Linux Distro

nos_slived · Post by **nos_slived** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 1:27 pm

Well, I finally decided to reopen my mind to Linux. Never liked it last time I used it, but that was before Linux "got good". Just wonderring what distro everybody likes most. I know that I have heard both Fedora highly recommended. So, which does everybody recommend?

I am currently running on a Pentium 4, 1.7GHz, 512MB RAM, XP Home, 40GB HDD.
I would also like to use it on my older computer: P3, 550MHz, 256MB RAM (I think? Could be 128), XP Home, something like 26GB HDD.

So, any recommendations? Preferrably one that would make me like Linux

.

Post by **bicostp** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 1:34 pm

I have an old 6G HD with Red Hat on it... It worked great and recognized all the devices and stuff on my PC without me having to even lift a finger. Not bad, concidering the drive was out of a completely different machine.

look them up on www.linux.org , look through them all. If you are still unsure, download a live-cd .iso and burn it to a disc, reboot off the disc and try it. If you don't like it, boot off your hard drive again.

You may want to have a multi-boot setup so you can switch back to Windows if you ever need to.

Linux runs on anything! (Will be edited multiple times)
GBA

Post by **gannon** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 1:35 pm

well, BSD isn't linux, so I guess it doesn't fit into the category

I think Fedora is pretty good for a beginner, nice and easy to install stuff

Post by **Sparkfist** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 5:01 pm

I'm running a stripped down version of SuSE 9.1 (yeah I know need to get bittorrent for the full version).

He's my break down of what I've used.
RedHat9 - nice but lacking in many areas. Not to mention out of date now.
SuSE 9.1 - fully featured, easy to use and KDE is default.
Fedora1/2 - an imporvement of RedHat but still suffers from the company's paranoia

And as for getting the distros here are where I go. iso.linuxquestions.org and linuxiso.org

HK-47 · Post by **HK-47** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 5:09 pm

I run fedora core 3, but suse does look nice.

Post by **SpongeBuell** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 6:40 pm

I am running SuSE 9.3. Believe me, SuSE is the absolute best! I have used Mandrake, Red Hat, and SuSE, and SuSE is my favorite, by far! It's simple to install things, stable, and loks good. If you can get it, I'd use 9.3. If you can't, then give 9.1 a try. 9.2 is good, but I've had some problems with it, where 9.1 is pretty well developed.

nos_slived · Post by **nos_slived** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 8:38 pm

I decided to download Fedora Core 3 and SuSE 9.1 LiveCD. I haven't burned FC3 yet, but when I tried SuSE, it got to "Starting PCMCIA" or something similar, then sat there. After 30 minutes I decided to abort. Has anybody else had this problem? Just to let you know, I got it from linuxiso.org. Now I have to buy more CDRs, because I am down to 4 (just enough for FC3), and with NERO you have to finalize, so I don't want to use my CD-RWs.

BTW: It is actually SUSE now (according to linuxiso), but SuSE looks way cooler.

Post by **SpongeBuell** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 8:51 pm

The best way to really try a distro is with it installed, in my opinon. That way, you can try the essential things, like installing programs and see how you like it.

nos_slived · Post by **nos_slived** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 8:56 pm

Yea, I'm going to, but I want to try the LiveCD first, so I don't have as high a risk of screwing my computer up. I just want to know if anybody has ever had this problem.

opadave2000 · Post by **opadave2000** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 11:01 pm

Try http//:distrowatch.com. It's the most complete listing I've seen - lot's of news about what's going on and who's doing what - Lots of live cd offerings.

Good luck and happy hunting

SgtBowhack · Post by **SgtBowhack** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 1:34 am

I've used Mandrake (now called something really odd that I can't remember, like Mandriva?) and it worked OK. Everyone talks about it being so user-friendly... but I don't buy it. My girlfriend tried it on her machine and it couldn't find her sound card or something (and to my knowledge, her sound card isn't obscure), and her USB mouse failed to work. As I recall, it was a "beta" version of it, but when you're on version 10, it should be able to do the basics right even in "betas" I'd think.
I'm planning on building a living room PC and putting Gentoo on it, because it promises to be very flexible in installing (and I don't honestly need much to be running in my living room).

nos_slived · Post by **nos_slived** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 2:03 am

YEAH! I finally got it to work. I discoverred that it was my wireless card that it kept stopping at. I hope that when I actually install SuSE, I can get my wireless card and touchpad features(scroll and tap) working. I'm going to try this at school tomorrow, but I think I will need a boot disk, because I think it has a limited BIOS and won't let me set the CD-ROM to boot before the HDD. Cool, I just discoverred the auto spellcheck in Konqueror (web browser). You know, right now I somewhat like Linux, which means that I will like the full version more. I think a miracle.

BTW: The spell check blocks SuSE, BIOS, HDD, and Konqueror...........Maybe it isn't too great.

nos_slived · Post by **nos_slived** » Thu Apr 28, 2005 7:40 pm

OK. I finally burned the full version of SuSE 9.1 Personal(I didn't feel like searching for 9.3, and Spongey said 9.2 wasn't great). Before I go screwing up my HDD, I would like to know 2 things:
1. Does the setup have a partitioning tool?
2. Does the setup have a Bootloader setup for something like LILO or GRUB?

If the answer is no to either one, does anybody have a link to a free download of the setup for a good program? I know that FC3 has both of those, but I haven't had a chance to burn it yet.

Some day, I will also download the 9.3 LiveCD to see what I'm missing(might make me decide to get around to getting 9.3 Personal).

SgtBowhack · Post by **SgtBowhack** » Thu Apr 28, 2005 7:49 pm

Yes and yes. This information was found by a little known tool called Google.

See pages like this for more info.

nos_slived · Post by **nos_slived** » Thu Apr 28, 2005 9:53 pm

Thanks. I'm reading it now. I had actually searched on google (and some other search engines) as well as the SuSE website, and all I could find was pages that either side stepped the question, or were for another version of SuSE.

EDIT
Getting close to the end now. Just wanted to thank you again, because I am getting tons of great info

!