[razzy]

Hello all!

I'm buying a beige G3 from a friend of mine, and since I've been dying to learn Linux, I'm going to install Yellow Dog on it.

It's a 300 MHz processor, 8 Gig hard drive, CD-ROM, floppy, 384 MB of RAM.

I have a few questions though. Please bare with me, since I really don't know much about Linux, so my questions will, no doubt, seem boneheaded

1) I'd really like to use Gnome as my desktop environment, but I've been told there aren't that many apps for it. Is this true? I really don't like the look of KDE, and apparently, Gnome will be really fast on a G3...?

2) Once I start up my computer with YDL installed, does it boot into the windows environment (Gnome) immediately, just like any other computer?

3) What books do you recommend? I have "Learning the Unix Operating System" from O'Reilly, and I'm planning on getting a book by John Muster (the title escapes me now!)...as well as "Getting Started with Yellow Dog Linux" (a must!), and probably "Linux Complete"...any others worth checking out?

4) If I really enjoy YD, I just might install it on my G3 iMac as well, thus having to make three partitions. Any suggestions? And how will my peripherals work? I have a Logitech trackball, Epson scanner, HP printer, a VST floppy drive, and an Iomega Zip...

5) Any chance I'll like YDL more than OS X?

Thanks everyone for your help!

[bradoesch]

In Mandrake Linux, the installer asks if you want to boot directly into KDE, Gnome, etc., or not. Likely YDL will give you that option as well.

About your peripheral questions, the YDL web site should have information about compatibility I would think. Or at least point you somewhere that does.


Brad

[Jeff Binder]

1) You can run KDE applications in GNOME and vice versa. You can also run both KDE and GNOME apps without a Desktop Environment. YDL seems to default into KDE, though. I don't think there's an option to choose GNOME or just use a Window Manager when you install YDL.

I'm not sure about the comparative speed of GNOME and KDE. In my experience in YDL, GNOME was faster, but KDE seemed so slow that I suspect some kind of configuration problem. In Gentoo Linux, KDE seems faster than GNOME. If speed is a problem, though, you can always drop the desktop environment and use WindowMaker, Fluxbox (which I use), Enlightenment or whatever.

2) You can choose when you install if you want to boot right into the X Window System or not.

3) I used the book 'Think Unix' by John Lasser. It's very good.

4) Don't try to create the Linux partition with Apple's tools. Just leave some empty space on the drive. As for the peripherals, it depends. Linux support for peripherals isn't as complete on the PPC side.

5) That depends on what you're into!