Which Linux distro for my HP Pavillion dv5200tx notebook?

[Blazkowicz]

This is the 1st time that I am going to install Linux on a laptop. The specs for HP Pavillion dv5200tx can be found here -
http://h50188.www5.hp.com/Store/default...lDetail.asp?modelid=5972&familyid=1122

I would like a distro having a decent number of bundled packages. Which distro would have maximum compaitability with my hardware?

Is OpenSuse 10.1 a good choice? I have found that Fedora Core 5 has problems with the WiFi adapter.

 

[drag]

Sure. Any recent version should work fine.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Get the DVD of Suse, you'll be able to install the ipw firmware package for your wireless card from it. Or if you're getting the cd set then make sure you get the add-on cd. Not sure how fedora handles the intel firmware.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Also is it advisable to go for Solaris 10 instead of Linux since it is fully POSIX compliant?

 

[TonyRic]

PCLinuxOS, great noob distro and will work just fine on your HP. Get .92 and you will be good to go.

 

[Nothinman]

Also is it advisable to go for Solaris 10 instead of Linux since it is fully POSIX compliant?

No, POSIX compliance is way overrated and I bet you'll have a helluva time getting your wifi working in Solaris if it's even possible. Do you even know why you would want POSIX compliance?

 

[Blazkowicz]

Not for drivers but for application compaitability.

 

[Nothinman]

Name me one app that relies soley on POSIX. Hell NT4 was POSIX compliant, but that doesn't mean it was actually useful.

I'm not trying to be a dick, but POSIX compatibility is overrated and means virtually nothing to end users. Most FOSS apps are written on Linux or a BSD so they have better chance of running on Linux than they do on Solaris. Using Solaris for 'compatibility' only makes sense if you're looking to run something like Oracle, otherwise you're just looking to give yourself a headache.

 

[thesix]

Originally posted by: Blazkowicz
Not for drivers but for application compaitability.

There're a few options:

1. Dual-boot Linux and Solaris
2. Linux as the host OS, Solaris as a VMware client. ( VMware server for Solaris will come soon, I suspect. )

and if you're adventurous:

3. Solaris as the host OS, Linux as BrandZ client.
4. Xen (I haven't seen it in action on either Linux or Solaris.)

Check out wireless networking for OpenSolaris and OpenSolaris Laptop community.

 

[thesix]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I'm not trying to be a dick, but POSIX compatibility is overrated and means virtually nothing to end users. Most FOSS apps are written on Linux or a BSD so they have better chance of running on Linux than they do on Solaris. Using Solaris for 'compatibility' only makes sense if you're looking to run something like Oracle, otherwise you're just looking to give yourself a headache.

Replace "POSIX" with "Open Standard" ( which it is ) and "Linux/BSD" with "Windows".
See what I mean?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: thesix

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I'm not trying to be a dick, but POSIX compatibility is overrated and means virtually nothing to end users. Most FOSS apps are written on Linux or a BSD so they have better chance of running on Linux than they do on Solaris. Using Solaris for 'compatibility' only makes sense if you're looking to run something like Oracle, otherwise you're just looking to give yourself a headache.

Replace "POSIX" with "Open Standard" ( which it is ) and "Linux/BSD" with "Windows".
See what I mean?

No.

 

[Nothinman]

Replace "POSIX" with "Open Standard" ( which it is ) and "Linux/BSD" with "Windows".

POSIX may be a standard, but it's not really open considering that IEEE charges for copies and won't let you publish them on the Internet. Single UNIX Specification (SUS) would probably be a better standard to aim for compatibility with.

 

[Blazkowicz]

The reason why I want to install Solaris is that I want to experience real UNIX instead of a UNIX like OS. Moreover Solaris does have good compaitability with Linux. The only obstacle maybe lack of drivers.

Now with opensolaris most linux apps will probably be ported to opensolaris kernel as well.

Since Windows will remain my primary OS(due to gaming) it would be interesting to try out Solaris since I have already tried Linux before.

 

[Nothinman]

IMO 'real UNIX' == pain, or at the very least extreme annoyance. All of the conveniences that are available in Linux (and to a lesser extent the BSDs) aren't there because 'real UNIX'es don't ship the GNU versions of their tools. Yes there's a lot of similarities because the GNU tools try to stay compatible, but there's also a lot of minor differences and they add up pretty quickly.

Now with opensolaris most linux apps will probably be ported to opensolaris kernel as well.

