Linux for desktop?

[Ethereal]

Since my largely positive experience with the Z was part of what convinced me to once again flirt with Linux on the desktop, I\'d like to hear the thoughts of those here:

Fed up with Win95, I toyed with Linux several years ago, and liked it quite a bit.  Ultimately, though, I needed a tool, not a science project, and M$ got its act together and put out Win 2K, which I could run for more than an hour without crashing or rebooting.

But, in the last week, I\'ve ventured into Torvalds country again.  I\'ve tried Debian, which grilled me for two hours of installation with questions that presumed I knew more about my laptop than a proctologist knows about his patients, then dropped me into a shell with a broken X configuration.  Then came Mandrake...this is different from Windoze...how?  The jury is still out on Fedora, currently my \"flavour of the minute,\" but I\'m beginning to suspect that it is going to disappoint and I just won\'t admit it to myself yet.  It has that awful, half-baked feeling about it: \"This vital function produced an error, so it was aborted,\" without any hint as to what the error--or remedy--might actually be.  PPP is pretty badly broken, too.

So, I ask the *nix-heads here, should I:

1.) Persevere--Rome wasn\'t built in a day;

2.) Try a different disto--feel free to offer your favourites (unless it\'s Slack); or

3.) Screw it--the Z syncs with Windoze boxes just fine, anyway!

[Anonymous]

I would start off with mandrake on an old pc with compatible parts

for newbies like myself, i found it to be a bit hard.

9600xt graphics card is not supported on my main pc but it does run just fine on my radeon 8500 on my old pc.

i recommend this.

first off, you need operating system....i chose linux mandrake.  wait for 10 to be available for download.

secondly, go through there supported hardware page and check to see what you want to have linux run on.

so i have soundblaster live, radeon 8500 all in wonder, amd 450mhz on a via mobo.  all i need now is a hardisk with pci so i can have larger than 60 due to mobo bios not detecting it and a 56k modem.

on my main pc, scanner isnt working but printer does...epson 820photo.  as a matter of fact, thats all i need on my main pc.  scanner and video card compatibility.  half a terabyte of disk space and all....mandrake beta 10 works fine out of the box.

so do what i said and youll be fine.............just to get you started.

then go for softwares that ill make you happy.

Cresho

[ChanSecodina]

I tried RedHat 5.1 way back in the day, and I tend to try it out every couple years but you described it exactly the way I would: It feels broken.  I\'m not knocking it.  I realize that it can be a great distro, its easy to setup.  After RedHat I tried Debian and I\'ve been hooked.  Debian is a pain to configure but once you do \"it just works\" tm.  Forever.  Configuring X is possibly its biggest weak point.  I suggest you grab a testing iso of debian from here
( http://gluck.debian.org/cdimage/testing/da...386-netinst.iso ) if you get fed up with fedora.  The installer is slightly less ... hostile then it used to be. Then upgrade to the unstable branch, so you\'re not stuck in the stoneage in terms of software versions.  You will probably need to end up writing your own XF86Config file.  Consider it a rite of passage.   It is a pain to set up but once it is running, there is no need to reinstall.  It doesn\'t randomly break when upgrading and there is no dependency hell like redhat or mandrake.  Invest the time to get to know debian.  I\'m sure a gentoo guy will show up in a second and say that Gentoo is the best distro.  Gentoo is good also.  I just like Debian better.

-ChanSecodina

[padishah_emperor]

Well if you don\'t want the faff-on you\'ve had already, I advise SuSE 9.0.

I have used SuSE as my ONLY desktop OS since Win2K came out and kept redetecting my hardware every single time I booted the damn thing, and now I **REALLY** don\'t run windows, the dual boot thing wasn\'t how a wanted to use a computer.  

