To Linux or Not To Linux

[sw33p0r]

I'm interested in purchasing Linux but am wondering which distribution to get (Mandrake, RedHat, SuSE and so on). Based on my hardware which would be the most compatible, and easier of to use. Also will it effect my current Windows installation, do I need to put it on a different partition?

 

[zzzz]

Before purchasing, just try different distros. You can download and burn CD of any distribution. mandrake linux in general has a wide range of hardware suport and its easy to use. If you have enough free space on a disk, the madrake installer will partition itself. Otherwise, you might have to use a tool like partition magic. When I installed Mandrake on my machine, it recognised my win 98, me and 2k OS's and put a nice option to boot into them via lilo so that you don't have to use a 3 party boot manager( I use boot magic anyway).

 

[Wizkid]

Yeah, try mandrake

 

[DAM]

vote for mandrake, ive heard nothing but good things bout it, although i personally like suse but oh well.






dam()

 

[Blayze]

I recommend Mandrake
I have used version 7 and 7.1 and its great
was very good for my "newbie" linux skills

 

[err]

You Don;t need to purchase any linux, just download it from the Internet. If you go to any distributor's website, they will have a link to download the current version of Linux.

err

 

[Wallysaurus]

sw33p0r,
My vote is for Mandrake 7.1 but Caldera iss also easy to install. Like they said you can download it or if you don't have broadband you can go to the following site and buy several distros cheaply.
Try this


Sorry I can't get the exact page to linkify.

 

[ERJ]

Mandrake 7.1 is good.

Just installed the new Red Hat 7.0 though and I like it. The new Gnome is pretty cool and it installs XFree 4.01 by default (I had some big problems trying to upgrade from 3.6 to 4.01 before).

ERJ

 

[cptnwinky]

mandrake is best. but keep windows on the system to dual boot for a while if it's your main system and/or you don't know enough about linux to do anything with it, but yes, it does need to be in a separate partition. don't feel bad if you don't know anything about linux, there aren't very many people who have reached a level of knowledge that's high enough to do a whole lot with linux, though, so you should either buy a book or find a guru(or group thereof, kinda like this) whose brain you can pick. i did both and i still don't know much, but then, i'm dumb, so you might have better results. good luck