Advice needed...

Hi,

I was wondering if I could get some help.. I am currently looking at flattening my XP Pro installation (I only have a 4.3GB hdd, so dual booting is out of the question) and moving over into Linux. But I have a few concerns:

1. Security:
The machine I want install it on is my Development machine that I use to develop and test PHP + MySQL applications/sites, and I am currently looking at learning Java and JSP. I am also on a LAN that consists of Windows boxes.

2. Development Tools:
Having paid a fortune for tools like Homesite, Dreamweaver and Fireworks and I am concerned that I will have wasted a lot of money in purchasing this software.

3. Ease of setup and Stability.

Should I move over to Linux or not?

If you decide to answer please keep in mind that I am currently out of work, so hardware or software purchasing is out of the question (unless you want to help ) for a little while.

I have used Linux before (back in Slackware 3.1 and Redhat 4.2 days) as my primary operating system, but I have forgotten a lot of what I learnt on how to secure it.

Thanks in advance for any helpful advice or opinions... (sorry I forgot to add the poll...)

If you need those development tools, and don't have any unix admin experience, stick with XP.
Linux is not difficult, and is secure, but lacks GUI tools and M$ is making difficult to integrate.

2) It's a waste of money to buy any software for Windows anyway. There is nothing you can't get for free from thousands of warez sites, especially for those in Russia and China.

Thankyou for your responses...


Pabloj,

I do have some admin experience with linux, its just been a long time since I have used it seriously (had linux installed longer than a week). I am also looking into Win4Lin (my friends tell me VMWare is a load of ****, so I'm not going to bother with it), hopefully I can find a cheap copy in AU.


freebsd,

I have no idea why I bought it either. Especially now that I am struggling to pay the credit card bill and the fact that I seem enjoy using GPL/GNU/Freeware (GVim, Forte for Java CE, Bloodshed Dev-C++, The GIMP) more.

BTW, I have tried those russian ftp's in the past, they allowed me to browse but I couldn't download anything for some reason, same with the chinese ones. I also hate pornography with a vengeance...

As for 1 and 3, I would say go with Linux.Distros like Suse are so easy to install.If you use KDE you will have a easy and cool looking GUI,so thats no prob.
Apache/PHP/MySQL run on Linux.Most servers run Linux/Unix anyway.
Mozilla is also available of Linux and Mozilla has the best support for JavaScript.So that should also work good.

About 2, I am not sure.You shouldnt have paid for it in the first place A crack will do the trick (its against the rules to discuss warez, btw).

I voted yes, but its up to you.So make sure you do some more reseach before installing Linux

Just get another cheapo HDD and put linux on that. You can easily do an install under 2 gig, though if you can get more you'll be in better shape.

Go to your local computer store, see if they are willing to part with an old drive cheap. Or, if you're like me, you have a few old computers sitting around dormant. Scavenge those.

Set it up as a slave with the 4.3 gigger as the master with the boot loader installed on it. Then you can boot between the two.

Just a suggestion, you'd probably have done this already if it was an option. . .

About half a year ago I finally annihilated my Windows partition, and I've spent the past 6 months developing various Perl+mySQL "solutions", slowly learning Python, and all the usual home user stuff. I took my box to a LAN party not too long ago, and managed to figure out samba and LinNeighbourhood in under an hour... with Lisa for KDE, working on a predominantly Windows LAN becomes easy as pie. So GNU/Linux should certainly shape up to your uses IMO.

Security - well most UNIX-derivatives are very secure, because they adide by the mantra of making stuff secure by default, and allowing users to make things insecure if properly warned. Most distros nowadays have tools that will quickly work out your basic security concerns like permissions, leaving you only a little fine-tuning if you're paranoid. Learning something like iptables or ipchains isn't too difficult if you're truly concerned. Regardless, you're bound to be more secure than on a WinXP box.

