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The best Linux flavour

 
Bartender
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I like mandake a lot. Suse kind of crapped out on me after failing to detect my dvd drive and it hung up on me once. My hardware config was probably to blame. I find red hat to be "ok". I have not tried ubuntu yet. Which one is your favorite ?
 
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I heared Ubuntu is cool (they tried to mimic Mac OS X, some one told me).
 
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I can't tell you which one I like best as I haven't tried many!!

However, I have tried ubuntu, kubuntu and edubuntu and have settled on ubuntu. I have used XP for ages and have dabbled in the past with other linux distros (redhat), but as I have been unable to do what 'I usually do in windows' I usually went back straight away.

This time however, ubuntu installed on my Dell Inspiron 630m, and after some good advice on the forums, there is nothing I used to do I can't do on ubuntu (in fact it installed easier than XP - I didn't have to download drivers for the chipset, audio, network etc etc).

I had a few issues with the screen resolution (solved), wireless (solved - only was a problem with wpa2 at work - home wep was fine).

Google earth runs slowly, so much so that it isn't really usuable - my only issue. I also have an issue with my gamepad, but I suspect it is just me

After nearly two weeks I wouldn't go back. I have another dell laptop running xp - and it seems slow and horrid!

One final thing....

I get sent a complex excel spreadsheet with macros for our fantasy football competition we run at work, and it opened in OpenOffice 2 with NO issues at all - so I am happy to recommend ubuntu to anyone - especially with the latest release from redmond out today

If anyone wants pointers on my install experiences etc or help (if I can!) email me directly.

Regards

Nick
nick.white@btinternet.com
 
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Ubuntu is the one distro that I could get to install with only minor problems (only had to change one config file over a telnet connection before the screen would work, everything else either failed to install or worked only partially at best), I never looked back.
 
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Which one is your favorite ?



Fedora. I'm a long time Red Hat user.

I've played with Ubuntu a bit. It's easy to use and has a nice, clean interface.

Choosing the "best" linux distribution would really depend on what you intend to use it for. Each distribution seems to have it's own "personality".
 
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Ubuntu (Xubuntu to be more specific) is my favorite.
 
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I knew somebody that was considering linux. Not computer savvy. I thought it would be cool to send him to the store to pick up a linux CD for ten bucks .... but which store? And does such a CD exist?
 
paul wheaton
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I knew somebody that was considering linux. Not computer savvy. I thought it would be cool to send him to the store to pick up a linux CD for ten bucks .... but which store? And does such a CD exist?
 
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If you go to the Ubuntu site they will send you one or even a whole pack of install disks and stickers for free. Allow 4-6 weeks for delivery.

distrowatch.com also lists linuxcd.com and osdisk.com with varying prices, but if you look around you may find a cheaper online option.

Dave
 
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I think Ubuntu is extremely overrated. It is not very newbie-friendly, and likes to hide too many option in the install process. It lasted maybe a week on my machine.

I think OpenSuSE is the best distro right now. It has great package selection, outstanding driver support and doesn't treat you like an idiot while being very easy to setup and use. It is not perfect, but well worth the download.
 
Nick White
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Paul said:

I knew somebody that was considering linux. Not computer savvy. I thought it would be cool to send him to the store to pick up a linux CD for ten bucks .... but which store? And does such a CD exist?



I downloaded a single CD from ubuntu, ran as a live cd i.e. NO change to your existing system. I then ran the install, and followed up with further stuff from the forums.

If you need/want more details email me and I will give you the full sp!

Regards

Nick

nick.white@btinternet.com
 
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Hmmm... Ubuntu looks tempting. It would be nice to do something with my old XP machine.
 
Jeroen T Wenting
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Originally posted by David McCombs:
I think Ubuntu is extremely overrated. It is not very newbie-friendly, and likes to hide too many option in the install process. It lasted maybe a week on my machine.



You contradict yourself.
It's newbie friendly precisely because it doesn't allow you to do a lot of dangerous things out of the box.
It's easy to install, just works (which is all most people want from an OS, they don't want to have to spend weeks juggling configuration files just to make basic applications work), and looks good (also important).
 
David McCombs
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No I didn't

It is not newbie friendly precisely because it doesn't allow you to do much. Its security is no better then any other distro, although it is different. I was not referring to keeping someone from doing dangerous things.

Take EasyUbuntu, it handles tasks that are a bear to do in Ubuntu otherwise, it is very newbie friendly, yet is not part of the installation(at least not with dapper drake). Try to set up a dual boot machine, no option to set a default OS at install time, nor any mention how to fix it. Very newbie unfriendly. Also the windows partitions are not mounted by default. Extremely newbie unfriendly. No real package choices at install time either. Things like that.

Its install routine is too XP-like, and that is not a good thing. I think that it has a ton of potential, it just isn't quite there yet.
 
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Ubuntu. I just love it.
 
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A while back I bought a new PC and have been wondering what to do with the old one. As I have very little Linux experience I thought it would be a good idea to install some kind of Linux on the old box to practice with and learn how to use. I'll keep the new PC as a windows box for gaming.

Aside from the fact that I don't really have much space for the second computer, the main thing putting me off putting Linux on it is that I don't know much about Linux and am aware it can be complicated to install. I'm not stupid, so I think I'd eventually figure out how to do it, but it would be nice to avoid spending ages in front of the computer just to get it working.

So, am I being paranoid about how complicated it is to install? If not, any recommendations on which version/flavour/distribution/whatever they're called will be a good one to off start with? Are the different options radically different in what they allow, or will they all be fine for basic web surfing and the odd bit of Java?
 
