Do you run a linux DESKTOP?

Hey,

I use a linux desktop at work. Since my job involves a lot of network troubleshooting and scripting, I prefer to use linux. Tell you the truth it's doing great for me...But it does not replace windows...I still do my reports on MS word and my spreadsheets on excel and I organize my life on outlook, linux has a very specific purpose for me, and it does a great job.

Mandriva, currently a base LAMP install.

Looking to test a program for a small coffee/espresso shop to do accounting, import legacy Quickbooks data, accept Qb formatted data from a Royal cash register, hopefully also write the checks in VesaCheck format, all under linux.

Probably will be testing for some other SMB use next month.

This is my setup I can blow up and not care about. piii 833, 256 mb ram, 10 gb HD.

Day-to-day stuff is on a old Compaq Presario with external drive array under Windows 2000. Actually, testing patch managers with that one at present.

IBM 4694-244 POS Cash Register System

They show up on eBay in the $225 range, and rather than the Win98 OS that came with them, I would think that Linux would be preferable.

(Usual driver and peripheral issues apply.)

I have installed SUSE desktops on a few client networks to find nothing buy VERY happy users, no more MS hassles! They are used for most basic Office work, Docs, databases, email etc.

At home, I have two NIX boxes, both bought by companies I supported, one Novell Linux desktop and the other SUSE, mainly used for administering their networks. I like them both but the SUSE is a little more robust.

As for myself, I am quite lucky to have the most stable and quickest notebook I have ever picked up. I run W2KPro, on a PIII with 640MC RAM. I am the only user and it NEVER crashes or hangs, boots and reboots in less than a minute, shuts down in about 4-5 seconds etc. But again, it's a one-off that others don't use and isn't used for networking into the client site.

I use it for all of my publicity work, print and graphics creation, SOME games )web design, interfacing to my sound desk (yes I run Cakewalk on it too, gave up on Pro-Tools, too limited) only 32 meg graphics cipset, and just about everything else is done on it. I don't even use my P4 desktop with the 256 Graphics card unless I feel like playing some really GP demanding game.

So as for your question, I mainly use Linux for work, ALWAYS Firefox! I have installed it across several medium sized networks and it is rock solid. Come to think of it, I bill far less hours than I used to, maybe I should switch them all back to XP 'Doze desktops with IE on them. :)

I mainly use mobile computers (notebooks, tablets, etc.) and have found linux to be unsuitable under these situations. The myriad of devices I connect to and the difficulty in working with wireless have made it not worth the effort yet.

As for my desktop, dual boot XP & FC3. I have grown with linux from the RH7 days. While I have tried Mandrake, SUSE, and Debian, I am most comfortable with RH/FC.

If ever linux were to conqure (sp) the wireless realm, I would probably make the switch and not look back.

Stable as a rock, I'm quite happy with it.

I started with Mandrake 9.1, then went to 10.0 Community, and finally to 10.1 Discovery.

I've gotten a few friends curious about it, and a few may convert over the coming months.

The big "safety net" for me when I first installed it was it automatically set up a dual-boot situation for me, so if anything went sideways I could still retain Windows capability. It worked.

I run:
1 XP home P4ht laptop
2 XP Pro desktops (Athlon XP's) of which 1 is a dual book with Debian Sarge.

I use them for what ever i'm doing at the time, e.g. surfing, bringing work home etc. and i use all for the same kind of work, although i find Linux a helluah lot easier to work with than XP.

I'm runnin' Windows XP, as well as Gentoo Linux. Grub is helping to make that managable. I also have Cygwin installed.

See, i get a good app on Windows XP during my casual time. I test it out in cygwin (if possible), and if i like it, i move it over to my Linux.

I can not run Linux at work, 95% of my customers run Windows, and company I am working for run Windows as well. But at home...
My wife use Mac, she finds it safer, troublefree and then Windows and easier then Linux. I run Slackware for soul and Mandrake for work I do at home. My daughter run Mandrake and I have a Windows based PC like a playstation for my yangers.
On my opinion Linux is ready for the desktops at work or at home.

I run SUSE 9.2 at home - Dual boot with Win 98SE (!)I find it stable, useable, and fun, but what is stopping me moving competley is that I cannot run some of my well used Windows software- Macromedia MX, a DTP, Adobe Elements, and a few others. I know that I need to make the time to learn the Linux software, that will probably (definitely) do the same as the Win software, but it takes time to learn.

My biggest problem is installing new software. This really has to change. Getting caught in the endless loop of library problems is no way to encourage new users.

I will continue to use Linux as much as I can, but it does have a very steep learnign curve.

BTW my SUSE refuses to run Firefox, so I use teh new Opera v8 whcih is great!

