Linux Distributions

[btsdev]

I know you've all already seen this type of thread a hundred times over, and I know I can read about this elsewhere, but I have been reading elsewhere and I would like some specific help with this if anyone has any time.

I currently have a dual-booting PC with Win2k/Red hat 8(purchased it boxed) which isn't working right now but will be soon (see another one of my threads ) -- and I have tried both KDE and Gnome on RH8 but I've found the GUI to be different than what I'm looking for; not sure what it is, but I'm not fond of them. I haven't gotten into linux much at all yet and I figure now would be a good time to taste a different distro, as I've heard plently of gnome/KDE bashing anyhow.

I'm looking for a distro that isn't RH that has good support, isn't ultra-intimidating to the new linux user, and tends to get the job done with nice features. I want to eventually get to the point where I only boot into my windows harddrive for gaming.

I've heard Debian's followers are elitist assholes according to another thread, whether that's true or not, so I want to stray from that. I've looked at Gentoo but this page of its setup looks, well, too hard for my liking -- building a kernel upon an OS install seems scary and unecessary. Anyone have some quick tips on a distro you think I'd like? Or care to change my mind on Debian/Gentoo/RH? Sorry for the long post but thanks a bunch in advance if you have any knowledge to impart my way.

 

[btsdev]

Also, what's a nice desktop-enhancement app to make the desktop look cool?

 

[Nothinman]

I've heard Debian's followers are elitist assholes according to another thread, whether that's true or not, so I want to stray from that

The people who maintain the software shouldn't be the sole reason you don't use the software, christ would anyone use Windows if they followed that logic? And as I've said in other threads, I have yet to run into these assholes and I've been using Debian for ~4 years.

 

[btsdev]

ok a vote for debian
anyone else with an idea? what should i stay away from?
thinking my possible list is: ~slackware, mandrake, debian, red hat, gentoo, SuSE
thanks

 

[darktubbly]

thinking my possible list is: ~slackware, mandrake, debian, red hat, gentoo, SuSE

Slackware is nice and fast and gets the job done. I had it running for a while, and the only fault I could find was its lack of easy updating.

Mandrake would be my first choice if you didn't want to use RedHat (which is sluggish anyway). It's very user friendly, has a great updating system, and works nicely with a dual boot setup.

Gentoo's a nice learning system, but probably not for first-timers, or for those people who need something set up right this minute. Once you do get it set up though, updates are drop dead simple.

I used Debian for a little while too, and it worked great. Lots of updates, tons of packages, etc. etc. Unfortunately, something got messed up and it refused to download packages any more, so I went back to Slackware.

So there ya go. To be honest, once you slap a GUI environment on there, it won't matter what distro you run.

 

[Knightlife]

I used Slackware first, but like someone said before it was hard to keep maintained as well as I'd like. Most of my friends either run Gentoo or Debian. I personally prefer Debian because it's easy to use and maintain, and I'm a Linux novice. I've heard Gentoo can be more of a pain to maintain. If you're in the same boat as me where you want/need to use linux but want it to be fairly easy, go with Debian. I don't know where you heard the elite @$$ stuff.

 

[civad]

I've heard Debian's followers are elitist assholes according to another thread, whether that's true or not, so I want to stray from that.

Great! So now I am an elitist #$@#@%.

Try Vectorlinux. It uses ICEWM/XFCE. Nice and simple distro. Based on Slackware.

 

[Jonitus]

ALT Linux

Based off of Mandrake (uses Mandrake's installer, but gives a little better control to the installation). Uses APT for packages, so dependency issues are few and far between. A very good distro for the newcomer that likes an easy to configure system without rpm hell.

ASP Linux

Based off of RedHat. Has a nice installer, does very well with hardware (not as good as ALT or Mandrake). Uses rpm for package management, so the dependency issues can still crop up.


There are lots more distros out there than the biggies, that are just as good, but maybe don't get the exposure. Maybe one of these two will fit your need.

 

you could always try SuSe...thats what I currently use. Updating is easy and you can still play around with tons of stuff...learn that then move on to gentoo or something more advanced...at least, thats what i would like to do.

 

[Haden]

Originally posted by: btsdev
Also, what's a nice desktop-enhancement app to make the desktop look cool?

You can try [Super]Karamba (weather, news etc. on desktop),
playing video/tv instead of wallpaper looks cool too,
using xrootconsole(s) to display importand logs about system on desktop is convenient.

