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The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Alternative Operating Systems => Topic started by: redrumloa on November 04, 2006, 02:58:59 AM
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Due to certain issues I have less and less booted into SUSE and mostly just used my comfortable but at times frustrating XP install. I need to re-evaluate my distro of choice. The plan is to likely swear off M$ for good on my main box. If Apple would just release a damn retail version of OSX. Since they aren't yet, it's probably gonna have to be a Linux flavour.
I'm looking for a distro firmly intended for standard desktop use. I have always used SUSE and am pretty familiar with it, YAST works pretty well. Is there a better one for a desktop? Web install would probably be prefered. Documentation is a HUGE plus. I'd say I am a medium experienced Linux user. Not a total newbie, but not l33t ;-)
Thoughts? I am still leaning towards SUSE since I am so familar with it, but am open to any other as long as it's well documented and has a fairly straight forward install.
Final question. Is there yet any Active-X compatible modules for Konquerer or Mozilla?
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I recommend ubuntu. It is pretty userfriendly and use the debian apt packet manager, which is superior to yast in my opinion. The install cd is also a live cd, which means you can see how it works before deciding to install it. For me it found and configured all my hardware correctly.
There are 2 flavors of ubuntu.. The one called ubuntu is a gnome centred distro while you have one called kubuntu which is centered around kde. They are identical with the exception of what window manager they mainly support.
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it's on the tip of everyone's tongue: http://www.ubuntu.com/ :-)
really is an amazing distro based on Debian.
EDIT: there you go, Tomas beat me to it! ;-)
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Nice laid out site, everything simple, easy to read and navigate. I'm taking a look atm. Thanks!
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Another vote here for Ubuntu, using it at the moment, and have had it on my server PC since the 5.x releases (used to use Fedora/Red Hat before that, then Mandrake before that, and originally Slackware).
Great OS, fantastic "one-click" repository of tonnes of software, and the multimedia CODECs, etc, are just a few steps away (search for "Automatix" and "Easy Ubuntu" for scripts that install the essentials automatically - including the multimedia stuff, wine, Acrobat Reader, RealPlayer, DVD player, etc).
And coupled with the free VMWare Server, it makes a great AROS testing platform!
- Ali
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Ubuntu/Kubuntu is for linux noobs.. give that a shot.
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I'm tossing in another vote for Ubuntu.
It's friendly to new users but it's just another *nix like all the rest. It comes with synaptic package manager which makes finding and installing stuff a breeze.
The only time I don't use ubuntu is when i don't want a desktop, in that case i usually reach for netbsd or a minimal debian install.
Ubuntu on the macintosh is also very nice, i have 2 minis runing ubuntu. It's significantly faster than osx on the minis.
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Time to say goodbye to Suse anyway (see here). (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/nov06/11-02MSNovellPR.mspx) :angry:
Ubuntu is a nice distro indeed. Genereally, I'd prefer FreeBSD, but I have to admit that it is not that noob friendly and requires rather a lot of work to set up a nice desktop machine. With Ubuntu, it's just a matter of 3-4 clicks.
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I once tried to replace XP with linux on my 2nd pc...
unfortunatelly, linus needs lots of tweaking, and misses some key software, like a NORMAL painting program, like paintingshop pro... I have tested many, I got opinions from linux dedicated forums, but nothing. all it's paint progs are photoshop clones. bah.
So I am back to XP with it's huge software base.
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Stick with SUSE, version 10.1 is great.
I needed a distro that would support all of the ACPI my laptop needs, and SUSE was the only one that did it out of the box without adding kernel modules, recompiling, etc. All I needed to add was NDISWrapper for my wifi card and I was done.
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@redrumloa
I personally prefer debian myself (ubuntu and friends are based on it).
Is there yet any Active-X compatible modules for Konquerer or Mozilla?
No. You can run IE under linux though: ies4linux (http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/page/Main_Page)
With this you can use IE itself for the specific pages requiring ActiveX crap.
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Piru wrote:
@redrumloa
Is there yet any Active-X compatible modules for Konquerer or Mozilla?
