>
> If you are just starting out I don't recommend going down the repartitioning
> path. You might end up in a bad part of town and I'd hate to see that happen
> to a potential new user.
>
> Depending on your CPU and memory specs you might want to give
> virtualization a try first. In fact, I would try it even if you have an older machine.
> I recommend VirtualBox (http://www.virtualbox.org/) but there are other
> options out there.
The biggest issue I know with virtualization is that you need gobs of
RAM or the performance is crap due to swapping. I'd hate a new user to
think Linux is slow and crappy because they're trying it on VM without
enough RAM (either in the host machine or allocated to the VM). Ubuntu
can swap, Vista can swap, and in the wost circumstances both can swap.
If you're interested in trying one of the Ubuntu-based distributions
such as Ubuntu or Kubuntu, you can try them out with their new WUBI
product instead of even using a virtual machine.
WUBI installs Ubuntu within your Windows partitions. You boot in to
Ubuntu, so it gets the whole CPU and all the RAM, though it is still
slower than usual (and suspend doesn't work) as it needs to jump
through some special hoops to share the hard drive. It is *guaranteed*
to be faster than virtualization.
> On 03/09/2010 10:39 PM, Erik Wallace wrote:
> > I would like to repartition as follows:
> >
> > 49MB Dell Utility
> > 26GB Vista
> > 54.1GB Extended
> > -10GB /
> > -2GB swap
> > -40GB /home/
> > -2.1GB Media Direct
The best advice I can give *any* potential new Linux user is: Make
DVDs/CDs recovery media from your recovery partition!! Until you have
Linux installed and working well, there is no guarantee that anything
will go as smoothly as you originally expect. There is something to be
said about being capable of switching back to Windows until you can
get more research or find someone who can help.
Number 2 reason for having physical media for your recovery partition:
If you ever plan to pawn the computer or give it to friend/family, it
becomes significantly more valuable if it has the original recovery
media. Pawn shops won't even touch the computer without original
recovery media.
Physical media sometimes even has the ability to regenerate the
recovery partition.
Though if you know you can *reliably* make an image of the whole
drive, that would definitely be the way to go to try it out. However,
in the long term you'd still want the ability to recover Windows via
recovery media for the reasons I mentioned earlier.
As a new user, I recommend you don't bother with a separate /home
partition. One big partition will give you a lot more flexibility.
There are a *lot* of packages out there, and new users sometimes want
to try every option to solve a particular problem.
As a Windows user you have literally no idea just how many packages
are available for immediate download via the package manager. (There
are more than 25,000 packages for any of the Debian-derived
distributions.) Ubuntu distributions makes it nice and easy and
provide just a core set of packages on the install CDs, but you would
need a Bluray disc to actually hold all of the available packages.
> On 03/09/2010 10:39 PM, Erik Wallace wrote:
> > Of course I'm not a huge fan of keeping vista on my computer, but I
> > need to be absolutely sure that my scanner and adobe software are
> > fully functional. I am not entirely convinced that open source
> > replacements will be sufficient. If I discover that they are, then I
> > can remove vista, otherwise I think it is safer to keep it around
> > rather than doing an adhoc fix with virtual box or wine.
IIRC, there is a Linux program which uses the Gimp libraries while
providing more of a Photoshop-style interface. That only covers image
editing, though. (Gimpshop <http://www.gimpshop.com/>) Note that
Gimpshop is not a standard Ubuntu package (yet).
If you're a fan of the Adobe products, then you'll likely find
yourself shackled to a Windows partition. (Or a Windows VM if you have
the resources.) While many people find they can avoid using the Adobe
products, if you're actually a fan of them (and have the money to
afford keep using them -- not an issue if you're an IU student, but it
becomes an issue afterwards) then it is quite possible you'll just
find yourself unwilling to commit to the learning curves of other
products.
There isn't anything particularly wrong with that -- particularly if
you're interested in contributing to FLOSS projects to bring the
free/libre projects up to a point where you would be happy to use it
regularly.
Cheers,
Steven Black
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