Which Linux?

[joohang]

:Q:Q:Q

So yeah. I decided to install Linux. I plan to run a web server and use it to learn some Python and maybe Ruby. It will be for development and testing only.

I have an old P166 machine with 96MB EDO RAM and a 2.5 GB HD and a spare 4.3 GB HD if I need more space. Which Linux is good for a n00b and to set it up to do what I want to do without a huge learning curve? I don't mind spending time learning new things, but I don't want to dedicate myself to study Linux as I have other things to learn this summer.

So which distro do you recommend? And which software shall I install (doesn't necessarily have to be free as long as it's reasonably priced and good for what I want to do) on it?

If P166 is too slow, I can always get a new motherboard for my spare Duron. 😀 Which motherboard/chipset shall I get for good Linux support?

Thanks. 🙂

 

[joohang]

Well I just spent some time reading through older threads and OpenBSD looks interesting. Can I run Linux apps on OpenBSD? Are there any nice IDEs and compilers for Python in OpenBSD?

 

[notfred]

Redhat 7.3 is easy to set up, works well, and is widely supported. I've been using redhat since version6 and have been happy with it.

Software: Mozilla 1.0, KDE 3, all the standard stuff, like your python interpreter. As far as "good for what I want to do", well, all you mentioned was python and ruby...

get the duron, a 166 is too slow for any modern OS w/ a GUI.

 

[silverpig]

I've got a P200 MMX with 96 EDO and a 2 gig drive that I was messing with too. I just use linux-mandrake on it, as it's very easy to get set up and running. I have SuSE on my main computer, but that's a bit more involved. Just start up with mandrake until you get used to linux, try a few things manually in it, and once you get comfortable, then switch...

 

[joohang]

LinuxNewbie.org

Forgot that I had this site bookmarked. 😀

 

[joohang]

Originally posted by: notfred
Redhat 7.3 is easy to set up, works well, and is widely supported. I've been using redhat since version6 and have been happy with it.

Software: Mozilla 1.0, KDE 3, all the standard stuff, like your python interpreter. As far as "good for what I want to do", well, all you mentioned was python and ruby...

get the duron, a 166 is too slow for any modern OS w/ a GUI.

Thanks. Is nForce good for Linux? 🙂

Yeah. That pretty much covers what I want to do. I will have a second machine next to me or maybe use something similar to VNC or open a terminal to use the computer remotely on one of my monitors off Windows.

 

[silverpig]

The P166 will be fine if you run a light GUI environment like IceWM or something. I just used that to set up the firewall and routing, and a few other things, then rebooted into command line mode, unhooked the monitor, and let her sit. If I need to do anything, I just remote login with SSH.

If you can get a cheap mobo (try ncix, although I'm sure you know about them), pretty much anything will do. I've run intel and via-amd setups with linux and it has all run fine. The duron will definitely be a nice speed boost though, and it'll allow for some more options.

 

[joohang]

Originally posted by: silverpig
I've got a P200 MMX with 96 EDO and a 2 gig drive that I was messing with too. I just use linux-mandrake on it, as it's very easy to get set up and running. I have SuSE on my main computer, but that's a bit more involved. Just start up with mandrake until you get used to linux, try a few things manually in it, and once you get comfortable, then switch...

Mandrake sounds good. I recall a lot of people recommending it to beginners.

Why do I see people praising OpenBSD and FreeBSD over Linux? Any good reasons for me to choose either of them over Linux?

 

[joohang]

Originally posted by: silverpig
The P166 will be fine if you run a light GUI environment like IceWM or something. I just used that to set up the firewall and routing, and a few other things, then rebooted into command line mode, unhooked the monitor, and let her sit. If I need to do anything, I just remote login with SSH.

If you can get a cheap mobo (try ncix, although I'm sure you know about them), pretty much anything will do. I've run intel and via-amd setups with linux and it has all run fine. The duron will definitely be a nice speed boost though, and it'll allow for some more options.

Nice. Does SSH support GUI?

It won't be a main desktop machine but I do want a decent GUI for the IDE, though. I'll check out IceWM.

 

[bizmark]

Mandrake is the easiest install in the world! Use it for a year and then install a BSD. AFAIK chipsets don't really matter except when you're talking about general performance (i.e. same issues you'd get with a Windows install). I've got Mandrake 7.3 on a P133.... it runs X okay, but it takes like 3 minutes to startup. If you are comfortable with a command line environment, you'll have no problem on a P166, but you'll have to be really really patient if you want a full-featured GUI. It can handle it, but you'll just have to wait a while 🙂

The Mandrake install is so simple.... you just pick your packages and let it go. Read up a bit beforehand on how you should set up the various partitions that you'll need (make sure to have plenty of swap!). That's really all the info you'll need going into a Mandrake install. Umm oh yeah, if the built-in video card isn't good on the machine (i.e. less than 1MB), installing a cheap, well-supported 4MB PCI card like Rage128 or ViRGE would probably help things along if you wanna run a GUI 🙂 And is the mobo Super Socket7? If so, spend $30 on a K6-2 and you'll really be cookin'.

As for software, of course you'll have Apache. SAMBA should be useful too. With a P166 you don't want to run the Gimp or 3D rendering software. But you should be just fine for g++ and Python dev apps.

 

[TheOmegaCode]

I vote for FreeBSD. Yes you can install Linux apps if you enable Linux Binary support (which is a question in the install). You have the power of the ports collection at your finger tips, and they are heavilly supported. They have an entire handbook on their website...