No. You can run IE under linux though: ies4linux (http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/page/Main_Page)
With this you can use IE itself for the specific pages requiring ActiveX crap.
Sweet, thanks :-D
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@keropi
I actually prefer Linux over XP, but there were a few very key features I was struggling without.
@all
Since I am getting some fantastic feedback here, what about windowable TV software with WORKING closed caption support and recording capability?
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Colani1200 wrote:
Time to say goodbye to Suse anyway (see here). (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/nov06/11-02MSNovellPR.mspx) :angry:
Ubuntu is a nice distro indeed. Genereally, I'd prefer FreeBSD, but I have to admit that it is not that noob friendly and requires rather a lot of work to set up a nice desktop machine. With Ubuntu, it's just a matter of 3-4 clicks.
I think the only noob friendly way is Slackware (+ a big Linux book).
Because it forces you to learn the setup of Linux.
If things go wrong at least you can find out yourself. Else you have to be lucky to find a topic on the net wich is about your problem. And you'll probably spend too much time on repairing your problem and you'll learn not much about it.
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noobs noobies... heh! heh heh heh hahaha!!
sorry just sounds umm funny
ubantu is good id say slackware is better though. i used to use redhat a real lot.
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redrumloa wrote:
Not a total newbie, but not l33t ;-)
Clearly not - it's spelled 1337 :-P :lol:
Another vote for Ubuntu here. I run it on my PegII and in Parallels on my MacBook. It's great! Not sure whether you can do a web install though. As for documentation, well it's got man hasn't it :-)
--
moto
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I guess he means network install (http://www.debian.org/distrib/netinst).
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I suggest Amiga UNIX!
Kidding. Another vote for Ubuntu here. I typically run Debian on everything, and I like it a lot, but it can be frustrating for new users.
I recently set up a media PC with Ubuntu. It boots off the network into a Gnome desktop...completely silent! Reason I mention it was your TV watching, since that is one of the things I use it for (along with video files). Would MythTV (http://www.mythtv.org/) be what you were referring to? It says it has closed caption support. There are precompiled packages for it in Ubuntu in the multiverse/universe repository (forget which). I've got the backend component running on the mutant Debian fileserver, only the frontend in the living room. I use it to watch over-the-air HD broadcasts :-D I took a pic from when I was testing it on the fileserver here (http://failsure.net/~ross154/static/mythtvbaby.jpg). It is capable of running windowed, but I couldn't tell you how as I always want it full screen...it's "full screen" in the pic, it's just two displays.
If you're after something requiring less effort to setup than MythTV maybe you would like tvtime (http://tvtime.sourceforge.net/why.html).
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I think the only noob friendly way is Slackware (+ a big Linux book).
Because it forces you to learn the setup of Linux.
If things go wrong at least you can find out yourself. Else you have to be lucky to find a topic on the net wich is about your problem. And you'll probably spend too much time on repairing your problem and you'll learn not much about it.
Distros sucks!
No, Linux from Scratch is really the most newbie friendly way:
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
Why use someone else init scripts when you can craft your own?
Just reserve one week for the installation and compillation and you have a shiny, responsive and minimal Linux installation.
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Slackware is my first choice. Then there is Vector Linux, or Zenwalk which are both more desktop oriented than plain Slack.
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I am using Gentoo Linux.
It's got a pretty good learning curve. I used to use Slackware, then later I tried Gentoo and it taught me a lot about how Linux works.
Almost everything is compiled from source code making it very stable and fast, and you get to decide exactly what gets put onto your system; you can fine-tune it very easily. I have a very nice setup of Gentoo running at the moment; I'm using it for 3D games, higher-end audio work, and general productivity.
Whenever I've ran into trouble, the wiki, bugzilla or the forum has always held the answer. I'm very pleased with it.
If you have some time, give it a shot! :)
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Almost everything is compiled from source code making it very stable and fast, and you get to decide exactly what gets put onto your system; you can fine-tune it very easily. I have a very nice setup of Gentoo running at the moment; I'm using it for 3D games, higher-end audio work, and general productivity.
And it takes literally days before the whole systems is compiled, which really does not make it a good desktop distro for most people.