Ed

I'm a freelance IT consultant, mainly training people in network administration and tcp/ip. Most of the trainings are UNIX/linux, but i'm also an MCT and triple MCSE.
At home (=work) i have nothing from MS. My main workstation now is a Ubuntu, but i also have a Fedora Core 4, an OpenBSD and a Solaris 10. The two linux desktops change distro frequently.
Applications : (Gnome), Firefox, Thunderbird, The Gimp, OpenOffice.org, Ethereal, xpdf, and lotsa commandline. I don't play computergames.
Until 2003 i was running mainly Windows2000 and OS/2, i removed my last Microsoft partition in april 2004.
I choose linux/bsd/solaris because it just works, whereas with MS software one has to spend lots of time troubleshooting, antivirussing, antispywaring etc...

What is the oldest, slowest system you have running a linux desktop? How much difference do you see between that and your top dog?

Were the sound cards Sound blaster? Off brand? On-board?

"If so, is it a work system or a home system?"

I use Linux for both home and work. I typically use FC3 at home and at work it ranges from Ubuntu, Slackware, and FC3. It really depends on what I am doing. My students that are interested in Linux ALWAYS have multiple installed to see what flavors fit them. I usually have to help them out with building the "harder" distros, but once they get the hang of it, they usually migrate to either FC3 (for wireless and home use) or Slackware/Gentoo for more build it yourself experience.

"This will be broken down into two groups. The home use vs the work use. Please put replies in the correct section."

I fit in the both section ;-)

"If you have a work system, what applications do you use and what is the primary reason you have a computer? Is the linux box standard or are you the exception?"

Work - Open Office, Webmin, Apache, DHCP, BIND, etc, etc...I teach my students how to setup and secure a server.

Home - Mostly desktop stuff, but some server stuff (like apache). I have a crappy older computer as a firewall and IPSec "server."

"If you have a home system, what applications do you use and what is the primary reason you have a computer? Homework for the kids? Games? Graphics?"

Hmmmm...I use it for everything. I do play games (I love Neverwinter Nights and WoW). I also do work on it. I'm not a graphical guy, but as I understand it Gimp is almost as good as photoshop. I also use my home computer(s) as a test bed for my students sometimes (they can poke and prod all they want)

"Is this on a newer or older system?"

Yes. I have a laptop a P3 800 (I think), a Athlon 3200, a P4 1ghz, and soon to live a brand spanking new Athlon X2 (though I haven't bought it yet).
"Have you had hardware issues?"
Linux tends to do pretty well on dual core, but I've found Slackware complains a little....Wireless is also in need of help. That is why I am using IPSec at home. WEP (while crappy) just won't work right in Linux.

"Any other problems?"
Typically FC supports bleeding edge hardware FAR better than any distro. I wish that driver makers would come out with drivers FOR Linux, rather than having to kludge something together (eg ndiswrapper).

"Looking to do this at home as a pilot program, and then duplicate this at work if successful."

Go for it. If you are using an ATI or NVidia graphics card make sure to go to rpm.livna.org and update your driver that way. Why? It is as simple as yum or apt-get. You don't have to recompile your kernel and it just works! Also if you plan on using wireless stay away from D-Link and find a card that uses and Ornico chipset...

all the hype and marketing just can't replace talking to real people doing real work.

Now I am twice as geeked to get a home system up and going. Will be something to do while the kids are gone to keep me busy.

I tend to agree, I have worked in mixed window/linux environments. Linux just isn't as mature as windows is. I'm not saying that it isn't as good or as stable as windows. But, I don't think it has come of age in terms of an office environment. in terms of a standalone operation like a register or a firewall etc. I think it works great, it just isn't ready for the desktop.

SA-

I can only assume you haven't used network management systems on Linux that cover the scalability issues to which you refer. Tools like LDAP cover that nicely. Any networking effects you can achieve on Windows, you can achieve on Linux (even security problems, but Windows security issues take a whole lot of work to duplicate in Linux and often involve using MS applications with WINE).

Compatibility concerns are, of course, perfectly valid.

My TR account gets filtered through a gmail account, so it doesn't matter how much goes in.

Funny, I have never gotten anything from TR that I haven't asked for thought. Just some anoying peer mail from scammers for a while there.
[b]
Paul, make a discussion under the "ideas" heading and one of the guys will take care of any problem your having! They keep a close watch on that heading. Just be nice and they will treat you like royalty! Good luck.

you can run the xserver on a 386, and a full gui on top of it, as long as the gui is not kde or gnome.

blackbox is the one I have on the 386.

huh? cost for ancient ram?? what cost??
the dumpster divers find computers constantly.
I could expand to 1500 p3 workstation network with a per station cost of $20.00 :)
I think I have about 500 megs of old simm ram chips kicking around right now, with modules ranging from 1mb to 16 mb.

making friends with homless in a city can save lots of money for toys. ;) as the braindead yuppies that toss out old stuff cause it's a year old will pay full price for hardware, and you can buy the hardware off the homeless dumpster divers for cheap. ( they get food and drug money, smokes, booze... they are happy. )

I'll agree with that: there's not enough wireless support for Linux. That's not a Linux problem, so much as a wireless card vendor problem. That doesn't change the fact, though, that it's the user's problem as well.

