Linux: Your recommendations

[The PIT]

I think the best advice is too as many flavours as possible. Things to remember are that most instructions presume you have a fair knowledge of Linux and tend to miss steps out.
RPM's are supposed to make things easier however theres nothing better than trying to find a program that you've just installed because the it's put completly in a different place that the instructions say and hasn't put a shortcut on desktop as the installer said it would do. Near impossible if you don't know what the program is called.

[rugger]

Originally posted by Gurm
I think the best version of Linux is the "not installed" version.

Keeps conflicts down to a minimum, and allows for maximum productivity. No time spent trying to find a freeware app that works like photoshop - just run Photoshop!

- Gurm

Grum, have you gotten lost and ended up on the wrong forum? You have, ok just go out the door and down the corrador, and to the right you should find the other forums right in front of you (Like the Soap box, matrox hardware and TCB)

[nehalmistry]

i find slackware the best distro for me, but no, its not for beginners, this is my opinion of the main distributions:

debian: very popular, some people like apt-get system , can be very convenient (not me though), but they have a tendancy to split one program into several packages, which is another thing i personally don't like

mandrake: this is just total overbloat, and slower than most distros, but it is an easy-to-use distro, and looks pretty you may want to try this if you don't want to learn everything

turbolinux: this is probably the only rpm-based distro i liked, i tried it a year ago and used for a week, fairly easy to use... nice n clean, good stuff..

redhat: NO! NO! NO! ... they use a development gcc as official compiler (which has problems) in their release, redhat team has a bunch of idiots, this is not an opinion, it is a fact! another thing i dont like is using their standard installation utility does not allow installation w/o a swap partition (no consideration for people with 512mb ram or people wanting to configure swap manually, eg use a swap file)

suse: only one i haven't tried yet

slackware: more for advanced users, but nice and small, and if you know your linux stuff, it can even be easier than the others

my opinion, if you have time try them all (except redhat) like i did, then see what you like, we all have different needs and wants

[Sasq]

Actually I've never had a problem with RedHats complier

using 7.1 - of course most of the utilities have been upgraded
Dan

[nehalmistry]

you may not know what's wrong with it, for example, in slackware 7.1 , and probably most other distros at one point in time, used egcs 1.1.2 ... it was a release, but had a floating point bug, programs compiled, but may not run as desired, eg, if you encoded ogg files using ogg tools/library that were compiled using egcs 1.1.2, quality was drastically reduced, especially at low bitrates (i could notice it) ...

the difference is redhat knew it could potentially have problems since it wasn't a release.. yet they chose to put it in rh 7.1, and problems *were* found with it ... so now i will never use it again, i don't have anything against people who use it though, i just highly recommend staying away from it

[Marshmallowman]

yes Mandrake is bloated, but you don't have install everything.

I have been using linux since 1.3 (slackware) and have plenty of text installs, and console hacking, kenel compiling, but after a while I just got sick of it, I WANT GUI for everything..I guess I am just lazy...
Thats the good thing about it for beginners, you have everything(almost) you need on the 3 cd set.
And if you get your linux skills up, you can go silly and recompile everthing kernel/KDE/GCC etc...I use it as base(FAT) to make tweak system...

1.I have a thin install on my gateway/firewall box

2.I have a fat bloated system(but tweaked) for my use, hell I want my bells whistles and electric backscratcher.

3.And a tweaked lean & mean number cruncher for my brothers atomic scattering numkber cruncher..

all done frm the same set of CD's (and a few downloads)

you can do all this on other distros, but I find mandrake to be lazy mans/beginners dream. Mind you the latest SUSE sounds tempting,(if a little lean for my taste)

[Marshmallowman]

hehe...this what scares off linux newbies..everyone has there own prefered favorite...viva la difference

[GehRehmee]

Originally posted by The PIT
Another thing is not to configure the graphical startup as default otherwise it's pain in the ass trying to re-configure X windows when you change to another graphic card.

Or you could just use a display manager like gdm that actually _notices_ when X keeps crashing, and realises it's futile.

[The PIT]

I think a newbie will be scared away by now.
Another thing is not to configure the graphical startup as default otherwise it's pain in the ass trying to re-configure X windows when you change to another graphic card.
There is another problem with mandrake, ever tried going into the interactive startup. It flies past so bloody quick you can't get into it.

[Ovi]

Hi everyone!!
Wow, that was a good response! Your suggestions tilted me in Mandrake's and Suse's favour!! I went to their respective sites, and was really impressed by Suse! BUT, eventually, I had to get Red Hat 7.2 as that was the only distro that was easily available!! Argh! Having no choice sucks!!!! But the installation process was smooth, and I'm dual booting with Win XP. Btw, I have a question: How do I enable a boot menu so I can choose the OS? I didn't install the Linux boot loader on the MBR coz it said that for dual booting with Win NT based systems, one should install the boot loader on the first sector of the Linux boot partition! So I am currently booting into Linux with a boot floppy!
Gurm: Actually, I've installed Linux coz I'm learning Unix (Shell programming, 'C' Programming in Unix etc) and so, I needed something to practice all that on! My primary OS is still Win XP. But fiddling with something new is exciting!!!!

[The PIT]

Originally posted by GehRehmee


Or you could just use a display manager like gdm that actually _notices_ when X keeps crashing, and realises it's futile.

This leads me to another question when Linux decides that X Windows is pooped how the hell do you reconfigure it. I presume the commands hopefully are the same across the distros.

[The PIT]

Originally posted by Ovi
Hi everyone!!
Wow, that was a good response! Your suggestions tilted me in Mandrake's and Suse's favour!! I went to their respective sites, and was really impressed by Suse! BUT, eventually, I had to get Red Hat 7.2 as that was the only distro that was easily available!! Argh! Having no choice sucks!!!! But the installation process was smooth, and I'm dual booting with Win XP. Btw, I have a question: How do I enable a boot menu so I can choose the OS? I didn't install the Linux boot loader on the MBR coz it said that for dual booting with Win NT based systems, one should install the boot loader on the first sector of the Linux boot partition! So I am currently booting into Linux with a boot floppy!
Gurm: Actually, I've installed Linux coz I'm learning Unix (Shell programming, 'C' Programming in Unix etc) and so, I needed something to practice all that on! My primary OS is still Win XP. But fiddling with something new is exciting!!!!

It should have given you the option during the installation process I know Mandrake does. You may still be able to do it from with redhat I can't say as I haven't got it. If you seach on the internet theres a few ways of doing it manually I've done it in the past but I can't remember how. You can also use the boot manager of partition magic to do the trick as well.

Thess may help.

http://www.enterprisedt.com/publications/dual_boot.html

http://windows.about.com/cs/dualboot/

[villerk]

Originally posted by rugger


Actually, I am a rusted-on slackware user.

I just don't think it is for the beginner who doesn't want to learn lots.

Oops, sorry rugger, didn't notice you You are right, of course, because Slackware aims to be a real Unix system. Real and original Unices are hardly for novices... But my point is that one should first learn the basics of Linux by using Redhat based distro, then move on to Slackware or something even better (if there is one ).

[Belsebub]

I prefer Slackware

Try Mandrake if you are a newbe

[nehalmistry]

woohoo, 4 of us use slackware
well, you know the saying:
once you go slack, you never go back

btw, slackware 8.1 will require a bootdisk and
5 rootdisks to install, it seems they can't
compress the root images any more, because
it will span over several disks

i don't understand why they can't use the old
install system, nice n easy, 2 disks (well i just
install slack using loadlin from DOS anyways)

i hope they do something about it and shrink it
down to 1 rootdisk disk again