Re: [Sheflug] A place to start with Linux.. help please

[Alan Pope <alan.pope [at] xxxxxxxxx>]

On 08/05/05, Beer Monster <monster [at] thechaps.org> wrote:
> Basically i have a spare PC and i'd like to kick Windows off of it and
> install Linux.  The PC isn't new but it's got DVD R/W, 512mb Memory,
> 80gb HD and i use USB hard drives for my MP3's etc.
> 

Depending upon CPU speed that's plenty good enough!

> So can anyone give me a nice simple idea of what i should look out
> for/download.  I'm a C++/VFP developer fulltime so something that's fun
> and good to learn from would be good.  I know i could just come down to
> one of the meetings but i have a (nearly) 5 month old daughter who gets
> almost all of my freetime on the weekends... plus if i do it myself i'll
> learn more.
> 

I use Ubuntu which can be downloaded from http://ubuntulinux.org/ .
It's got good hardware support and for the most part "Just Works
(tm)". You'll probably get lots of recommendations for Fedora,
Mandrake, Ubuntu and others. I'd try a few out until you're happy with
one.

> As for software i would like a good MP3 player plus i'd like to use
> Firefox/Thunderbird (as i do on this PC).
> 

XMMS is quite a nice mp3 player - similar to Winamp. Firefox and
Thunderbird come with Ubuntu. You can also backup your Thunderbird
config on windows and use it under linux - this is what I did when I
migrated the wifes PC from Windows to Linux.

Good luck.

Cheers,
Al.
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