I find Debian users very helpfull, you just don't need to contact project leaders to ask some offtopic questions

 

[NuclearFusi0n]

I recommend Gentoo with the 2.6 kernel and the XFCE4 desktop environment. I use it.

just follow the guide step by step, replacing the kernel steps with kernel 2.6 if you want, and you should be good to go. It took me a few install tries to get the hang of, but when I finally got it right, I was amazed by how much gentoo kicks ass.
I'll be glad to help you out with gentoo if you want, AIM is in the signature, PM is fine too.

 

[Flatline]

I usually recommend that people start off with Mandrake (ALT is nice too) as urpmi does a pretty good job of dealing with dependency hell; SuSE is also a good noob distro, and RedHat with apt-rpm works pretty well (although noticably sluggish next to other distros). Mandrake also comes with most of the major desktop environments and window managers (KDE, Gnome, blackbox, evolution, icewm, xfce, etc.) and I recommend you try them all; if you want a cool-looking desktop that's different from the norm, it's surprising how customizable evolution can be. You can use graphical tools to start off with for configuration and move to config files whenever you feel you're ready with any of the distros listed above (Mandrake's graphical tools may be a bit more mature than most, but I haven't tried out SuSE 8.2 yet).
Once you have a good idea of what's going on under the hood, Slack or Debian (and for some people, Gentoo) would be the next logical step.

 

[Nothinman]

I recommend Gentoo with the 2.6 kernel and the XFCE4 desktop environment. I use it.

I'm still pissed that 2.4.21 and 2.6.0 can't have the IDE system built as a module, well it builds but you can't load it because of circular dependencies.

 

[tyanni]

NOW, I know that this will foster some disagreement amongst people here. But I don't really think that one should use linux if they don't want to play around with it a bit. It seems to me that the whole fun of linux is that you can compile things for your architecture, or customize your desktop how you see fit. Whats the point of putting linux on a machine if you just throw KDE on it so it looks exactly like XP? If you aren't looking to play with it a bit, and find it too intimidating, btsdev, then maybe linux isn't for you, especially if you have XP already. I don't mean to be condescending, this is just my opinion..

Tim

 

[btsdev]

tyanni: no, no. i definetly want to move over to linux -- i want to step away from windows and have an OS which i can really customize and get to the core of, and do powerful stuff. i don't want to use windows. i hate how xp looks and feels and how xp wants to spoon-feed me. i use win2k if its any better atm because i play games, and well, i was brought up on windows. i hope it's understandable that compiling a kernel as the first or second linux task for a windows user appears and is daunting: but i'm just starting out.

i'm installing gentoo 1.4 right now based on everyone's comments. i started last night actually and ran the emerge sync before i went to sleep. going to finish it tonight and read ugu, tldp; heavily. i did a stage3 install.

thanks everyone.

 

[btsdev]

Would you guys recommend for or against going with KDE with the gentoo install?

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

Are you using the 1.4 final ISO? (which architecture? i686, or AthlonXP?)
If you are using 1.4 final and i686, then install KDE from GRP (in the docs). Otherwise, emerge fluxbox for now, and when you go to bed/work, emerge kde.

 

[Vadatajs]

Originally posted by: btsdev
Would you guys recommend for or against going with KDE with the gentoo install?

I use kde on gentoo. I would recommend it if you plan on using gentoo as your main os.

 

[Nothinman]

<3 Enlightenment.

 

[xcript]

FluxBox all the way.

I was also quite impressed with XFce 4.0-RC2 (emerged it on a friends laptop yesterday). It's lightweight, but includes a file manager, etc.

Later.. :beer:

 

[pitupepito2000]

Well it seems that you are having a little trouble deciding which window manager to use, I would recommend you to burn a cd of knoppix, which is a bootable linux cd, meaning you can boot from the cd and have a complete linux distribution and it won't install anything to the hard drive. When you are booting you can choose which window manager you want to use with it. It provides a lot of window managers that you can use such as KDE, Gnome, XFC, Fluxbox and many more.

By burning this cd and trying them you can choose which one is the best for you.

I hope this helps,
pitupepito

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
<3 Enlightenment.

No more Window Maker?

 

[Nothinman]

No more Window Maker?

It had a really annoying focus bug with GTK2 apps, when I looked around for info there was no fix or even a "I'm looking into it" so I looked for a replacement. Of course a few weeks later a fix was made, but I've already got E setup and even though it's 3 year old code it still kicks ass.

 

[EmperorRob]

the new xfce4 is looking pretty sweet.

I also vote Debian.

 

[civad]

Icewm (actually I prefer XFCE..)