I'm interested in Linux. Mainly curious. What is the best Linux to use ( i heard there are many versions, im not sure) for someone who wants to mess around and just want something new to play around with since i can't play with Vista yet.
Ihave tried Red Hat 9 a long time ago. It was a good OS. But now Red Hat is not free I think.
You can go for Fedora or Ubuntu, which are free versions.
(I think )
not only that, but i am not sure what the OP meant by "nearly as functional as xp".
I guess after setting it up, he could delete 3/4 of the built-in programs, but he won't be able to lower security that far.
I'm also on the Ubuntu bandwagon, the other mainstream distros are also userfriendly, but Ubuntu just has more of the little things that make desktop noobs like me happy.
What I meant by 'as functional as XP' was something that has easy to use interface. (But i'm willing to learn) Many years ago I switched on a computer with linux, I did not know where to start or how to use it.
I'll start downloading Ubuntu since that seems to be the most mentioned.
What I meant by 'as functional as XP' was something that has easy to use interface.
As I said earlier open source are not much familiar for me. But in my quite little experience on Linux, for your this requirement Ubuntu could be the best.
“victory breeds hatred, the defeated live in pain; happily the peaceful live giving up victory and defeat” - Gautama Buddha
What I meant by 'as functional as XP' was something that has easy to use interface. (But i'm willing to learn) Many years ago I switched on a computer with linux, I did not know where to start or how to use it.
that's how i felt the first time i ran mac OS. And NO ONE can claim it is hard to use. You just have to learn where everything is.
I have nothing positive to say about Ubuntu. So I won't say anything about it.
Have you actually tried it? If you could give at least 5 really good reasons why anybody shoudn't use Ubuntu, I'll shut up about Ubuntu. Give me more reasons and I might just dissapear off the Linux Development part of VBF.
Originally Posted by wossname
Fedora has served me very well the last 18 months or so. It's excellent.
Every time I've tried it, it has not been a "pick up and go" OS, something Ubuntu has pretty much been since I first tried it (6.06 or "Dapper Drake"). I've always had to edit the X11.conf file to get the resolution just right, I've had problems with sound (Sound not playing correctly, MP3s not playing at all due to lack of codecs, etc), but worst of all, every time I've used Fedora, any programs I use has to crash at least once; One multimedia program failed to start up at all, and that was all the time, not a one-off. It makes me wonder that if the Ubuntu distro was derived from the Red Hat distributions, would you have a different attitude overall?
For somebody starting off in the Linux world, I would suggest Ubuntu, because its pretty much as simple as anyone can get, but still has functionality. If any newbie had to go through what I had to go through with Fedora, they would've been put off with Linux within minutes and would miss out the brilliance of Linux. I've tried all sorts of fruity distros (some I can't even remember), but time and time again, Ubuntu comes out on top for me in terms of easiness.
However, I have tried CentOS, and if anyone bears any sort of grudge against Ubuntu, I would recommend CentOS. I was considering converting myself.
It never ceases to amaze me how easily provoked Linux users are when distros are on the table...for what it's worth, my vote goes to OpenSuSE...we use it on all our servers and I use it as my main desktop OS at work. I was very impressed with the latest 10.3 version, it was the only time I've ever seen compiz-fusion work out of the box!
I've tried openSUSE once and the package installer was terrible. I wouldn't shun the compiz-fusion thing working on openSUSE, because it seems all major distros are following suite. Ubuntu comes with compiz-fusion, and mine worked straight away, and I have onboard graphics.
But last time I remember openSUSE, it was very good for just the "get up and go" sort of work. Using distros, it really depends on the end user. If you're going to sit there all day doing office work, browse the web, and possibly listen to music (example) then openSUSE probably fares better than Ubuntu. If you're only into 1337 c0d, then probably Fedora or any Red Hat distro is crucial since they have lots of development packages on one DVD. If you're like me and want something different from the OS, then go for Ubuntu I guess.