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@redrumloa
Since I am getting some fantastic feedback here, what about windowable TV software with WORKING closed caption support and recording capability?
I haven't tried it myself so I don't know all the features, but a friend speaks well of MythTV for linux. (http://www.mythtv.org/index.php) Might be worth a look see.
Plaz
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Days?
I only have an average PC, Athlon XP 2600+. Base install took a few hours including downloading, left GNOME and all its dependencies compiling overnight, and I had a fully working desktop in the morning. Not that painful, really.
The old way was to compile literally everything to bootstrap it. That could take days, but it's not the case any more. Support for that has been dropped (though it's still possible for the die-hards) and you install a precompiled base to get going.
I still think Gentoo is a good choice for someone wanting to learn more, instead of being thrown to a desktop with the all-important console being hidden away. Still, that's the beauty of Linux, you get to choose your poison.
I haven't tried Linux from Scratch but I'm interested; maybe on a spare box when I get a few days free I'll give it a try! :)
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@d0pefish
Almost everything is compiled from source code making it very stable
How does building from source make it stable?
and fast
How much faster? And is it really worth the trouble to compile yourself to get few percent faster binaries?
and you get to decide exactly what gets put onto your system; you can fine-tune it very easily.
Which is equally possible with any other good distribution. You don't need to compile your own packages for that. But if you insist, you can build the packages yourself on other good distros aswell.
I'm not saying Gentoo is a bad distribution, but I don't see it being somehow better than the others, at least not using your criteria. And it certainly isn't friendly for someone who wants to get something up and running fast (agreed, Debian probably isn't that either ;-)).
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Hmmm... Gentoo sounds interesting - what I assume is the "base" install came on a recent magazine cover DVD so I might give it a go on a spare (or virtual) machine...
I do like Ubuntu, though, for its ease of use and that everything just works with the minimum of fuss. But I'm not afraid of the command line!
I remember the days of installing Slackware from floppies on a 486SX laptop, watching X and fvwm struggle to launch (in monochrome!) with 4Mb RAM and 16Mb of swap!!!, and recompiling just the kernel, which took forever...
Have you (d0pefish) had any other Linux distros on your Athlon-based machine to compare the speed vs Gentoo?
My Linux machine runs the usual basics of Apache, MySQL, PHP and Samba, plus the VMWare server software, as well as being used for general purpose web browsing (Firefox), email (Thunderbird) and office stuff (OpenOffice)...
Not sure if I'd benefit from going to Gentoo - about the most CPU-intensive stuff I run (aside from VMWare when it's busy) are the X screensavers!!!
- Ali
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Piru wrote:
I'm not saying Gentoo is a bad distribution, but I don't see it being somehow better than the others, at least not using your criteria. And it certainly isn't friendly for someone who wants to get something up and running fast (agreed, Debian probably isn't that either ;-)).
You should have read what he was replying to.
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How does building from source make it stable?
Right, it doesn't. I dunno why I typed that really. I was in a rush. But now I'm not, so I'll do Gentoo a bit of better justice. :)
What really makes it stable is the way you can choose which sources get downloaded and compiled. By default, it's the packages marked as stable by all the Gentoo devs who work on testing and fixing all the packages in Gentoo's tree. Granted, these packages aren't always the newest, which is likely the case for a binary distro anyway.
However, the vast majority of package sets also have newer sources marked as unstable, either because it has a few bugs that need fixing, or hasn't been fully tested and verified for stability yet. You can freely unmask these unstable packages and use them. But if you keep the stable package set, you end up with a bug-free system nearly all of the time.
The package tree (called Portage) is kept in sync via rsync; it's updated every day, all the time, and Gentoo provides you with some nice commands to sync and update your system, or install/uninstall whichever packages. You can also check for packages that are redundant (dependancies that are no longer needed) and also fix broken reverse dependencies. That way you system doesn't get b0rked if you like to test lots of new software. :) It is remarkably easy to switch between bleeding-edge and stable, for any number of packages. You just keep a list of the ones you want to use in their unstable forms.
You can also add one or more of the many "overlays" which people make. This so you can add an unsupported 3rd party set of packages over the top of the main tree. This way, for eg. you can fetch and build a brand new package from SVN, keep the package in sync with SVN, or cleanly remove it.