There are two important things to note, though:

1. Almost every card out there can be supported on Linux with already existing drivers. You'd need to use wrapper software (the ndiswrapper module is the most common example, and what I'm using) with Windows drivers in many cases, though, which adds some difficulty to implementation for those who are not very skilled with Linux.

2. Once you've got a card running on Windows, you'll have either the same functionality available to you, or [b]better[/b] functionality, depending on the drivers you had to use. If you use Windows drivers with a wrapper, you'll have exactly the same available card functionality as you'd have under Windows. If you use a card for which there are Linux-native drivers, you'll almost certainly have even more functionality than you would under Windows.

The fact that many wireless adapters aren't natively supported under Linux is a source of frustration for many Linux users who miss the additional functionality that some few cards enjoy in Linux. It also presents something of a barrier for habitual Windows users looking to migrate to Linux, which is unfortunate.

I have had mandrake(open source 2 disks) up in 2 hrs on a 1.0 Ghz with 512 Mb of Ram. If you have DHCP you can be up and surfin in 20 minutes. The trick with good performance from a UNIX box is the same as a windows box throw more memory at it, If Windows could use memory the same way a unix box does there would be nothing to slow them down.

Personally the only near linux I run is Mac OSX it is running on a FreeBSD 4.X kernel. I run BSD 5.2 in the background then load the MAC Kernel on top of that it's in some blog somewhere. It works great, I can keep my BSD up to date and use all the ports that you could ever want, and still get the pretty gui of mac. I'm a windows man too, and up til MAC OSX I wouldn't have recommended MAC

I actually BOUGHT [b]Linux Administaration for Dummies[/b], and it does explain things in a method that is understandable. (really, I am NOT trying to imply ANYTHING! Like I said, I have the book myself.) They also have DESKTOP books.

Check out a LUG. (Linux Users Group).

http://www.linux.org/groups/

They are all over the place and usually meet once a month. This will give a new comer some real world contacts to help them get started. If you tell them you are a windows dude looking to make the switch you will be taking right in with open arms. Many of the members bring copies of the latest versions right to the meetings and hand them out.

As for answers. First version, if new to computers all together go and buy a set. Someone in your boat knows how to make disks from downloaded images.

Which version? First decide desktop or server and then go from there. Go to http://www.distrowatch.com for what the market share is of each version and reviews of them all.

How many CD's? Depends on if you just want the binaries of if you want to be able to look at the source or not. Plan on three.

Min sys req. For someone just starting out, use something that is current. While you are learning linux the last thing you need is hardware conflicts. Save that for later.

Time from install completion to surfing? About 10 seconds.

Hope this helps. And yes, I did laugh as soon as I saw you posted that!

1) You can either order the disks or download them, or pick them up as an add-on to a book. For example, the book "Linux for Dummies" comes with a set of disks, Red Hat last time I checked. The Linux Bible comes with both Red Hat and the "live" distribution Knoppix.

To download a distro, you can either use Bittorrent or a straightforward download. ISO mirrors include Linuxquestions.org and sorceforge.net.

Technically speaking you aren't "buying" a Linux licence, but rather either support or the cost of burning and mailing the physical disks.

2) Version... There's two definitions I think you could be driving at: distributions, and the distributions' versions. I found Mandrake (now Mandriva) quite easy to use, it automatically sectored my hard drive and set up the boot as a Dual Boot, leaving me with the option of booting into Linux or into Windows. Handy at tax time, as nobody has a Linux tax preparation program.

Another newbie-friendly distribution is Linspire, and there are PLENTY of others. If you want to start a fight on a Linux forum, just claim that such-and-such a distribution is The Best There Ever Was. ^_^

I recommend trying first a Live Distribution, like Knoppix. They fit on a single CD, and rather than installing on your hard drive, run off your CD drive. When you remove the disk from your CD drive, Presto! the next time you boot your computer, you have a Windows machine again. You don't need to (although you CAN) install the Live Distro on your hard drive at all. That way you can "test-drive" your hardware without worrying about mucking up your Windows setup.

3) Number of disks: your milage will vary depending on which distribution, and which version of which distribution, you choose. Live distros by definition fit on a single CD-RW. Mandrake 10.1 Discovery fits on 3 disks, which includes enough software choices to turn your humble home computer into a full-fledged Internet, e-mail and file server with office productivity software and games as well, but will only install those you need for your particular situation (i.e., if you just want to surf the net it'll ignore the various types of server software).

