Recomend me a Linux

[Sonic_Death]

Thumbplucker pretty much got it right on. Eye candy and customization galore, with little to no fuss. No viruses, spyware, adware, nothing. You will never have to think about that again really.

Now why should one switch? There is no reason really if you don't care about the open source distros vs windows ethics. Windows does its job so if you are happy with it, that is fine. Linux will allow your computer to probably run smoother, and will be a new learning challenge for you. If you want to try out a new OS that is fun to learn and use, and will possibly give you benefits, then go for it.

And why is it worth the effort? Well honestly, it may be some effort at first getting all of the necessary programs you need and doing installs/updates, but after that, it is arguably much easier to live with a Linux computer than one with Windows.

At first you might want to try dual booting (K)Ubuntu and Windows together (which is a very simple process). Then if you decide you really love whatever you get, and you can ditch windows in time. There are so many support forums and FAQ's, plus you can always come here, so you shouldn't have many troubles with whatever OS you choose.

 

[kserg]

Honestly if you want to learn linux, Debian or slackware... I love slackware!!!

If you just want to use it, Ubuntu...


Slack is awesome

 

[cgworkman]

Ubuntu is very good for a beginner distro, its pretty user friendly and has a nice support community. it's what i'm using right now

Calling Ubuntu a beginner Linux is kind of ignorant IMO. There's nothing that can't be done on Ubuntu that can't be done on any other Linus. You just have to know what you're doing. If you're calling it 'beginner' because it can be referred to as 'plug and play' then that makes no sense. Just because something is set up as easier to use doesn't make it beginner. Because when we get our systems set up they run the way we prefer--which is 'easier.'

Back to the thread-- www.ubuntu.com or Invalid Link Removed is all you need.

 

[winston]

I've experimented with a bunch of Linux distros over the past 2 1/2 years (Fedora, Slackware, Vector, Arch, Libranet, X/K/Ubuntu, SUSE, Gentoo, Kanotix, Knoppix, Yoper, SLAX, Puppy, dyne:bolic, Debian, Mepis, plus dozens more). I've mostly settled on Sidux (based on Debian Testing branch), Arch, and Puppy (live CD).

Don't mean to talk trash but I don't understand the big deal with Ubuntu and its offshoots. Performance is average at best, default package selection is pretty paltry. They market themselves as the greatest thing since the ballpoint pen or sliced bread, and imply that their efforts will magically transform the world into a better place. The truth is that they got popular mostly because their founder is very rich and can afford to send out enormous quantities of free Ubuntu discs.

My experience with distros that use .RPM packages (Fedora and SUSE) is that major upgrades are a pain--sooner or later dependency issues arise which muck everything up, and you have to reinstall with each major release. I much prefer the .DEB package and APT package manager that Debian distros use. Also Arch's Pacman manager is great.

Fedora and SUSE are aiming squarely at the Window$ enterprise market so they tend to have enormous (IMO bloated) package selections and bland GUIs and require a more powerful computer than most simpler distros. SUSE 10.1 is the only distro out of all the ones I've tried (more than 100) that boots more slowly than Windoze XP on my 3 ghz P4 with 1G RAM.

If you plan on doing audio you should use a realtime kernel. Some distros (Planet CCRMA, dyne:bolic) include one--otherwise you'll have to compile it yourself.

I also recommend learning to use the command line to get the most out of Linux. I've found that almost any Unix/Linux book from the last 10 years or so will help--the fundamentals don't change.

 

[jkritchey]

Update: Made the CD, booted up the PII 450 with 384mb Ram. It works. Kind of cool. Built in Open Office, Firefox. Control panel kind of inuitive (Very Windows Like )

Big problem. Would not recognize my Netgear wireless adapter. 30 secs of browsing Linux-usb.com says that my Netgear wireless doesn't work on Linux. ??? A PC with out Internet is like a car with out wheels.

So now it's "How much time do I want to put into this?"

 

[Sonic_Death]

jkritchey, did you get 6.06 or 6.10?

If you have 6.10: Invalid Link Removed

 

[Trevor.A]

Calling Ubuntu a beginner Linux is kind of ignorant IMO. There's nothing that can't be done on Ubuntu that can't be done on any other Linus. You just have to know what you're doing. If you're calling it 'beginner' because it can be referred to as 'plug and play' then that makes no sense. Just because something is set up as easier to use doesn't make it beginner. Because when we get our systems set up they run the way we prefer--which is 'easier.'

