On Fri, 2003-10-31 at 21:52, Alper Ciftci wrote: > Hi, > > I am a Maths/Physics teacher at Sule College and I want to install > Linux on my laptop.
> My purpose is to run mathematical & scientific software free. Of > course office programs as well, but teaching software is my > preference. SAL (mentioned by another poster) is great. > I used redhat at uni about 5 years ago. Regardless of the distro you choose, you'll need to do some hand work, even if only because you want to build the data structures and processes for analysis - scripts, directory structures, source control for the scripts, etc. To that end, the distro matters as you'll be learning how to customize that distro - you're specializing. Partly because of this, I worked my way to using Debian, because it's more of a community based standard. I used SuSE, and Redhat, and they both work well, but each makes proprietary choices that aren't portable to other distros. This may not be an issue for your usage model, and it's not the only reason I chose Debian (hard to beat that update/upgrade scheme, and I've had trouble resolving dependencies with RPM based distros. To be fair, I've had occasional problems with Debian dependencies too, but not so much so far). > But I do not know how to install. Currently XP is loaded and I want to > keep it. This isn't itself an issue. What might be is how your hard disk is partitioned currently. If it's one big partition, you'll have to shrink the space dedicated to XP to make room for partitions for Linux. If it's several partitions, decide if you can delete everything off one or more to use the space for a Linux install. If you can't get any/enough room that way, you're back to shrinking space currently given to XP. > I have a few questions: > > 1. Which distribution will be the best for me I reccommend you burn/get a Knoppix CD. It boots a Debian based distro without writing anything to the hard disk, and has excellent hardware detection. You can however, install it to the hard disk and have a working system. Then it's just a customized Debian system - you'll need to learn how to work with Debian, but you need to do the equivalent with any other distro too. Another well regarded option is Libranet. Also Debian based, with what appears to be very good GUI configuration support included. Either of these leave you with a Debian system to work with. I "suffered" through getting Debian Woody itself to install to my taste on my Thinkpad, and now I'm comfortable with it generally. Redhat, Mandrake, and SuSE seem to be the most widely used commercial systems. All will have "good" support (I quote that because it may or may not be good for your purposes - certainly for general concerns they're all good). Since you're using non-mainstream software packages, I'll suggest a Debian based distro is best in the long run. I've had painful experiences attempting to resolve dependencies with RPM based distros, due to trying to patch in software that wasn't compiled by the Manufacturer, like scientific packages. The automatic update feature of each distro may not play nicely with all possible non-standard changes either. And Redhat makes proprietary patches to the kernel to make it work with their other choices - I've had hardware patches fail on Redhat for this reason... > 1. If I select any of the distributions can I install any linux > application from the net? Or is there any restriction that an > application will only work on redhat and not slackware etc. Library versions can sink this boat. Redhat's non-standard kernel patches have given me problems. I've had problems trying to get Mandrake packages to work on SuSE, and I suspect that's a general problem - library versions, and differences in the file structure that each distro uses to accomodate their particular philosophy of "how it should be done". Without being deeply knowledgeable about all Linux distros it seemed to me that Debian was the most "standard" of the distros with a good package maintainence system. "It's free, so it's cheap, so it uses standards" is my explanation/fantasy... > 1. Can I install multiple versions at the same time to test and > evaluate which version is best for me? Packages/programs? Yes. Distros? Yes. You need to dedicate disk space to each distro. > 1. If possible can I meet with anyone to do the installation > process together? I have fast internet and a burner. Can > download anything. I'd be happy to, but won't be in Oz until after November 12th. If you're still interested then, I'd be willing. I'll be looking, but likely unemployed for a bit... Cheers, Bret -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
