DEFINITIVE: Which Linux Distro? (poll)

[Mr. Golden Deal]

I personally find Gnome and KDE (especially KDE) too bloated and too gimmicky. I prefer Arch because after installing it, you just have a command line, and everything else is entirely up to you. For instance, I just have XFCE for a WM, and then I install apps as I need them, rather than having two dozen unwanted things on my menu. Great package management system, too.

[stadsport]

Oh, that's good to know. Then Ubuntu it is, I guess.

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There's also a distro called Kubuntu, which is just Ubuntu that comes with KDE.

Edit: Nevermind, someone already said that. :p

[seta-san]

they might be bloated but they are being made to be MS windows replacements. Because of this... how can they NOT be bloated?

I personally find Gnome and KDE (especially KDE) too bloated and too gimmicky. I prefer Arch because after installing it, you just have a command line, and everything else is entirely up to you. For instance, I just have XFCE for a WM, and then I install apps as I need them, rather than having two dozen unwanted things on my menu. Great package management system, too.

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[phedot]

Can anyone "help" me? Has anyone done the transition from Fedora Core to Ubuntu?! If I change, the only feature I know I'm going to miss from FC4 is yum... Is apt-get as good or even better than yum?

TIA

[Whiffle]

I personally find Gnome and KDE (especially KDE) too bloated and too gimmicky. I prefer Arch because after installing it, you just have a command line, and everything else is entirely up to you. For instance, I just have XFCE for a WM, and then I install apps as I need them, rather than having two dozen unwanted things on my menu. Great package management system, too.

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Technically you can do that on any distro, its really just picking which package manager you like. I don't have gnome or KDE installed for the same reason, but thats not why I chose slack :D

[seta-san]

mandrake is probably the most newb friendly

:blink: I have an old Windows 98 system, I am really getting into wanting to learn Linux.  I know Windows XP inside and out, but have no clue what to do with source code and downloading and installing open source apps is just way out there.........I've downloaded some, but can't even find them!!  I've been trying out pclinux, but I am totally lost.  What is the best OS that would be a good one for me to make the transition from Windows to Linux the easiest, until I know a little more about what I am doing.  I know there are ones that you can buy out there, but I don't have the money to invest in anything, I just always heard that Linux was free.  I've been looking at Linspire, but it costs money to install on that old system.  Then you have to pay for extras  :o

Please someone help this Linux newbie wannabe.

Thanks

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[allifm]

:blink: I have an old Windows 98 system, I am really getting into wanting to learn Linux. I know Windows XP inside and out, but have no clue what to do with source code and downloading and installing open source apps is just way out there.........I've downloaded some, but can't even find them!! I've been trying out pclinux, but I am totally lost. What is the best OS that would be a good one for me to make the transition from Windows to Linux the easiest, until I know a little more about what I am doing. I know there are ones that you can buy out there, but I don't have the money to invest in anything, I just always heard that Linux was free. I've been looking at Linspire, but it costs money to install on that old system. Then you have to pay for extras :o

Please someone help this Linux newbie wannabe.

Thanks

[allifm]

mandrake is probably the most newb friendly

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It's way to big for that old system, it only has 6 gigs of hd and 128 ram, doesn't have a dvd reader, just your basic OLD 98 system.

Would it be able to handle that??

[seta-san]

definately. i got my mandrake OS installed on my 6gig hdd. the 128 mb ram might hold you down a little bit though but that would be true on any system running KDE or Gnome.

It's way to big for that old system, it only has 6 gigs of hd and 128 ram, doesn't have a dvd reader, just your basic OLD 98 system.

Would it be able to handle that??

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[allifm]

definately. i got my mandrake OS installed on my 6gig hdd. the 128 mb ram might hold you down a little bit though but that would be true on any system running KDE or Gnome.

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Ok, also, I have some more questions, please,

Will I still have to learn the source codes with mandrake? And also all I have been able to find is Mandrivia, where would I go to look for mandrake?

