian, Ubuntu (based on Debian), Mepis (based on Debian), SUSE, Mandriva (then it was Mandrake), Xandros, Gentoo, Knoppix, etc. etc. I had stuck with Kubutnu for some time (about a year or so) but recently tried switching back to Mepis (one of my favourites). If you wish to try it out for a while first, I'd suggest you download a live CD version of Mepis or Ubuntu and run those. Keep in mind that running a distro from a CD will be slow as the files are all compressed on the disc and need to be read and uncompressed first. Therefore, don't judge the responsiveness based on a live CD. However, it will give you an idea of the functionality available.

You will require two partitions as a minimum. One for a Linux swap partition and another for the root partition. However, I highly recommend a third partition for /home. This allows you to overwrite the root partition with a new distro some day and not lose your home partition. Worked really well for me when switching from Kubuntu to Mepis.

Drew

[Howard Kaikow]

Thanx.

I've thought about getting at least two of the following books:

A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming

Lunix in a Nutshell

Moving from Windows to Linux

I ordered the Moving from Windows to Linux book on Friday.

My current plan is to pull the tape drive on my current mutiboot system, and install a 4th disk drive.
Issues are:

1. Cooling: I expect that I will need a bay/drive fan of some type.
2. Whether to get a SCSI drive or an ATA drive.
All 3 current drives are SCSI, so cabling positions permitting, SCSI would be easiest, tho more expensive. No drive letter issues with this approach.

For a lot less money, I could get a larger ATA drive, but that might screw up all the drive letters unless the BIOS cam be told to first look at the SCSI drives.

I was planning on partitioning as you suggested.
Say, 2GB for Linux Swap, X GB for root and Y GB for /home.
I'd also ad a few Windows partitions.

Too many distros from which to choose.