Deepak Bala
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When i installed Mandrake linux (Version 10 I think) I didnt find it to be awfully complicated. I set up a linux partition and a swap and click click click. I got it installed. It detected everything there was to detect.

Ubuntu seems to be getting nice reviews. I ll try it when I can.
 
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I use RedHat.
 
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Originally posted by Dave Lenton:
Aside from the fact that I don't really have much space for the second computer, the main thing putting me off putting Linux on it is that I don't know much about Linux and am aware it can be complicated to install. I'm not stupid, so I think I'd eventually figure out how to do it, but it would be nice to avoid spending ages in front of the computer just to get it working.

So, am I being paranoid about how complicated it is to install? If not, any recommendations on which version/flavour/distribution/whatever they're called will be a good one to off start with? Are the different options radically different in what they allow, or will they all be fine for basic web surfing and the odd bit of Java?



Even I didn't know a thing about Linux when I decided to try it out. I was expecting hours upon hours of tweaking configuration files. But it turned out much easier than that. In fact if you know how to install Windows from scratch, installing most Linux distros is far easier. But there are some things to keep in mind if you are totally new to Linux:

1. Hardware support - be sure that your hardware is properly supported. Get a LiveCD of the distribution you want to install (I would suggest Ubuntu) and see if display/keyboard/mouse/network are working properly.

2. Availability of another computer where you can browse the web (which you already seem to have). If you run into some problem, you can search it up on the net or ask in web forums (This is one more adavantage Ubuntu has - a huge and helpful community).

3. Be prepared for 'OS Shock'. Linux is different from Windows. It does somethings differently and will take some time to get used to. For me it took around two months of casual usage (browse the web, music, movies ocassional java program) to get used to it. Now I'm as comfortable using Linux as I was using Windows .In fact I like it more and not going back to Windows except for the ocassional gaming session.

[ December 01, 2006: Message edited by: Satish Chilukuri ]
[ December 01, 2006: Message edited by: Satish Chilukuri ]
 
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This is my recent thread on moving from Gentoo, which I found to be too high-maintaince, to Kubuntu. I'm happy with the switch so far.
I use OpenSUSE at work, but that's mostly for SSH-ing to servers rather than a full-time desktop. It seems to be a good distro as well.
 
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Mandriva 2006
 
marc weber
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Originally posted by John Meyers:
...I didnt find it to be awfully complicated. I set up a linux partition and a swap and click click click...


But for those of us who have never even set up a partition before...?
 
Satish Chilukuri
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Originally posted by marc weber:

But for those of us who have never even set up a partition before...?



Pre-configured Linux system?
 
David McCombs
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It has been a while since I had to mess with the partitioning during setup. The defaults work well, and usually require no changes. If you have no OS, it just splits the disk in 3 partitions if it has windows, it makes room for linux and adds the 3 partitions(/, /home, and /swap).

If you already have windows and linux and for some reason want another linux install, you might have to do some manual adjusting.

If you are setting up a dual boot machine, just make sure the partition manager did it properly(ie you can see the windows partition on the list).
 
marc weber
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Thanks for the tips!

(Maybe I can do this without too much .)
 
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At have Ubuntu at home. At work, I have both openSUSE & Fedora. In my experience, Ubuntu makes an excellent desktop OS and Fedora is a good workhorse. openSUSE is a nice compromise between the two. I love all of them for different reasons.
 
Dave Lenton
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Originally posted by Satish Chilukuri:
2. Availability of another computer where you can browse the web (which you already seem to have). If you run into some problem, you can search it up on the net or ask in web forums (This is one more adavantage Ubuntu has - a huge and helpful community).

Yeah, this sounds like a good idea. Nothing ever works first time in computing, so I'd expect a few initial issues to deal with.

3. Be prepared for 'OS Shock'.

Its amazing how much of computing "skill" is just being used to a particular OS and knowing what kind of thing to expect to happen. If I'm helping out a non-techy friend/relative do something on the computer, they may say to me "how did you figure that out?", and the answer is normally "I just fiddled about with it". In Windows I'm fairly confident that I can fiddle about a bit of figure out what to do. I suppose that another OS will take a little while to get used to.
 
Arjunkumar Shastry
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I think answer to "your best Linux flavor' should be any Linux distro which looks very similar and behaves very similar to Windows!!
 
marc weber
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Originally posted by Arjunkumar Shastry:
...any Linux distro which looks very similar and behaves very similar to Windows!!


And that would be a good thing?
[ December 04, 2006: Message edited by: marc weber ]
 
Dave Lenton
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Originally posted by Arjunkumar Shastry:
I think answer to "your best Linux flavor' should be any Linux distro which looks very similar and behaves very similar to Windows!!

While that would certainly make the initial learning process easier, I would rather have the trouble of learning a slightly different system if it meant avoiding some of the pitfalls of Windows.

Also my main purpose of installing Linux is to learn how to use it, so there's not much point having one which is too far from the norms for an average Linux set up. For me the idea flavour would be one which is easy to install and set up, and which will not die a horrible death if I fiddle around with it to see how it works.
 
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Chocolate
 
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Originally posted by Dave Lenton:
will not die a horrible death if I fiddle around with it to see how it works.



In my experience, that definitely eliminates Mandriva. Mandriva is very much a hands-in-your-pocket-and-admire-das-blinkenlights distro.

I'm (sorry, but it's true) a Fedora fan; recently upgraded to FC6, and everything is still going along just fine.
 
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