Why? Do you think just because something's released as OSS people will immediately flock to it? Hell the fact that Joerge Schilling is working on it is reason enough for me to avoid it. And on top of that the CDDL is incompatible with the GPL which makes it illegal for the OpenSolaris people to ship GPL'd binaries since their libc is CDDL. That means they pretty much can't ship any GPL'd binaries with OpenSolaris. They should be able to ship the source and let you build it yourself, but then you're back to the point where the base system sucks and you have to compile a ton of extra stuff after the base installation.

But go ahead and try it, no one's stopping you. Solaris on x86 is less of a bastard child than it used to be and Solaris experience isn't a bad thing. But if you're thinking about doing Solaris admin stuff it would be good to have some Sun hardware experience too, some familiarity with OBP is pretty important.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Only opensolaris kernel license is CDDL. I don't see why GPL applications can't be bundled. Infact NexentaOS an opensolaris distro has most GNU apps bundled. GNU tools like GCC are available for Solaris too. Many apps available for linux such as gimp are also available for solaris. Also native linux binaries can run on solaris 10.

 

[Nothinman]

Only opensolaris kernel license is CDDL. I don't see why GPL applications can't be bundled.

Everything in OpenSolaris is CDDL IIRC. And the problem is that the GPL isn't compatible with any license that has has addtional restrictions and the CDDL does just that. In order to link against a GPL'd library the apps linking must also be GPL, the LGPL was created to alleviate this problem.

Infact NexentaOS an opensolaris distro has most GNU apps bundled.

Yes and so far most Debian developers believe they're doing it illegally, it's just that no one has taken them to court over it yet.

GNU tools like GCC are available for Solaris too. Many apps available for linux such as gimp are also available for solaris. Also native linux binaries can run on solaris 10.

They're available yes, but they're on seperate discs and not shipped with Solaris.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: Blazkowicz
The reason why I want to install Solaris is that I want to experience real UNIX instead of a UNIX like OS.

The problem is that the "real" Unices tend to be more proprietary and teach you fewer transferrable skills than the BSD's and Linux. Unless you're specifically looking at a job that requires Solaris admin experience, you're going to end up learning a bunch of Solaris idiosyncracies that won't help you in the future. If you're looking for the best "generic UNIX" learning experience, I would recommend NetBSD or OpenBSD.

But you can get plenty out of Linux, too, especially if you stick to editing the text config files and understanding how things work at that level rather than rely on the vendor's distro specific tools (like Yast and such). The last time I checked out SuSe (which was several years ago), I thought it was really pretty bad for that kind of work - the system's infrastructure seemed to be meant for Yast and other high-level tools and not to be read directly by humans. Fedora, in my experience, is actually one of the best distro's around for this kind of learning purpose. Even though it has a bunch of wizard-like tools, the config files themselves are very straight-up, traditional config files. That is, all the complexity is built into the Fedora tools and not into the config files, where I felt that SuSe was exactly the opposite.

 

[drag]

Yep. There is a reason why SCO is pretty much dead and Solaris is dying. Oracle has more licenses sold to run on Redhat then anything else. That sort of thing. As far as industry goes it seems that Linux is the new unix. Or something like that.

POSIX, in my eyes is good because it gives people a sort of basic guideline to follow.. But realy it seems that the great equalizer as far as cross-platform goes has been the GNU project. I figure if you program for the GNU stuff and don't do stuff that is very hardware or driver specific or something like that, just general application stuff then you have a pretty high likelyhood of it working on any platform that GNU toolchain stuff supports (which is pretty much all of them) and your dependancies are aviable on.

Personally I think the best Linux distro for 'learning unix stuff' would be Slackware. It's tools are minimalistic and except for the init scripts pretty much anything you learn there will directly

But in this modern world of virtual machine environments there isn't much reason to restrict yourself to one or the other. I figure a nice desktop Linux would be nice.. Like Suse or probably more likely Ubuntu or Fedora. (core 5 is suppose to be pretty good stuff). Whatever is a nice environment for you, whatever you feel comfortable using. (could be Solaris I suppose. Whatever you want)

Then get Solaris, a Linux distro, and a couple BSD's installed on a VM of some sort. Whatever you want to check out. It's not expensive, all you realy need is just lots of RAM.

 

[Blazkowicz]

How about FreeBSD? Is it advisable to install it on notebooks?

 

[Nothinman]

How about FreeBSD? Is it advisable to install it on notebooks?

As advisable as any other OS. The installer's a little more of a PITA than most Linux ones, especially since the partitioning for BSD systems is different, but if you're careful and read through the documentation you should be fine.