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New Dell 420SC for my sister - linux/windows?

C

crimson117

Platinum Member
I'm thinking of giving my sister a dual-boot dell 420SC linux/windows pc for xmas.

What's a good distro for a new user of linux, a new linux sysadmin (me, so easier to install the better), and for dual booting with Win98?
 
Ooh, good point... but one of the config options is "Red Hat Linux ES 3.0", so I presume at least Fedora would support it?
 
I am in the process of setting up an old Gateway computer for my sister-in-law, which will dual-boot between Mandrake 10.1 and WinME (I know, I know, but it came with the computer). Mandrake will hopefully be her most used, but WinME will be for any "off-the-shelf" software she wants.

For ease of install, Mandrake is one of, if not the easiest.
 
Isn't the 420 a PCI Express machine? Does the current linux kernel even support that?
Click to expand...

Yes, Intel has been doing heavy work on getting PCI Express support in the kernel. I can't personally vouch for it's reliability though and you would probably need a distro with a pretty recent kernel.
 
Slackware 10.1 (or current whish is stable enough) with the proper tools for (swaret + Kswaret) coupled by a customized kernel, Dropline Gnome and gdm.

Easy enough once installed. Install Ximian OO with it and use wine for win-compability, which programs that are not possible to run on Linux does she really need?
 
Actually I prefer Fedora Core 3, right now. I installed it just a bit ago and it's been pretty rock stable (with a little exception of a O😵rg/myODBC/MySQL interaction trouble.). So far it seems the best Fedora Core yet.

Also 100% free software, too.(by linux standards) 😉 And it was released just a bit ago, so if any distro would support it Fedora Core 3 would. But then again the brand-newness can work against you.

Although many people seem to have great luck with Mandrake for new users. Very user friendly and it's able to do things like support certain wireless cards or play mp3's that Fedora won't provide by default for semi-legal reasons. (can install third party packages from 3rd party repositories though.)
 
Originally posted by: Klixxer
which programs that are not possible to run on Linux does she really need?
Click to expand...
Probably nothing, mayyybe MS Office, but then again she currently uses her roommate's windows computer, so if something windows-only does come up she could always go back to her roommate's computer for that task.

Dang I wish this thing had an AGP slot, though.
 
You can get certain versions of MS Office working in Linux using Wine. But unless she needs it for a class or something then OpenOffice.org does everything it does and their is other office suites to choose from. (O😵rg is just the most famous/ms Office compatable)
 
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