From: aragorn@chatfactory.invalid   
      
   J.O. Aho wrote:   
      
   > Aragorn wrote:   
   >   
   >> That is indeed the right idea.  Lots of people recommend the very basic   
   >> partitioning layout to beginners, and it may indeed be the simplest thing   
   >> to do for a first-time install, so as to familiarize oneself with the   
   >> world of GNU/Linux, but I always do recommend split-offs, with the proper   
   >> explanations as to why it's better.   
   >   
   > I agree, but you see how distributions and users tries to copy things from   
   > microsoft and apple and those don't split up things.   
      
   Unfortunately, yes...  It would seem that people have a tendency to learn   
   from the wrong examples... :-/   
      
   > Yes, it may be really easy to setup things the first time, but quite many   
   > of the newer Linux users I have seen haven't been keen on experimenting,   
   > they just been happy with what they got, so they will keep on having one   
   > slice for everything and make a full reinstall if something would go wrong   
   > when they install a new program.   
      
   And they will reboot without a reason, insist on installing a firewall for   
   consumergrade internet connections and desperately go looking for antivirus   
   software that runs on GNU/Linux - and of which they don't realize that it's   
   intended to scan for *Windows* viruses... :-/   
      
   > Back in the days when I installed NetBSD on my Amiga 2000, you had to read   
   > a bit of documentation before you managed to install it and I think thats   
   > a good thing, as you get some understanding of the system you are using.   
      
   My actual computing experiences started off before I had a computer of my   
   own, and back then the commonplace OS was DOS 3.30.  My very own first PC   
   came with DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.0, but I only used that for about 6 months,   
   until 32-bit OS/2 became available for retail purchase.  I then used OS/2   
   2.0 and 2.1 for 5 years.   
      
   Then I needed a new machine and I had already planned on switching to a   
   UNIX-style OS, but I had no internet connection at home, GNU/Linux was   
   still pretty much obscure to me, proprietary UNIX cost you an arm and a leg   
   and I had never heard of /Wine/ before, so whereas all of my friends ran   
   Windows 95, I chose a compromise solution and went for NT 4.0 Workstation.   
   I used that for two years, and then I discovered GNU/Linux via an article   
   in a computer magazine and a coincidental discovery of the tested   
   distributions from the magazine on the shelves of a software shop two weeks   
   later.   
      
   I selected Mandrake 6.0 PowerPack from the offer and used it in dualboot   
   with NT for about a month.  Then it was January 1st 2000 and despite all   
   the Service Packs and Y2K updates, NT refused to boot.  I was frustrated   
   because I had paid big money for that NT license, but in the month that I   
   had a dualboot - and in which I was not using my computer every day yet - I   
   had already found myself using GNU/Linux a lot more than I did NT.   
      
   GNU/Linux represented the UNIX-style OS that I had been wanting for years   
   already, and the GPL had won me over right away.  I found that I really   
   only needed one operating system and that in the event of compatibility   
   problems, those would be the problems of the people choosing to use   
   proprietary software with proprietary document formats - not that   
   StarOffice couldn't open MS Office documents ;-) - and not mine.  So my   
   choice was easily made.  I've been using GNU/Linux exclusively since then.   
      
   The first thing I did before installing Mandrake 6.0 was read the manuals   
   that came in the box.  And then when I had installed it, I checked out the   
   HowTos, and then the /man/ pages.  I had no problem adjusting, but I do   
   confess that I had already read a book on (older) UNIX and that I already   
   had some minor unprivileged-user-level experience with UNIX, both from work   
   and from College, where we used UNIX terminals to write COBOL programs. ;-)   
      
   >> Well, I'm not sure what would happen if an nVidia driver goes berserk   
   >> again - as it often does here, causing X11 to freeze and garbling up the   
   >> display once I've killed X11 via the System Request keys, requiring a   
   >> complete reboot before you can see anything on the screen again - inside   
   >> a virtual   
   >> machine running via KVM.  I also have no idea of whether the nVidia   
   >> driver will even _work_ inside a KVM virtual machine.   
   >   
   > The testing I have been doing with has involved just a simple cluster of   
   > virtualized web servers, so haven't had any need of Xorg.   
      
   Well, I do intend to have one virtual machine set up as a powerful   
   workstation, so it does matter to me. ;-)   
      
   --   
   Aragorn   
   (registered GNU/Linux user #223157)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)