38 replies to this topic

[Ryan M]

If you want to go for something that is not for the weak minded, go for gentoo stage1 tarball

Or you could go straight for Debian

[Lorenzetti]

I prefer Debian then all other, even the new Ubuntu. I think Debian has a good security, bugs free, easy to work with....But I'm planning to test slackware this year to see how it woks

[oHawko]

I would recommend checking Distrowatch.com to find any good one that fit your needs.

Something like:

hxxp://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

oHawko

[Mafia]

My linux distro is Debian Sarge !!!
it is ver very Good.
But i think for beginners RedHat and Ubuntu is better and easier .
The official web site of debian is : www.debian.org
it is very stable and also secure .
But if u like : u can use the bsd systems .... freebsd - openbsd .

[Falk0n]

I think it's a tough question, because everyone has their favorites.
I made the change to Linux a while back and actually rarely use windows anymore.
The change wasn't easy as it is a new environment.

When I started to make the change, I played a lot with lots of LiveCD to see which environments and configurations I liked.

Couple of things to keep in mind:

First you will want something that needs practically no configuration in the begining because you will need to get to that level gradually (level where you are editing configuration files and running various commands).

Second you will need a distro that recognizes your hardware as nothing more frustrating than having no internet connection or a mouse that doesn't work.

For these requirements I suggest Ubuntu or Mandriva. Easy to install, recognizes most of your hardware while installing. Very easy to start with.

After living with Linux for a while and tackling whatever small problems arising, you might want to explore further, but now you have the understanding and ability to go forward and you'll figure out which distro you want or you might like where you are and decide to stay there. Heck you might get really good and roll your own distro. With Linux you can go as fast as you want and it's up to you.

Most Linux distro's now have some package managers to ease installing new packages. So for the most part you will be ok.

Some distro's live on the "bleeding edge" by always using the latest. That is great in one way but can be tiresome when things don't work out.

Some require you compile lots of stuff (Gentoo) and if you have an older PC expect to be doing this for days, and you really need to follow directions well.

Slackware isn't for new users of Linux, neither is Gentoo, or BSD.

Ubuntu, Mandriva, some flavors of Debian (ubuntu is one of them) probably is the best for a beginner.

Defrag your hard drive or get a new one (so you have 2 installed), and install on the newer drive or read about partitioning a bit. It isn't hard at all to partition (make sure you do back up your files just in case you do something off so you don't lose your files). Then you can dual boot, and you have both.

Ultimately you might want to stay in Linux for extended periods of time and gain more knowledge in configureing your system, and using some of the tools available on Linux.

It's certainly worth learning, so good luck on your new distro.

[ephi]

Personnally, I'm using Ubuntu and some modified Damn Small Linux (DVL) under virtual machines. And Debian under a real Sun box. I must say that Ubuntu is very popular and there are true reasons, I recommend it too for beginners. You're not forced to go next with a pure Debian though. There are tons of systems to discover, even UNIces. I advice newcomers to check liveCD too, there are sometimes good surprises

my $0.02

[flayer]

Ubuntu rocks! I was connected to the internet while I was installing it, that's something that would blow the mind of an average M$ user
Easy to use too

[Tipitman]

Im on ubuntu edgy fit, and got rid of xp. Its good but diffrent and you would have to get used to it.

[DarkJester]

this probably isnt the correct place for this and excuse the noob question. im not acctually a noob (honist). ive installed redhat,suse,ubuntu,knoppix,fedorda core 5/6 and stage1 gentoo. ive also used centos and various bsd disrtos (i run/own an irc network and have to install ircd software on a variaty of boxen)
ive just taken the distrotest mentioned earlyer in this topic, it suggested that i try debian. so off i went to the debian site selected dvd downloads as i have a dvd burner and torrent download option. how ever ive come across a snag there are 3 dvd images and im not sure witch one (or all 3) i require.. thanks in advance and again im sorry for the noob question

[ephi]

i went to the debian site selected dvd downloads as i have a dvd burner and torrent download option. how ever ive come across a snag there are 3 dvd images and im not sure witch one (or all 3) i require..

Hi,
Debian could perfectly run from a single CD (180Mo for netinstall I think and 40Mo for the smallest version). DVDs and CDs should contains companion softwares, there are 3DVDs as you said and 13 CD binary ISOs..

[beardednose]

i installed ubuntu on an old Dell 333 Mhz w/ 98 MB ram and it rocked. Easy. Worked fine.

Then I went to some OS and none of them liked my hard drive. I went back to ubuntu and it worked fine.

Then I remembered I pulled my 8 MB drive out and put in a 40 GB drive prior to installing ubuntu for the first time. For some reason, ubuntu didn't care about the "large" drive, but the others croaked. One was Fedora, one was win2000, one was XP, and a couple other Linux distros.

If you're old enough, you'll remember that old PC BIOs couldn't handle the big drives. Not sure why ubuntu did. I let all the Linux distros do their default installs, so I don't think it was that.

Any ideas? Just curious.

[Glyph]

Perhaps Ubuntu was capable of detecting, locating entry points, and utilizing the hard drive controller directly?
Perhaps the others relied on reading the BIOS settings.

[BitJunky]

I have three different versions of Linux on my removable hard drive now and I am going to start trying them all 1 by 1 until I find the best one for me. I have done the test (link posted on the first page of this topic) and it says ubuntu so I will use that one first.

I just have one question though; is Debian really hard to use and why?

All help will be greatly appriciated.

[ShadowWeaver44]

Only 5?
Here is a test to help you to choose a distribution.
http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/

Hiya, i was woundering if i can run windows on my computer like standard XP, but then have linux OS as well installed? would i need 2 spereate hard Drives or can i run both thru one HDD?

[Terminal]

Only 5?
Here is a test to help you to choose a distribution.
http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/

Hiya, i was woundering if i can run windows on my computer like standard XP, but then have linux OS as well installed? would i need 2 spereate hard Drives or can i run both thru one HDD?

You can run both by making different partitions on hard disk .