Now that it very easy to obtain a Linux Live there are certain prerequisites or conditions one must satisfy before experimenting with them.
I would list some of the mistakes I have done and continue to make in spite of the familiarity.
Some of them I call killer sharks.
The take over the entire system with minimum warning and they forget Live Booting is fun and game and there should no be any commitment to them like Microsoft Apple Mac as from the box.
1. First priority is the graphic capability. NVidia is the graphic card Linux find it easy to configure. Lot of manufacturers do not provide necessary OEM data for Linux to configure them. If you have the wrong card you may not be able to join the fun. They may boot up bit might do some damage to the card.
The damage may be due to wrong low level configuration or due to graphic intensity of the distribution. One example is SuSe which is graphic intensive KDE. On the other hand it may be like Swift Linux with low graphic intensity with the mind set for old computers and may not be suitable for graphic card with much power.
2. Second is the RAM. I recommend minimum of 1 GiB but more the merrier then the live session will be quite fast to boot and execute its virtues.
3. Third is the monitor. Lot of old distribution cannot configure LCD monitors. I of course in my early days with wrong horizontal and vertical configuration burnt few cathodes out of commission. Now of course most distributions tell you it has not got the driver for the card and uses the least harmful configuration for the live sessions.
I would list some of the mistakes I have done and continue to make in spite of the familiarity.
Some of them I call killer sharks.
The take over the entire system with minimum warning and they forget Live Booting is fun and game and there should no be any commitment to them like Microsoft Apple Mac as from the box.
1. First priority is the graphic capability. NVidia is the graphic card Linux find it easy to configure. Lot of manufacturers do not provide necessary OEM data for Linux to configure them. If you have the wrong card you may not be able to join the fun. They may boot up bit might do some damage to the card.
The damage may be due to wrong low level configuration or due to graphic intensity of the distribution. One example is SuSe which is graphic intensive KDE. On the other hand it may be like Swift Linux with low graphic intensity with the mind set for old computers and may not be suitable for graphic card with much power.
2. Second is the RAM. I recommend minimum of 1 GiB but more the merrier then the live session will be quite fast to boot and execute its virtues.
3. Third is the monitor. Lot of old distribution cannot configure LCD monitors. I of course in my early days with wrong horizontal and vertical configuration burnt few cathodes out of commission. Now of course most distributions tell you it has not got the driver for the card and uses the least harmful configuration for the live sessions.
4. If you have got a hard disk without an operating system or data no harm can be done. I often use the live session for preparing the hard disk. Partitioning and formatting can be done to get the hang of the process but with Operating system and data in the hard disk and no changes to the hard should be done without saving data.
5. Doing any of these without a UPS power supply is a risk. If power fails one should immediately terminate the session.
6. One more important point is that April is the month of Thunder and do not use your computer just before and during the early part of the thunder storm. Once a thunder struck and it went through UPS and through the battery to computer (my daughter's) and BIOS. It burned the graphic card and some rubber upholding of the processor. Damage to the switch board (electricity) was massive and do not believe the throughput of our electricity and it fluctuates (voltage) in spite of the big bill we pay the Electricity board. It took three days for me to realize the damage, I was thinking of a BIOS virus.
7. Our indoor temperature surges above high nineties F even in Kandy and avoid using the computer if the room is not air conditioned and dualcore computers consume lot of electricity and the cooling system may not work efficiently in hot weather.
5. Doing any of these without a UPS power supply is a risk. If power fails one should immediately terminate the session.
6. One more important point is that April is the month of Thunder and do not use your computer just before and during the early part of the thunder storm. Once a thunder struck and it went through UPS and through the battery to computer (my daughter's) and BIOS. It burned the graphic card and some rubber upholding of the processor. Damage to the switch board (electricity) was massive and do not believe the throughput of our electricity and it fluctuates (voltage) in spite of the big bill we pay the Electricity board. It took three days for me to realize the damage, I was thinking of a BIOS virus.
7. Our indoor temperature surges above high nineties F even in Kandy and avoid using the computer if the room is not air conditioned and dualcore computers consume lot of electricity and the cooling system may not work efficiently in hot weather.
