[ Thanks to Tim
Williams for this link. ]
“My description here last week of my failed initial efforts to
install one particular version (a ‘distribution’) of Linux–the
free PC-operating system–raised a sort of collective howl from the
Linux community. ‘Shouldn’t have tried Debian,’ they said. ‘Should
have gone with the advice people gave you, and tried Mandrake or
Red Hat.’“They also passed along many useful suggestions, which I’ll
round up here next week. In the meantime, though, as I’ve started
the tale with woe, I thought I’d finish with triumph.“Having failed with Debian (which demonstrates that not all
Linux ‘distros’ are created equal in novices’ eyes), I got in touch
with Yourlinux.com. They generously sent me enough distributions to
keep installing until Christmas: Mandrake 9.1 (three CDs), Red Hat
(in the guise of ‘Blue Square,’ due to copyright restrictions that
Red Hat has placed on it), Peanut and Slackware, and Suse on a
stand-alone CD (meaning that rather than have to wipe your Windows
hard drive, you just put a few files on it while most of the
operating system is stored on the disc)…”
Related Story:
The
Independent: Windows Costs Around £80; Linux is
Free…(Jul 03, 2003)