A Hand-Full of Noob USB load questions

[Walksouth]

So after one year of Win7 use, I went looking at Linux again (I think it was 02 or 03 last time I thought about going that way). After doing alot of reading and forum swiming, I decided to go with the Kubuntu 12.04 64-bit and run it as a "live" OS (first I did a DVD-R then looked into the USB option). The lack of being able to "save" things in the live version turned out to be a small bummer, but I still loved how simple it was to run like that without having to change my harddrive. Let me just stop here for a second to say "High-five Linux community!" So far I love it here. 95% helpful forums. Anywho..........So I did more reading and found info for the "persistant" USB setup. After only a few days of running with it, Im hooked. It runs my Alienware M11X r1 really well. Like to a lvl that I did not expect. So Im here learning but I still have some big-time-noob questions. So here goes......

 

1). When I look at the Memory settings, it says Swap File NA. Is that just because Im running off a USB?

 

2). Is there a Gamers Destro? I asked a programer friend that and all he said was "DirectX is evil!" An unclear answer.

 

3). Will Kubuntu12.04 (or anything like it) run on older computers? (specs below)

 

 

P4 2.4Ghz, 512 RAMBUS (yes thats RAMBUS ram) or a AthlonXP2500+, 512 333Mhz DDR"1" both have ATI Radeon 9000 vid

 

4).Can a SD card with USB reader be used to setup in the same manner that the plain USB drive is? (as in a persistant USB boot)

 

5). I want to make some USB setups for a few friends (who really dont know computers like I do, got over 10 years in the industry). What would be the best Destro\flavor (KDE ima guess) for the Duh-where-do-I-click person?

 

 

 

Ive tried a few games for this aswell. Altho most look like they were pulled off a Sega Saturn (OpenArena, TORCS and ChromiumB.S.U.), they played very smoothly. Everything else Ive tried has been top notch. WordProcessing, DVDburning, Media palyback, WebBrowsing are all nice to use. I run everything off an Alienware M11x R1 with 4G of ram. Ima also try it on an older (5years) Celeron laptop in the next week (the 32-bit ISO for that).

[Dungeon-Dave]

2). Is there a Gamers Destro? I asked a programer friend that and all he said was "DirectX is evil!" An unclear answer.

Sounds like he didn't really hear the question. Most desktop distros - Fedora, Ubuntu, etc are capable of gaming. There are many ports (Unreal Tournament, Quake, Tremendulous) that run natively as well as classic stuff that runs in DOSbox. Also check out PlayOnLinuxand Cedega. The only issue you'll find is that games marked "for the PC" actually means "for Windows" but there are alternatives. Just depends upon what you like (I'm a fan of FPS meself - I run a UT server).

 

3). Will Kubuntu12.04 (or anything like it) run on older computers? (specs below)

Ought to. Dump it on a USB pen and boot - only way you'll find out!

 

4).Can a SD card with USB reader be used to setup in the same manner that the plain USB drive is? (as in a persistant USB boot)

I'm guessing so, but I don't know what the speed is like. I used to run Linux Mint off a USB pen then "installed" it to a SD chip and boot off that on my works laptop. There's some minor initial lag, but other than that it all runs fine (even got the Compiz cube effects on this netbook also!)

 

5). I want to make some USB setups for a few friends (who really dont know computers like I do, got over 10 years in the industry). What would be the best Destro\flavor (KDE ima guess) for the Duh-where-do-I-click person?

Essentially the question is "what's best for ME to support" and you're only gonna get that answer by trying out a few yourself. For idiot-proof all-works-out-of-the-box, Ubuntu/kBuntu or Mint seems to be quite popular with netbook stuff. I'm a Fedora/RH guy but found it relatively easy to adopt another distro.

 

I can't advise you further on those - one man's meat = another poison and all that. All I can suggest is to build an objective-oriented plan (eg: "I wanna play videos, music, surf and chat on MSN") then trial out a few distros and see how easy/tricky it can be. The major biggie seems to be installing flash for browsers and getting codecs to work for specific video files - I found Mint was quite idiot-proof and complete in that regard, but YMMV...

 

Oh.. and.. erm.. welcome to the forums!

[Walksouth]

Thanks for the answers. Ive loaded up 2 16GB USB pendrives with Kubuntu 32-bit for a couple of friends. After testing out a few things, I think both will be happy. The first (we'll call her "B" for this) just wants 3 things. VLC, Foxfire and Vuze. She keeps telling me how much she hates Vista, so I think this will be perfect for her. Its my buddy "M" who Im not sure about. He is running an AthlonXP system from 99 with WinXP and DDR333 mem, AGP vid (Radeon9K) and he is the only person I know who still has a floppy drive. I think B's Vista Celeron (2G of ram) should be ok, but Im still not sure how M's AthlonXP will run it, only time will tell at this point.

[Dungeon-Dave]

Although M's specs are low by today's standards, there's no other information as to what he wants to do on that system.

 

FWIW, those are the same specs as my server - 2G of 333MHz and 2400XP chip - and it runs the following:

• iptables firewall, gateway, DNS, DHCP
  
  
  
• apache webserver, squid proxy server
  
  
  
• samba file & print server
  
  
  
• pure-ftpd FTP server
  
  
  
• postfix mail server with IMAP for clients plus Squirrelmail for web access
  
  
  
• SNMPd metrics collection and reporting for my router
  
  
  
• unreal tournament server
  
  
  

Admittedly I'm running it all headless - no graphics involved - and server services tend to be less resource-hungry than desktop services, but don't think that Linux requires a lot of oomph to power it. It's really the GFX card if you're doing video-intensive stuff and more RAM to stop it from paging when dealing with large files. I originally changed it from a 1700 to a 2400XP chip the best part of 10 years ago and didn't see a great deal of performance difference, other than booting and starting all services quicker.

[Walksouth]

Both of my friends Im considering for Kubuntu are really basic in theyre computer needs. "M" uses his AthlonXP for Surfing the Web, watching movies (DVD, Mpeg, AVIs and the like) and really simple gaming (Diablo2 & Unreal off the top of my head). He also uses it as a TV (his vid card is an ALL-IN-Wonder Radeon 9000). He is still using WinXP atm, but is looking for something a little better. I'll let you know more in a few days when I get to try it out,

[hybrid]

Welcome to the forums, Walksouth! :)

[Walksouth]

Coolbeans! So far this place is great for info! I feel very welcome.

[Walksouth]

Its funny, the first thing I ran on a Linux set-up was the movie Revolution OS. I thought it was a little funny.

[Dungeon-Dave]

You into movies about computer history and/or videogaming history?

 

"The King Of Kong" is an interesting one to watch. Also, for some limey history, Micro Men tells of the BBC/Spectrum war - which basically meant infighting in UK let IBM/HP/etc easily overtake.

[Walksouth]

Nice, Ive seen those, theyre both great. I Also like http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=...4369700635