[Imc-uk-features] re: no m$ please

[Charlie Harvey]

Picture the scene, it's 12:02 on 16 Sep 2004, and imc-uk-features-request at lists says:

| Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 14:12:26 +0100
| From: radged01 at fastmail.fm
| Subject: [Imc-uk-features] re: no m$ please
| To: imc-uk-features at lists.indymedia.org
| Message-ID: <1095340346.19798.204504900 at webmail.messagingengine.com>
| Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
| 
| > What sort of information where you imagining having in the 
| > step by step guide?
| 
| how would someone running a home pc with windows os and m$ (or other
| proprietary) software replace that with a setup that would be given a 10
| by imc tech? can it be done gradually or does it have to be done in one
| go? as i understand it you either risk losing your existing setup by
| installing free software alongside m$ or you buy another machine. i'd
| suggest some kind of detailed explanation of possibilities. 

First a bit of background. Programs like word, netscape, 
internet explorer and so on are called applications. They are 
the things you use to send email, browse the web and so on. 
Windows is an operating system, as is linux. This means that it 
sits in the background, letting all your applications 'do 
stuff' like reading files from the disk, opening windows and 
such like. 

So you could start off by just using free software applications 
on your existing windows operating system, or you could switch 
over to linux (this doesn't necessarily mean giving up windows 
straight away!).

Applications 
------------

To start using free software applications on windows is dead 
simple, and there is very little danger of "losing your 
existing setup". Part of the reason why free software is such a 
good thing is that everybody can see what it's doing and make 
sure it doesn't break anything! So there's /much/ less chance 
of a free software application breaking stuff than, for 
example, photoshop, or real player. You can keep your existing 
programs, but also have free software things that 'do the same 
stuff'.

A great place to start if you want to install some free 
software programs is the open cd:
http://theopencd.sunsite.dk/


Changing your operating system
------------------------------

The most popular free software operating systems are freeBSD 
and linux (aka gnu/linux). 

The most common way that you would get hold of linux is 
packaged up with a whole bunch of applications (web browser, 
wordprocessor, etc.) as a 'distribution', or 'distro'. Popular 
distros include RedHat, Debian, Mandrake, Suse and about a 
million others.

You have several options if you want to switch over to linux. 
I've tried to include links to helpful tutorials where I can 
find them, google will generally fill in any blanks.

+ Make your system 'dual boot' (i.e. windows and linux will run 
from the same harddrive, you choose when you start up) from 
your existing hard drive. Many of the more modern linux distros 
allow you to do this in a faily intuitive way, but, because 
you're using the same hard drive, you are risking losing your 
existing setup. Make backups! Tutorial here:
http://www.geocities.com/epark/linux/grub-w2k-HOWTO.html

+ Get hold of a second harddrive, and dual boot between that 
and the original windows drive. This would be more complex 
technically, but, because you're not touching your windows 
harddrive, you'll minimize the chances of loosing any data.
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/install-
guide/ch-x86-dualboot.html

+ Use a "Live CD", possibly in combination with a USB key to 
run linux. Your whole linux system is on a cd, your harddrive 
isn't touched at all, so you can't lose any data. You can get a 
little usb key if you want to store any settings or documents. 
You'll find that it's a lot slower than running from your 
harddrive, but it's a good way to get a flavour of linux before 
making the switch. It also means that you can use other 
people's computers as long as you have your cd.

Live distros to try may be:
BLAG http://www.blagblagblag.org/ (activist distro, based on 
RedHat)
knoppix http://www.knoppix.net/ (based on Debian)
bsdeviant http://bsdeviant.unixpunx.org/ (punk version of 
freeBSD) 
mandrake move http://www.mandrakesoft.com/products/mandrakemove 
(very 'user friendly')

Hope that helps 

Charlie