Oh, and don't bother trying to do wireless networking on any Linux distros (to date - especially with WPA). They're generally confusing. If anyone can get connected to a Wireless WPA network with their distro, let me know. I have a laptop that has Vista on it, so it can be spared
If anyone can get connected to a Wireless WPA network with their distro, let me know. I have a laptop that has Vista on it, so it can be spared
I was testing out Ubuntu on my old apple powerbook, which has a broadcom chipset for wireless. All I had to do to connect to a WPA network was install gnome-network-mananger (now installed by default, i think) and install the bcm43xx drivers. It just worked for me (which doesn't seem to happen for most people).
I was testing out Ubuntu on my old apple powerbook, which has a broadcom chipset for wireless. All I had to do to connect to a WPA network was install gnome-network-mananger (now installed by default, i think) and install the bcm43xx drivers. It just worked for me (which doesn't seem to happen for most people).
Ok,finally installed Ubuntu 7.10. Now I have a problem, Once I boot, then select ubuntu, it starts up loads a few lines of text, then goes to a blue & grey screen that says:
The display server has been shut down about 6 times in the last 90 seconds. It is likely that something bad is going on. Waiting for 2 minutes before trying again on display :0.
Once I press ok, it tries again then comes back to the blue&grey screen
It never ceases to amaze me how easily provoked Linux users are when distros are on the table...for what it's worth, my vote goes to OpenSuSE...we use it on all our servers and I use it as my main desktop OS at work. I was very impressed with the latest 10.3 version, it was the only time I've ever seen compiz-fusion work out of the box!
I'd also lend my support to OpenSuse, forgotten about that one. Very good. Especially the software maintenance tools.
Kregg. Yes I've be subjected to ubuntu on more than one occasion. I will not be drawn on the topic further.
caveat:
However I do speak from the perspective of a programmer and not of a casual user. I tend to expect a lot from a distro and I am prepared to go a long way to ensure that my box is set up right.
Last edited by wossname; Nov 5th, 2007 at 02:05 PM.
I'm very much in that position too, however I've been very impressed with OpenSuSE 10.3 for that very reason.....I use Linux as my main desktop machine at work so have a rather length list of requirements from a distro and it's been absolutely straightforward in this case to get it to a state where I can use it happily. Almost everything was there by default and the few things that were missing were available as RPMs - I'm happy to compile software from source if needed but it's always nice not to have to.
openSuse 10.3 has gotten my vote also.
Ive tried several distros to but was always put off by one thing or the other.
I think openSuse has got it right.
Bye bye windows.
Hey people, sorry to tell this, but shouldnt we help the OP to solve his problem ?
He's having hard time installing ubuntu. Has anyone come accorss that kind of problem? I once came accross this using Knoppix. But cant remember how I reolved it.
Actually such problems exist. Not all hardware supports Linux. Some are very hard to get in linux. This was pointed out in some posts in this thread also.
I had a very bad experience with a Core 2 Duo Server where we tried to install Fedora 64 bit version. The actual problem was SATA controller. We had to wait till compatible driver was released. We even chaged about three Intell Motherboards.
SO first you would have to check for hardware compatibility. There might be dirvers out there, but you got to search.
Anyway in your case, a generic driver should work. I dont know about Ubuntu (I havent used it), In linux it could work like that (as I remember).
Is it possible to get a screen shot of the startup screen. Print Screen wont work. May be a Digital Camera Photo ?
And when it comes to this
The display server has been shut down about 6 times in the last 90 seconds. It is likely that something bad is going on. Waiting for 2 minutes before trying again on display :0.
see whether there are any options to change setting. In Knoppix, it was there. try entering 1 and pressing ok (Enter)
I reinstalled ubuntu earlier and this time while installing, when it gave a selection to choose the resolution, i selected 640x480, (previous installation i chose 1024x768)
Still it does not work. Now it just turns of and on my monitor a few times and just stays in a black screen, nothing mentioned.
Now know why windows is expensive - everything is done for you.
Last edited by freeze_sr; Nov 8th, 2007 at 08:12 AM.
I reinstalled ubuntu earlier and this time while installing, when it gave a selection to choose the resolution, i selected 640x480, (previous installation i chose 1024x768)
Still it does not work. Now it just turns of and on my monitor a few times and just stays in a black screen, nothing mentioned.
Now know why windows is expensive - everything is done for you.
hah if it did tech support wouldn't be necessary. Especially via chipset
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Originally Posted by Lord Orwell
