TUX Magazine for the New Linux User

TUX Logo OK let’s drag out the old soap box, it’s time for a bit of Linux Advocacy.

Lets start with TUX | The First and Only Magazine for the New Linux User (Click on the Logo)

The latest copy of TUX has just arrived in my INBOX, it’s Issue #8 (Back Issues Here) and as usual, it’s an interesting mix of how to do real things like email, fix your photos, listen to music, word process, actually all the things you might use that OTHER OS for, except you are using Linux.

What you don’t have a copy of Linux installed?

Knoppix LogoOK go to Knoppix and download a “Live CD” or you could use my current favourite Ubuntu who also have a “Live CD”.

What’s a Live CD?
Well most modern (say, post 2000) computers have the ability to boot from their CD drive. This is typically how operating systems are installed. You may have to change the boot order in your computer’s BIOS to make your CD bootable, but generally you will be able to boot from a bootable CD without doing so. The Linux community took advantage of this and developed many different distributions of Linux that are meant to be run from such a bootable CD drive. Frozentech has an extensive list at http://www.livecdlist.com/. Although Knoppix I think was the first to really grab hold of peoples imagination in a big way.

What makes these distributions so useful is that they do not make any changes to the computer’s hard drive. This enables you to pop in one of these CDs and reboot into Linux without worrying about losing any existing data or operating systems on the computer. When you finish with it, simply popping the CD out and rebooting the computer will restart in the previous operating system (since once you remove the CD, the computer will boot from the hard drive as per normal).

These CDs are called Live CDs because they require no installation and simply run ‘Live’. Cool huh?

OK. Back to the main theme.

Have a look at Tux, get a Live CD (I am using Ubuntu on my laptop and it works well) and have a play. Who knows, if you like it you might consider installing a permanent copy of Linux on your hard drive next to that OTHER OS.

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