The way you have to look at it, is if you want to go the Linux route, you have to leave the PC world behind (sounds a tad trite but stay with me), it\'s like buying a Mac, you have to buy hardware and peripherals with Linux in mind, not \'any ol\' crap off the shelf for windows pcs\'.  So many Linux newbies get disheartened when they can\'t get X or Y to work. (Although I tend to avoid USB, usually, like the black death, coz I can NEVER get it to work the way I\'d like, and I don\'t like WiFi/Bluetooth, there\'s enough radiation cooking my brain already)

With the right hardware choices you can get Linux to work smoothly, SuSE (IMHO) is the best, I\'ve worked with R&D labs in Germany and the engineers worshipped it, as do I now.  I don\'t know where in the world you are, but I get every new version from eBay for less than 5 pounds. I\'ve used 7.1, 8.0, 8.1 and now 9.0, it\'s great and I have a TV card, my Zaurus, a CF reader and broadband router all working great.

A posting above mine mentions scanner and video card, again correct purchasing choices avoids this, same if you want a digital camera etc. you have to think it through. I purposefully bought a camera with a compact flash card in it to plug into my card reader to transfer images.

VMware is a good software choice for Linux, it lets you run your Windows stuff if you want, but in the way it **should** be run, inside a virtual machine where it can\'t do any damage. But it costs (unless you hunt... bla bla)..

As for all this X config, stuff, why bother? SuSE\'s installer is SO easy and setting up the graphics card stuff it a matter of clicking icons.

I notice a couple of respondants are suggesting \"unstable\" this or \"latest\" that, DO not bother, for the love of Shai-Hulud, don\'t go that way, get a distro you like and get it to work, and leave it until the next version comes out, THEN decide IF you think it\'s worth upgrading. Constantly updating and modifying will leave you feeling knackered, your computer WILL be a science project and not a tool for getting work done or playing, imagine if you had to reinstall, you\'d spend a week just adding all the modifications back, no no no, I ran SuSE 7.1 for 18 months and ONLY updated because I like the new colour scheme. (LOL!)

Hope this insane rant helps ;-)

Rebel against everything

[webslngr]

my first linux distro was Mandrake. suse is good too. I didn\'t particularly like the feel of it, but that\'s me. Both were easy to install without alot of questions. once i got my feet wet, I tried gentoo. I haven\'t been back since. if your not familiar with it, gentoo is a source based distro. it downloads and compiles every app that is installed. They use a tool called emerge (think ipkg on a zaurus) that looks in the portage tree (think Packages in a zaurus feed) and determines dependancies and installs them too. Great tool. the support forums are VERY active and a great source of info.

hope that helps.

[Anonymous]

Go Mandrake!  If you are \'rich & famous\' invest in VMWare and experiment all you want with various linux flavors without the fear of losing anything!

[anonuk]

I tried most of the distro\'s, and ended up installing various flavours of KNOPPIX or KANOTIX on my pcs, they work well as livecds but great on a hard disk install also. I gave up on most other distros since....

[nitup]

I think this question is much like asking weather VI or Emacs is better.

That being said, I use debian and am very happy with it.  As stated above, once set up, upgrades are nearly painless.

I second the give suse a try, I tested that on my laptop once and it found everything but my sound card, which only works with commercial drivers anyhow.

Also, the suggestion of running it on a 2nd box is good, easy to experiment and not have to worry about breaking anything.

[CoreyC]

I think this question is much like asking weather VI or Emacs is better...

Neither... pico is the only way to go!

[Anonymous]

I think too often, people look for different distros to make up for the fact that they are not comfortable configuring the system or using the command line.  I would suggest that newbies to linux learn the following basic things before they write linux off:

- vi (knowing how to edit your configuration files is key.  If you don\'t know how to edit these files from the command line and you can\'t get your gui running, your dead in the water)
- cd (change a directory)
- cp (copy a file)
- mv (move or remane a file)
- rm (remove a file)
- ls -l (long list of files and directories)
- ln -s (symlink a file, it\'s sorta like a shortcut, but much better)
- cat filename | more (list the contents of a file)
- CTL-c (kill an executing command)
- su (change to root user -gives full administrative access if you are not root and know the root password)

You may also want/need to learn some of these:
- grep
- ps
- kill
- chmod
- chown

Linux in 24hr is a good book, but any intro to Linux or Unix book should cover these topics.  If you are really interested, you can also check your community college for an intro to Unix course.  You will also want another computer handy with Internet access when you are installing linux so you can research your problems if you cannot get your system working out of the gate.

