If you can read and aren’t too afraid of losing your windows setup to some OS from an evil empire then I would strongly suggest that everybody at least try some distro of Linux. Personally I think that Debian is a good applicant! In my opinion it is extremely stable. Provided that is the what you are looking for. They have three different branches or releases that you can install.

The Stable branch will pretty much work as you would expect. I’m sure that you will hit some snags as there is just too much hardware out there for them to cover every mix and match up. i.e. {id est! Not “Internet Explorer”? If I want to copy off someone’s paper, I’m sure going to copy from somebody that I feel has the right answer.

Oh Yea! Once that you’ve gone Firefox, you’ll never go back.

Some of you with Nvidia Cards will have to jump through some hoops and sometimes when you want to get a driver or a plugin to work it seems to be a hassle. After you are done with those little challenges put the knowledge in you pocket! That is where the reading part comes in. I see all too many posts from folks screaming like they were bleeding to death because they can’t get something to work. I know that nobody likes to see it but RTFM can often be your best friend. Hell! If you’re out of practice, read a cereal box. Reading is the cure all for “I didn’t know that”.

The Testing branch is a little more cutting edge but some of the packages {programs} still might have a few rough edges so if you enjoy puzzling out stuff this might be the place for you. At least you don’t have to get into the real geeky CLI {command line interface} to get a you tube site to play.

`The Unstable branch is for those that like to whip themselves with error messages and such. This one is for developers that aren’t afraid of something needing hacking!

Enough of that! Let’s go to http://www.debian.org/ and get us a copy. Just click on the link on the bar at the top of the page labeled “Getting Debian” to get the latest stable release. Currently it called lenny but just kind of remember what branch that you’re running. I prefer to just download the “netinst” image. It’s quicker and that way I don’t have to wait for a lot of stuff to download that I may never use. Let’s face it, there is a lot that I can do with my box that I either don’t want to know how to do or will never need to. You won’t be missing anything! You will be able to pick and choose what you need/want later.

Now, I ass-u-me that you can find the S.O.B. Burn the .iso file to one of those shiny disks.  Plug that in the drink holder thingie in the front of you machine and reboot your box. If you don’t know how to reboot please step away from the keyboard and nobody will get hurt!

When your computer come back to life you will probably see a whole bunch of really hard core geeky stuff that you might not have ever seen. Relax! It’s just an adding machine with an LCD screen. Both of you will make it through. If the installer doesn’t start you may need to set your bios to boot off the CD first. If there is trouble here, yank the disk out of the drive and give it to the next door neighbors’ kid. After he stops laughing at you and making jokes about you choice of distros go back in and reboot. Everything will be just fine!

Those of you that are at the install screen it’s just a matter of “poken der buttons”. There is choice to use Graphical install but unless your school colors are Pink and Grey what’s the fun in that. Also there is one period {when a lot of geeky stuff is happening in the background} that I’m sure you will get tired of watching the install bar creep along. Take a chance! Try the text install. I guarantee that you will like watching the download bit by bit and it’s in black and white! {It’s even more fun than watching the old windows defrag screen!

Oops! {Did I just let my nerd flag fly again?}

Don’t worry if you don’t know the answer to some of the questions. Most of the time you can just accept the defaults because the smart folks that wrote the install program are usually correct. At the Partition disks screen it gets a little touchier. Please do some research about what you are about to do as the wrong “finger poken” can really get you in trouble here.

I again assume that you don’t want to wipe out your windows drive. I know that I did on numerous boxes of mine but a few still retain vestiges of stupidity!Remember that the tab key is your buddy here. If you are unsure about anything it will let you back up out of the whole deal like a crawdad. Also take notes!! {Damn! Did I forget to mention writing? It can be almost as important as reading}

I have a slow DSL so a full install does take a while. If you get bored go have a cup of coffee, take the dog for a walk and go next door to see your neighbors kid. He probably has a Debian file server running on a gutted out Pentium laying across two LAN stations in his bedroom by now. Just don’t bother him too much. The little buggers get really rude if they get shot up while you’re asking questions.

When you get to the Installation complete screen you are about half way through your trip!  Go ahead and pull the CD out and reboot. You should see the grub screen come up. If you don’t do anything it will automatically boot into your brand new Linux OS.

Go ahead and sign in with your username and password. Please tell me that you wrote ‘em down! Stop pissin’ and moaning. It only takes an extra second and a half. This isn’t your fathers’ OS. Revel in the new feeling of security. That screen is your first step in keeping what you own away from others. {Quite different than that Vista disk that we just think that we own because we paid 4 it! That is if Uncle Billy’s minion even gave you one??}  Kind of like locking your front door if you live in the city or locking the toolbox if you have friends and nieghbors! You will probably see your desktop.

Don’t get me started on card manufacturers that won’t  distribute their codes!

If you’ve ever owned a Mac, played with your Mac or even walked past one, believe me that’s pretty much what one looks like.  Poke around! All of us like the slimmed down, uncluttered look of the default Gnome desktop. It’s blazingly  fast and I’m sure very hardware friendly.  {being frugal with both disk and memory use.} But I didn’t pay the big bucks for frugal. I paid for fast, big and flashy! F**k frugal!

Up in the system menu → Administration you’ll find a program called Synaptic Package Manager. I’d drag a copy of that to the desktop if I were you. That’s where all of the good stuff stays. In fact I keep a icon for it in one of the tool bars of my desktop. It’s a program that is keep you from having to make too many decisions when you go after new software proggies! If you want or need some other programs, they’re there and only a couple of clicks away.

The first thing I do is add the KDE desktop environment. It looks and can be made to work  more like windows. Be warned! It’s another big, long download but then again “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose”! Now I’m not saying to immediately discard the Gnome stuff. I run the gdm {Gnome display manager} and several other Gnome programs but in my opinion you dance with who brung ya! I knew that she was pretty when I met her; It’s some of the flashy stuff that pisses me off. I just made another user if I need to go back into Gnome even from within KDE.

Wow! I digress. My bad. Where was I before I so rudely interrupted myself?

Oh Yea! I cut my teeth on windows so that’s what I like. Can you say opinions & assholes? Sure. I knew ya could.  By now you have a fully functional Linux OS on your box and you can still go back into windows if you must. Remember the grub screen during boot up. Just arrow key down to whatever Debian called your windows partition, hit enter and Bingo. Right back where you started! I even played around with running windows in a virtual window but now you’re really talking hardware intensive. By the way, does anyone know how many windows behind other windows it would take before you couldn’t see out the windows.

Just a parting parting shot!