The [Main] What Distro should YOU use?

[loopback48]

Three recommemdations to make. Debian Sarge, DebianPure (debianpure.com) and Ubuntu. If you can wait until next month, Ubuntu 5.10 - Breezy - will be out. Obviously all three are debian based. I think Debianpure has a leg up on the original because it come with some of the features most folks can't do without or expect. Like Flash, Java and multimedia. I'd go with a netinstall for both the original Debian and DebianPure. There is no netinstall for Ubuntu that I"m aware of. But that's OK because you only need one CD to install it. Unlike other distros that require 4 or 5 CDs.

Just to throw you off a little, Ubuntu is my main desktop. Love it. One other thing to knock you off stride - Frugleware. Great distro. But it's not for newbies.


I've run all three on my old PC which has:

PIII 550 Mhz processor
384 Mb ram
ATI Mach 64 video card
10Gb HD
CD-Rom

Not exactly a speed demon, that old PC, but not bad at all. They all preform very nicely.

[4eyestaylor]

Anyone...................... I have installed debian sarge on 3 comps and have not gotten x to start once.....

[ions]

Anyone...................... I have installed debian sarge on 3 comps and have not gotten x to start once.....

This thread is not the place to ask about this. Post again in the software section and instead of periods include useful information like a dmesg, what vid card and what you've tried.

[cyberazi]

What apps do you use most?
Most office applications and maybe some games
Also wanna try allocating my 2 hdd sapce to my sister pc only tru login... cant seem to able able to do this on my windows PC

Do you have a broadband connection?
Yes cable broadband. My cable modem is behind a wireless G router

How familiar are you with computers?
i'm very good wif Hardware but know 'nuts' abt software

How familiar are you with Linux?
tried red hat 9.0 before and had a horrid time installing the geforce drivers for my video card

How much time are you willing to invest into learning Linux?
i'm taking it slow i wanna know mostly how to allocate hdd space for all users in the workgroup and maybe password protect it.. I willing to spend the next 3 months just to learn.

How powerful is your computer?
Intel 2.8 GHz Lga775
1GB DDR 400 ram
Gigabyte intel 915 chipset mobo
2 x 36GB raptors raid 0 on a PCI silicon image raid card
200GB hdd
16x DVD+- RW
Ati X700 pro gfx card
Pinnacle pctv pro (tv card)
Creative audigy2zs sound card



so can anyone help..... i wanna go back to linux and maybe put good u use to ite especially the hdd space sharing part

[ladoga]

What apps do you use most?
Firefox, aterm, Eterm, irssi, centericq, mplayer, xmms, dcpp, amule, bash (is fluxbox an app?)

Do you have a broadband connection?
8/1Mb/s ADSL

How familiar are you with computers?
Been using computers from childhood. First ones being Spectravideo and C64.
First PC was Toshiba "laptop" with 286 cpu and 8MB ram. Lot playing with MS-DOS, modems and BBS stuff. I never got into windows 3.1. With Windows 95 i finally switched to windows, but didn't like it because my games ran slower under it than under DOS. With internet i was finally forced to jump into windows wagon. Tried linux about a year ago, converted in instant.

I always assemble my computers. (have done so for last 10 years) So i know its interior well too.

How familiar are you with Linux?
Umm..i dunno. More familiar than with windows and I want to learn more.
Familiar distros. Ubuntu, Debian, Knoppix, DSL.
Little experience of Gentoo and Red Hat.

How much time are you willing to invest into learning Linux?
as long as i enjoy learning it...much

How powerful is your computer?
1GHz Duron ,640MB, 9800pro
Athlon 3000+, 1GB, x800xt pe

Im going to buy a thinkpad X41 laptop soon. So that i can enjoy installing linux again. With my desktop puters i havent had any hardware issues. almost everything has worked "right out of the box" and things i've had to set up myself have all been very straighforward.

I hope laptop will give me some challenges. Atleast i'll learn how to boot from network. Im still not quite sure if im going to put debian or gentoo on it. Or maybe i should even try slackware. I don't know. I like simplicity of debian and apt-get very much. Gentoo install might be a boring experience. i've done stage 1 install once before and it took loooong, tho i learned a few things, but mainly it was just waiting for something to compile. Otherwise i think id like gentoo, maybe id like even portage. I never used it enough to make my mind. Good package manager is something i want. Nothing against compiling stuff tho...i do that quite much. But i dont like playing with dependansies, searching and installing libraries. Maybe slackware isn't for me? Im sure i'd be happy with debian, but maybe im missing something by sticking to it

[PandaZ3]

What apps do you use most?
Folding, light parlor games

Do you have a broadband connection?
This one will be on a "T1" line.... Whoa! don't get excited it is one T1 line going to 260 apartments and is often slower than a 28.8 modem.

