I'm confused on which distro to use.

[imported_sphinx]

I know this has been asked alot in this forum as well as others. But, I am confused on which distro to use. At first I was going to use SUSE, but their hardware compatibility list aren't as informative as I thought. I plan on running a:

Intel P4 3ghz
ASUS P4c800
Nvidia Card
Creative Soundcard (if on board audio is not supported)
I am still looking at CD/DVD drives

This is it, basically I just want a fast and stable platform to run a linux distro. I don't plan on running any games in this box, just office apps and the internet. I am thinking that the P4 3ghz is a bit of an overkill. Any and all recommendations are welcome and appreciated.

 

[Frew]

Text

 

[TwoBills]

I like Fedora Core, but that's just because that's the one that I was able to get to work. I'm a total noob when it comes to Linux, and maybe computers in general, so if that's the case for you then let me recommend a book: "Linux for Non Geeks". It comes with Fedora Core 1 and it got me started. I've still got a long way to go, but I'm up and running. All my hardware was detected and I got online, thru my router, in an hour or two.

 

[Zelmo3]

Let me second what TwoBills said. A good book with a good distro included is an excellent way to start on Linux. Fedora Core 1 is good stuff. The only trouble I've had with it is that the default kernel doesn't have NTFS support turned on, so dual-booting with WinNT or XP requires some tweaking if you plan to share files between the two OSes.

I've been in love with SuSE since I first laid eyes on it, but I don't think you can get it bundled with a good newbie book. The latest version has excellent hardware support, even auto-detects and configures SB Audigy 2 cards. Any onboard sound should work easily with any distro, and Nvidia is easy enough to get working with any distro but can't be supported out-of-the-box by anybody (at least not with accelerated 3-D drivers). You just have to download the official drivers.

 

[Zepper]

Novell just gave away tons of "evaluation" copies of SUSE 9.2 Pro - I'm sure you can find someone to fix you up.

Pay a visit to http://www.budgetlinuxcds.com and go wild. Get a copy of Mepis (simply) which is Debian based and Lorma (Fedora based) with the enhancement CD. A very low cost way to get your feet wet. Or if you have a broadband internet connection, just DL (directly from http://www.mepis.org and http://linux.lorma.edu) and burn the ISOs yourself.
.hb.

Where's the :sun: ?

 

[imported_sphinx]

Thanks to you all for replying. I have decided to go out and get the book with the distro.

 

[tfinch2]

www.linuxiso.org

i like SuSE 9.1. set-up was very straight forward and everything almost works. no OpenGL with an ATI mobility gpu, but that's ATI's fault. i'm sure there is a fix but i wish the driver's were as easy to use as nvidia's.

 

[imported_sphinx]

I just wanted to update on my previous response. I have to decided to use Gentoo. Anyone ever used Gentoo. Is it a good distro.

 

[n0cmonkey]

There is an OS forum, and this gets answered frequently.

The gentoo documentation is supposed to be pretty good. Some people try to discourage newbies from using it because it can be difficult. Just do some research ahead of time, and you should be ok.

 

[buleyb]

Originally posted by: tfinch2
"and everything almost works."

Best linux sales pitch ever...



My advice is Fedora for easiest to use, but if you want to learn linux, get the hardest, most uncooperative distro you can, because you'll learn enough in an hour with another PC and google than you will running any wizard interfaces from the major distros