Thanks again

[markwolfe Veteran]

Can anyone "help" me? Has anyone done the transition from Fedora Core to Ubuntu?! If I change, the only feature I know I'm going to miss from FC4 is yum... Is apt-get as good or even better than yum?

TIA

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apt-get does the same functions as yum did. "yum install celestia" becomes "apt-get install celestia".

Ok, also, I have some more questions, please,

Will I still have to learn the source codes with mandrake?  And also all I have been able to find is Mandrivia, where would I go to look for mandrake?

Thanks again

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You can find some summaries at http://distrowatch.com

Mandriva is the new name of the company, after Mandrakesoft bought Connectiva.

As for your system requirements, if you find that your distro of choice runs KDE (or Gnome) too slowly, you can use a lighter Window Manager (XFCE, fluxbox or such). All of your apps will run, but your GUI will take up less resources.

[seta-san]

mandrake changed their name to mandriva. The discs that come with it should be good enough for everyday use so you shouldn't need the use of sources. Go to www.linuxiso.org to get linux isos.

Ok, also, I have some more questions, please,

Will I still have to learn the source codes with mandrake?  And also all I have been able to find is Mandrivia, where would I go to look for mandrake?

Thanks again

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[allifm]

mandrake changed their name to mandriva. The discs that come with it should be good enough for everyday use so you shouldn't need the use of sources. Go to www.linuxiso.org to get linux isos.

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Sorry :blush: One more question, Which one do I download? It looks like there is 2 for 586, mine is a 386, there is also a download for PPC, which I have no clue what that is.

And thank you for being so very helpful.

:D

[markwolfe Veteran]

586 (pentium-class CPUs) will not work (to my knowledge) on a 80386 system.

You will need to find one that still supports 80386 (and there are plenty of distros that do).

PPC is PowerPC, like the Macs.

[ViperSnake]

Ubuntu is a very good Debian based system, has versions for x86 (note I didn't say i586, x86 is just a global name for i386 and above), 64 bit, and PPC!

[wizardx]

I've used Windows 98, ME, and XP on this computer. I looked at linux and switched, my first distro, to Gentoo. It's not as easy as the others to setup, but once you get done the hard parts over.

Portage will take care of the rest of the downloading, unpacking, installing, and cleanup. All you have to do is go watch a few movies, come back and bam, you've got linux and a desktop environment all done. You can also add, pretty much, as many apps as you want to that one emerge as well, or do seperate ones at later times.

Updating is easy, one emerge command updates Portage, "emerge --sync" and another updates your system, "emerge -Du world" and then you're all done. Portage even uninstalls the old version of the program, automatically.

Gentoo also has many more supported platforms than some other major linux distro's, such as Ubuntu.

I don't think I'll ever switch, to other distro's or back to Windows, ever. And to boot, Gentoo doc's are as good as they come. They also have nice forums, and great online support in their freenode channel.

[Cube]

its nice but certanly not just "bam" compiling the stuff takes hours (kde, OoO, ect..) and alot of reading you must do for a first time. I have done 2 gentoo installs and found it innefficient, I am trying ubuntu now. I was fully setup in less than 30mins.

I've used Windows 98, ME, and XP on this computer. I looked at linux and switched, my first distro, to Gentoo. It's not as easy as the others to setup, but once you get done the hard parts over.

Portage will take care of the rest of the downloading, unpacking, installing, and cleanup. All you have to do is go watch a few movies, come back and bam, you've got linux and a desktop environment all done. You can also add, pretty much, as many apps as you want to that one emerge as well, or do seperate ones at later times.

Updating is easy, one emerge command updates Portage, "emerge --sync" and another updates your system, "emerge -Du world" and then you're all done. Portage even uninstalls the old version of the program, automatically.

Gentoo also has many more supported platforms than some other major linux distro's, such as Ubuntu.

I don't think I'll ever switch, to other distro's or back to Windows, ever. And to boot, Gentoo doc's are as good as they come. They also have nice forums, and great online support in their freenode channel.

