So I'm looking to expand my knowledge a bit into using Linux. I'm looking to get Ubuntu, but I have a couple questions.

 

One, can you install it onto you hard drive or is it necessary to boot from CD/USB?

and two, is there a very big learning curve to a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu?

 

Also, any useful applications to get right away? I know there's a lot of common windows ones that don't work with Linux so I'm just curious what to look for.

 

Anything else you wish to add will be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

You can install it onto your hard drive, definitely.

 

I'm no linux expert but the learning curve will definitely depend on the distribution you use.

 

In terms of applications to get, I'll let one of the people who actually uses linux on their primary machine answer that.

So I'm looking to expand my knowledge a bit into using Linux. I'm looking to get Ubuntu, but I have a couple questions.

 

One, can you install it onto you hard drive or is it necessary to boot from CD/USB?

and two, is there a very big learning curve to a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu?

 

Also, any useful applications to get right away? I know there's a lot of common windows ones that don't work with Linux so I'm just curious what to look for.

 

Anything else you wish to add will be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Being a past ubuntu user myself, the learning curve isn't bad at all (and you can install it on your hard drive). Most of the basic applications have step-by-step installation instructions, and once you figure out how to manage the console, you're in pretty good shape.

Ubuntu's easy, I managed to figure it out without anyone explaining it to me. Some programs I'd get:

GIMP (Image editor)

Banshee (Media player)

Google chrome

Skype

 

Just ask here if you need help.

.

Two more good apps:

 

• Pidgin - a great chat program, supports IRC, MSN and much more (I think this is already installed in Ubuntu though?)
  
• VLC - a media program, supports pretty much any video and audio formats ever made
  

 

Oh and by the way read this. It's a tutorial to installing and removing apps (in Ubuntu). It's really easy, but totally different from Windows. One of the best things about Linux once you get used to it :)

 

You can also try Wubi. It's a program which allows you to install Ubuntu very easily. It creates a virtual hard drive (a file which the computer sees as a regular hard drive) and installs Ubuntu on that. It's slower to use than a normal installation, but I totally recommend testing it for a day or two to see if you like Ubuntu, because a regular installation is much more difficult to remove if you don't want to keep it.

 

Feel free to ask more questions if you need, I'm happy to help :)