Linux

The pages in this section contain a number of different things.

• Moving to Linux
  How I became a Linux junkie, and why you should, too. Other pages in this section contain information that may help you get started using Linux, such as a list of software for different purposes and a list of useful links.
• Linux Tips
  A collection of bits and pieces of information I've discovered and found useful—and, I suppose, that I wish I'd been able to find a lot more easily.
• Programs
  Different sorts of programs that I've written. Most of them involve various sorts of system administration but are directed at the casual user, such as myself.
• PHP Scripts
  These are PHP scripts, of varying degrees of utility, that I've written to make my own efforts at web programming and design a little easier.
• Home Networking
  Some information about how to set up a useful home network using cheap hardware and free software.

For those who would wish to know: I use the Fedora distribution on most of my machines. I use the KDE desktop most of the time. 've also used the XFCE desktop and install it on older machines that don't have the memory or processing power for Gnome and KDE.

By far the easiest way to experience Linux is to download a so-called "Live CD". These are bootable CDs: You put it in your CD/DVD drive and turn on your computer and, after a bit (the CD has to do a lot of hardware detection and such, so this can take a while), there's Linux, all ready for you to play with it. You don't have to install it, and it doesn't change anything on your hard drive. (That said, if you want to be able to save files and such, you'd better have a pen drive or the like handy.)

And, oh by the way, it's really not a bad idea to have a Live CD around anyway, just for emergencies. If something awful happens to your hard drive, you can still boot with the Live CD and try to rescue stuff. I had to do that with my daughter's Windows machine. The secondary hard drive had died enough that Windows wouldn't recognize it and, in fact, wouldn't even boot, but I suspected the drive wasn't so dead that I couldn't rescue her data (mostly, her game settings and records!). So I booted the machine with Knoppix (see below) and, indeed, Knoppix found and mounted the drive no problem. I was then able to copy most of what was important off that drive and onto a new one.

There are several different Live CDs available:

• Knoppix: One of the first, and still one of the most popular. Boots by default into the KDE environment, which is very powerful but can be a bit intimidating. Contains tons of software.
• Ubuntu: Maybe the most popular Linux distribution nowadays, Ubuntu is designed for ease of use. Boots into the Gnome environment. Note that you can actually install Ubuntu itself from the Live CD if you decide you like it.
  If you have an old machine you'd like to resuscitate, you can try Xubuntu, which boots into the lean and blisteringly fast XFCE desktop.
• Damn Small Linux: Small? How about small enough that the whole system fits on a pen drive with room to spare for your files? An excellent rescue system.