After all these years being a Linux dabbler, I’m downloading the Fedora 5.0 isos as I type this. Credit cheap reliable broadband, and the desire of this old dog to learn some new tricks.
-k-
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Taxpayer Bailout
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downsizedc.org
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The Weather
January 8, 2009, 6:35 am 
Partly cloudy
current temperature: 32°Freal feel: 37°F
current pressure: 29.50 in
humidity: 75%
wind speed: 0 mph CLM
Windgusts: 0 mph
sunrise: 7:28
sunset: 17:04
Forecast January 8, 2009 day 
Intermittent clouds
44°F
wind speed: 16 mph W
Windgusts: 29 mphnight 
Mostly clear
25°F
wind speed: 16 mph WNW
Windgusts: 29 mphForecast January 9, 2009 day 
Mostly sunny
41°F
wind speed: 9 mph W
Windgusts: 16 mph
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3 Comments
Welcome to the club!
I’m a SuSE Linux bigot. It’s the only Linux distro that runs well on whatever hardware I throw it on. The other distros have some problems with new or old or just plain different hardware, but SuSE snorts at it and keeps on working.
Just the other day I upgraded my Linux box to a dual-core Athlon 64 X2, and SuSE 10 knows it’s a dual-core CPU. Fedora Core 4 and even Windows thing I got two CPUs. (I’ll try FC5 and see what it says.)
SuSE is also the only distro I’ve been able to install and run on my older 866 MHz PowerBook G4, just for kicks. Even YellowDog (a PowerPC only distro!), Debian and Gentoo got nowhere trying to boot there!
As for joining the Linux camp, I suggest something even better than getting a spare PC: use VirtualPC, VMware, or the open source Qemu or bochs virtualization software, and installing Gentoo or Linux-from-scratch there. You’ll learn quite a bit, and if something breaks, you can restore from a previous virtual snapshot. You’ll save hours of work with that feature alone.
Thanks for the tip, PJ. I’ve got an old (7 years) pre-Sony Boycott Vaio laptop that is the target install. The install went OK, but everything is painfully slow. I’d thought of trying SuSE anyhow; your comment here may motivate me to do just that.
-k-
Well, a seven year laptop is going to be slow no matter what you install on it!
I too used an old laptop at one time, as a spare Linux box, when learning about Linux internals in 2000 - 2003, and I didn’t want to risk breaking my working Linux workstation. I could have made the workstation dual boot between my working Linux and the experimental one, but a spare laptop was more flexible in many ways. But I’m preaching to the choir, I bet.
I now prefer using virtualization software on a relatively up-to-date workstation or laptop, over using slower spare PCs. With hot VM snapshots, you’re good to go after a quick reboot from a previous snapshot. But when an old spare PC finally fails …
BTW, I say this as someone that worked with Linux internals for the last two years, working on open source Java virtual machines. My setup is total overkill for a hobbyist or someone just learning. I had to keep three versions of my work, and do performance and compatibility testing on the last three versions on a weekly basis. Keeping three spare PCs was too expensive, and doing the old back up and restore routine was too time consuming. Spare drives would have worked, but then virtualization technology saved the day, and I became a true believer.
My setup: I store the virtual PCs on an 80 GB ($120 or less nowadays) in a USB enclosure ($40 or less), and do nightly back ups on another identical USB drive. Buy laptop drives ($180 or less for 80 GB) and USB-powered enclosures ($40 or less), and you have a relatively portable setup to use with a laptop (which is what I did for work.)
I had to be really paranoid and keeping my virtual machines was a serious work matter (it was a two employee start-up, and I was the CTO.) So I kept yet another external drive in a bank’s safe deposit box. Then I’d rotate the back up external drive with the safe deposited drive on a weekly basis.
Like I said, overkill for someone just learning. But it’s still much cheaper and convenient than older spare hardware.