How familiar are you with computers?
Hardware pretty good, rudimentary familiarization with Windows

How familiar are you with Linux?
I have tried dual booting many times and always revert to Windows. I have tried Debian very briefly, and longer on Red Hat, Mandrake, Lycoris, Suse

How much time are you willing to invest into learning Linux?
This will be a Linux only machine, I have other computers for Windows tasks. I intend to do better Linux wise

How powerful is your computer?
EPoX 8RDA6+ Pro
Sempron 2800+
2 x 256 Kingston PC3200
ATI AIW 9600 XT
Seagate 80 Gig Sata HDD
In-Win Mid-Tower (C583)
Power Man 350 W PSU 18 Amps on +12V rail (looks well cooled, I believe it to be In-Win's house brand)(I have a Seasonic S-12 430W new, waiting to be called)

I want to learn how to install things os the Distro, I am easily frustrated that there are so many different terms and ways to do the same thing within the different distros. ONE way is all I desire at the moment.

[EmpJohnIV]

What apps do you use most?
Open office, fire fox, also needs any good media player
Do you have a broadband connection?
No I will have to buy the disks.
How familiar are you with computers?
Not to bad I can do tech help for my friends but nothing too fancy, no formal training.
How familiar are you with Linux?
Minimal. I've played with red hat a little (Not much at all). And have Mandrake 10.1 running on a half dead p.o.s. laptop.
How much time are you willing to invest into learning Linux?
If I can get it working within the first few weeks or so, I plan to keep using it as my primary OS, so a long time.
How powerful is your computer?

AMD 64 +3000
nVidia 6600 (256 megabyte) (have had driver problems with fedora core 4 and mandrake 10.1)
512 ram
250GB Sata hard drive with 16 Mb of cashe (Some linux has problems with this I read somewhere)
MSI K8N Neo4

I am confortable in gnome and would just like to get a distro to work on my computer so I can start learning.

I want to: surf the net, get email, play those great free games, watch and listen to movie/music files (many many formats), have an office program, and some day run some form of wine.

[DarkDexter]

Here are my quick thoughts on the overall topic:

I prefer a distro that I can choose the packages that go in and out very very specfically. Thats why I prefer Debian becuaes I can install the base then just apt the programs I really want. Now I realize that not everyone is like this and alot of people just like to be able to install it and having it all up and running. Alot of people starting Linux are confused by things like Gnome vs KDE vs xfce vs fluxbox.

I think that for Windows > Linux converts KDE is the easiest GUI. I know that both gnome and kde can be configured to look the same but KDE comes out the the box looking and feeling alot like windows. Also, the distro should have GREAT hardware detection cause most startups dont want to be compiling kernel modules and modprobing stuff. Finally, the distro must be full featured with most commonly used apps and Windows to Linux functionalty buit in.

Therefore by this standard a few distros come out on top. First MEPIS becuase it comes with great hardware detection and a ton of different things (like mplayer, nvidia, and realplayer) preinstalled and set up. Second, SuSE is great because it has really great hardware detection on some obsecure things.

I personally started with Fedora, and hated it ! I then moved to MEPIS a bit later and fell in love with Linux, I did everything in MEPIS and stoped using Windows all together. After some time I began getting interested in installing Linux on old computers and I learned Debian and have since stuck with Debian as my Linux distro of choice. On really old hardware (200Mhz or less) I use FreeBSD becuase it seems to be faster on really old hardware like that.

My overall point in this is that Linux shot be simple at first to get the user to begin to like it and prefer it. Then work into understanding crazy stuff. Now I have quite a few X-less Linux and BSD machines spread throughout my house and am very fammilar with Unix in general now. I know some people disagree with this idea and want to throw new users into config files and the command line (*cough* Slackware *cough*) but I think easing in the user is best.

[NighttimePunk]

hell i dont know , this the only distro ive ever tried? 2.4.20-8 (shrike) im impressed....

[NighttimePunk]

my desk has gnome, x11, and kde, some how i think the iso's i was given were ,hmmmm? custom? 8hrs of downloading, 14 gigs on 3 dvd's, i must of been lucky that night, no errors on 3 dvd's thats like a royal flush!!!

[Shishio]

What apps do you use most?

