Mindlessly easy ways try out Linux or Solaris
If you’ve ever been curious about trying a non-Windows OS, but mostly were afraid of messing with your computer, fear not! It is mindlessly easy to give it a try and find out what a productive, fun environment it could be when you can do anything you want.
Why you want to try it
You might be tempted to think that using Linux is completely different from Windows. In some ways, this is obviously true. But the beginner will really be surprised about how easy it is to use, even my wife thinks it’s nice and easy. It can be frickin’ beautiful too, as Lifehacker shows us.
Linux and Solaris have long been known to be more reliable, more secure, faster, and free. Until now they have been difficult for the average user to install and configure, but that time has ended. They provide an environment that can make you much more productive because you can configure things however you want, and the communities are huge and insanely helpful. If you want more reasons, check them out here.
Horribly Easy: Live CD
A “Live CD” is a CD that you can pop in your computer and run a different environment without changing anything on your computer. Here is all you need to do:
- (may not be necessary) Download Ubuntu, or to get really cool tools like DTrace and ZFS then OpenSolaris - Don’t worry, you’re getting the right one!
- Request, Borrow or burn the CD - You can burn the .iso file straight to a CD (OK, you got me… that might cost you 10 cents). If you don’t have a CD burner, you can request a free one at the sites above.
- Boot up your computer with the CD inside.
- Play around!
Extremely Easy: Wubi
From the website:
Wubi is an officially supported Ubuntu installer for Windows [...] Wubi allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu as any other Windows application
You read that right, you just download it and install it in Windows like so:
- Download and run Wubi
- Tell Wubi your root password and how much space it can have.
- Grab some lunch
- Come back to see you have an extra boot option, Ubuntu 8.04!
If you don’t like it, just uninstall Wubi like a normal Windows program. This was my gateway drug by the way, so be careful ;)
Also Easy: Virtualization
If you have at least 1.5 Gigs of RAM, you can run another OS on top of your main one. This is much easier than it sounds, all you need to do is:
- Install virtualization software (my favorite right now is VirtualBox, but VMware is also available)
- Download the Ubuntu or OpenSolaris CD image.
- Startup your virtualization software and setup a new virtual machine profile
- Go through the steps under "Live CD" to install your chosen OS!
That’s all! If you want a picture for every step along the way for this, there is a good tutorial on Installing Ubuntu inside Windows XP using VirtualBox.
Whenever I wanted to configure my OS and had trouble, I found some great help at the Ubuntu Forums. If you went with OpenSolaris, you’ll definitely want to bookmark the OpenSolaris Forums. The forum users really had an answer to everything I needed.
Upcoming Technologies
It looks like there is a new kid in town promising a bunch of different OSes to try out in your browser: WorkSpot. Not sure what the time table for this is though, folks. Stay tuned.
It’d be great if you guys that are savvy about this would share tips about trying out not-Windows. What was your gateway?
If you try this out, share your thoughts and ask questions if you like.
A 25 year-old programmer for
I’ve tried Wubi and LiveCD, but the best so far for me has been virtual machine - means i can make changes and install applications on the Linux machine and work in there and on Windows at the same time.
Yeah I totally love virtualization. I’m sure it will go mainstream in a few years. :)
I don’t understand why anyone - unless due to ignorance - these days would not run VM instead of using computer the “old way”. With all these software options I can, in vm, make crazy changes and install anything I fancy w/o regards and turn it all back as if nothing ever happened.
@matelot:
True that most people that are informed would go with virtualization, but a lot of people also want something that works well on their old systems (maybe just to try out). That’s where small and fast linux comes in.
Оно того стоит.
You should have mentioned Knoppix. It has the (well deserved) reputation of offering the best hardware support of all Debian based Live CDs. Upwards of 1 gig of RAM it can be completely loaded in memory and run at very reasonable speeds. Available from several mirror servers worldwide. Just Google it.
Those are some nice, classic methods. What I did to install it on my system was to use a program called UNetbootin, which puts the contents of the LiveCD on your flash drive. It was faster and easier for me than burning an actual CD, and can do a lot of different distros.
My method was not exactly for testing, as I had already decided that I wanted to use Ubuntu Linux as my primary OS. I would say that if you have never used Linux or Solaris, or are trying out a new distro, then virtualization is probably the best, easiest and least risky method. But once you’ve tried it out in a VM, doing a plain-old installation from a LiveCD or “Live Flash Drive” using UNetbootin is the best.
@Blake:
I had never heard of UNetbootin before, thanks very much for your suggestion!