Welcome to etcetera.ie, a collection of articles about using Linux, an open source Operating System, that has many Distributions - Linux bundled with various Desktops Environments, Open Source Applications, Command Line tools, etcetera.

Linux PCs

It is possible to buy PCs and laptops with Linux installed, linuxpreloaded.com have a brief but informative list of companies that sell them. Dell, HP and Lenovo are mentioned but their PCs and laptops tend to be high end, expensive and hard to find on their web sites. The smaller companies have more affordable options.

Linux DIY

If none of these Linux PCs/laptops suit, maybe too expensive or not available in your country and you have a retired PC that originally ran Windows XP/Vista/7, why not research one of the many Linux Distributions available.

Download it's ISO, burn the ISO onto a USB key or CD/DVD ROM, boot the PC from that media and install Linux.

Go on, go on, go on, it will be great fun and if it all goes pear shaped - no harm done. Besides: what do you learn when everything is done for you, NOTHING more».

Desktops

Everybody is familiar with Microsoft Windows Desktop starting with Windows 95 up to Windows XP and Windows 7. Windows 8 had a mobile touchscreen feel to it, yuk, so MS jumped to Windows 10 offering free upgrades to restore the faith.

Mate Desktop, a fork of Gnome

There are many (perhaps too many) Desktop Environments available for Linux, to start off we have a look at Gnome probably the most popular, plenty of eye candy and then the more streamlined less power hungry and more sensible Mate.

Applications

For the normal PC user it's not the Operating System that's important, it's the Applications. Most distributions (aka flavours) of Linux come with a variety of applications installed as standard, below is is a screenshot of Fedoras Software Centre showing a small sample of what is available.

Fedora's Software Centre

The blue check box beside LibreOffice Writer a word processor, means its installed. Want a good email client try Evolution or Thunderbird, need to edit music files check out Audacity more».

Etc

Etcetera means and other similar things and is often shorten to etc, etc is also the name of a very important system folder on a Linux PC.

Some say that etc stands for every thing configurable, because you can trash tweak your system by editing the mainly text files that you will find there.

A 
Bash Terminal with the ls command listing the contents of etc.

In order to really mess with Linux you need to use the Command Line so click on Etc to get started.

Contact Us

Is there anybody out there???

Go to the Contact Page to email us or take a minute to fill in a form and let us know what you think about Linux in general, its software, Distros, desktops, etc.

The same form is at the end of each article, so please vote and vote often more» .