Best/Most usable Linux?

[Specter]

The best way to do it is to have your Linux system on Reiser partition. It is one of the fastest, most redundant, most secure filesystems out there.

When making a drive or partition that you want to use to share Winblows files with, you want to use FAT32, for now.

The reason is this. At this point in time, Linux and Unix for that matter, can't reliably write to NTFS, thanks to MS. More often than not, when *.nix tries to write to NTFS, it results in permanent data corruption. *.nix can read NTFS alright, but it can't write to it. NTFS freaks out.

The way I have mine setup now is I have SuSE 9.1 Pro setup on a Reiser FS filesystem, my Winblows XP setup on NTFS, my apps are setup on NTFS as well as my long term filestorage for Winblows. Then I have a small 50GB partition setup with FAT32 to share files between OS's.

[firefly2442]

That's a good idea Phantm.

[Snake@War]

Sure is...

Thanks!

[Specter]

Cool.

I'm running a multi-boot with 4 OS's on my main machine, then I have three others on my network(I desperately need a KVM). I'm running SuSE 9.3 Pro, Sun Solaris 10 for Intel, Fedora, and XP on my main machine. I boot to the *.nix from a floppy so as not to endanger the MBR.

Then I have a Pentium 3 machine running SuSE 9.1 Pro, and I want to get Ubuntu on as well, to check it out.

Then I have a Pentium 2 running Winblows 98(Yes, it's true, folks) to play some old legacy games that I just can't stay away from, and tomorrow Xandros will go on that one as well.

It's always a good idea to put the boot loader on a floppy with the options to fit your needs. That way, your MBR isn't at risk for corruption. Then, I would ghost your OS drive just in case.

Here is my main machine layout, just so you can get a clear picture of what I'm running on that bad boy.

I have a Maxtor Diamond Max 120GB/8MB cache HDD that is strictly for my OS's.

Here is the layout.

1st partition - 14GB for Winblows XP.  Man, I hate Microsoft.

2nd partition - 100GB extended partition. (Safer this way, and cuts out any risk to OS corruption due to multiple OS's).  Linux, Solaris, BSD, whichever flavor doesn't care where it loads.  Not only that, but you can only have 4 primary partions per drive.  With extended partitions, you can have a great many more logical drives.

3rd partition - 25GB logical drive created in the extended partition.  This one is for SuSE 9.3 Pro, being loaded as we speak.  Set up with the Reiser FS, which is a very fast, reliable, and redundant filesystem.

4th partition - 1GB Linux Swap partition, which I can use with Fedora, and I believe Sun Solaris also, but don't take my word on the Sun fact until I can verify it.  I'm loading that on tomorrow.

5th partition - 25GB partition with Reiser FS for Fedora.

That leaves me with one 35GB partition for data storage from my *.nix systems.

Here is the layout of my 250GB /8MB cache Maxtor Diamond Max(both drives are 7200RPM, BTW).

50GB Fat32 partition(A primary partition, as it won't make a difference here, as this drive holds no OS's), to share and xfer files back and forth between Winblows XP and my *.nix systems.

200GB NTFS(only because FAT32 partitions above 32GB seem to fail alot, as that filesystem wasn't designed to handle partitions bigger than 32GB), and because I had this drive setup for FAT32(I know, you're going to say you can't do that, but alas, you can. Yes, it's true, boys and girls.  Partition Magic is a Godsend).You can't do it with the OS, or even with 98, without a program like Partition Magic, or an HDD large disk overlay manager.  But alas, I just lost that entire partition last week or the week before, and it hosed 200GB of data.  It took me a week with some free proggies on the internet for data recovery.  I only got 60% of my data back.

Anyway, I digress.  That 200GB Primary partition is NTFS, and holds all my apps and data.  If I need to write to files stored on the NTFS partition, I can just move those files to the FAT32 partition and do the deed, and then either move it back to the NTFS from the FAT32, or move it to my Linux drive or another Linux machine.

I'm right now pretty much getting to where I'm full time Linux, SUSE by choice. It's the most multimedia friendly I have found, and it's just as powerful as any of the other offerings. It has the best of both worlds, and the package selection is phenomenal, except for gaming. And that won't be much longer in coming, I don't think.

My Pentium 3, SuSE 9.1 Pro machine, that I'm typing to you on right now, will probably also house the latest version of BSD.

Anyway, if I can help more, shoot me an email, get me on Messenger, PM me over at http://www.unknowenemy.net. Be glad to help if I can.

Also, I don't have the address handy, as I lost my bookmarks when that FAT32 FS took a header on me, but do a Google for a program called Crossover Office, and WineX(which is a version of Wine that is being made to handle DirectX instructions, in order to run Microsoft software in Linux. But Crossover Office will knock your socks off when you read about it.

In standard WiNE that comes with all Linux distros I believe(I could be wrong on that part also), I ran GR in it a few times with no issues at all.

There is getting to be less and less a reason to stay with Microsoft and pay 2 large for an OS.

Edited September 20, 2005 by Phantm

[firefly2442]

Or just use openoffice.

[Specter]

Or just use openoffice.

←

That's fine, of course. As long as you don't care about using programs like 3DSM, PS, and a whole list of other Winblows only apps, which Crossover Office will allow you to run inside Linux.

Crossover Office guarantees a list of what I think right now is 40 Winblows applications from different mfr's, that will run with their application in a native Linux environment.

check out their site. It's a really cool program that lessens the stranglehold that Microsoft has on most of us. I have even heard that some people have used it to run games.

If that's true, Crossover Office with the addition of WiNEX or whatever they are calling it now, will rock the Winblows world, once some of these things hit final release.

It will mean that the days of having to pay 200+ bucks for an OS are pretty much over. That there will be more of a choice. especially now with the Linux distros getting more user friendly every day, yet retaining the robustness that made Linux the buzzword in the industry.