 

[joohang]

Originally posted by: TheOmegaCode
I vote for FreeBSD. Yes you can install Linux apps if you enable Linux Binary support (which is a question in the install). You have the power of the ports collection at your finger tips, and they are heavilly supported. They have an entire handbook on their website...

I've been reading some good things about it. I plan to buy a book or two. FreeBSD.org claims that it is very straight forward. Is this true?

 

[joohang]

Originally posted by: bizmark
Mandrake is the easiest install in the world! Use it for a year and then install a BSD. AFAIK chipsets don't really matter except when you're talking about general performance (i.e. same issues you'd get with a Windows install). I've got Mandrake 7.3 on a P133.... it runs X okay, but it takes like 3 minutes to startup. If you are comfortable with a command line environment, you'll have no problem on a P166, but you'll have to be really really patient if you want a full-featured GUI. It can handle it, but you'll just have to wait a while 🙂

Are there any advantages of jumping into FreeBSD after using Mandrake for a while?

The Mandrake install is so simple.... you just pick your packages and let it go. Read up a bit beforehand on how you should set up the various partitions that you'll need (make sure to have plenty of swap!). That's really all the info you'll need going into a Mandrake install. Umm oh yeah, if the built-in video card isn't good on the machine (i.e. less than 1MB), installing a cheap, well-supported 4MB PCI card like Rage128 or ViRGE would probably help things along if you wanna run a GUI 🙂 And is the mobo Super Socket7? If so, spend $30 on a K6-2 and you'll really be cookin'.

As for software, of course you'll have Apache. SAMBA should be useful too. With a P166 you don't want to run the Gimp or 3D rendering software. But you should be just fine for g++ and Python dev apps.

Unfortunately the P166 requires a PowerLeap adapter to upgrade to a K6-II or K6-III. I'm not willing to shell out that kinda money, since I could get myself a K7S5A and a Duron 1.2 GHz for less. 🙂

 

[mgpaulus]

My personal preference (confirmed by the 5 Linux machines I have set up) is Debian. Installation may not be quite as nice as some of the others, but once it's set up,
Security updates, software installations and upgrades are a breeze. In debian land, EVERYTHING is a package, and installation/upgrading/removing of packages is as simple as one command. No need to go looking all over the 'net for that particular program you want/need to add. And, most packages come preconfigured for the average home-users needs, and no modifications required......

http://www.debian.org

 

[Workin']

I love Debian.

I've tried:

Redhat 5.1, 6.2, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3
Mandrake 7.2, 8.0
FreeBSD 4.5, 4.6RC1
Debian 2.2 ('potato') and 3.0 ('woody')

and

Yellow Dog Linux and mkLinux on Macintosh, too.

And Debian is by far the easiest to maintain. Not the easiest to set up, there's no graphical installer, but unless you are extremely dense you should be able to figure it out. And once it is set up, dselect is the best software installation management tool I've ever used. It takes a few minutes to figure out, but once you "get it" you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.

 

[TheOmegaCode]

FreeBSD is extremely straight forward. They also have world class support. I really wouldn't suggest jumping into something like RedHat or Mandrake because they are bloated. Not to mention the fact that when something that was precompiled for you breaks, you don't have ANY clue as to how to fix it. I like BSD's because they are simpler, IMO, and stable. Also, the ports collection is a life saver.
I've also heard good things about Debian and Gentoo, but I don't know enough to make an opinion.

 

[manly]

Workin',

You're one hell of a masochist if you're praising dselect. 😉 I haven't used it in a while, but I remember how tedious it was some years ago, when Debian was a smaller distro than it is today. You hear Debian experts raving about apt all the time, but nobody (but yourself) likes dselect. 😛

I should try Debian again sometime as it's a high-quality distro (excellent for servers), but Slink (Debian 2.1) was an obsolete on arrival release; since then I've been using more up-to-date commercial distros instead.

 

[joohang]

Well I should be building a dual 1600+ system some time this week 😀, so I'll load up VMware on it to try out FreeBSD and various Linux distros and see which one I like best. Looks like everybody got their preferences, although I hoped to find a distro that is a "developer's favourite."

 

[n0cmonkey]

Most of them would be fine. As far as linux is concerned I liked both slack and debian. Both dont do much for me, so I got to learn by setting things up myself. dselect was nice in debian, nice enough that I installed it on my iBook (dselect ported to Mac OS X, not debian 😉).

FreeBSD is fine for most things. I found it a little easier than Mandrake, but not as good as slackware. I prefer OpenBSD to all of them though, but thats not based on technical reasons.

 

[Chaotic42]

I installed Debian for the first time at version 1.3. Since then I've installed Redhat 5.2 and Suse (forget the version). I just keep going back to Debian. I like it a lot.

It seems more complete. It just works.

 

[Workin']

Workin', You're one hell of a masochist if you're praising dselect.

hehe, n0cmonkey likes dselect, too.

I didn't say it was easy, I said it was good. It works with apt except it's better - while apt will resolve all conflicts and dependencies (and is very easy to use), dselect goes one further and also suggests which additional packages might be useful along with the one you've selected. dselect also provides package descriptions. So if you know exactly what you need, apt is perfect. But if you don't know exactly what you need, then dselect is cool.

The other thing that sets Debian apart is its strict rules for packages, which I think contributes to the greater feeling of a unified distribution rather than just a collection of packages.