If you are trying to install it on a laptop and don\'t want to put time in getting the install right, I would tend to say bag it now.  Laptops are genrally difficult to install Linux on, unless you know it is specifically supported by the distro you are using.

I still like slack (sorry, I don\'t understand what the big deal is about typing a few commands that are handed to you unless you know nothing about the command line), Fedora, and Yellow Dog (for MAC hardware).  

OS 10 is another option if you want to play with Unix and still have something you could easily transition from Windows to be comfortable with for your day to day work.  I have a G4 I got off of e-bay and set it up dualboot OS 10 and Yellow Dog Linux.

[nitup]

I think this question is much like asking weather VI or Emacs is better...

Neither... pico is the only way to go!

Well I guess that just proves my point   Bottom line, there is no \'right\' distribution.  Keep trying them until you find one that feels like home.

BTW: I used to use pico ages ago, but stopped when it \'broke\' a long line in a firewall rule set I was writing.  I promptly learned vi.

[soycap]

I think too often, people look for different distros to make up for the fact that they are not comfortable configuring the system or using the command line. I would suggest that newbies to linux learn the following basic things before they write linux off:

crap, wasn\'t logged in. that was me, sorry

soycap

[nitup]

<...snip...>

- cat filename | more (list the contents of a file)

<...snip...>

extra typing for nothing, you can just use your favorite pager direct on a file.

- more filename
or
- less filename

that being said, I find less to be more...

[CoreyC]

I think this question is much like asking weather VI or Emacs is better...

Neither... pico is the only way to go!

Well I guess that just proves my point   Bottom line, there is no \'right\' distribution.  Keep trying them until you find one that feels like home.

BTW: I used to use pico ages ago, but stopped when it \'broke\' a long line in a firewall rule set I was writing.  I promptly learned vi.

I agree with you... and that was my intention, to help you prove your point.

[clivel]

I guess Linux users could be divided into two general groups.

The first group are the Linux tinkerers and hobbyists. Those that enjoy learning as much about Linux as possible. They are happy to fiddle with arcane configurations, try out different distributions, and generally get a buzz out of running on the bleeding edge.

The second group would be those that see the OS as no more than a tool, a reliable easy to configure tool, that is an adjunct to your main task. and not an end in itself. They want an OS that is straight forward to install, and just works.

If you are in the first group, there are a huge number of distributions to download and play with. Downoad Gentoo, if you want the latest and greatest tailored to your hardware. But expect to spend a few days compiling and configuring before you have something workable.

If you fit somewhere between the two groups, install Debian, you will land up with a fine system after a bit of tinkering.

If you see yourself in the second group, you just want to pop in a CD,
wait a few minutes for the installation to run, and have a usable system, there are really only two alternatives; Mandrake or Suse.

I have installed both a number of time on a few different laptops, all were IBM Thinkpads of various vintages. Both distributions installed flawlessly.
I have eventually settled on Suse, currently running V8.2, and I can heartily recommend it. Mandrake worked just as well, but I found it a bit too cutesy for my taste, and I think it looks a bit amateurish.

Suse has only one disadvantage, you have to purchase it, but the manuals that come with it are well worth the price, and you may actually save some money by not having to purchase 3rd party books. There is a free installation over ftp, that is more of a pain than it is worth, or you can download the evaluation version that runs off a CD but does not install.

Which ever distribution you choose, install it on decent hardware, the modern GUI interfaces are just as resource intensive as that other OS from Redmond. Gone are the days of \"throwing it on the old PC in the corner\", this only applies if you want  a command line only install.

Have a look at http://www.linuxiso.org/ if you want a long list of the available distributions.
Good luck, once you have Linux up and running, you will never look back.
Regards,
Clive