Which Linux Distro For Me?

[MajorPayne]

Hi everyone, I have a question about which Linux distro to choose for a new system I am setting up. The system is going to be a computer to run out television from. I will NOT be playing games on it, at most, I will use it to learn more about Linux, play DVD's, and record TV. I have an ATI AllInWonder8500 for the videocard, a 10GB hard drive, 128MB of DDR, an older 1.7GHZ pentium 4, and a 802.11 G wireless card from Airlink.

I want to use this system to get familiar with Linux again (I have not used it at all in several years, and the last distro I had was redhat), as well as making it easy enough for my wife to play DVD's from, so a stable desktop environment and compatibility with the TV features of my video card are a must.

I downloaded and installed Debian 3.0 r4 last night, but I have not really had time to play with it yet. My question is, will Debian's distro work for what I am doing, or should I go with a different one. I am looking to re-familiarize myself with Linux, so I am not averse to distro's requiring an in-depth setup/config, but it MUST be easy on the end user (who will be my wife, when I am not home), or she will never let me hear the end of it . Also, links to download the recommended distros would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[CheapBastardo]

I am new to the world of linux. I just installed RedHat 9 and moving around linux is more complicated than I thought. Weird thing, I tried to set up DSL connection with eth0 then xDSL. I got connected to download Firefox, installed firefox, saved setting, restart computer, boot up again and now I can't activate my eth0 again.

I installed Ubuntu earlier, didn't like it.

 

[ColKurtz]

This question is asked and answered so many times you're likely to get faster answers by browsing and/or using the search function than by waiting for answers. Having said that:
Beginners should stick to: 1) Mankrake, 2) Suse, 3) Fedora Core 3, or 4) Ubuntu. Don't let anyone sway you to their particular botique pet distro. Plenty of time for that later. The 4 I mentioned have the best community support, and thus the best chance of finding answers if you have problems.

Stay away from Debian or Gentoo at first. If you're the type who wants a challenge, there's plenty to learn even in the "easy" distros. Stick to the command line if you're trying to learn.

* Mandrake is probably the most user-friendly and easy to set up. It's also the most "colorful" (SuSE a close 2nd), which might score points with the wife.
* SuSE and FC3 are also easy, and particulars of these distros are easily transferred to the corporate world. Go with one of these if you want to make money supporting Linux.
* Ubuntu is a Debian-based distro. You'll learn soon that the biggest difference b/t the distros is the package management system. Most of the popular distros use RPMs. Debian-based distros use DEB files. One is not better than the other, just know there are 2 warring camps. I would start out with an RPM-based distro at first (RPM's maybe a little easier to find) then install Ubuntu later to see the minor differences.

You could also try one of the Live based distros like Knoppix, which you just boot off of CD and don't actually install. Never used one myself, though.

Best (fastest) way to get the distros is off of Bittorrent.

Good luck.

 

[MajorPayne]

Originally posted by: ColKurtz
This question is asked and answered so many times you're likely to get faster answers by browsing and/or using the search function than by waiting for answers. Having said that:
Beginners should stick to: 1) Mankrake, 2) Suse, 3) Fedora Core 3, or 4) Ubuntu. Don't let anyone sway you to their particular botique pet distro. Plenty of time for that later. The 4 I mentioned have the best community support, and thus the best chance of finding answers if you have problems.

Stay away from Debian or Gentoo at first. If you're the type who wants a challenge, there's plenty to learn even in the "easy" distros. Stick to the command line if you're trying to learn.

* Mandrake is probably the most user-friendly and easy to set up. It's also the most "colorful" (SuSE a close 2nd), which might score points with the wife.
* SuSE and FC3 are also easy, and particulars of these distros are easily transferred to the corporate world. Go with one of these if you want to make money supporting Linux.
* Ubuntu is a Debian-based distro. You'll learn soon that the biggest difference b/t the distros is the package management system. Most of the popular distros use RPMs. Debian-based distros use DEB files. One is not better than the other, just know there are 2 warring camps. I would start out with an RPM-based distro at first (RPM's maybe a little easier to find) then install Ubuntu later to see the minor differences.

You could also try one of the Live based distros like Knoppix, which you just boot off of CD and don't actually install. Never used one myself, though.

Best (fastest) way to get the distros is off of Bittorrent.

Good luck.

After some research, I will probably go with either Mandrake or Fedora.... Both have a good community to support them, and seem like they would offer a stable desktop environment for my wife to work in. Are there any advantages to one over the other, or should I just try each one, and see which one I like best?

 

[Nothinman]

Ubuntu.