Back to the thread-- www.ubuntu.com or Invalid Link Removed is all you need.

just sayin it's pretty easy to use, i'm a 'beginner' and i was really expecting a lot more trouble than i've had. i've never used another distro, but Ubuntu was recommended to me because of it's friendliness to those without much, if any, experience with Linux (IE beginners).

 

[thumbplucker]

I've found the biggest drawback to linux to date is wireless connectivity. Very few distros are problem free with wireless, unfortunately. Intel wireless seems to be one of the easiest to take care of,, Broadcom is harder,, and as you've seen some may not work at all (mainly because no one has built a driver for it yet),, but,, to be fair,, linux wireless has come a long way in the past couple years

 

[jkritchey]

jkritchey, did you get 6.06 or 6.10?

If you have 6.10: Invalid Link Removed

Got the 6.10. Thanks for the link, it looks, well, "comprehensive"...

 

[Komakino]

Update: Made the CD, booted up the PII 450 with 384mb Ram. It works. Kind of cool. Built in Open Office, Firefox. Control panel kind of inuitive (Very Windows Like )

Big problem. Would not recognize my Netgear wireless adapter. 30 secs of browsing Linux-usb.com says that my Netgear wireless doesn't work on Linux. ??? A PC with out Internet is like a car with out wheels.

So now it's "How much time do I want to put into this?"

If you're willing to put a little more time into it (if you're that way inclined) then you may find that the ndiswrapper project will allow your wireless card to use the windows driver. Also, if you plug it in and then do:
lsusb
(that's LSUSB in lower case) you'll get something that looks like:

[pre]
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 062a:0000 Creative Labs
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0d3d:0001 Tangtop Technology Co., Ltd
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
[/pre]

If you can figure out which corresponds to your wifi card (try doing lsusb with it unplugged then with it in and see what differs) try searching on the net for the 0000:0000 part and you might find someone has written a driver for your card.

Yeah, linux does suffer from a lack of support from hardware vendors right now, but it IS improving and with each release more and more hardware is supported. Remember, when 64 bit chips were first launched Linux was the first OS to be able to use them (yes, even before windows).

 

[cgworkman]

I've found the biggest drawback to linux to date is wireless connectivity. Very few distros are problem free with wireless, unfortunately. Intel wireless seems to be one of the easiest to take care of,, Broadcom is harder,, and as you've seen some may not work at all (mainly because no one has built a driver for it yet),, but,, to be fair,, linux wireless has come a long way in the past couple years

True. But in all honestly I've had more problems in WinXp with my wireless cards than I've had on my Linux boxes. I agree though--in the last few years Linux has made some leaps and bounds. One day it will truly give Microsoft a run for it's money. The problem isn't the software--it's the marketing.

 

[jkritchey]

If you're willing to put a little more time into it (if you're that way inclined) then you may find that the ndiswrapper project will allow your wireless card to use the windows driver. Also, if you plug it in and then do:
lsusb
(that's LSUSB in lower case) you'll get something that looks like:

[pre]
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 062a:0000 Creative Labs
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0d3d:0001 Tangtop Technology Co., Ltd
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
[/pre]

If you can figure out which corresponds to your wifi card (try doing lsusb with it unplugged then with it in and see what differs) try searching on the net for the 0000:0000 part and you might find someone has written a driver for your card.

Yeah, linux does suffer from a lack of support from hardware vendors right now, but it IS improving and with each release more and more hardware is supported. Remember, when 64 bit chips were first launched Linux was the first OS to be able to use them (yes, even before windows).

Thanks. I have no idea what you just typed. I switched Netgear adapters to one that is supposedly "supported". Booted off the CD again. Device Manager shows the USB Wireless device, but it doesn't function. (Previous one was unseen) Clicked into the network area, and there was a Wlan card icon in there, which I took to mean the wireless Netgear doo-hickey. No network settings in there, although it's set to DHCP. Not sure where a wireless setup is.

At any rate, I had an old hard drive, 7200 rpm, 20+gb that I decided to donate to the cause. Out came the old HD, in went the the new, and it's formatting to do a hard drive install now.

BTW, no sound either. Let's see what happens after we have it running on the HD.

Thanks for your interest.

 

[kserg]

Hehehe, I feel sicking right now, but i am using Suse 10.2

It's very windows like... interesting... But it works pretty damn good so far, especially list of hardware it detects and stuff is pretty good...

Got VLC to work on it too... VLC rocks!

