Questions about Linux OS?

Question

Ever since my computer with Windows XP died three years ago, Windows has been seriously pissing me off. Its like each time gets worse and worse. Vista was bad, 7 is bad. I can only predict that 8 will be bad too. So, I'm getting a new computer soon, and I want to put Linux on it. I have a few questions about Linux

What version (ubuntu, Zorin, etc) of Linux should I get? I know Zorin is basically a copy of Windows, but I think I'll be able to manage not using that. Which version do you use?

Also, I read somewhere that Linux doesnt really risk getting viruses. Is this true? Do you Linux users not have Anti virus?

If you have any tips or comments about Linux, I'd like to hear them as well.
Thanks.

Answer 1

I use Gentoo, but for you I suggest Kubuntu 10.04



Here is the thing with security and Unix (GNU/Linux is usually considered a flavor of Unix, though not genetically) Unix uses permissions and ownership to control not just the day to day flow of the system but also the security. And while it would be foolish to say there can never be any malware for Unix, there is a lot less and its impact is much less then other systems. Unix has over 50 years of design improvements and for a system design to stick around that long in the computer world is a testament to just how great it must be. (Linux itself is only 20 years old but it built off of ideas from previous implementations of Unix)



I don't have an anti-virus on my Gentoo box, because that just isn't how security is handled in Unix. Instead I use an under-privileged account, use SELinux, look for rootkits(rootkits are what you want to watch out for the most in the Unix world, and you can use rkhunter to do that), and make sure I limit the services that are running on my box. (Ubuntu by default doesn't have any running services so you don't have to worry about that right off the bat. Some distributions like Ubuntu add a lot of security features in and configure them for you so that the end user doesn't need to be bothered with it too much)



And you could just do a dual boot but it is safer to backup your personal data.



As for tips and stuff, if you are into the latest and greatest games at least keep your Windows partition around because they won't work on GNU/Linux. You have to understand that this is a totally different environment and the culture of it's users and maintainers is different. For example when you deal with Windows, even the most seasoned professionals will try rebooting first to see if a problem is fixed by that but in the Unix world we generally like to fix things "correctly" and leave the black magic out of the equation.



EDIT:

I did a quick check and it looks like Ableton only offers Mac OS X and Windows versions.

It is sometimes possible to run Windows applications through a compatibility layer called WINE but that doesn't always work and for resource incentive programs that isn't a realistic solution. But there are often times alternatives, so unless you had your heart set on Ableton this isn't a big problem.

And rather then suggesting all kinds of editing programs, I'll just say instead of Kubuntu 10.04 you should check out Ubuntu Studio 10.04

http://ubuntustudio.org/

it basically is Ubuntu but configured for editing music, video, photos, doing animation and all that good stuff.



EDIT2:

Yes it should, though I have not used the most recent versions. If not I can't imagine it being too hard to add.



EDIT3:

It looks like Ubuntu Studio doesn't come with Software Center but you can use the Synaptic package manager to install the "software-center" package and get access to Ubuntu Software Center.

Answer 2

Personally I use Fedora; my workplace uses CENTOS and Scientific Linux so it's the same family. But Ubuntu is what most people get for desktops.



Re. viruses - Linux is no more secure than Vista. They both have user separation, attributed filesystems etc, but Windows has much bigger market share and better binary compatability. That means you can write a virus and it will infect all Vista computers, while you might write one for Ubuntu 10 and it won't run on Fedora 8 because it's missing a library. So in practice, right now, Linux does not get viruses because no-one is writing them, not because it is impossible.

I run clamav antivirus on a Linux mailserver so it can reject mail with viruses and keep the noise down, not because there's any risk.

One thing that has been running around is SSH password dictionary attacks. If you run SSH server so you can login from elsewhere (e.g this morning I logged in from my cellphone to find some insurance information I needed) then you need good passwords and preferably to disable network logins as root. One of the phone jailbreaks enabled SSH server but left a default root password, so people were able to just login and hack phones.



I haven't had much luck with multimedia editing, but I've not really tried. The support is better in Ubuntu.

Regular stuff wortks fine - Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, Flash, Adobe Reader as well as all the builtin progs like xpdf, ghostview, C++ compilers, Perl, Python, Java etc. etc.

I use mplayer for playing media which is pretty good though not the most friendly interface.

USB sticks, disks etc just work, digital cameras are mostly all supported natively, there's support for analog framegrabbers and some professional HDMI cards.



Program packages are a bit varied. Mostly you just download from Ubuntu using the graphic tools and it just works. Some commercial stuff they want you to click an EULA before installing and they do self-installing executables and strange (by Linux standards) things like that.

Other software you build from source by doing things like

"tar -zxf foo.tar.gz ; cd foo ; ./configure ; make ; make install"

Answer 3

Your going to ought to allocate plenty extra time to studying Linux than constructing your rig. I agree federal is a normal base for virtually the whole thing in this day and age, nevertheless the person friendliness of Ubuntu could also be extra suitable.

Answer 4

If you've never used Linux before there is a learning curve, simple things are often more difficult to do as opposed to Windows so sometimes you'll want to tear your hair out. Definitely go with Ubuntu though, it's the easiest to use flavor I've tried.