Question Choosing a Linux Distribution

Ubuntu is a user friendly one. Its forums are very active so you can get nice support from the community. At the end of this month the 11.04 will get released, and it will include Unity as the defaul desktop. Luckily it will still come with the "old" one as I don't like Unity.

If you have some brandwith and a spare cd (or a RW one) give the Live CD a try, you don't need to install anything (it will be slower than a Hard Disk installation as it has to read from the CD).
 
Well, small bandwidth, no CDs, and a dying CD drive so I think the HDD install is my best bet. Thanks for the advice. Can you recommend some good documentation as to installation procedures for Linux?
 
Ubuntu comes with a very straight-forward installer. I would wait until the end of the month and then grab the 11.04 version when it ships. Download the ISO for your architecture (32 or 64-bit), find a way to burn it (will have to acquire a CD), and plunk the CD in the drive. Restart the PC and follow the instructions. :)

I should mention that if you don't have a working CD-ROM drive, you can also use USB drives in the same way as a CD and install from a USB drive. It's a bit trickier, though, so I would recommend the CD route unless otherwise impossible.
 
You can download it via torrent also if you are worried about being "timed out".
 
I'm a very happy Ubuntu user. I can really recommend it although I know that some people have had serious problems with it.. I think installing Ubuntu requires some knowledge, but as said before, the forum is really active and everyone is happy to help
 
at least for previous releases, Ubuntu had a feature that allowed you to install it on a virtual harddisk while running windows (without destroying the windows installation) and then natively boot into it. If the user liked it, than he could somehow convert the installation to a full native installation. I think.

That might solve your dying CD drive problem.
 
Yes, that is with a program called Wubi or something, but these days they don't recommend doing that since it can destroy your Windows more easily (I'm just saying what I've read on the forums).
 
Depends what you want it to be doing. For a desktop, Ubuntu is definitely the flavour-of-the-month (and has been for some time). Enterprise environments seem to be RHEL. Servers tend to be Debian and hard-core-geeks like gentoo.
 
I've used several. Fedora, Mandriva, OpenSuSE, DSL, Ubuntu, FreeBSD, and CentOS.

Ubuntu is by far the easiest to install and most user-friendly, and is right now my distro of choice.

The only one I've ever had problems with in terms of hardware is CentOS. It didn't recognize the wireless card in an old T41 I had lying around. I had to manually install drivers I found on the web. It recognizes the card now, but I still can't connect to my wireless. Works fine in VirtualBox on my desktop though, using the hard-wired connection.

Echoing what agentgonzo said, it really just depends on what you want to be doing once you're done 'test-driving.'
 
I've been using CentOS a lot but I don't use it as a desktop OS so no Gnome or KDE just server type services (e.g. apache, nagios, etc) and it's great for that.
 
Columbia42 said:
Well, small bandwidth, no CDs, and a dying CD drive so I think the HDD install is my best bet. Thanks for the advice. Can you recommend some good documentation as to installation procedures for Linux?
Click to expand...

Well, you're eventually going to be installing it to your HDD whatever you do, but if you install from a CD, you can try it out before actually installing.

But low bandwidth and lack of a reliable CD drive do make installing Linux problematic, and the low bandwidth is going to make getting software problematic as well.

Can you give us the stats on the computer (including age) and more details on the connection (dial up? Slow DSL?).

IronRain said:
Yes, that is with a program called Wubi or something, but these days they don't recommend doing that since it can destroy your Windows more easily (I'm just saying what I've read on the forums).
Click to expand...

Well, the big risk is with hard shutdowns, which already have the potential to mess stuff up. I'm not certain about whether it would put your Windows filesystem more at risk than otherwise (though I think I have heard rumors to this effect), but it will certainly put the embedded Linux filesystem at greater risk of being damaged on hard shutdowns.

It's great for trying Ubuntu out, but it's not recommended for long-term use. It can be converted to a full HD install, though, which is advantageous if your CD drive is flaky.
 
Ubuntu 10.10 for now

Unity is crap. I won't use it and if Canonical tries to shove it down my throat I'll probably switch to Arch even though I'm lazy and like Ubuntu. You can upgrade from 10.10 Maverick to 11.04 later if you want with the Software Update utility.

As for the tempermental cd-rom, they're not that expensive. If your poor like me you can look in the phone book for an e-waste recycling company nearby. Tell them you need a functional optical drive and I bet you get one for $5 or less.

http://cearinc.com/ is an example.

I can get a nice 42U Server rack for $50, servers, routers, kvm switches with extensions, monitors, you name it. Linux runs well on junk.

I used to work at Cear tearing apart machines for their precious metals and that's how I got into building.

You should also invest in a low budget dsl connection for around $20 a month. You should download at least 380 KB per second at that price.

And welcome to linux. "You're taking your first steps into a larger world."
:cheers:
 
Thoughts on Gentoo

Gentoo is awesome... if you like compiling everything. I've seen experienced linux users reinstall it 5 or 6 times before they were happy. Then they usually stick with it. You can go crazy and compile and install keyboard support if you want to. I do not reccommend it for the first time linux user. I had crappy dialup when I first got into linux. I went to the Library and chacked out a book on Redhat 6 that had the install media inside the jacket cover. I dual booted Windows ME and Redhat 6 on an HP N5250 with a 10 GB hard drive.
:lol:
 
jimblah said:
Unity is crap. I won't use it and if Canonical tries to shove it down my throat I'll probably switch to Arch even though I'm lazy and like Ubuntu. You can upgrade from 10.10 Maverick to 11.04 later if you want with the Software Update utility.
Click to expand...

I pretty much take an horrible default interface for granted nowadays, given that I seem to have much different tastes than much of the population. You, jimblah, certainly should have no trouble getting your choice of GUI components from the repositories and setting them up. The OP might have a bit more trouble (seeing as it takes time to get used to a new OS), but first let him see if he finds the interface as bad as we do.
 
I've tried Unity...

Linguofreak said:
I pretty much take an horrible default interface for granted nowadays, given that I seem to have much different tastes than much of the population. You, jimblah, certainly should have no trouble getting your choice of GUI components from the repositories and setting them up. The OP might have a bit more trouble (seeing as it takes time to get used to a new OS), but first let him see if he finds the interface as bad as we do.
Click to expand...

I got a similar response at #Ubuntu Unity may be fine for netbooks or touchscreens, but IMHO it does not represent the traditional desktops or window managers like gnome, kde, xfce, blackbox, fluxbox, etc. If you look at how Canonical pretty much shoved pulseaudio down our throats you may see my concern. I spent a lot of time searching for a way to remove and use alsa instead. If I'll be able to easily switch from Unity to another desktop at the login prompt than my point is moot and I'll continue to use ubuntu because it is so user friendly.

Disclaimer: jimblah is not a guru, take his comments with a grain of salt. Use of your own judgement is encouraged and strongly recommended.
:facepalm:
 
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