It also has a config file protection system, so if an updated package comes with a new syntax in its config file, your old one won't get zapped. It will alert you, and you can choose which config file to keep, or do an interactive merge based on the diffs.
Finally, the best part. USE flags.
With Gentoo, you can easily keep the number of dependencies that are pulled in by certain apps to a minimum. Since everything gets compiled from sources, you get to choose what gets compiled in.
Say for e.g. you wanted to install a music player. By default, it might be compiled with aRTs, ESD, OSS and so on. As a result, it would depend on those other apps, and they'd get pulled in and compiled. aRTs might in turn depend on all sorts of KDE libraries, so if you wanted to keep a GNOME-only system, you might get half of KDE pulled in just because you installed a music player.
In Gentoo you can set so called USE flags. Every package is marked with these flags which are used globally.
E.g, I want to keep a totally KDE-free system. I don't want any KDE or QT libraries installed:
-kde -qt -arts - any apps which make use of KDE, QT or aRTs are either compiled without support for them (saving time/space/packages being pulled in) or not compiled at all (maybe because they really need them to run).
+alsa -oss +mp3 - any audio-related apps I compile that make use of these flags will be ALSA enabled, won't be compiled with old-style OSS driver support, and they will compile in support for playing MP3s.
In this way, you save on the amount of bloat/useless packages being installed, and you keep your apps lean and mean.
The main killer app of Gentoo just has to be its package system. I am not saying Gentoo is better than any other distro, because frankly, I've only ever used Slackware and Mandrake before Gentoo. But it's just my distro of choice; all I can say is try it. :)
Have a look at http://gentoo-portage.com, which is a website-ified version of the package tree; it might give you an idea of how it works.
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I still think Gentoo is a good choice for someone wanting to learn more, instead of being thrown to a desktop with the all-important console being hidden away. Still, that's the beauty of Linux, you get to choose your poison.
I do not know a single distro where the console is hidden away. I compile stuff with my ubuntu box as well. The difference is that i only compile when needed as a last option.
And i have actually heard alot of horror stories about gentoo systems falling to pieces during a software upgrade.. A newbie going through all that hassle, will most likely turn away from linux and give up.
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I do not know a single distro where the console is hidden away. I compile stuff with my ubuntu box as well. The difference is that i only compile when needed as a last option.
...I didn't entirely mean that literally. :roll: I'm trying to say that some distributions I've seen GUIfy everything and place emphasis on the nice easy to use desktop; no need for anyone to touch the console.
You can eat all the horror stories you like, I'm not pushing Gentoo on anyone, all I am saying is that I have had great experiences with it, and I'd recommend that you guys give it a whirl sometime, no need to bite my head off.
It's not Like I'm trying to sell you Windows or something...
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@d0pefish
Okay comparing that to for example Debian (the distro I know best): The only thing not available in Debian is global USE flags, but then again if you don't build from src, it's kind of pointless (at least assuming you have 2GB HDD storage for installation).
Everything else mentioned is available in Debian (and any Debian based distro) aswell, although not necessarily in the same form.
Finally, regardless of distribution, at some point the user will need to do some rather low level maintenance. At this point all distros are the same: RTFM... :-)
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I tried the AMD64 version of ubuntu 6.01 and 6.10 and had graphics card problems. Its X.org doesn't work with my ATI X800 out of the box so I installed ATI's proprietry driver. That worked but it always hanged when I tried to shut down X.
Now I'm trying Suse 10.1 AMD64 and my graphics card works out of the box! woo hoo! And the ATI proprietry driver is rock solid stable.
The trouble I'm having with Suse is dependancy hell. I want to install FF2.0 and OOo 2.0.4 but I get dependancy problems including one that is just a number, very odd.
BTW What is the Gentoo graphial installer like? I think a stage 3 install with that would possibly be quite a good idea.
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Excuse my noob question but I have been wondering about this for a while. How different distributions differ in driver support? Don't all drivers come from the same source - kernel?
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@redrumloa
try out Xubuntu. It works quite well and it seems to be less resource hungry than ubuntu.
