I recently partitioned my harddrive to include an Ext3 filesystem with anticipation that I would install Linux soon. Being an everyday visitor to Neowin, I decided to try Shift Linux or Fedora. Either way, which interface is best to use for a complete Linux newbie? Obviously, I have no problem opening a browser and finding information once I get the OS installed. The most simplistic interface is preferred.

Thanks for any help and comments!

I'd say GNOME. It doesn't have the Start menu like KDE does, but it's an overall simpler UI.

I say go with Shift. Fedora is manily server os more then user os.

Well perferably I would use fedora for server only.

As for simple interface, use Shift.

Cheers.

Step 1

Remove your ext3 partition

Seriously. Let the installer create your swap partition. Let is create the 1 or 2 ext3 partitions it will use. Unless you know what you are doing, and are going to set your mount point manually (presumably for / ) and will either go without swap, or will use a swap partition you created, but didn't tell us about.

I assumed that it needed it to install on, but it doesnt matter. I'm sure the installer will run me through it and worse case scenario is that it doesnt and I will just delete it and use the raw parition.

May I recommend Linux Mint? very nice interface.

Linux uses at least 2 partitions for most configurations. Some distros default to more.

swap is a separate partition. If you don't have one, the installer may install onto the ext3 and not leave you a swap.

Go ahead and try it. It's not going to hurt. I just see tons of people try to "help" the install, and all they do is make extra work for themselves, and either run into problems where they "don't have room", or are unable to create a swap.

The Shift (Ubuntu) installer will offer to automatically partition your Hard Drive, if you want to dedicate an entire drive. I'd suggest trying that out, it'll make an ext3 partition and an applicable swap partition.

Okay, so I tried Shift and I ran into random lock ups. I could only move my mouse. It's unrelated to memory because I did a memtest for almost a day - 17 passes or something like that and zero errors.

I thought Linux never crashed?

OK, we're going to need a bit more information if we're to help you with that.

First, which version of Shift did you try? Live CD or did you install it? You say "lock up", but state that your mouse can still move - sounds more like an application crash than a system crash. Did you have Compiz enabled? Did you get any video drivers (if necessary)? What are your hardware specs?

As much information you can supply will help us out here.

Mostly, when you have heard that, it's been someone with personal anecdotal evidence saying "Linux has never crashed on me". Just like someone saying "XP/Vista has never crashed on me".

No one is saying an OS will never-ever crash. Hardware problems, configuration/software mismatches or errors can cause a PC to go belly-up.

As Mr. Fish stated, the fact you can move your mouse indicates Linux (the kernel) is running, but X (the GUI) is having problems. Possibly configuration issue? When this happens, it is important to let us know what you may have done. Is this purely running as a LiveCD? Or has this been installed? Have you added or enabled any extra apps or features?

Also, when it is not running X properly, you can use CTRL+ALT+F2 to call up a command-line terminal interface and log in and troubleshoot and repair.

It happens most when I'm changing display settings, for example, changing font settings and themes. Maybe a graphics card issue but I couldn't find anything like a device manager to rectify driver issues in Shift. This was during an installed copy of Shift v0.6.2 KDE, not Live CD.

I'm not sure what Compiz is, and I'm sure this issue may be easily rectified if I bothered to research my drivers. I've been busy however, working and fixing someone's laptops... so I haven't been able to play in Shift.

My computer is old technology but I keep it running relatively smoothly. I've attached a HTML of my system information.






heheh, I know. It was more of a joke to the Linux fanboys. I realize that the issues related to crashes are numerous and never isolated to any platform.