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Author Topic: Best linux distro for beginner.  (Read 5290 times)

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Offline whabangTopic starter

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Re: Best linux distro for beginner.
« Reply #14 on: February 12, 2003, 07:30:45 PM »
Quote

mikeymike wrote:
Quote
I was thinking about FreeBSD first, but there's no support for niether my GFX-card or my USB ADSL modem.


The graphics card support would be by X[free86.org], not FreeBSD itself.  That would be the same for any UNIX variant, so you're not going to get a graphics card supported in Linux but not in FreeBSD, unless you're talking about a laptop or something.

As for the USB ADSL modem, how did you check?  You may need to recompile the kernel to support the modem, but on FreeBSD that isn't difficult.  I can run you through that in one very short and simple email :)

FreeBSD website
Xfree86.org site for graphics card support

Hmm... Perhaps I was wrong then.
I couldn't find Kyro II under the supported HW list.
I'll check again.
Thanks.
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Re: Best linux distro for beginner.
« Reply #15 on: February 12, 2003, 07:35:27 PM »
Go in at the deep end and try OpenBSD , its lack of friendlyness is great for learning unix and in the long run its harder to f**ck up then most of the fancy linux distro's.

If it has to be linux , use debian ; its the only truely free distro and as such has great amounts of support :)
 

Offline Unit21

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Re: Best linux distro for beginner.
« Reply #16 on: February 12, 2003, 09:13:42 PM »
Debian is the only 'real' Linux-distro, as in 'everything in here is free like the kernel'.
Pros:   Xtremely good support, and the way you update the distro (apt-get) is really great.
Cons: Lacks support for some of the newest hardware.
Choose this distro if you want to learn Linux!!

Redhat is the closest you get to a desktop looking like Windows out of the box.
The distro in itself is good, and lots of hardware/software- solutions get certified for this distro. It got certified by the Pentagon earlier today actually...
Redhat has an upgrade-option that looks a bit like the one in WindowsXP.

Suse is the European counter-part of Redhat, based out of Germany. They have many nice solutions if you want to migrate from a Windows environment for your whole company... Hence, they're a bit business-minded.

Then there is Mandrake, which is French and regarded as the 'living on the edge' distro, as it has the newest software, newest apps and has most hardware-support. Even if it can be a bit buggy...

Anything else is for people with special interests if you ask me...

A word of advice:
Don't install more stuff than you need, and stay away from the KDE-desktop. ;-)

Good luck and have fun!!
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Offline Dan

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Re: Best linux distro for beginner.
« Reply #17 on: February 12, 2003, 10:38:21 PM »
Redhat and Debian is the biggest and most used and documented.
I assume you are using one of those removable harddiskholders?
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Offline WarPiper

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Re: Best linux distro for beginner.
« Reply #18 on: February 12, 2003, 10:48:56 PM »
Mandrake Linux 9.0, try it, I garrentee you will like it,just try not to load every single package that comes with the distrobution at once, there is alot of stuff on it that you may not need.

I took the 6 Gb Hard disk from my 1200 and formated it for linux for the pc using a 2.5 to 3.5 converter, works great
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Offline Acill

Re: Best linux distro for beginner.
« Reply #19 on: February 12, 2003, 11:03:49 PM »
I would give Suse a try. Its real simple to get installed and use if you use the default setting in the installer. I have it on my PC and its even got an Amiga look "theme" on the CD sets I got with it.
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Offline Rigger

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Re: Best linux distro for beginner.
« Reply #20 on: February 12, 2003, 11:05:10 PM »
The way this thread is going sounds like it should be a poll. I've use Debian, RedHat and Mandrake. I'd have to put my vote to Mandrake.

