Why aren't you running Linux?

[darxus]

It's a sincere question. I'm curious what I can do to help reduce dependence on closed operating systems.

And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with not running Linux, I understand it's not best for everybody. I'm just curious about making it best for more people.

Ubuntu is the most user friendly Linux distribution. It's also the one I use for both desktops and servers. You can download and burn a CD image, and boot into it off the CD without installing, to try it out without installing it. It is very slow that way, because CD drives are slower than hard drives, and everything in the image needs to be decompressed as it's read.

cathijosephine did the install herself when Windows etc. got too slow on her computer.

http://www.ubuntu.com/ (CD image link is right at the top - download.)

Let me know if you would like me to burn an install CD for you or look over your shoulder while you install.

Freeing up hard drive space under Windows and then repartitioning it for Linux will probably be the hardest part.

Comments

[wotw]

This was extremely informative and helpful. Thank you.

[darxus.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.

It may also help to think of your computer as an internet server as much as any other computer on the internet is an internet server.

The most relevant distinctions being that there's a decent chance your ISP has blocked some ports (like TCP port 25, for email) due to these spam problems, and your IP address is likely to be on a list of dynamic IPs that should not be sending email. Nobody can block port 80 (web) because everybody uses it, which is where web forum etc. spam comes from.

The fact that your computer isn't shaped like a pizza box and one of many in a rack somewhere isn't terribly relevant.


Oh, and that SPF thing that sounded potentially brilliant has a major flaw that breaks automatic email forwarding.