Development tools - As you said, you've largely migrated away from them anyway to Free Software alternatives. Personally I can't think of many things you can't achieve in your field quickly with emacs/vi and The GIMP. If you're into GUI apps, there are also quite a few WYSIWYG HTML editors that are vey good, and some flashier editors like Glimmer.

Ease of Set-up - Well installing and fine-tuning the latest version of Debian/Slackware/whatever shouldn't take you more than a day. And once set-up, you'll have far fewer maintenence problems than you would in Windows (well, I'm going by experience with '98, NT and 2000 here).

If you can get a cheapo 2nd HDD, do as Hero suggests, give it a whirl. If you can't, and you can backup any data you really need and can give up a weekend, give GNU/Linux another go, your old knowledge should come back to you in no time

Well, I think I am going to do what has been suggested... get another harddrive and install it on that, when or if I get the money to do it.

Next question is what distro do you think is better?

- Slackware 8.0?
- Debian 2.2rX?
- SuSE 8.0?
- RH7.x?
- Mandrake 8.x?

Thanks again...

sorry bout acting like such a P.I.A, I was just a little confused (little more than usual ), stressed, annoyed and frustrated when I first posted this thread.

Ok, if you dont' need those tools go with linux, and go with Mandrake!

Woops... forgot to add one:

- Lycoris Desktop/LX :: http://www.lycoris.org/


== Side Note ==


Pabloj,

Will be looking into Mandrake as soon as I find a copy (I don't have a broadband connection) in my local area.

Slackware, but if you don't have a fast connection or a lot of time, perhaps not because it'll require you to do an awful lot of downloading and teaking. Pretty much the same with Debian AFAIK.

I'd look at Mandrake and Lycoris, the former coming with more packages (I think) and being easier to use, and the latter being slightly more "solid".

Telex4,

I am actually thinking of installing Debian, mainly because of their policies with stability and security over super-dooper new features (as seen in RH and Mandrake). The dpkg, apt-get and dselect tools make it even more appealing. I have a copy of Debian 2.2r2 on CD.

Lycoris looks very nice, I couldn't find any issues relating to it (other than the ones in the user forums on the site) on securityfocus, but that doesn't mean anything. If I can get a cheap, current copy of it in AU I will give it a try also.

Thanks again...

Mandrake is better known as having "bleeding edge" packages, and stability suffers somewhat because of this (though I use Mandrake on a couple machines, and I'm relatively happy with it).

Redhat is more conservative about what packages they put in thier distro, and from 5.2 on I've been using them for servers and workstations, and have absolutely no complaints. (I've also been sticking to the point, not x.0 releases).

I love redhat, it's stable as hell and has just the right balance of admin tools to command-line configuration. It also doesn't bungle any of your custom configuration like Mandrake does. . .

Mandrake has TOO many configuration tools, that don't all work together the way you expect. For a workstation this is fabulous, for a server, where you want to do stranger/more specific things, this is a pain.

I'll probably try Slackware/Debian/Gentoo at some point, but I really can't see a reason to, because I can do whatever I need to with redhat. It's a fast, stable, well supported distro.

Hi Hero,

I hadn't heard of Gentoo before, will have to do a little research on that one.. but from what the site says, very interesting to have a look at (damn I wish I had that extra harddrive and a broadband internet connection right about now).

I have used RedHat many times before, I have copies of 6.0, 6.1 (boxed), 7.1. I like RedHat, its nice and easy to setup, but the experiences I've had with it in the past haven't been that great. Like you said it has a config tool for just about everything, the linuxconf (both X and ncurses version) tool wasn't to my liking, it kept screwing my settings up.

If RedHat has cleaned up their act with 7.3, I might give it another try, especially if they have finally integrated a pluggable update feature like debian has (apt tools mentioned in an earlier post). Btw, whats this new pay-through-nose RH Network crap about?

I highly recommend giving Slack or Deb a try one day, you might enjoy it (if you don't mind the controlled chaos of editing some things by hand without the help of a UI.. can you say sendmail.cf ).

Thanks