Comments on: Exit Strategy: Making the Switch to Linux http://jacobandreas.net/2006/exit-strategy-making-the-switch-to-linux/ Jacob Andreas Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:28:55 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.5 By: Jacob http://jacobandreas.net/2006/exit-strategy-making-the-switch-to-linux/#comment-4 Jacob Mon, 26 Jun 2006 08:12:00 +0000 http://blog.jacobandreas.net/?p=13#comment-4 Like I said, I've only been at this a couple of weeks now. I understand that the package management system is an important part of each distro, but I can't really tell the differences between them (yet). There's just so much to learn here - a big part of the problem is the fact that I can't install it onto my box yet, so I can only read and play around with LiveCDs. Obviously, this is a strange way of going about it, but it's the best I've got right now. I imagine that I'll start with Debian or Ubuntu just until I've got a better understanding of the file structure, commands and package management tools, and then get a little deeper. This does have to be a working machine, too, so I guess VMWare's the way to go. Thanks a lot for the feedback. Another reason to go Linux - the community's really helpful and they don't charge you $50 a call! Like I said, I’ve only been at this a couple of weeks now. I understand that the package management system is an important part of each distro, but I can’t really tell the differences between them (yet). There’s just so much to learn here - a big part of the problem is the fact that I can’t install it onto my box yet, so I can only read and play around with LiveCDs. Obviously, this is a strange way of going about it, but it’s the best I’ve got right now.

I imagine that I’ll start with Debian or Ubuntu just until I’ve got a better understanding of the file structure, commands and package management tools, and then get a little deeper. This does have to be a working machine, too, so I guess VMWare’s the way to go.

Thanks a lot for the feedback. Another reason to go Linux - the community’s really helpful and they don’t charge you $50 a call!

]]> By: Dominic White http://jacobandreas.net/2006/exit-strategy-making-the-switch-to-linux/#comment-6 Dominic White Mon, 26 Jun 2006 00:37:00 +0000 http://blog.jacobandreas.net/?p=13#comment-6 I'm glad to be of help :) It has been about two years since I have written that post, and I don't think I have touched a Gentoo system since. I think they have a long way to go to resolve the stability problems in their package manager. As for marc's comment about Ubuntu being a bit more polished, that certainly holds true for the desktop inteface and ease of use, stuff that is important to and end-user. However, they haven't made any significant changes to the underlying structure of Debian, which means that for your average commandline warrior, the polished interface Debian presents with its ease of management and well integrated powerful system utilities is still Debian polish. Synaptic, aptitude, apt, dpkg are all Debian tools which other Debian based distros are leveraging. Couple this with their very good security team and excellent stability I think only FreeBSD rivals them for production server use. If you really want to hack and learn the OS, start by recompiling your kernal and reading the help information on all the items, play around with Debian a bit, then try out plain slackware. If you don't cheat then you will end up having to manually resolve dependencies and recompile things. From there Gentoo is a good place to continue the learning because it attempts to do a lot of the hardword for you, but fails a lot of the time and the experience you gain in fixing it is pretty good. Once you feel you are ready, linux from scratch will provide you with an unparalled learning experience. However, you can now do all of this in a VM. So slap Ubuntu on your machine for maximum use of your machine with all the kief management tools, and do your digging in a vmware-player run image. I’m glad to be of help :)
It has been about two years since I have written that post, and I don’t think I have touched a Gentoo system since. I think they have a long way to go to resolve the stability problems in their package manager.

As for marc’s comment about Ubuntu being a bit more polished, that certainly holds true for the desktop inteface and ease of use, stuff that is important to and end-user. However, they haven’t made any significant changes to the underlying structure of Debian, which means that for your average commandline warrior, the polished interface Debian presents with its ease of management and well integrated powerful system utilities is still Debian polish. Synaptic, aptitude, apt, dpkg are all Debian tools which other Debian based distros are leveraging. Couple this with their very good security team and excellent stability I think only FreeBSD rivals them for production server use.

If you really want to hack and learn the OS, start by recompiling your kernal and reading the help information on all the items, play around with Debian a bit, then try out plain slackware. If you don’t cheat then you will end up having to manually resolve dependencies and recompile things. From there Gentoo is a good place to continue the learning because it attempts to do a lot of the hardword for you, but fails a lot of the time and the experience you gain in fixing it is pretty good. Once you feel you are ready, linux from scratch will provide you with an unparalled learning experience. However, you can now do all of this in a VM. So slap Ubuntu on your machine for maximum use of your machine with all the kief management tools, and do your digging in a vmware-player run image.

]]> By: Jacob http://jacobandreas.net/2006/exit-strategy-making-the-switch-to-linux/#comment-5 Jacob Sun, 25 Jun 2006 21:19:00 +0000 http://blog.jacobandreas.net/?p=13#comment-5 Thanks for your comment. Don't get me wrong - Ubuntu looked very nice. I just want to get my hands dirty with Linux, and it seemed easier to do with Debian than Ubuntu. Thanks for your comment. Don’t get me wrong - Ubuntu looked very nice. I just want to get my hands dirty with Linux, and it seemed easier to do with Debian than Ubuntu.

]]> By: Marc http://jacobandreas.net/2006/exit-strategy-making-the-switch-to-linux/#comment-3 Marc Sun, 25 Jun 2006 11:29:00 +0000 http://blog.jacobandreas.net/?p=13#comment-3 You probably know that Ubuntu is based on Debian so they are quite similar, except that Ubuntu is a bit more polished. I run Ubuntu myself at home and I really like it. I'm very comfortable with Unix and Linux, but I just don't have a lot of interest in spending a lot of time mucking around to get basic things (like sound cards and networking) to work. Since it's Debian-based though, I still have apt-get and I can easily muck around with cool stuff like FUSE, tsocks, VTun, FreeNX, SBCL, Python, Ruby on Rails, LinEAK, etc. In fact, more than anything I use the machine for experimentation since I already have web hosting, WebDAV, and Subversion from <a HREF="http://www.dreamhost.com/r.cgi?71951" rel="nofollow">DreamHost</a>. Good luck with your switch to Linux! -<a HREF="http://marc.abramowitz.info" rel="nofollow">Marc</a> You probably know that Ubuntu is based on Debian so they are quite similar, except that Ubuntu is a bit more polished. I run Ubuntu myself at home and I really like it. I’m very comfortable with Unix and Linux, but I just don’t have a lot of interest in spending a lot of time mucking around to get basic things (like sound cards and networking) to work. Since it’s Debian-based though, I still have apt-get and I can easily muck around with cool stuff like FUSE, tsocks, VTun, FreeNX, SBCL, Python, Ruby on Rails, LinEAK, etc. In fact, more than anything I use the machine for experimentation since I already have web hosting, WebDAV, and Subversion from DreamHost.

Good luck with your switch to Linux!

-Marc

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