A Mac User Tries Linux Part 1
I recently talked my father into dumping his five year old Dell (it was running Me no less) and getting an iMac. Since he no longer needs it, it now sits beside my PowerMac on my desk at home. But I already have two Macs that handle my workload nicely and since I sure as hell won’t be running Windows (I have no desire to deal with the associated security nightmare that entails) that leaves me with one option, Linux.
The following is the first piece in a series of articles that detail my attempts at using Linux. As a long time Mac user I will be comparing the “Linux Experience” to the “Mac Experience” not to see which one is better (I have already made up my mind on that issue) but rather to find out what is involved in setting up Linux and using it effectively. So, for all of you Mac users out there who have thought about getting into Linux, this piece is for you.
Choosing a Distro
Let me give you some background first on my experience with Linux. I used it quite a bit during college but over the last few years I have steadily used it less and less. So, while I do know a few things about Linux I am approaching this project as if I was a beginner.
Choosing a distro is the first (and one of the most important) steps in using Linux effectively. However finding the “right distro” turned out to be one of the hardest parts of this project for various reasons. The main one being that there is no good place to go to get information and reviews on the best distros for beginners. All of you Linux patriots out there please contain yourself as I explain. I found plenty of websites that could give me detailed information about some aspect of Linux. I found plenty of websites that advocated one distro of Linux. I found a staggering amount of sites that had forums, screenshots, reviews, tutorials and explanations of the philosophy of the GNU/GPL/FOSS ideas etc. In fact, in the end that plethora of data turned out to be the biggest problem of all because I never really found any website that was geared towards beginners looking to choose a distro.
In fact if you google some combination of the words “what linux distro is best for beginners?” you will get either hundreds of links to forums or the philosophical answer of “whatever distro is right for you”. In the first case someone asks for advice on picking a distro and 4,000 people respond with 100 different answers. Clearly that is no help. But even worse than that is the Linux articles (and yes, there were quite a few that I found) that have authors who truely believe that telling a beginner “whatever distro is right for you” will actually help them.
Now, I can also list reams of sites that want to explain Linux to a beginner. Oh they go into insane detail explaining terminal commands, how to network computers, connect to the internet, play games, type documents blah blah blah but they never get to the heart of the matter, namely which distro should I choose in the first place?
So, failing at finding a good intro site I decided to look for reviews of all the current distros and pick one out that way. Sadly most of the reviews weren’t very helpful because they tended to fall into one of two categories:
Group 1: I like distro X using desktop manager Y because it’s the best. No comparison to other distors, few if any facts, annoyingly contrived data and overall useless in picking a distro for a beginner.
Group 2: I like distro X when I do this very specific task that a beginner will never do. I will now go into excruciating detail explaining why all microwave ovens should run Linux. This is also useless.
But at some point I managed to find enough reviews to help me make a semi-intelligent choice and so I downloaded Ubuntu. However, my story doesn’t end there. You see, since I couldn’t find anything on the web that was exactly what I needed I turned to several friends who are considerably more into Linux than I and asked for their advice. They suggested Fedora Core 4 and so I downloaded that as well and ultimately used that as my primary Linux distro.
Summary:
If you are going into this alone then it looks like Ubuntu is one of the easier distros to use. However, if you have a friend (like me) who knows a distro very well and can help you to learn it, go with that (which in my case is Fedora).
Overall Experience:
3/10
With no good site geared towards helping a beginner find his or her way the vast number of Linux resources can easily overwhelm one. A site that lists the top three distros for each sector would be very helpful. By that I mean it would be very nice to see a site that broke distros down into categories like Mail Servers, Programming Work Stations, Linux for Beginners, Linux for Power Users etc. And then compared and contrasted the top three so one could make an informed choice. Additionally it is very hard to find an unbiased opinion about which is better Gnome or KDE? And once again a review of the strengths and weaknesses of both would have been appreciated.
Downloading & Burning
First I had to download the ISO files for each of the four Fedora install CDs. That wasn’t too difficult, time consuming but not difficult. However, before burning these disk images I needed to look at the checksums and make sure that everything was correct. Here comes my first problem. You see if the sums don’t match, when I try to install the OS problems will occur. So, it is in my best interest to ensure that I check everything down to the last digit. To that end I follow the instructions on RedHat’s installation page and type in ‘sha1sum FC4-i386-disc1.iso’ and am promptly rewarded with an error telling me that I don’t have the particular sum-checking utility sha1sum. Well, no problem, I will just download it from somewhere. And so after a few moments searching on Google I come up with a blog entry that details exactly the problem I am having. Even better they provide a link to get you to the download page of the utility that I need. Beautiful! So I download the correct files, peruse the README file, glance through the installation document and I am ready to get this thing up and running. All I have to do is MAKE the files. So, I fire up the Terminal, type MAKE and . . . it dies, telling me that it doesn’t understand MAKE and would I please go do something with myself.