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[wizardx]

Well, it's a less known fact that Gentoo's installation is the test to use it.

Passing the installation test, meaning as it sounds by installing is successfully, means you get the easy life of emerge. It's that simple. Pass the test, get to rest. Two commands to update your whole computer, one command to install something and everything ti needs to run, one command to uninstall something, etc.

I also love the stability of the Gentoo kernel and the portage system, and it all as a whole. My own computer stays up for, usually, 3-4 months at a time and restart by choice. My server, I think this one is at 218 days, not sure though. It's in my brother's room, and out of reach, hence, not reachable in my reclined state.

Anyways, linux is also about choice. By no circumstance can you make someone feel they *have* to use your version. I just strongly suggest giving Gentoo a chance. :p

BTW, I hear good things about Ubuntu. I'm going to sucker my friend into putting it on his to see how it works.

[Whiffle]

Well, it's a less known fact that Gentoo's installation is the test to use it.

Passing the installation test, meaning as it sounds by installing is successfully, means you get the easy life of emerge. It's that simple. Pass the test, get to rest. Two commands to update your whole computer, one command to install something and everything ti needs to run, one command to uninstall something, etc.

I also love the stability of the Gentoo kernel and the portage system, and it all as a whole. My own computer stays up for, usually, 3-4 months at a time and restart by choice. My server, I think this one is at 218 days, not sure though. It's in my brother's room, and out of reach, hence, not reachable in my reclined state.

Anyways, linux is also about choice. By no circumstance can you make someone feel they *have* to use your version. I just strongly suggest giving Gentoo a chance. :p

BTW, I hear good things about Ubuntu. I'm going to sucker my friend into putting it on his to see how it works.

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Man you're making me miss portage. The *ONLY* reason I switched away from Gentoo were the compile times on my lowly 1.6 p4, i just got tired of watching the code scroll for an hour to update gaim. :( I wish they would come up with a binary version of portage...

[wizardx]

I know what you mean about the code scrolling. If you look at it long enough you start to see things too. I once watched snowmen throw snowballs at eachother, the one on the right won.

[UnReStRiCtEd]

Hi,

I just got this laptop and i intend to use it for school work. Being slightly older hardware im not sure what distribution would support it best, i have done searches but most turn up with nothing.

The specs are:

3.06 ghz P4

80gb HDD

512mb RAM

64mb Graphics

Any suggestions?

I am looking for something that should support most of the hardware out-of-the-box, currently i am running Gentoo on this computer.

Thanks

*edit: ****, SORRY, i accidentially posted this in the very wrong forum section, if a mod could move it that would be great!

Edited November 7, 2005 by UnReStRiCtEd

[ViperSnake]

Hey, that is not slightly older hardware, any distobution would work for you. Gentoo is still good as you can hand configure it to your specfications for hardware and all that stuff. I happened to find a page with special notes about running Linux on a NX9010 laptop, the examples use Fedora based distros.

http://pvanhoof.be/wiki/index.php/Installi...q_nx9010_laptop

[markwolfe Veteran]

Hi,

I just got this laptop and i intend to use it for school work. Being slightly older hardware im not sure what distribution would support it best, i have done searches but most turn up with nothing.

The specs are:

3.06 ghz P4

80gb HDD

512mb RAM

64mb Graphics

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That's pretty current, and you already run Gentoo on it. So, I guess that the best question to ask is what don't you like about Gentoo? What do you like about it?

Other than that, Ubuntu seems to be a favorite in the forum here.

[jugaaru]

I tried installing ubuntu, but couldn't get the graphical interface to work.

Centrino/256MB/40GB/Intel Extreme Graphics.

[UnReStRiCtEd]

well, gentoo has been on it for a while, it just seems to be filled with lots of useless crap that has been installed.

i am probably going to do a stage 1 install of gentoo again to give me a nice clean base. im a bit wary of other distributions as gentoo is the only one i've ever used.