Any Linux users here?

S

SteelDriver

Joined
Jan 28, 2002
Messages
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I tried to switch to Linux a few years back because Windows ME was crashing my computer on a daily basis. Being a complete Linux newbie, I installed Mandrake 7.2 and picked up some of the basics but couldn't completely replace some Windows programs (mostly games). I upgraded to 8.2 but around that time I also installed Windows XP, which was a big improvement in stability. Since then I've put Linux on the back burner but now I want to take another serious look at it.

What distro would you guys suggest to get back into Linux? I might wait until stable distros with the 2.6 kernel ship, but so far I'm considering Mandrake and SuSE. Novell's recent acquisition of SuSE is making it look even better in the long run. Thanks for your help.
 
Check out Knoppix.

Runs on its own from a CD. Pop the CD in and play and get used to it. Then just pop the CD out and reboot. I needed a linux distro to get used to coding outside of windows and this is perfect.
 
I've used a couple of different Red Hat versions without troubles. I hear good things about SuSE too.

Phil
 
Google for topologilinux - you can install it on a Windows partition, dual boot, and not need to repartition your machine.

It's basically a full slackware distro, you can install packages 'til your heart's content.

Knoppix is cool, but you can't easily make modifications to it.
 
I've been learning on RedHat 9 for the past 6 months. Installs easily and there's plenty of documentation online. Of course, you might want to try the newer Fedora.

These work great because you can just install everything and not worry about falling into dependency hell. Then, when you figure out what you need and not need, you can start over with just what you want. For that purpose, I'm going to switch to Gentoo.
 
I made the switch 2 years ago (20 years of computing behind me) with mandrake. After a few weeks of mandrake, I switched to debian and never looked back.

Lately, I have tried something really impressive : Mepis.
Basically it's a better Knoppix (personnal opinion). It allows to be used as a live/rescue CD. It's also very easily installed on your harddrive. It plays nice with windows. It detects everything. The most used plugins are installed by defaults. It has all the apps you would want installed and working out of the box. Very pleasant and refreshing.

www.mepis.org

I've been trying it on one of my workstation, as a toy. I keep Debian of the others for now, but that could change (and after all, Debian is the foundation of all those Knoppix derived distros).

Good luck, you are going the way of the good guys :-)
 
I always used to use RedHat but after they went all commerical I switched to Debian which is a great distro, a pain to install but the apt-get package is streets ahead of RedHat RPM

If you are looking for ease of use then Mandrake is widely regarded as one of hte easiest to use, but you could look at Lindows if you want compatability with games etc.
 
SteelDriver said:
I tried to switch to Linux a few years back because Windows ME was crashing my computer on a daily basis. Being a complete Linux newbie, I installed Mandrake 7.2 and picked up some of the basics but couldn't completely replace some Windows programs (mostly games). I upgraded to 8.2 but around that time I also installed Windows XP, which was a big improvement in stability. Since then I've put Linux on the back burner but now I want to take another serious look at it.

What distro would you guys suggest to get back into Linux? I might wait until stable distros with the 2.6 kernel ship, but so far I'm considering Mandrake and SuSE. Novell's recent acquisition of SuSE is making it look even better in the long run. Thanks for your help.
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I have used many of the more popular distros ...... RH, Debian, Knoppix, Mandrake, Libranet, Damn Small, plus many more. I have settled on Xandros, it is Debian based and has worked very nicely with my hardware. No, it's not a free distro, but I did not mind purchasing it to support the Linux movement. Some of the distros we're easy to deal with, some were not as easy. They are getting better all the time, and your mileage will definately vary with each one.

Just like Windows, there is no one single perfect Linux distro that will work with every possible combination of hardware components. I could live with almost any of the newer versions, I just happen to like Xandros. I don't ask much of an operating system anyhow, don't care about games or eye candy. Surfing, e-mail, scanning, printing, burning data/music, some networking capabilities, listening to music and I am pretty much a happy guy.

Anyone thinking about switching to Linux needs to figure out what they like to do and then find a distro that fits their needs.

Mike
 
It's true that Debian can be a real pain to install. I have found that the easiest and foolproof way to install debian is using Libranet. The ISO of the free 2.7 classic version can be found at
http://www.libranet.com/download.html

The installation is curse based and very easy to perform. It auto detects all of your hardware, sets up sound, network, X, etc. There's also a partitionning tool at the early stage of installation.

When the installer asks for a selection of packages to install, I choose "Minimal". No explanation needed here :)

Shortly after, you get a shell prompt. I edit the default /etc/apt/sources.list and point it to my local mirror of Debian woody. I also had 2 or 3 backports to benefits from last version of mozilla/gnome/mplayer/etc. Of course, you can choose to go testing or unstable. apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and you are done with your debian install. Flawless.

There's also a little utility made inhouse by the libranet folks : (x)adminmenu. It helps you to perform basic admin tasks (user management, reconfiguring network, sound, X, installing Flash, printers, ...).

Have fun !
 
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