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The kernel can change from month to month enough that an existing driver will not work from kernel version to version
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i see, thanks
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Ubuntu is good and so is SLED (or Suse 10.1). Another worthy contender is PCBSD PC BSD (http://www.pcbsd.org). It's been getting a lot of attention at osnews.com lately (deservedly so I think).
PC BSD is novel in that it:
* Runs the full FreeBSD 6 kernel.
* Runs full KDE.
* Installs very easily indeed.
* Has what they call PBI software installers, which are much like MSI files under windows. With PBI's, you download an application as a single file (a .pbi file), and then double click on it. You then run through the application installation wizard. There's no software dependencies to worry about, and the PBI library is getting bigger all the time. It's good biscuits.
Cheers,
Andy.
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You can eat all the horror stories you like, I'm not pushing Gentoo on anyone, all I am saying is that I have had great experiences with it, and I'd recommend that you guys give it a whirl sometime, no need to bite my head off.
It's not Like I'm trying to sell you Windows or something...
Fair enough :)
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According to the openSUSE roadmap (http://en.opensuse.org/Roadmap) openSUSE 10.2 is supposed to be out in a month so you could wait for that.
I recommend SMART package manager with SUSE, it makes managing repositories (or "channels") dead easy. On first run, you can say Yes to adding all the suggested channels and thereafter switch them on/off with one click as you wish.
There's a HowTo here (http://susewiki.org/index.php?title=SMART_Package_Manager) covering SUSE 10.0 and 10.1
I say this because I just did a quick "smart search" for e.g. zapping and mythtv and both are available as SUSE-ready packages.
As for desktop distros I usually recommend (the remastered) SUSE 10.1, (K)Ubuntu or the oddly-named but fantastic PCLinuxOS (http://www.pclinuxos.com/). It's great for Windows deserters as it has Flash/MP3/WMV video playback already set up, the Control Center is really good and it's 1 Live/install CD so you can quickly try before you don't buy.
It impressed me when I found things like Skype and nVidia drivers right in the repository. I installed the nVidia drivers - a pop-up appeared asking if I'd like to restart X once everything had finished installing. I said "OK", the screen went blank, came back and nVidia 3D drivers were up and running! Similarly, after installing it at someone's house and clicking Printers in the Control Center it found their Epson Stylus Color 600 automatically, there was a pop-up, I waited, and it was configured. There may be fewer packages available than for, say, Ubuntu but they are tailored towards the typical ex-Windows-user desktop needs.
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I think the only noob friendly way is Slackware (+ a big Linux book).
I have a "LINUX" book that's got 2 CD's in the back with that Slackware stuff on thems. It's a few years old, though. I picked it up somewhere used but never used it. I didn't even know there was more than one CD in there until just recently when I was taking pictures of stuff for to sell away.
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My two cents...
I wish I had a tuner card to try the bundled tuner software, looks pretty good, though, but:
FC6 is pretty fun once you get past the {bleep}-ups they made. Start with Core 5, though: much more stable and mature. The CD install I got gave me everything, including a paint program just like MS-Paint, which surprised and annoyed me (but my lady felt more comfortable with it), etc..
Then, install VMware Server (which is a pain on FC6, still haven't got ICAclient working...) and Bob's your uncle's aunty's cousin! (I used it on the dual-core Dells at Uni. t'other day and was shocked how fast they run).
If you do try FC6, and have an nVidia or ATI card, it is well worth getting Compiz running. I assume this works on all the other distros, too, but I fought with Debian m68k so much I won't touch the thing again, and SuSE and Slackware were a pain, Storm was OK, Corel looked too much like Windoze and I could never find a Mandrake give-away to try.
Damn Small Linux is fun to carry around, but I started fiddling with it and the nightmares of Debian came flooding back.
Going to install AROS on VMware tonight while I study for Networks exams. Then I might continue installing every other package I can get my hands on for FC6.
benJamin
"But, I really miss Assigns! I want my Assigns!"
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Try Sabayon Linux, sapayonlinux.org, fist and pretty and based on gentoo.
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@redrumloa
So what did you end up choosing?