A Neowin Guide to Linux Distributions


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Afternoon...

Basically after a lil help starting out with Linux... basically just want something i can have a serious play around with and hopefully not kill my old comp too much

Machine Specs

475Mhz Amd Processor,

128megs Ram ... old crappy ram remember :blush:

As Much Hdd space as anything should need

Ati Graphics card,

Eventually i would like to run linux on other machines, just want to get started with Linux, and hopefully learn more from there... :whistle:

Checky

{edit} - would also possibly like to be able to get some of the stuff i use in Xp now to work on it also, Winamp, Msn and so on... is there Linux versions of these proggys or would i have to do something magical to have em on a Linux machine?

Afternoon...

Basically after a lil help starting out with Linux... basically just want something i can have a serious play around with and hopefully not kill my old comp too much

Machine Specs

475Mhz Amd Processor,

128megs Ram ... old crappy ram remember :blush:

As Much Hdd space as anything should need

Ati Graphics card,

Eventually i would like to run linux on other machines, just want to get started with Linux, and hopefully learn more from there... :whistle:

Checky

{edit} - would also possibly like to be able to get some of the stuff i use in Xp now to work on it also, Winamp, Msn and so on... is there Linux versions of these proggys or would i have to do something magical to have em on a Linux machine?

Welcome to Neowin! :D

I would probably go for Slackware for that system. Mandrake and Fedora would work, but they'd be a bit sluggish. I found that Mandrake was a bit of RAM hog, as well.

As for Winamp, there is XMMS, a complete Linux clone of Winamp 2. For MSN, you can use GAIM, which also works with AIM, Jabber and I think Yahoo! as well.

475Mhz Amd Processor,

128megs Ram ... old crappy ram remember  :blush:

As Much Hdd space as anything should need

Ati Graphics card,

Should be OK for most things. A bit more RAM never hurts, and the "heavier" Desktop Environments (like KDE and Gnome) may be sluggish, but you will be able to use IceWM, TWM, or other lighter Window Manager ok. [Linux GUI Overview: you have XFree running a Windowing System - but that is not a manager, it lays the groundwork. then you have Window Managers that handle the windowing. on top of that, you can have a full Desktop Environment, with all the bells & whistles. You are going to probably be at the basic Window Manager level. There are many to choose from)
would also possibly like to be able to get some of the stuff i use in Xp now to work on it also, Winamp, Msn and so on... is there Linux versions of these proggys or would i have to do something magical to have em on a Linux machine?
Your distro you choose will be able to do these things. Again there are lots of choices. mplayer or xine are common media players, and gaim or amsn can do your msn messenging. (gaim can do yahoo, aol, icq, msn and more. amsn is strictly for MSN messenging, but looks a lot like the MS version). There is a program called 'wine' that can run some Windows programs, but I recommend a "native Linux" solution over a wine solution any day. :yes:

Hope that helps. :)

(your next question of "which distro" has many, MANY answers. Pick one that is noob-friendly, and go with it.)

Yeah, I'm serious. I was going to learn Red Hat, but they stopped caring about the home users,
RedHat is a company, not a group of teenage hackers. They have stockholders to answer to. They have always (and STILL) release the source to their Linuxes (including their Enterprise servers, I beleive). They just stopped making .ISOs of them. They spun-off their home/hobbyist market (which has always lost money for them) as Fedora Core. It is free (libre) and free (gratis). To start slagging RedHat for "no support" when their source is still freely available would make as much sense as slagging Gentoo because they offer only source to download and compile (no .iso images there, either).
and most of the other distributions are now not for free
There are free (again, I assume you mean 'gratis') releases of almost all linux distros. Even Lindows has so many 'free download" offers, that it can be considered a "free beer" distro... Mandrake, SuSE, Debian, Slack, Gentoo, RedHat, Fedora are all available free for download. Legally.

Try any of the major distros. I am a RedHat guy since RHL 5.1, and use Fedora now. It is what I am used to, and it performs well for me.

There are free (again, I assume you mean 'gratis') releases of almost all linux distros. Even Lindows has so many 'free download" offers, that it can be considered a "free beer" distro... Mandrake, SuSE, Debian, Slack, Gentoo, RedHat, Fedora are all available free for download. Legally.

Try any of the major distros. I am a RedHat guy since RHL 5.1, and use Fedora now. It is what I am used to, and it performs well for me.

Thanks for clarifying the subject for me markjensen :)

Much appreciated!

...Gentoo because they offer only source to download and compile (no .iso images there, either).

For your information, Gentoo does offer .iso LiveCDs to get you started. They include a portage tree snapshot and stage 1 - 3 tarballs.

Of course they're Gentoo. The whole idea of a LiveCD is so that you can boot into an installation environment. If you already have Linux installed you could just download the Stage1 tarball and start running. And honestly, I've done one of each stage, a 1, a 2, and a couple 3s, and I've not noticed much, if any, speed difference in everyday use between the 3 types of installs. The one area that was noticeable, for me at least, was in compile speed/time. A stage1 seems to compile programs faster than a stage3, or even a stage2. But for normal desktop use, I've not noticed any differences.

There is also Xandros, it is a debian based distro. its pretty much for beginners and businesses. It auto-mounts ntfs/fat32 drives, auto-configures samba, includes the crossover plugin, so you can run some window applications, including office products (upto xp). It is extreamly easy to use, as you can use rpm, deb, or tarballs to install applications.

Some faults though are that currently there is 'no' downloadable iso/ftp install. you have to purchase it unless you are willing to wait a couple of months for the demand on their servers to die down. another fault is that it uses a modified kds windows manager, with no option to install gnome. this goes with other managers, as well as newer kernels, as they are modified by xandros

Knoppix: KDE

Gnoppix: Gnome

Just because I can, and it might be appreciated....