One is not better than the other, just know there are 2 warring camps. I would start out with an RPM-based distro at first (RPM's maybe a little easier to find) then install Ubuntu later to see the minor differences.

They're not warring camps, they're just two standards created around the same time and neither has a good reason to switch to the other. The only real difference is the fact that Debian packages are a lot harder to make than RPMs which is good and bad, good because it weeds out those not willing to put in the time to do it right and bad because less people are willing to put in the time to do it right.

And I would suggest starting out with Debian or Ubuntu, with them there's virtually no reason to look on the Internet for packages because just about everything is already packaged and available from the official mirrors.

 

[MajorPayne]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Ubuntu.

One is not better than the other, just know there are 2 warring camps. I would start out with an RPM-based distro at first (RPM's maybe a little easier to find) then install Ubuntu later to see the minor differences.

They're not warring camps, they're just two standards created around the same time and neither has a good reason to switch to the other. The only real difference is the fact that Debian packages are a lot harder to make than RPMs which is good and bad, good because it weeds out those not willing to put in the time to do it right and bad because less people are willing to put in the time to do it right.

And I would suggest starting out with Debian or Ubuntu, with them there's virtually no reason to look on the Internet for packages because just about everything is already packaged and available from the official mirrors.

That is part of the reason that I started with Debian. I liked that the majority of the packages are available (I just grabbed all 9 disks (!) worth, and installed from there). I will play around with it later tonight, and decide whether to keep it, or look at Mandrake, or possibly Fedora. I appreciate all of the info guys... I have not used Linux since RedHat 7, so I am kinda out of date!

 

[Nothinman]

If you try Debian again, don't waste bandwidth downloading all the discs. Just grab the Sarge netinstall disc and let it download the packages you need during the installation.

Ubuntu is basically Debian with a nicer default Gnome setup, if you enable the universe and multiverse repositories you'll have access to ~90% of the Debian packages in sarge.

 

[ColKurtz]

After some research, I will probably go with either Mandrake or Fedora.... Are there any advantages to one over the other

More focus has probably been given to Mandrake being accessible to non-techies, which I'm assuming your wife falls under. Since it sounds like your wife is an important factor here, I would probably go with Mandrake (2nd choice would be SuSE).

should I just try each one, and see which one I like best?

This is always the best way.

two standards created around the same time and neither has a good reason to switch to the other

That, my friend, sounds like the definition of "warring camps"

 

[JFoobar]

Originally posted by: ColKurtz
This question is asked and answered so many times you're likely to get faster answers by browsing and/or using the search function than by waiting for answers. Having said that:
Beginners should stick to: 1) Mankrake, 2) Suse, 3) Fedora Core 3, or 4) Ubuntu. Don't let anyone sway you to their particular botique pet distro. Plenty of time for that later. The 4 I mentioned have the best community support, and thus the best chance of finding answers if you have problems.

I believe that Xandros probably deserves a spot on that short list as well.

Traditionally, I have been recommending Suse for first-timers but after having played with Ubuntu for a little bit now, I am personally starting to lean towards recommending that one instead. Experience with older versions of Mandrake were not good for me. Easy install, difficult to make things work right. This was just my experience, however, and enough people really liked it that I am inclined to call my bad experiences atypical.

 

[Nothinman]

That, my friend, sounds like the definition of "warring camps"

So you consider the US and the rest of the world warring camps because we don't use the metric system? Probably not the best example, but we do still get along with some other countries =)

 

[MajorPayne]

Originally posted by: ColKurtz

After some research, I will probably go with either Mandrake or Fedora.... Are there any advantages to one over the other

More focus has probably been given to Mandrake being accessible to non-techies, which I'm assuming your wife falls under. Since it sounds like your wife is an important factor here, I would probably go with Mandrake (2nd choice would be SuSE).

should I just try each one, and see which one I like best?

This is always the best way.

two standards created around the same time and neither has a good reason to switch to the other

That, my friend, sounds like the definition of "warring camps"

Yeah, at this point, Mandrake 10.1 official looks like the distro I will go with. The current version is supposed to have addressed a lot of problems of past versions, and the ease of use factor is pretty high. I may dial boot with Ubuntu though, just so I have a different version to play with for a while before I decide.

 

[Brazen]

I am very happy with Fedora Core. I use it at home for a desktop and at work for a couple servers.

It's biggest advantage in my opinion is the yum tool. Go to fedorafaq.org and grab their yum.conf and import the gpg keys and you are all set (they explain how). Between all the repositories in their yum.conf, you can easily install anything and it is automatically kept up to date.

edit: well after running the commands "chkconfig yum on" and "service yum start" it will update your system automatically anyway.

 

[Slappy00]

Gentoo for teh win