I want to install LINUX on an USB External HD

[John Corbin]

I am running winblows XP on a P5 with 1 gig ram and 2 PCI express Nvida video cards.

1 - Which version of LINUX is close to pure UNIX ? I am aware
that Solaris is close but is there anything better ?

2 - Is installing linux on an external HD a good idea ( 200 GB )

3 - Are there any special issues with dua booting ?

4 - What about basic desktop apps like word processing, spreadsheets etc ?

[oz]

1) Slackware is very UNIX-like
2) Probably a matter of opinion
3) Not really
4) OpenOffice

[AlexK]

1. Gentoo is also very much UNIX like.
2. I have never tried it, but there is a tutorial in the tutorials section of this forum which covers this type of install.
3. Not really, remember to place bootloader in correct place for your setup.
4. Office like: Open Office; Media Player: Kaffeine, MPlayer; Browsers: Firefox, Konqueror etc......

Also, what is this P5 processor you are using? Last I heard, Intel still made Pentium 4's and they had no Pentium 5's.

[Cabhan]

Slackware is quite UNIX-like, I'm told. I don't know exactly what UNIX-like entails, but most distros are probably acceptable.

As far as installing on an external HD, it depends on whether you intend to boot from this HD, or boot from an internal HD. If an internal, you simply need to add an entry in your bootloader for the external HD. If you plan to boot from the external HD, it's probably a simple matter of making sure that the BIOS has the boot order correct.

As far as apps, OpenOffice has already been recommended for word processing. I'd recognize BMP for audio, MPlayer for video, Firefox obviously, Gaim for IM'ing.

If you intend to use a terminal a lot, you may want a more customizable terminal as well. I personally use Eterm and love it, but there are lots of choices out there.

[Game master pro]

BSD is UNIX like

[Roxoff]

I am running winblows XP on a P5 with 1 gig ram and 2 PCI express Nvida video cards.

1 - Which version of LINUX is close to pure UNIX ? I am aware
that Solaris is close but is there anything better ?

2 - Is installing linux on an external HD a good idea ( 200 GB )

3 - Are there any special issues with dua booting ?

4 - What about basic desktop apps like word processing, spreadsheets etc ?

1. They're all close to pure unix. Dont worry about closeness, it's better to try different distributions to find what you're happy with.

2. Yes, it's a good idea. Some are more suited to it than others. I wrote a HOWTO that tells you exactly how to do Fedora Core 4 on external USB drive, it's in the 'howto's and tutorials' forum on this site. USB works fantastically (and is a lot quicker than I expected) and it served me really well... until I dropped the external disk onto the floor while moving the computer.

3. Occasionally problems are encountered, but i've never had any problems whatsoever.

4. In the newbie section here, there is a link to a site that gives you the linux equivalents to all the popular windows apps. Nowdays I've found nothing in windows that I cant do equally as well if not better in linux (with the possible exception of wireless networking).

[Anonymous1c4]

Hmm, this is excellent news then. This means i'll might be able to get linux installed without problems. I'm wondering though. If I put my harddrive in an external adaptor, plug it into my brothers laptop, and install whatever distro on, how much configuring will I have to do afterwards? If I install it on the laptop, there will be completely diffrent hardware registered. If all I have to do is configure the monitor and graphics card, then thats no problem. I'm just worried about main hardware.

Sorry if that was a little off topic btw.

[Roxoff]

You really want to install it on the machine on which it will run, you may find that the hardware is so different that it wont run properly ever.

[Anonymous1c4]

Damn... I'll just have to buy a new motherboard I guess :/