Linux

Im tired of Windows and its associated spyware and adware, and I like Consoles. Whats the best type of Linux (i believe there are several kinds, ie. Gentoo, SuSe, Redhat), is it hard? What is there to know before working with Linux? Does Linux have like the ability to split between windows and console, in case I couldn't figure out how to do something via the console? I'm a noob with anything Linux. Teach-eth me! Please

When i first started using linux for a demo pc that i am constructing i knew practically nothing. I just downloaded redhat 9.0 and went through the install process. There is no such thing as "the best linux" it is all a matter of opinion, however a good start for people who are unfamiliar with linux is probably SuSe, however redhat/fedora is also a good choice. I personally like gentoo and slackware (steer away from these if you want really easy install).

To get the linux iso that you want go to Linux Iso
There are hundreds if not thousands of distro's there with links to download them and burn them on cd.

Also to switch between text mode and x-windows type startx at the prompt. I would also recommend getting a good linux book some of these come with a linux distro on disk so you dont have to download them. Just try something like SuSe or Redhat/Fedora, suse is good because it has good hardware configuration/detection however you cant customise it as much as other distro's, i tried it for about a week then switched to gentoo.

Hope this helps

Before I installed my first Linux, I spent a couple of months reading installation and basic usage tutorials for different distros. The question "Which is the best Linux distribution" can't really be answered - it's just like asking for the best ice cream flavor.

Then I picked Debian. Why? Because according to the instructions the installation shouldn't be to painful, and the I had heard only good things about apt-get (Debian's package manager.) In addition to that, I know some people on IRC that use Debian, so I knew that if I ever run into problems, I have a place where to ask for Debian-specific assistance.

So I installed it and found out that the installation wasn't painful at all. The only problem was that first I set X to run with framebuffering on which was a mistake. And apt-get, ah it's your best friend!

Remember, I'm not trying to say that Debian is the best distro. I'm just trying to give a picture what it's like to start with Debian.

Thanks! I'm gonna look into both Debian, and SuSE. I plan to buy a cheap laptop off of ebay and then load linux onto that. Some programs don't make mention of their support with Linux, will they still run, regardless of the OS you have installed. I'm mainly speaking of being able to use Studio MX'04, do y'all know if it would still work under the Linux platform.

FreeBSD

im going to try FreeBSD, looks good. I have a machine which has 4 linux distros on
3.0ghz amd athlon
1gb ram
2 * 120gb hard disk

it runs:
Redhat 9.0
Fedora Core 2
Gentoo
SuSe
FreeBSD (Hopefully soon)

I mostly use fedora or gentoo, 4 distros on 2 hard disks may sound crazy but it is an effective way to find out which one you like. Im going to remove SuSe. Also i wouldnt bother trying lindows (no spelling mistake, its a true linux distro if you didnt know), it is a joke in my opinion.

Solaris

Yeah, joke that took them to court. AFAIK, the name is Linspire these days.

didnt know about the name change.

Well, I liked redhat 9 because of the install process, which was the easiest of them all. Suse starts up in graphical mode, so you don't ever bother with the command line, and I didn't like that all that much, but its purely meant for desktop usage, plus I like the KDE environment.

Slackware was a pain to install, but I like it because of its speed, it ran much faster for me on my machine. For overall ease, I'd suggest SuSE, its very easy to set up, and boots right into a GUI which resembles windows(though more OSX I would say), and it makes things easy, and you can use the command line like you would in windows if you wanna learn the command line stuff, which you don't nesecerrily need as I found out, to run linux. I currently have slackware installed, and I think thats where I'm gonna stay, so ya. Thats my not so expert opinoin on life

I have only tried one distro, that was Mandrake 9.2, and only for a very short amount of time. I really want to test one out again, this time with a book because I got absolutly nothing accomplished on it. For example, I couldn't even get my internet connection up, I didn't know if this was because I had to manually install my NIC's drivers or what. But if/when I do try it again, it will probably be SUSE, from what i've been reading around on the linuxiso forums. ... Oh yah, also I want to get ahold of Gentoo's LIVECD, thought that might be interesting. W/o sounding like a moron, the best I can describe it based on my knowledge is, its linux, on a cd, that runs on your computer's startup w/o an installation. I'm not sure how saving and linux changes are logged. A virtual drive? But here is a link to some LIVECD distros.

LIVECD ditros usually let you export and import your configuration on a floppy or other medium.

Mandrake is very good for beginners. I still use it too I hope I will have enough time in future for exploring other distros.

Also known as Lindash in some countries.

I've got Mandrake 9.2 running on two laptops, Suse running on a work console and slackware running on 2 servers.

I switched to slackware on the servers becuase it doesn't hide packages in non-default locations like Mandrake does--I can actually compile things!

But Slackware's not a difficult install if you like consoles. I dont' think I have any window managers/desktops installed on it; I only work on it through SSH.

If you're doing Mandrake, I recommend 9.1. The wheel mouse works "out of the box" and it has a good default package selection. 9.2's package list is pared down a lot and I've never had much luck with x.0 releases (9.0, 10.0)

The SuSE gecko scares me.

And be ready for a challange when you're doing laptops. They present a whole different set of challanges. You'll be recompiling your kernels constantly to support ACPI, or wireless, or video drivers, or whatever.

Then there's always Knoppix!

But try a bunch of distros and determine which one is best for you. Personally I'll probably stick with Slack on the servers for a good long time, though I could see me leaving Mandrake for soemthing "better" in the near future.

I think I might just do my own distro based on LinuxFromScratch.

-Tim