4) How much resources: If it's got at least 128 MB of RAM, it should have enough to run any type of Linux install, typically with the KDE or Gnome Graphical User Interface (GUI). For older machines with 64-MB or less, you may want one of the less resource-hogging GUI's like IceWM or XFCE4.

I've seen people claim to use 386's and 486's as firewalls, printer servers, etc., using distros like damnsmalllinux. I strongly suspect they're running it off the command line, rather than trying to use a GUI.

The trick is: YOU DO NOT *NEED* TO INSTALL a graphical user interface. You can run the system from the shell command line.

5) Time to surfing the net: With Knoppix, the time it takes to boot up, plus the time it takes to entering in the info to connect to your ISP. With a full installation, possibly a couple of hours until it installs all the software on your system.

***

I strongly recommend that if you have ANY problems, you surf over to Linuxquestions.org and do a little bit of searching. You'll probably find that someone had a similar problem to yours, and got a solution.

Good luck, and enjoy Linux!

every distro has one.
mandriva's is called move
knoppix, gnoppix are both debian based
suse has one.
linspire, used to be lindows.
xandros, is designed to be linspire like, give you the shroom treatment. ;)
( ms guru special, point and click limited use extremely windows like )

full mandriva, red hat download, 3 cdroms.
( one dvd if that option suits )
full install, of approximately 5 gigs of apps from 3 cdroms, on a p4 /athlon xp in the 2ghz with 256 mb ram, is 2 hours, rebooting after the install into newly installed os, online. yes, set the internet to network connection and dhcp ( most common connection types ) then reboot from installation program, you are online before you finish bootup sequence.

mandriva has full configuration after install, but before reboot, including default display settings, booloader options.

after fighting red hat for 7 hours, I'll never actually use them again. ( to change from one distro to red had, competely rebilding partition table, 7 hours...14 full installs, finally get a bootable system..1 hour, back to old distro, bootable, everything running...no more red hat for me )

If you have a D-Link card, buy a new one...not only are they junk, but they have various driver issues in both Windows and Linux.

For a list of cards check
http://www.linux-wlan.org/docs/wlan_adapters.html.gz

The prism chipset (save for d-link) seems to be fine as well as the Orinoco chipset. Keep in mind the wireless card will work in Linux, but it will use the Windows driver. So if it has crappy drivers (like D-Link) you're not gonna have a good time.

NDISwrapper seems to be the most supported way to make wireless work in Linux. It isn't hard, but there are still things to work out.

As far as I know any modern distro will support NDISwrapper. However, I highly suggest Fedora Core 3 or 4, SuSe, Ubuntu, Gentoo (which is VERY good with wireless), or perhaps Debian (although I'm not sure where they are on their wireless support anymore).

I'll post a ndiswrapper setup tutorial in my blog..

Modems also seem to be an on going concern within Linux.

It doesn't affect me directly, as I use an external Modem/Router into a network card with zero problems, but many people that wish to try Linux get bogged down and disillusioned at being unable to set-up Internet access.

Hardware manufacturers of all types really should wakeup and smell the coffee.

have not bought the wireless card, see if you can find one that uses bluetooth.
the bluez packages for it work well.

I've not gone wireless, but I've seen it working very well with blue tooth devices.

"Channels" and WEP problems are even less of an issue than it would seem from your phrasing, based on my first- and second-hand experience, and based on what I've read.

Getting ndiswrapper set up might be a little confusing for a new user, of course. Aside from that, though, it's mostly pretty straightforward.

Plans are now for 64-bit WEP, and some MAC-address blocking if only because one of the tenants from the floor above has announced that he plans (planned?) to use our network as his own. (Not that he ever offered to pay anything, mind you.)

While this is VERY off-topic, I might note that his "plans" are an unintended consequence of the older downtown building having given "conduit rights" to the ILEC to the exclusion of everyone else, including cable TV. We can ADSL, 128k ISDN or get a fractional T-1 loop to the ground floor, but it is painfully expensive as you go up the building.

More off-topic: The shop owner actually makes a game of calling the ILEC's customer service people and demanding to know when they are going to provide cable TV since they are keeping the cable companies out. Listening to him is a great break in the workday.

can I get a copy of that linux virus?
even after a decade of using linux I've never caught meself a linux virus.

I was speculating on that part. I have heard that there are file structure differences between Red Hat/Fedora/Debian/Slackware/Mandreake/Gent00 etc (or maybe I was just reading out-of-date threads).

L

add the cdrom and install distro of your choice.
the hardware will work.

but I don't care if it works in windows or not.I REQUIRE it to work in linux.
if it don't I don't buy it.