 

[Komakino]

Thanks. I have no idea what you just typed. I switched Netgear adapters to one that is supposedly "supported". Booted off the CD again. Device Manager shows the USB Wireless device, but it doesn't function. (Previous one was unseen) Clicked into the network area, and there was a Wlan card icon in there, which I took to mean the wireless Netgear doo-hickey. No network settings in there, although it's set to DHCP. Not sure where a wireless setup is.

At any rate, I had an old hard drive, 7200 rpm, 20+gb that I decided to donate to the cause. Out came the old HD, in went the the new, and it's formatting to do a hard drive install now.

BTW, no sound either. Let's see what happens after we have it running on the HD.

Thanks for your interest.

If you want to continue this, feel free to pm me and we can have a go at getting your network card to work.

For starters, type:
iwconfig
and post the output here or in a pm to me. That will give us a clue as to whether your wireless card is usable.

Also, Invalid Link Removed is a great resource if you have a problem.

 

[jive1]

I went with CentOS in the end because it is the most Redhat like, and is a very stable version that has most of the server packages that I wanted to play around with. But, if all I wanted was a desktop system, I'd probably go with Ubuntu.

 

[jkritchey]

If you want to continue this, feel free to pm me and we can have a go at getting your network card to work.

For starters, type:
iwconfig
and post the output here or in a pm to me. That will give us a clue as to whether your wireless card is usable.

Also, Invalid Link Removed is a great resource if you have a problem.

Results of LSUSB:

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0846:4110 NetGear, Inc. MA111 WiFi (v1)
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Results of iwconfig:

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

Results of iwlist scan:

lo Interface doesn't support scanning.

eth0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

wlan0 No scan results
sit0 Interface doesn't support scanning


So, it appears it knows theres a netgear antenna there, but hasn't figured out what to do with it.

I hope folks don't mind if I ask this publicly.

 

[Komakino]

Try:

modprobe prism2_usb prism2_doreset=1

Don't know if that will help. Then try the iwconfig stuff again. If you get anything back from it, do:

dhclient

If there are still problems, post what you get or/and try this:
Invalid Link Removed

 

[jkritchey]

Thanks, Komakino. Something worked, but I hadn't read your suggestion yet.

In reading the help files (occasionally that works), I saw that there were additional applications, or packages on the CD (including ndiswrapper), which is kind of what I was looking for. Instead, I saw something called Wireless tools. I thought, "naaaahhh". Kidding, I installed it.

But nothing really happened. I fussed around some more, and decided I would reboot. Why? Who knows. Anyway, after restarting, I went back into the network settings, and this time something had changed! There was a wireless config there! Although it didn't scan for available networks, or have any cool GUI, I entered my wireless network ID and.....

nothing.

Went back into it, saw a line for network password, and pasted my WEP ID in there, and.....



Voila! My first TB post in Linux.

Things should go a little quicker now, as when I am on this machine, all the other (connected) machines were upstairs.

Thanks for your help. I hope you don't mind if I ping you occasionally for help....

 

[Komakino]

Thanks, Komakino. Something worked, but I hadn't read your suggestion yet.

In reading the help files (occasionally that works), I saw that there were additional applications, or packages on the CD (including ndiswrapper), which is kind of what I was looking for. Instead, I saw something called Wireless tools. I thought, "naaaahhh". Kidding, I installed it.

But nothing really happened. I fussed around some more, and decided I would reboot. Why? Who knows. Anyway, after restarting, I went back into the network settings, and this time something had changed! There was a wireless config there! Although it didn't scan for available networks, or have any cool GUI, I entered my wireless network ID and.....

nothing.

Went back into it, saw a line for network password, and pasted my WEP ID in there, and.....



Voila! My first TB post in Linux.

Things should go a little quicker now, as when I am on this machine, all the other (connected) machines were upstairs.

Thanks for your help. I hope you don't mind if I ping you occasionally for help....

Woo! Great stuff, congratulations. If you want mp3 and other codecs try installing automatix (search google). Some linux peeps have odd ideas about proprietary formats and don't include them by default. I'm into open source, but if the only option is proprietary then I'll use it...sadly some of the zealots in charge don't see things this way.

For videos your best bet is VideoLan Client.

sudo apt-get install vlc

should do it. You'll learn to love apt-get, it's so great.

Oh, and of course I don't mind if you ping me for anything. Email is yottskry12_at_yahoo_dot_com if you want me.

 

[Dave]

Kind of along the same lines...any of you Linux guys know of any other versions of Linux that will do the live cd option? I tried ubuntu, but was wanting to try Redhat or maybe a couple of the others before committing to one to have as a dual boot with XP.

BTW I have a 64 bit AMD processor in my laptop.