Totally replacing Windows 98

[UnderScore]

I am a newbie to Linux and find this thread extremely useful. I have several questions, if I may barge in.
1. It was mentioned that installing Knoppix to HD is not a godd idea for various reasons, including that it would not be very secure. Is the security problem related to Knoppix itself or to the underlying Debian? Does the less sercure comment apply to using the live CD (uninstalled) too? What exactly is meant by "less secure"? Less stable or less secure internet-wise?

Perhaps we have confused you. I think when FatherBob said "less secure", he meant it as "not a known working system" as in "possibly unstable since I haven't used it before." When I say Knoppix HD install is not a good idea, I mean that it is hard to administrate. Most new users will have a difficult time add/removing/installing new programs. Furthermore, something usually breaks in a Knoppix HD install. That means that either networking or your optical drives may or may not work and getting them to work is almost certainly outside of your capacilities. This is not a bad thing if you _really_ want to learn how to fix a broken installation and are willing to put in hours of testing. If you do not want to be forced to become a junior sysadmin then a HD install of Knoppix is probably not for you.

2. I did not know that Mepis and Ubuntu had a more limited source of available software compared to Debian. I did download Mepis as my first distribution and it installed and worked great right out of the box - which is a great confidence booster for a newbie. My question is related to the greater range of available software for Debian. Since distributions like Mepis and Ubuntu apparenty have quite large software repositories, how important would the non-available software be to the majority of users? That is, would it be isoteric software that 99% of people would never want? I am just curious and trying to understand.

As for Mepis, I have heard that parts of Mepis non-Free or proprietary. Why would this matter? Well this comes from our personal beliefs on how we want openess & freedom. Some of us, myself included in many ways, feel that the freedom that is granted to us by using & distributing Knoppix (or other Free Software) is something to be cherished & defended. If we do not uphold the notion of Free Software then we are bound to proprietary software which is 100% out of our control. Ever take out a big loan or be in debt? The borrower is bound to the will of the lender. I have over $40,000 in college loans and if disobey by not making payments they will come after me and make my life miserable. If I want use proprietary software, the software's creator can make all sorts of requests (resonable & unreasonable) and if I want to legally use the software then I must adbide by the creator's requests. Most of us do not like losing freedom/openess and being forced into obeying anyone. This is why some people do not advocate the mixing of Free & non-Free software. This is why some feel that Mepis is not worthy of our attention. Mepis is based on Debian and you should check the "Debian Social Contract" to see what the Debian project views as its foundation.

As for Ubuntu, they are fully & 100% Free Software. Some people have a personal issue with them as they take packaged programs from Debian (which is totally legal & encouraged) but bug fix or slightly change them to gain ease of use. Again this is all totally legal & encouraged. The downside of doing this is the duplication of effort since they must maintain a complete Ubuntu repository of packages outside of the Debian official repository. The other downside is possible incompatiblity because there are now 2 almost identical packages that behave differently. Ubuntu's official position to fix these problems is to release the changes they made back to the original programmers so that the changes can be re-incorporated back into the official package. I am OK with this and I feel Ubuntu is a great distro.

3. I intend to purchase from Linuxonline.biz and similar the Debian you suggest to try and install it. However I have a find I would like to share with other newbies. I recently borrowed from the public library a new book: 6th edition of "Linux for Dummies" which contains a DVD that contains:

Fedora Core 3 complete
Full version of Linspire 4.5.602
Live version of Linspire 4.5.602
Live version of SUSE 9.2
Full version (3 CD isos) of Mandrake 10.1
Knoppix 3.6
Xandros 2.5
OpenOffice

This is a terrific for someone like me who does not have access to broadband. It allows me to try several distributions without the hassle of downloading and gives the newbie a head start in the exploration of distributions to choose. The book costs only $29 but is an even better deal for free from the library.

Great find on that book. If you are so inclined, there are other book recommendations in these forums. A search for books should turn up some hits.

**EDIT**
added link to "Debian Social Contract"