LiveCD concept using Slackware and 8cm/3" mini-CDs:

SLAX: KDE (3.2)

GONX: Gnome

GONX should be released this coming week. It's still extremely new - but you bet your bunnies, I'm on it for my new mini-CD LiveCD distro. SLAX is just *cool* for a LiveCD distro. Nothing like LiveCD Slackware goodness.

I'll give more details on the subject later - I'm getting yelled at that my typing is too loud. Silly 3AM posts!

  • 1 month later...
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mini distros like knoppix, and demolinux boot straight from cd, they are great for having a taste of what is like without needing to have a spare machine, partitioning, or geting a new HD. they are also fantastic recovery tools!

yeah- Knoppix rulez! check out the dvd version ppl :)

I use suse9.0 too

  • 5 weeks later...

i dunno how many hungarians visit htis board, but anyways..

UHU Linux

A very good Hungarian distro. It is kind of a mixture of leading distros: the installer and the default 'Bluecurve theme' on most of the applications come from Redhat, and the apt-get packaging system is from debian. It is all packed with good packages, mostly the most popular applications. It comes with several window-managers (Gnome, KDE, Blackbox, IceWM, XFce) to choose from. Very user-friendly, and stable. A very good choice for starters. And it is free to download. 2 CDs, but the 2nd one is optional, since it is not needed by the installer, it just conatins extra packages.

Current stable version: 1.1.1

(1.2 is available to download for beta-testing.)

Website/FTP:

http://www.uhulinux.hu

ftp://ftp.uhulinux.hu/ISO/uhu-linux-1.1.1-cd1.iso

ftp://ftp.uhulinux.hu/ISO/uhu-linux-1.1.1-cd2.iso (optional)

A live version is also available at:

http://www.uhulivecd.linuxuser.hu

ftp://ftp.linuxforum.hu/UHU-Rescue/live_2.1/uhu_live_2.1.iso

(not affiliated with the original UHU project, it is the work of an individual UHU fan)

Note: the live cd, the websites and the UHU installer is in Hungarian. But if you manage to install it (no big deal), it works flawlessly in English too...

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Then place the DWARF mini outside, make sure your smartphone or tablet is connected to it, and then head back inside, because you can manage it from the comfort of your home. Simply enter the Atlas tab in the app and search for what you want to capture, and then tap on the camera icon; the DWARF mini will then attempt to track the object and give you a live view right on your connected device. Results I've had the DWARF mini since April, but even though my garden is south-facing, I had a lot of trouble trying to capture a good image of the moon. In the end, it was possible after I took it with me on a trip to my parents in Southend, UK, at the end of May. Here is a capture of the moon, resulting from 20 stacked images over a 90-second exposure. What you are seeing here is not AI-assisted. A good example of what I mean is the latest flagships with their 200MP cameras claiming to capture things like closeups of the moon, and while they are not as good as the above example on the DWARF mini, the resulting image on smartphones is actually AI-assisted above 30X zoom. Here is an example of a similar shot at the moon at 200X zoom using an HONOR Magic8 Pro. The difference is clear. Next, here we have a shot of the daytime moon. Here is a shot of Arcturus, the red giant star, which is the fourth brightest in the night sky. As previously mentioned, it could be a bit clearer, but clouds passing in front of it muddied the shot a bit. The Sun The DWARF mini also ships with a sun filter, meaning you can take great shots of the sun as well. Tracking Sun Resulting (stacked) shot Live zoom The pictures themselves are limited to Full HD, and some of the examples actually came out in HD (1280x720), but this is because the standard telescopic result is in 720p while "Wide" is in 1080p. Above you can see how in the app the Sun is tracked, the resulting capture, and Live zoom. I have only scratched the surface of what is possible with this telescope; I found several examples online of shots of the Milky Way, among others, such as nebulae and galaxies. All of this requires patience and knowledge, although if you know what you are looking for, simply enter it in the Atlas tab in the DWARFLAB app, tap the camera icon, and the telescope will attempt to track it. Conclusion The good The DWARF mini definitely places itself in a price point that makes astrology accessible to anyone looking to get started in the hobby. Say you want to have a closer look at the moon, simply enter it in the Atlas, and the Live view also lets you zoom in and snap pictures. The bad Some issues I came across while operating the DWARF mini were that it sometimes failed to connect unless I held my smartphone right next to it, and finding and tracking sometimes took several attempts to get it calibrated. I discovered that it helped if I sort of positioned and pointed the telescope in the general area it was supposed to detect, but this obviously wouldn't work with objects you can't see with the naked eye; more testing is required for that. Another bit of advice is to ensure that the lens is clean. While making the examples of live zooming on the sun, I discovered that the telescope lens and sun filter were not completely clean, and only after cleaning with a microfiber cloth was I able to get a decent shot of the sun. Where to buy and a coupon Okay, $399 is not cheap for a side hobby, but nor is a $1,500 smartphone flagship that you'll most likely have for a couple of years. This is a one-time entrance into astrology, and it won't become obsolete in one year like a smartphone. It's a thumbs up from me. The DWARF mini is available to buy right now in the U.S. and U.K. at the links below. DWARF mini for $399 on the official site DWARF mini for $399 on Amazon U.S. Use the NEOWIN5OFF coupon code for an additional 5% off at checkout (expires June 21) As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
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    • The name, you mean? If so, it's actually the objects common name. There's another one called NGC 7293 which is also known as Helix Nebula (because we're looking at a helix structure top down) but other times also known as the Eye of God. You'll understand when you see it
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