Ok, a minor setback is all this is. In fact, this is my fault entirely because I didn’t install Xcode on this machine (its my wife’s laptop and I didn’t put it on there because she would never use it). But that can, and is, rectified fairly quickly. Ok, so, I have installed Xcode to compile the checksum utility so it can be run to verify that my ISO files are correct so I can burn them to CDs so I can then install Fedora. What could go wrong?
I installed Xcode without a problem and soon there after my sum-checking utility was operational. I then used it and found out that one of my four ISO files didn’t have the correct checksum, thus I had to download it again, after which everything looked good. As for Ubuntu, after I had gotten Fedora out of the way the rest was quite easy. After that all you have to do is drag the images to a blank disk and burn them.
Summary:
Most of the delay was my fault for failing to have the correct utilities and compilers installed before I attempted all of this. It was easy enough to figure out but annoying none the less.
Overall Experience:
6/10
Downloading the files was very straight forward and the instructions on what to do before and after the download were clearly laid out. Though having to check the files to ensure they are viable, while a good idea, is time consuming and fairly boring.
Next article: Installation & Configuration
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Comments
mystic (13)
Perhaps my definition of a beginner was a little off so I am sorry for the confusion. What I meant was a beginner with some rudimentry command line skills. A complete beginner should stay far far away from Linux, at least for the time being.
mzilikazi (14)
Ho hum…..one more Mac user taking an opportunity to complain about how hard it is to install Linux. Gee that’s new!
Really? Could you please show me the articles you feel are similar to mine? I would enjoy comparing their experiences with my own.
Maybe I’ll write an article about how I tried and tried repeatedly to install OS9 on an old UMAX S900 and guess what? OS9 didn’t have drivers for the SCSI controller BUT Debian GNU Linux did.
Go for it!
Maybe I’ll also write about the local Apple retailer explaining to me that an old Mac needs to run OSX or it won’t even be able to get on the internet but neither of those issues (like your md5sum problem) has anything to do with installing an OS. You could just as well have written “Linux sucks because I don’t know how to download a large file.” How did you download the .iso? You should never use a web browser for such a thing.
Ok, please don’t get mad at me because you received bad advice from an Apple salesman. Getting on the internet doesn’t have anything to do with installing OS X (you are right). Making sure the files to which you are installing an OS from are not corrupted does (you are wrong). And the reason I used a web broswer was that the Fedora download page suggested it. But should I assume that you would have used FTP?
You say:
“ in the end that plethora of data turned out to be the biggest problem of all “
Well it used to be “hey there’s no documentation for Linux” now there’s too much?
I ask you a question and you whisper the answer to me. I ask you again and you, along with 4,000 other people, all scream the answer at me. Was either response very helpful?
How can there possibly be a perfect list telling you which distro a noob should install? Too many variables make this a nearly impossible task.
What hardware are you installing to?
Dial-up or broadband?
Server, workstation or desktop?
Personal needs/preferences.
I think I mentioned something like that when I said it would be nice to have a site that list the best distros for each type of user. Break the types of users up into 6 or 7 main groups and then list the top 3 distros for each group. Why is that such an insane thing to suggest?
As for why I want to install Linux part of the reason is that I have a machine I don’t know what to do with. Another part is that I want to learn something new. I didn’t think my reasons for doing this would matter all that much but there you go.
Linux isn’t Mac and Mac isn’t Linux so you just can’t expect them to be the same.
Never said they were or that I expected them to be.
Let’s also remember that Linux is free (no I’m not referring to a dollar amount). Macos is not free in any sense of the word. Nothing leaves Apple unless it has been blessed by the hand of Steve but there is no equivalent for Linux (thankfully) That fact alone (well that and the expensive proprietary Apple hardware) is more than enough to cause this average joe to to steer entirely clear of all things Apple.
Ok? I wasn’t really planning on talking about the pros and cons of free software nor was I planning on comparing the proprietary and open source, but I can in a later article if you want.
So much squabbling about Linux vs Mac OS!? I have used all commercially available operating systems in my IT career. I love Mac OS, I love Linux, I love Unix. They all have good points and bad points. Should newbies stay away from Linux and use only Mac? No way. A tried and true way of learning is by doing. Let newbies get into Linux and make mistakes, and learn from them. Can anyone remember their first exposure to a computer, a PC or a Mac? Remember not knowing exactly what you were doing and screwing things up? We all had that experience once in our lives and we hopefully learned from it. I hope people new to Linux and Mac users wishing to experiment with Linux will try the OS. It is not perfect, but neither is Mac OS. By far BOTH systems are far far superior to Microshaft WindBlows! In years of using Mac OS I have never had a virus, malware, spyware, etc. I can say the same for years of using Linux. Let us also not forget the common heritage both systems owe to Unix. Let there be peace in the valley!
