Just joined and am intersted in finding out more about linux.

[DaveS]

I just joined and am interested in finding out more about linux. How do i get linux and can it go on any computer? I have an older acer laptop with windows vista on it that runs extremely slow and wanted to know if i could use linux on it. I hear it is a safer OS than windows. Is that true as well?

 

[ryanvade]

Yes, you can use it on your laptop. Yes it is safer than windows. But, you should understand WHY. All Operating systems have viruses. INCLUDING OS X. The main goal of almost all viruses/malware is to get Administrative (root on Unix/Linux) access. Unix/Linux systems make it EXTREMELY difficult to do so. Almost impossible. But nothing is impossible. So, one reason why Liux/Unix is so secure is the rate that patches/fixes are released. If a security flaw is found generally it is fixed in HOURS. For Windows that could be months or years. Another is the general focus on security that Windows developers do not have. I personally think MS focuses less on security options because they work with companies like Norton. It is all about money, at least for MS. Linux is not like that.


Anyway, to find out about Linux and how to get it (a flavor anyway) take a look at the articles section of the forums.

 

[DaveS]

Yes, you can use it on your laptop. Yes it is safer than windows. But, you should understand WHY. All Operating systems have viruses. INCLUDING OS X. The main goal of almost all viruses/malware is to get Administrative (root on Unix/Linux) access. Unix/Linux systems make it EXTREMELY difficult to do so. Almost impossible. But nothing is impossible. So, one reason why Liux/Unix is so secure is the rate that patches/fixes are released. If a security flaw is found generally it is fixed in HOURS. For Windows that could be months or years. Another is the general focus on security that Windows developers do not have. I personally think MS focuses less on security options because they work with companies like Norton. It is all about money, at least for MS. Linux is not like that.


Anyway, to find out about Linux and how to get it (a flavor anyway) take a look at the articles section of the forums.

thanks for the reply. Is there a certain version i should use? and if so how would i go about getting it?

 

[ryanvade]

Linux is just the system kernel, the current version is 3.11 . But, you cannot just use the kernel, you need the rest of the system. So when you see someone say "Linux" they mean GNU/Linux. To use "Linux" you have to install a Distribution of it. So, for example Ubuntu, Debian, or Fedora. There are literally THOUSANDS of different distributions of Linux. I recommend Oz Unity and Ultimate Edition. They are described in the Resources/Linux Distributions section of this forum. There you can find many other distributions also. But please read the What is Linux article before looking..

 

[arochester]

Is there a certain version i should use?

You might look at http://linuxnewbieguide.org/overview-of-chapters/chapter-3-choosing-a-linux-distribution/

 

[anubhav tiwari]

Best thing about linux is the hardware support there are so many distros availble out there for everyone and every type of hardware, few current releases would not be supported by your old acer laptop but many of them surely gonna support them.