Legit Reviews

Turns out, my old hard drive didn't die, it just had a major case of the goo. So, I've re-installed on a new drive (which I wanted to do anyway) but the old drive's Windows install is still FUBAR. I want to get my files off of there but most are in the docs & settings folder of my profile on that drive's OS. Windows won't let me access them...anyone know a way around this?

Did you happen to use the encryption that MS suggests for your Docs and Settings folder? If so, you will probably need a Linux install or bootable CD to get through the encryption.

Can you make a make a Linux bootable CD? Never looked into it before. Ken, you use Linux right?

FZ1 wrote:Can you make a make a Linux bootable CD? Never looked into it before. Ken, you use Linux right?

The easiest one to use is Knoppix
http://www.knoppix.org/

650mb download
boots right into a KDE desktop.....

Very easy to use and very usefull tool to have ;)

if it boots on a 386, I've tried it.... lol

I second for Knoppix
alos look in
http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php

biggest selection of liveCD i found .

also you have the option XPE - which is precompiled Windows EXE.

Sweet. I'll try it out tonight. Thanks guys!

I made a disk last night and I was able to get most of what i wanted off the HDD. It didn't seem to still want to let me into the "desktop" of my old profile but oh well. I had never used Linux before and I really like it! I may just reformat this drive and install Linux.

Welcome to the world of REAL computing!!!
It's a GNU world ;)

You can change file permissions to access the Desktop
I can't remember the specific commands
something like "chmod ???" --> google ;)

You can also Dual Boot!!!!
I used to have Solaris (Sun's Unix) - SuSe (linux) - Slackware (linux) - OSX - Winblows and FreeBSD all installed on the one HDD ;)

I now install SuSe with OSX on my 60GB drive, I set the bios to boot from windoze and then when I want to use *nix I can just press Esc and boot from the 60GB drive......This way I don't have to worry about XP crashing and ruining all my OS's

I also do a minimal install of linux on ALL my HDD's -> this way I can boot from the HDD and save/recover data
A minimal install of linux takes up ~200mb to ~600mb (can be even less if you like the command line)

So what's the best Linux version to install? By "best" I mean it will most likely support my hardware, is stable and uses minimal resources? I'm thinking I could fold in that environment while I wasn't using it.

I use Suse10

It will works with nearly all hardware out of the box, has loads of software support and is very easy to use/configure
It's not the quickest version.....the GUI is a little slow compaired to others, but the GUI looks ver nice.
http://www.linuxquestions.org -> Great site to get quick easy to uderstand answers for Linux probs!
http://www.distrowatch.com --> Great for checking out different versions

It's a very big learning curve if you want to do things manually (ie. learn Linux) But is SO rewarding when you start learning the command line etc.

You don't have to touch the command line in most Distros, unless you want to.....

Your prolly going to have to download and install a few distros until your find your fav.

Mandravia
Suse
Fedora
{these are the main 3 that are the easiest to setup}

Ubuntu Linux is VERY popular as it's free, supports nearly all hardware and has tons of software.....but it's based on Debian, which isn't the easiest distro to mess around with (uses mostly config files instead of a nice gui to config)

I use Ubuntu and I must say that even though it is based on debian, its definitely not as difficult to use as debian... so I vouch for Ubuntu to be on the list Ken started of easy linux installs. I have it installed on a laptop and all of my hardware was detected from the get-go.

Illuminati wrote:I use Ubuntu and I must say that even though it is based on debian, its definitely not as difficult to use as debian... so I vouch for Ubuntu to be on the list Ken started of easy linux installs. I have it installed on a laptop and all of my hardware was detected from the get-go.

Ubuntu is very easy to install....it was designed to be an OS for the people......The problems with it, is that if your have something unsupported or want to setup a server etc. then you need to know Debian. Debian doesn't have a nice control panel where you can easilly change settings.

If all you want is Linux and don't care about how it works, then Ubuntu is super! Apt-get is the dogs $%&*

Oooooooooooo...I'm Dl'ing the 64bit version of Ubuntu

Ooooo.... can't wait until I get a 64-bit processor to play with 64-bit linux. ... hopefully will be building a system for work that I can play with some 64-bit OS's on....

It's chmod 777

I don't bother with dual booting anymore. My laptop is running 32-bit Windows XP Pro and 64-bit Linux SUSE 10 at the same time.

I have been this crazy as well:
http://members.dsl-only.net/~pointreyes ... mCrazy.jpg

Hmmm...I get a very weird screen when after install. I might try the 32bit version and see what happens.

id stay away from 64bit for now.......still under development!

No ya tell me 32bit here I come...

opps....sorry

64bit is ok for most apps. but there is far less than 32bit...

Are you using Ubuntu ?
If you are, then installing programs is easy!

"apt-get" is your package manager.

To install something, from the command line type "apt-get install X" (X = name of program) -- It will download and install the program, plus anything which that program depends on (perl, python, codecs etc)
It's based on Debian, which has LOADS of software support, and it's very stable & secure!

You can also setup your linux box as a firewall / proxy for extra paranoia ;)

:edit:
Another cool thing to do with Linux is install it to a USB stick...
Feather Linux Link will fit on a 256mb stick... It took me 10mins to get it downloaded, installed and running It uses the "Fluxbox" desktop...which is "different" but uses very little resources.....it's a cool distro to mess around with.

Sweet, keep the tips coming. Or better yet, maybe we should start a Linux tips/suggestions thread?