 

Offline T_Bone

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Re: Best linux distro for beginner.
« Reply #21 on: February 13, 2003, 12:46:32 AM »
Without a doubt, this is the easiest linux yet.

http://www.mslinux.org/
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Offline Rigger

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Re: Best linux distro for beginner.
« Reply #22 on: February 13, 2003, 01:07:08 AM »
Here's one you might look at. Run Linux in a window on your pc.

http://www.cygwin.com

 

Offline T_Bone

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Re: Best linux distro for beginner.
« Reply #23 on: February 13, 2003, 01:19:06 AM »
Quote

Rigger wrote:
Here's one you might look at. Run Linux in a window on your pc.

http://www.cygwin.com



Stallman would be having conniptions hearing that! 8)

Cygwin is GNU/Linux _without_ the linux part :) basically, just the GNU tools hosted by windows instead of linux.

Excellent product. You can even install the Windows port of Xfree86 and KDE and run it as your WinXP desktop.
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Offline Rigger

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Re: Best linux distro for beginner.
« Reply #24 on: February 13, 2003, 02:58:32 AM »
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Excellent product. You can even install the Windows port of Xfree86 and KDE and run it as your WinXP desktop.

Yes, you can I and I did. That last post I was using Konquerer from kde on Cygwin.

 

Offline clark

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Re: Best linux distro for beginner.
« Reply #25 on: February 13, 2003, 03:19:15 AM »
If I may chime in, Slackware for the Distroand Running Linux for your book are the best IMHO for learning how to do things in Linux without all the graphical gimmicks, &c.  And when I started I was a novice in the extreme, (and paid for it dearly:  every accedentally format your windows partition which has all the install files that just took you 7+ hours to download?  Stale Lilo? &c).

It's about the only distro that make sense to me, and I've been running it on my PeeCee (which I'm almost ready to throw out the window, but that's a differnet story) for quite some time now.  Debain's installer truely belongs in the hall of shame, albeit it's package system is nice.  And I've never gotten Debain to boot on my A4000 (NetBSD works well for it, tho')!  I had bad experiances with Redhat a long time ago (Version 5 & 5.2 were absolutely horrible), maybe it's gotten better.  Never tried Mandrake, so I can't say.

Just be sure to know what you've got in your box, and your monitor's refresh rates (although the new XFree can supposidly detect them if it's a newer Svga monitor, I've got an old sun monitor, so I've no such luck) and you should be ready.

Anyhow,  good luck regaurdless.  Linux, and Unix in general might not make much sense now, but they will start to once you work with them for about a year or so.

Clark
 

Offline samdu

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Re: Best linux distro for beginner.
« Reply #26 on: February 13, 2003, 06:40:36 AM »
Mandrake 9 or RedHat 8. Both are newbie friendly. I'd also add as a book to look for, The Linux Network Tookit. It deals with a lot of the issues you'll run into when coexisting with other platforms in a networked environment and server issues. Not critical to success, but nice to have.
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Offline poktis

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Re: Best linux distro for beginner.
« Reply #27 on: February 13, 2003, 08:48:33 AM »
OpenBSD is certainly the best distro (robust and secure). Anyway to play at home, Debian is cool and can support USB ECI modems (mine works well / Hifocus) with an external french package (http://eciadsl.flashtux.org/support.php).

Mandrake...oops, excellent but the compagny drops (support ??).
 

Offline holbromf

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Re: Best linux distro for beginner.
« Reply #28 on: February 13, 2003, 09:42:36 AM »
I use Mandrake 8.2 from Linux Format 27 May/02 and have found KDE, Kdevelop and Qt better than SASC and StormC. The mag will have Mandrake 9.0 in the near future. Good luck!

                                                        Cheers  Mike  
 

Offline amigamad

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Re: Best linux distro for beginner.
« Reply #29 from previous page: February 13, 2003, 10:48:22 AM »
I would try suse 8.1 its the best ive tried although redhat 8.0 and mandrake 9 are also good you could try slackware linux 8.0 some people say its a good distro but when i tried it it seemed to set the monitor frequencys higher than monitor could display even though i set it manualy to what it should be.
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