In which this subject line is not "I can has Linux!"

[desperance]

[It is a terrible temptation to the weak-minded, this lolcat habit; and I am weaker-minded than you know.]

But! I have successfully run Linux on the Laptop of Heavenly Perfection!

Not installed it, mind, because I'm still anxious about successfully partitioning the hard drive and setting up a dual-boot without aggravating Sony's systems to the point of collapse. This is probably pointless anxiety, as most of my anxieties are pointless; but I has have it regardless, so you may as well watch me nurture it for a while.

But! I downloaded the latest issue of Kubuntu (because KDE is my graphical front-end of choice, in so far as it's the only one I've ever spent any time with) and burned it onto a CD and behold! It works! Without the least hint of trouble, indeed, it works.

It's really not a viable way of working, because running an operating system from a CD is sooo slow and limiting; but I ought now to be able to work up the confidence to go for a full install. And no doubt it will be good for me to be using Ubuntu rather than OpenSuse, because range is always better than specialisation. [*sighs nervously*]

Comments

[carandol.livejournal.com]

Ow! I can't help thinking you'd be better off with Mepis 7 than Kubuntu; both use the KDE front-end, but it's widely considered (outside of Ubuntu fanboys) that Kubuntu is one of the worst KDE-based distros available. Mepis is much more stable, there are a lot more things that work "out of the box", and you won't be stuck with the rather unreliable completely-new-distro-every-six-months model that Ubuntu seems locked into. (I used to use Ubuntu, but there were a couple of occasions where they "upgraded" some software, only to have it stop working. The worst was when they upgraded to a new version of x-server, which didn't work with half the world's video cards, and left us looking at a command prompt.) I gave Kubuntu a try a few months ago, and was appalled at what was missing once I tried to use it as an everyday OS. I've been using Mepis for the last year and a half and after going through a period of trying out lots of different distros in the summer decided that Mepis was by far the best KDE distro around. It used to look a bit naff, but they've had a makeover for version 7, so that's not an excuse any more. If Kubuntu works from the CD, chances are Mepis will too. And I believe the Mepis setup for dual-booting is much simpler than most versions of Linux. Mepis used to be based on Ubuntu, but it was decided Ubuntu was too unreliable, so now it's based on Debian, with important packages being re-written especially. It somehow manages to use less memory than KDE with other distros, so is really fast even on my old 1GHz, 512Mb laptop; should be really zippy on the LoHP.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Ken, thanks for this. Following our previous conversation I did actually go to Mepis first, after I couldn't get OpenSuse to run - but I couldn't find a free download, and all I wanted to establish first-off was that the initial problem was with OpenSuse rather than Sony, so that other versions of Linux will indeed run.

Having done that, I'm very open to persuasion. Certainly I'm not invested in Kubuntu (and have heard other people besides yourself being rude about it). Perhaps I'll swallow my native meanness and go give Mepis some money...

PS

[desperance.livejournal.com]

D'oh! I found the free download page, and have Absolutely No Idea why I didn't find it before. Because I am an idiot, probably.

Have left the desktop happily chuggin' down the download, while I play work on the laptop in town (oh, and Windows has just crashed on me. Ah, nostalgia! I had forgotten, what a constant this is in the life of a MicroSerf...).

I will report back, how Mepis and the LoHP and I get along together...

[rhonawestbrook.livejournal.com]

You know, my husband is a Network Engineer. He's certified in all the Microsoft stuff etc...but he's also a Linux pro and to hear him tell it, Linux is of the gods, windows, of the devil.

He uses Linux on his laptop and desktop, one of his clients has over 20 Linux servers and I hear the word Linux like every day!

SO yea...saw your linux post and...well....good luck!If you have any questions, I'm sure he can help you or direct you to the best free sights with info.

Here's a link to his blog/tech thing. He calls it "My Little Ubuntu Guide" and I have no idea what that means, but you used the word so...well..hope this helps a little!

http://www.mylittleubuntuguide.com/

[samarcand.livejournal.com]

Let us know how Mepis goes - I am still interested in dual-booting my PC at home with Linux. And, if it's a fairly easy set-up and the system is a good one, I may try it...

It might involve coming over to see you at some point and you showing me around the system.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Any time.

[jeremy-m.livejournal.com]

Another option, good for the commitment-phobic shy of anything as radical as partition changing, might be running virtual machines with all the unixes you like in windows on Windows. The VM Player and lots of operating system "appliances" are free from VMWare. Also good for dealing with Huge Disasters, when you only have to delete the virtual computer, not the real one.