UnOfficial "Which Linux Distro for me?" thread

[Frightcrawler]

This thread should be Official, not Unofficial!

 

[KeyserSoze]

Ok, here's my noobness question. I have a 1 gig, w/ 512 mb of RAM. Probably going to have to put an old 8 gig drive (5400rmp, ugh.) on the system. What would you all reccomend? What I'd like is to have a fully functional GUI system so I can at LEAST get whatever I need to done. But then obviously, I will take plenty of time to learn the backend/architecture of Linux. I wil be installing this on an old Dell Dimension 4100.

Thanx. And someone better answer.....dont' make me start a new thread on this





KeyserSoze

 

[MonstaThrilla]

Originally posted by: KeyserSoze
Ok, here's my noobness question. I have a 1 gig, w/ 512 mb of RAM. Probably going to have to put an old 8 gig drive (5400rmp, ugh.) on the system. What would you all reccomend? What I'd like is to have a fully functional GUI system so I can at LEAST get whatever I need to done. But then obviously, I will take plenty of time to learn the backend/architecture of Linux. I wil be installing this on an old Dell Dimension 4100.

Thanx. And someone better answer.....dont' make me start a new thread on this

A Debian-based distro. Debian, Knoppix, or Libranet.

 

[KeyserSoze]

Originally posted by: MonstaThrilla

Originally posted by: KeyserSoze
Ok, here's my noobness question. I have a 1 gig, w/ 512 mb of RAM. Probably going to have to put an old 8 gig drive (5400rmp, ugh.) on the system. What would you all reccomend? What I'd like is to have a fully functional GUI system so I can at LEAST get whatever I need to done. But then obviously, I will take plenty of time to learn the backend/architecture of Linux. I wil be installing this on an old Dell Dimension 4100.

Thanx. And someone better answer.....dont' make me start a new thread on this

A Debian-based distro. Debian, Knoppix, or Libranet.

Thank you very much. I've been racking my brain trying to decide which distro to go with, and now....I have my answer.



KeyserSoze

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: KeyserSoze

Originally posted by: MonstaThrilla

Originally posted by: KeyserSoze
Ok, here's my noobness question. I have a 1 gig, w/ 512 mb of RAM. Probably going to have to put an old 8 gig drive (5400rmp, ugh.) on the system. What would you all reccomend? What I'd like is to have a fully functional GUI system so I can at LEAST get whatever I need to done. But then obviously, I will take plenty of time to learn the backend/architecture of Linux. I wil be installing this on an old Dell Dimension 4100.

Thanx. And someone better answer.....dont' make me start a new thread on this

A Debian-based distro. Debian, Knoppix, or Libranet.

Thank you very much. I've been racking my brain trying to decide which distro to go with, and now....I have my answer.



KeyserSoze

Pick up a bigger hard drive. They're cheap now.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Frightcrawler
This thread should be Official, not Unofficial!

Something better *might* be in the works.

 

[HondaF1]

How many people here use Knoppix. I am a newbie at Linux, and have tried severl distros. But KNoppix just confuses me. I mean, I understand that it can be used as a rescue os and it can also be installed permanently on the hard drive. But it is claimed to be more of a linux demo os or something. Anyone here use it mainly as a main os? Or, do people commonly use this os as their main os?

 

[pitupepito2000]

Hi HondaF1,

Knoppix is a gret distro, it's based of debian, meaning that you can use apt-get which is debian's package manager. I have installed debian in a hdd too. Knoppix most useful feature is that it can be run off the cd. Why would I want to run Knoppix from the CD, where I could install knoppix, or any other distro my hdd. Knoppix is not as fast because packages get uncompressed right there. Also you're settings are gone the next time you reboot (I know I could save them to a floppy or something, but if I do that I may as well just install it in hdd).

Knoppix is more than a linux demo, because it's a complete linux distribution, it has everything a full distro has, and by that I mean it has a whole bunch of different pacakges and programs that you can use. I personally always have 3 copies of knoppix in different places because sometimes when I go somewhere, and I take a whole bunch of photos I can just load knoppix and download photos to hdd, and then email them to myself, everything using knoppix.

I'm not sure if I answered your question, but at least I gave it a shot.

Good luck,
pitupepito

 

[lucky9]

I've been running Mepis for about a year. The latest version is SimplyMepis 2004.02

It's a Live CD and has a four or five click HD installation. If you're running Broadband it comes up with it operative. It's Debian based and therefore very easily updated or upgraded. KDE is the default Window Manager. If you choose to install to the HD it takes less than 30 minutes. Hardware detection is great. Community support is great. Try MepisLovers.com for a taste of that.

 

[SinNisTeR]

Im looking into getting a laptop. id like to know which laptops have the greatest linux support for hardware. or vice versus, which linux distro would be best to install on a laptop? ive heard so many things about the wireless not working, or touch pad, input slots, firewire, etc etc etc! does anyone know of a linux page for linux-notebook n00bs? thanks!

