Linux

[DevotedEternal]

Greetings, I was considering getting Linux. What distribution should I go with? Redhat? Mandrake? Soemthing else? Suggestions please.

[Link]

You should go with the Off-Topic board, and Redhat or Suse.

[DevotedEternal]

Alright, thanks.

[Kundalf]

Hi,

for a beginner SuSE  and RedHat  Linux both are a good choice since they include everything you need for a start, like good dokumentation. My fist Linux was LST, and it wasn\'t any good. Then i took SuSE Linux and think its the best choice for a beginner, the documentation is very well structured and imho the best of all Linux packages. I also tested other distris and don\'t think their dokumentations are that good. Best of the rest is probably RedHat.

If you have a fast internet or network connection and a flatrate I can only recommend gentoo-linux. It takes some time to install, but its easy to update and since you compile it yourself its completely optimized for your system. Therefor its way faster than other Distributions and absolutely my number one!!
Well perhaps its to much for a beginner, but you should have a look at their page anyways.

[Link]

I very much like Suse, the CDs come with almost EVERY piece of software you could download for linux and it has a nice setup interface.

[Xandria]

I also have a copy of SuSE Linux installed, and I agree that it was very easy to understand and install.

And Kundalf, if you install the linux kernel sources, you can use the Kernel Configuration Interface to customize your kernel settings, and then recompile your kernel for optimum performance.

[Cyonamie]

Mmm, I use Redhat 8.0 and I can honestly say I hate it.  It locks up nearly as much as Windows does, and most software doesn\'t work on it unless you manually configure it a bit deeper than typing ./configure make make install. (I.E., Xine, Kmess, Mplayer, Divx, etc.)
Pretty much if you want easy installation and a taste of what Linux is, go for RedHat, I know Link uses SuSe and Slackware (I think), so they can\'t be that bad.

[jagator55]

I use Mandrake and like it alot
(ouch here comes the flames)

-Robbie  

[Sarth]

I also use SuSE and it\'s pretty good. Certainly my productivity went up alot since I moved from Win ME, SuSE came with absolutely HEAPS of programs, infact most things that you will ever need (for me, sound recorders and editors, graphics programs, web designer etc).

Also, my computer stopped crashing, it used to crash every week with Windows !

If you are going to try SuSE then I STRONGLY recommend you wait a few weeks, SuSE 8.2 is coming out at the start of April and I understand they fixed up YaST2, which they mucked up in 8.1

Hope that helps.

Note to jagator and ifog : nice posts you guys on how to get PS working for GNU/Linux, very helpful indeed

[Cyonamie]

Sarth: I am currently tempted to put a bullet through my computer. Redhat is as stressful as windows .  A few things I was wondering about it:
Does it come with a media player that has codecs for common video formats (mpeg 1, 2, mp4, avi, etc.).
Is installation of SuSe over all easy, or does it have a text based installation?
Support dual booting?

Thanks,
Cyo

[Sarth]

Yes, SuSE includes MPlayer, and I use that for MPEG and AVI files. You do need to download the codecs from the net, but it\'s pretty easy, and you have the same issue with Windows (needing to get the codecs). So the answer is a definate yes. MPlayer also does DVD etc.

Installation is very easy, all graphical, you just click the language, country, enter your user name and password. If you want you can of course click on the advanced buttons and start to configure things like how the disk is formatted etc, but of course it generally makes sensible choices itself so no real need to bother unless you are a control freak. So the answer is it\'s a pretty easy install, no command line stuff, but it\'s worth checking the database of supported hardware at the SuSE site FIRST !

Dual booting, yes I can dual boot Of course, this assumes you have got your disk formated in FAT32 format, not NTFS. I think the default for Win XP is NTFS (not sure though, never used it), in that case SuSE cannot reformat the disk to put linux on. What you will need to do is back up your files to a CD (ie personal stuff in My Documents, and save game files or whatever), then do a fresh install of Win XP, but this time install it under FAT32. Once done reinstall whatever files you used to have, then go into your BIOS, change boot options to boot from CD and put in the SuSE 8.2 disk, click on the next button a few times during the install, 20 minutes later you should have a dual booting Win XP and GNU/Linux system.

Worth it IMHO.

Hope that helps.

[Bogo]

Since when can\'t Linux boot NTFS partitions? There\'s no reason to reinstall WinXP on fat32. In fact, don\'t do this. Fat32 is a horrible filesystem and is far inferior to ntfs. The Linux kernel has had ntfs read support for awhile now, and with 2.6 write support is finally out of the experimental (dangerous) phase.

[Xandria]

I think Sarth is referring to the partition resizing utility that comes with the Suse install.  It will take an existing Fat32 partition, scale it down, then install Linux on the free space that\'s left, and create a dual-boot configuration.  If you have NTFS, Suse can\'t touch it and so you need to install on a separate drive/partition.

No need to reinstall WinXP, just keep your options open when you install WinXP and create a separate 7GB parition at the end of your drive (you can format it with whatever you like, then just copy everything off and repartition when you eventually install Linux).

And Bogo, why did you dig up such an old thread??

[Rageburst]

http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/

The thing is that you can\'t manipulate windows files... only copy them and stuff.

[Davis]

I\'m glad he digged it up, I was about to get Redhat...