Want to install Linux, not sure which distro to use

[kitkit201]

Hey all

I'm mainly going to use it for school work and stuff, but i need it also to work with my current setup.. i have everything in my sig and

VIKING WINMODEM
PROMISE ULTRA 66 CTRL CARD
SOHOWARE NIC
USB MS MOUSE
ZIP 100

I'm thinking that the biggest problem for me is the video card and modem, but im not really sure how to set these up.. any help linux gurus??

 

[jkdude]

Red Hat 7.0 is what i use and would recommend to you...

 

[Tiger]

The winmodem will not work.
The USB mouse probably will not work right out of the box.
The ethernet card may get detected during the install, but may need some tweaking depending on the chipset.
The vid card will probably be detected during install, but may need drivers depending on the version of X installed.
The promise controller probably will not work for the install. You can install off of the mobo IDE ports then bring the promise on line after some tweaking.

If you're going to dual boot go to,

Linuxnewbie.org and read the NHF's about the subject before you try it.

 

[BOFH]

with RH 7 the mouse should work out of the box and the voodoo card will work fine.

 

[kitkit201]

anyone know where i can get a distro of rh7 at?? will i be able to use 3dfx, glide and opengl on games?? how about the tv tuner ??

 

[BOFH]

check redhat.com for mirrors

the 3dfx works with games fine once its setup. there are a couple how-tos out there on that. there is a some support from bttv for the tuner I think and I know there is a project at sourceforge for it. try searching freshmeat.net

 

[Changlinn]

here in australia you can get it from pc mags... But yeah your win modem won't work there are experimental win modem drivers for linux but they sux, one of my freinds installed one and linux wouldn't boot anymore...

 

[kitkit201]

well i also have a 56k external usr modem serial, will that work??

 

[BOFH]

checking the lists at www.linux-usb.org for specific devices is what I would do.

 

[random]

The winmodem MAY work if it's got the Lucent LT chipset and if you're running a 2.2.x kernel.

I have it bookmarked (friend has one) so if you reply, I can
insert the URL (not at home computer right now)

Video card will work fine.

For USB you will probably want the 2.4 kernel.

The external modem will work fine.

 

[kitkit201]

can you give me the link random?? thanks!!

 

[BOFH]

guessing, but its probably linmodems.org. also 2.2 now supports almost all the usb devices that 2.4 does. the RH 7 kernel does this also

 

[random]

The link I was looking for with step-by-step type instructions can be found here:

http://walbran.org/sean/linux/linmodem-howto-all.html

Another good link is here: (go to the bottom) http://808hi.com/56k/ltwin3.htm

 

[MGMorden]

you can get those lt winmodem drivers to work on 2.4 kernels too (I've done it). Just look for the patched version by a guy named marco (don't remember if that's the first or last name, but there's a marco in there).

(EDIT)
decided to upload it to my webpage. get the 2.4-able version here
A little bit of effort is required to get it working, but I've done it with 2.4.0 and Slackware 7.1. I haven't tried compiling on 2.4.1 yet but it should be the same.

 

[bUzzbOmb]

I have run Slackware, Redhat, Suse, and Mandrake.

Currently I have Mandrake on 3 systems and it works really well.
It has proven reliable in recognizing and configuring all of my hardware which is generally older. I love some of the new features. It is much slicker and at least for me has been as stable as Redhat. A friend of mine had no problems setting up USB peripherals eg. mice and such for his laptop.
If you want a very Nice version of Linux then give Mandrake a try. Definately Give It a Try before You Settle On Anything!!!

Mandrake Linux

I used to use Redhat before the conversion to Mandrake.
I used 4.1, 5.0, 5.1, 6.0, and 6.2.
All were fairly nice and comfortable to use. Redhat has really good solid performance and was fairly stable. I had my network up and running for 8 months without any major crashes or lockups.
I think it is pretty intuitive too.

Unfortunately I haven't used Slackware in forever. I put it on my machine in 1996 and it was really archaic then.
A challenge. I can't say what it is like now.

 

[GT1999]

SuSe because everybody says it rocks and it looks hella cool.

Slackware because I'm using it now and can say it's very stable and doesn't install all of the crap Mandrake does.

FreeBSD because it's supposed to be one of the finest UNIX variants out there.

I've heard nothing but good things about RH6/7.

 

[Beowulf]

I have used Mandrake 7 before and liked it dont know how 7.2 is though

 

[earthman]

I have been fooling around with Mandrake 7.2 and I am pretty disappointed, its really buggy. Both KDE and Gnome have errors and glitches. I have Red Hat 7.0 as well, and I don't know that its much better. I don't consider any of the current Linux distributions to be especially stable, and they all install tons of crap you don't need...I wish someone would make a stripped down Linux with out excessive features and hundreds of redundant apps, kind of in the mold of BeOS. Too bad BeOS has no power apps to run on it, or I would use it more.

 

[MGMorden]

Earthman: Slackware doesn't install very much unneeded stuff, and all the stuff you don't want you can turn off in large groups (like just unchecking KDE and/or Gnome, and if you're me Xfree86, since I always get the latest from xfree86.org).

 

[BOFH]

Debian is also quite a nice minimal distro. I tend to use it for most of my servers

 

[MGMorden]

Sorry, forgot about Debian. It's great too (was my first distro). I just haven't used it in a while. Going from Mandrake -> Slackware a few months back though has gotten me all hyped up on the minimal distros (I'd recommend any serious Linux user go with one after they "learn the ropes". you get a lot more control over your system).

 

[kitkit201]

okay thanks everyone for their advice!!~!! =) ill install it next time i have free time, like during spring break hehe thanks!!

 

[Tiger]

I didn't mean to toss out so much negativity but I was looking at this from a new users point of view. How many "newbies" are going to have the knowlege or patience to install drivers and configure them right out of the shoot? I think this is why there are a lot of former Linux users. Linux is a great OS but it's not Windows in that support for cutting edge peripherals lags about 6 months, if not longer as in the case of the winmodems.

I've used RH 5.0, 5.2, 6.0. Mandrake 6.0, and 7.2.
Earthman is right, there is something wrong with MD 7.2. MD 6.0 leaves it in the dust. The boot time for MD 7.2 on the same machine just about doubled. KDE 2.x is slower than KDE 1.x.x. I also found the graphical install to be a large PITA, took too long to go through and dump the redundant stuff.

RH and Mandrake are great distro's for the new user in that they take a lot of the hair pulling and teeth gnashing out of getting a system installed and working.

I've moved on to Debian 2.2r2 and apt-get is worth the price of admission. Debian doesn't install a bunch of redundant software to begin with, it lets you decide what to install to begin with then use apt-get to go get the other stuff you may want.

 

[MGMorden]

Support does lag (sometimes, sometimes not), but it's getting much, much better. It wasn't too long back that you'd have to buy specific components that had drivers already or there was a good chance that there would never be drivers. Now just about everything that comes out will have drivers with a few months, and companies are actually starting to either fund driver creation (ATi) or do it themselves (Nvidia). I'll agree that Linux isn't quite ready for the average user yet, but in a bout a year, maybe two it will be just as easy (and have a level of hardware support close to) as Windows. KDE has made HUGE strides in this department and I can say that they will likely be one of the most driving forces getting Linux to the capable hands of the average computer user. Gnome is great for those who like it (and I do occasionally use it) but the only real advantage I see it having over KDE is that of philosophy. Sure it's more GNU (b/c it doesn't use QT, a partially proprietary toolkit), but it's not as quick, not as purdy, and in the end just more of a hassle to setup (though I always have to do it b/c of Gnome apps that I use such as Pan).