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: SinNisTeR
Im looking into getting a laptop. id like to know which laptops have the greatest linux support for hardware. or vice versus, which linux distro would be best to install on a laptop? ive heard so many things about the wireless not working, or touch pad, input slots, firewire, etc etc etc! does anyone know of a linux page for linux-notebook n00bs? thanks!

linux-on-laptops
tuxmobil (specifically this

Those are just two I found in a very quick search.

 

[pitupepito2000]

Originally posted by: SinNisTeR
Im looking into getting a laptop. id like to know which laptops have the greatest linux support for hardware. or vice versus, which linux distro would be best to install on a laptop? ive heard so many things about the wireless not working, or touch pad, input slots, firewire, etc etc etc! does anyone know of a linux page for linux-notebook n00bs? thanks!

Linux and laptops can get along very well and sometimes even better than with windows . The trick to buying a laptop for linux is to make sure that your hardware has support in linux. Otherwise you'll have to wait around for development and drivers to be made for your specific hardware. Linux is becoming more common on laptops than it used to be. Now youc can get laptops from IBM and HP in which you can choose your OS (either windows or a linux distro), and these laptops have hardware that is most of the time supporte on linux (but always double check ). Here's a couple of links about linux and laptops. If you want my personal opinions I like the new thinkpads and linux, I have heard so many good things about them.

http://www.linux-laptop.net/
http://www-1.ibm.com/linux/

 

[esun]

Originally posted by: HondaF1
How many people here use Knoppix. I am a newbie at Linux, and have tried severl distros. But KNoppix just confuses me. I mean, I understand that it can be used as a rescue os and it can also be installed permanently on the hard drive. But it is claimed to be more of a linux demo os or something. Anyone here use it mainly as a main os? Or, do people commonly use this os as their main os?

I'm mostly a Linux newbie (I've installed SuSE, RedHat, and Slackware before, but never really got into any distro for more than a few weeks). Knoppix I just recently installed and I am extremely impressed. It is very easy to install, and is a full-featured OS. I could easy use it as my main OS if I didn't need certain Windows apps (like Matlab) for some of my classes.

To give you an idea of how to install it, you boot with the Knoppix 3.6 CD in the drive, when it prompts you it's probably best to type F2/F3 and find the command to load it using the latest kernel (it defaults to 2.4, but you can tell it to use 2.6.7). Once it's done booting after that, then open up a command prompt, type knoppix-installer, and just follow the instructions (you have to know how to partition and some other basic things, but it's very easy). Then, you let it install, and once the files are done copying you can reboot straight into Knoppix. It's probably the easiest, quickest OS installation I've ever done.

Once you boot into it, it is recommended that you open a terminal and type "apt-get update" and "apt-get upgrade", which will update and upgrade everything you've got just like that (literally, you just type it in and it does the rest). It's really an amazing system.

 

[SinNisTeR]

Originally posted by: esun

Originally posted by: HondaF1
How many people here use Knoppix. I am a newbie at Linux, and have tried severl distros. But KNoppix just confuses me. I mean, I understand that it can be used as a rescue os and it can also be installed permanently on the hard drive. But it is claimed to be more of a linux demo os or something. Anyone here use it mainly as a main os? Or, do people commonly use this os as their main os?

I'm mostly a Linux newbie (I've installed SuSE, RedHat, and Slackware before, but never really got into any distro for more than a few weeks). Knoppix I just recently installed and I am extremely impressed. It is very easy to install, and is a full-featured OS. I could easy use it as my main OS if I didn't need certain Windows apps (like Matlab) for some of my classes.

To give you an idea of how to install it, you boot with the Knoppix 3.6 CD in the drive, when it prompts you it's probably best to type F2/F3 and find the command to load it using the latest kernel (it defaults to 2.4, but you can tell it to use 2.6.7). Once it's done booting after that, then open up a command prompt, type knoppix-installer, and just follow the instructions (you have to know how to partition and some other basic things, but it's very easy). Then, you let it install, and once the files are done copying you can reboot straight into Knoppix. It's probably the easiest, quickest OS installation I've ever done.

Once you boot into it, it is recommended that you open a terminal and type "apt-get update" and "apt-get upgrade", which will update and upgrade everything you've got just like that (literally, you just type it in and it does the rest). It's really an amazing system.

they have matlab for linux....

 

[esun]

they have matlab for linux....

Very true, I just saw this in the list of software at the top of this thread. I don't have a copy, though, only one for Windows , so Windows stays for now.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

tt

 

[dragonballgtz]

Sticky worthy. Yes pa!

 

[lucky9]

You might want to try SimplyMepis 2004.03

It has a graphical installer with a partitioner and is a 3 or 4 click install then a configuration section that brings up a working system including network/cable/internet in about 15 to 20 minutes.