Visiting the darkside...

[VirginiaJim]

Anyone installed Linux on an Intel pc?  I'm thinking about giving it the ole college try.  Don't know diddly about Linux.  Want to try something new.  I'm thinking of Ubantu as the distribution and want to use dual boot.

[sherob]

I've run Suse on Big Iron (IFL) and under VM...  never on a laptop.  I've heard good things about Ubantu though.  If you've ever touched Unix, it's a piece of cake. 

[Two Skies]

I was all ready for another car tire on a motorcycle thread, and instead it is about linux...

No linux experience, but I hear good things... driver support continues to get a little better, as more people adopt the linux alternative.

[Rhino]

Was very worried you were starting a car tire thread.

I've been running a Lenovo T520 (Intel Core i5 vPro) with win 7 and VMware with Red Hat 5 for years. Before that I had a dual boot machine with XP and RH4. Both work great. I like the VMware better because I can run both windows and linux simultaneously.

[George R. Young]

Debian at home, RedHat at work in the past.

[julianop]

I've been working with Linux for... well, it's got to be a decade now, and I run my own domain and mail server at home.
I agree with Sherob that Suse is a good distro - I've user that one longer than any other. Right now I'm using SME server for domain and mail, but I don't have a workstation distro loaded on anything at the moment.
Personally I like Mint best; that'lll be the desktop distro I load when I next have work to do.

If you're going to Dual Boot (I assume with Windows), the Windows must be installed first.

Do you have any particular goal, or is it just for fun?

[VirginiaJim]

I'm feeling a bit mad scientist at the moment, but basically just for fun.  However, I want some experience in working with it as the servers that I install can run Linux (typically either SUSE or Redhat).  I don't have any AIX direct experience.  They tried many years ago to train me in AIX and both they and myself failed miserably at it (I'm an IBM System i kind a guy - 25 years+).  Couldn't see the point of it (AIX), actually.

As far as running car tires on a C14....NEVER....while anyone is watching, anyway.

[Outback_Jon]

Anyone installed Linux on an Intel pc?  I'm thinking about giving it the ole college try.  Don't know diddly about Linux.  Want to try something new.  I'm thinking of Ubantu as the distribution and want to use dual boot.

I occasionally play with Ubuntu, mostly when I need to recover data from a Windows PC that doesn't want to give me access to the hard drive.  But it is more "play" than "seriously use".  And when I'm doing that, I'm just running off a USB Live installation.  But Ubuntu is a nice distro.  Actually, I haven't even played with it in months, so I'm sure a lot has changed. 

If you're interested in trying other flavors, check out www.distrowatch.com  They post information on the latest major releases, and it's a great place to see what's out there.  There are far more distributions of Linux than most folks realize. 

[ManWorkinghere]

Anyone installed Linux on an Intel pc?  I'm thinking about giving it the ole college try.  Don't know diddly about Linux.  Want to try something new.  I'm thinking of Ubantu as the distribution and want to use dual boot.

I have used Ubuntu over many of the past years.

I have had put Ubuntu into Parallels on Macs of mine as well.

Ubuntu is mainly for playing with and on occasion used to recover Windows PCs that 'bit the big one'.

Ubuntu is readily available and straightforward to install on a great variety of hardware.  Runs well on lesser powered PCs too.

Ubuntu on a USB drive is very self-contained if you want to just try it out.

YMMV