This isn’t a review of Linux, it’s a review of Linux from a Mac users perspective.
I understand that but feel you gave away the ending. That one sentence (I have already made up my mind on that issue) discouraged me from reading the article. You’d said it was a Mac user’s perspective which admits some bias but then you fluffed it by saying you weren’t going to <u>try</u> to be objective - in fact, you admitted quite the opposite.
I don’t see reviews in magazines where the reviewer opens by telling the reader “I’m going to review Product X, but I prefer Product Y” they do say though, “I’ve been using Product Y, so I’m going to give my perspective on Product X”. A subtle but important difference.
So yes, tell the reader you come from the Mac perspective but don’t tell them you’ve made your mind up before you do the review.
I use Fedora because is has great support after installation. If you know the name of a program that is not a part of the distribution, you can often get binaries at http://rpmfind.net/
I like the look and feel of Gnome and found KDE more inclusive, but also more complex. My opinion is that Gnome has worked on the user interface while KDE has tried to extend the desktop.
After I install Fedora, I always then install Webmin (webmin.com), a free gui to manage all services on a linux box—- even remotely. It also allows remote installation of software, though I also install apt and synaptic to give me a gui to manage software.
I think the steps (Distro, Webmin, Synaptic) help me through organizational complexities that I’d sooner avoid.
It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you have no bias and ignore people who tell you “that’s too hard!”
Pinniped,
Some people want to install Linux and tinker around to get it to work “their way”, but part of my issue with Linux is that I don’t have time to tinker around to get it to work right. I’d like it to work “out of the box”, so to speak.
It would have been nice if I had been able to perform the install and had network connectivity from the get-go… but I didn’t. Luckily, I had the old 3Com card lying around.
In my experience, I had both network and video issues from the beginning… Two items which one would hope would work seamlessly. All the extra time I spent troubleshooting these issues was time I’d rather not have lost. I have other priorities than to keep tinkering with Linux to get it to work flawlessly which is why I just dropped the project.
For me, it was more of an experiment to see if I could do it in a day or two. I lost interest after a few frustrating days. How many Mac users would stay Mac users if they couldn’t get their install to work in a few days? I know that’s an unfair example given the multitude of aged PC hardware out there, which is why I stated that perhaps a Dell user might not have the same problems as I, but from a “Linux on the Desktop” standpoint, it’s an important point. A Windows user without the time or technical savvy doesn’t want to struggle with an OS install if they’re looking to switch to an alternate OS since ease of use will be the most important factor in their decision.
You recommend that Linux beginners “use the distro their friend(s) use”... What if the new Linux user doesn’t know anyone else using Linux? Fellow Linux users can be harder to find locally than fellow Mac users. And even if I did have a Linux helper, how would my Dell-using friend be able to help me troubleshoot a driver issue with my Micron box? Since his hardware is different, his Linux install experience will likely be different.
I hope my experience with the AMD box is a bit smoother. The hardware isn’t as old, so perhaps I won’t face the same issues.
I also plan on checking out Linspire even though that seems almost too much like having training wheels to me… but then if it works right out of the box, I guess that won’t matter as much.
tvilberg,
Thanks for your software recommendations. I’ll check out Webmin and Synaptic for my next Linux experiment.
If you just want to use an old PC as a LINUX File Server then the best distro I’ve seen is called SME Server and is available from http://www.contribs.org.
It can provide firewall services if you have a PC with 2 network cards, and/or can run as a LAN Server and provide a Webmail services, Local Websites, iBay Storage Areas. It also provides local LDAP, SAMBA, Appletalk, DHCP, SSH, FTP and HTTP services.
The current version 6.1 is a bit old but runs perfectly, very stable (my box has run non-stop for over 6 months without a hiccup) based around RedHat 7. You control the whole thing remotely through a web-based administrator. There are plenty of add-on modules provided by other users to install anti-virus, spam filters, mambo, zope and plone etc - very kewl and easy for a beginner - just need to understand how to login using ssh and run a shell script.
The download ISO is about 350Mb and you can have the basic system up and running in under an hour. Stacks of help on the contribs.org website.
Check it out.
Interesting to read of your experiences, and reading your article for what it is (not criticising it for what it is not), was useful. Perhaps you could get together with a Linux friend and come up with something?
I found linux difficult because of the huge range of supported/unsupported hardware, and the assumption of some command-line knowledge. Most of us don’t have that. I quit trying to use linux because I didn’t want to have to be a geek, but thinking about going back to it (Apple’s product security obsessions freak me out. I’m afraid if I ever have to reinstall my OS that I’ll lose everthing, and next time they upgrade the OS, I’ll be forced to follow suit. Meanwhile Windows 98SE still works fine, mostly).
I’d like a linux site that says “buy this (affordable, easy to find) hardware” Install this (type this,hit enter….) and links to a suite of suitable software. Don’t mind paying for it if it WORKS.
cheers
Euri