I'll list the windows programs I use, since I am not that familiar with Linux yet: Opera, Irfanview, CDisplay, Bit Comet, Photoshop, and mIRC.

Do you have a broadband connection?

Yes.

How familiar are you with computers?

Not very.

How familiar are you with Linux?

Ditto.

How much time are you willing to invest into learning Linux?

As much as necessary, but it isn't coming easily for me.

How powerful is your computer?

- 533 mhz Intel Processor
- 160 mb SDRAM
- 80 & 250 GB Hard Drive

My ideal distro would be something easy to use and install, like Mepis or Ubuntu, but able to run on my computer. Something that had a live CD (And preferably a graphical installer on the CD.) I know Ubuntu and Mepis could probably run on my system, but I think they would be very slow. I also tried Xubuntu, which is supposedly an Ubuntu derivative for low-end machines, but the installer hangs at the third step. (When you set your timezone and location.)

I have used the Damn Small Linux CD a lot, and even had it installed on a spare hard drive for awhile, but it is too difficult to use for my liking. (And if there are still any doubts after that statement, yes, I am a complete and utter computer retard.)

I cannot make a working CD of Puppy Linux, it asks me for a username and password, which, according to their forums, means something is wrong with the image. I redownloaded and reburned it, still no go.

And I have not tried Vector due to the fact that it does not boot from the CD.

I would be most grateful to anyone that could point out a distro that meets my needs.

[newtonbabbage]

Good Morning

I'm new to the forum and new to linux, however I would like to learn more about linux and I'm willing to put in the work required. I would like to dual boot linux with my current Windows XP OS. Which distro would you reccomend, I have limited knowledge of linux, I have messed around with RedHat 7.2, just some command line stuff. My current laptop specs are as follows:

Dell Inspiron 9400
Duo Core Processor 2.16
2Gb Memory
100Gb Hard Drive
256Mb Nvidia GeForce Go 7800
Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Card
Broadcom 440x 10/100 Intergrated Controller
SigmaTel High Definition Audio
DVD rewriter etc
I have a broadband connection linked to my Belkin 54g Wireless router.

I am familiar with computers and have worked with Microsoft products for many years, I mainly use MS Office apps and the internet is a must for me.

I hope you can point me in the right direction.

Regards

Kevin

[Parcival]

I am familiar with computers and have worked with Microsoft products for many years, I mainly use MS Office apps and the internet is a must for me.

Most of us have used MS products for many years until they did the switch. Once you do it, however, you will find out that your knowledge of Windows is only limited help and Linux will look like an alien world several times.

I would like to dual boot linux with my current Windows XP OS.

Virtually every distro boots with Windows, most of them will automatically detect it. Just make sure to install Windows first (or shrink an NTFS partition) and install Linux second.

Which distro would you reccomend, I have limited knowledge of linux, I have messed around with RedHat 7.2, just some command line stuff.

It depends on what you are looking for. If you want an easy to use distro, go for SuSE. It has KDE as default desktop and YaST which is similar to Windows' system settings.

If you want a distro with the goal to learn as much as possible about Linux in a short period of time, if you want to keep your focus on the command line instead of some fancy GUI, if you want a system perfectly tailored to your needs, and if you have a high level of frustration, then I suggest you go with Gentoo.

If you think you are somewhere inbetween, then I recommend Debian or Ubuntu/Kubuntu (has the more current software packages). These distros will do most things automatically for you, but every once in a while you will still be required to fire up a shell and do some manual editing.

[newtonbabbage]

Many thanks for the quick reply, I want to learn Linux and mainly the CLI stuff, I am however concerned about the availability of certain drivers, especially the ones for my wireless card.

Anyway, I will give it a go, many thanks again for your assistance.

Kevin

[Parcival]

Many thanks for the quick reply, I want to learn Linux and mainly the CLI stuff, I am however concerned about the availability of certain drivers, especially the ones for my wireless card.

Yes, I noticed you have very decent/new hardware, so I'm not sure how good hardware support is for your setting. However, I can say that I didn't have any problems with hardware that sits inside the case for the last two years anymore. The only stuff giving me headaches sometimes is external hardware like printers, scanners, etc.

Wireless cards often lack Linux support because the vendor doesn't care. However, depending on the chip that sits on the card you may still have a driver. In other words, the chip is important, not the card type, sometimes the vendors change the chip on the same card. If you don't have Linux drivers for your wireless, you may still be lucky running Ndiswrapper. I don't really know anything about Linux and wireless since I don't have wireless, but if you search the forums you will find a wealth of answers.