A new guide on choosing Linux v2009.05.10

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Thanks for that randomizer.






@linux_0............. I'm downloading Fedora now.

Which of the two do you think is easier to work with the Fedora or the Ubuntu?

I don't really have a preference one way or the other but have worked with neither.
 
Ubuntu has a few point-and-click advantages over Fedora. It's easier to install binary drivers if you want them. But they aren't always the latest (in fact they are two versions behind at the moment, 3 including beta drivers) and Linux doesn't get a driver every week like Windows. Manually installing isn't too difficult on Ubuntu, and shouldn't be on Fedora either.

I haven't used Fedora enough to comment about anything else.
 
I've been doing a bit of reading on those two flavors at various places and while I was doing that found that Gentoo sort of got my interest.

What are your thoughts on Gentoo?

I mean to be fair if I mess up or decide I don't like one I can just reformat and try another but it would be less work if I like what I install right off the bat. :)

I did like the screenshots I saw of Gentoo.

Once again when it comes to a download though there are so many choices I'm not sure which one to latch on to?

I want to install a full package with as many options offered as possible for me to pick from and I think I've determined that I'm after the IA64 version but which one of the following offers...................... http://distfiles.gentoo.org/releases/ia64/autobuilds/current-iso/
 
Gentoo is cool but it's not one of the user friendly distributions.

Fedora, Ubuntu and Linux Mint are by far some of the most user friendly.

Mint isn't too 64bit friendly though, so you'll have to be really careful if you decide to try it.

Now here's some good news you can download and try the Fedora and Ubuntu live cds and see if you like 'em before you install 'em. But you'll have to withhold judgement and not draw too many conclusions because the live cds aren't going to be as fast as a native hard drive install and there's going to be some differences in how things work.

Fedora allows you to choose between Gnome, KDE and XFCE, ubuntu's got Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu which are Gnome, KDE and XFCE based respectively and they've also got the netbook version.

Fedora and Ubuntu can do just about everything Gentoo can do.

Where's the screenshots that you saw of Gentoo?

Good luck :)
 




Whoa there! You've got the wrong version!

IA64 isn't for x86_64 CPUs.

Don't download IA64 you'll waste your time and your bandwidth! [ fixed typo ]

Semper Fi :)
 



Learned something new again. Thanks.

So if I want to download Gentoo which file would I be after? http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/where.xml

Screenshots are here......
http://images.google.ca/images?q=gentoo+screenshots&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US😱fficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=jd6BS7WdMJDgsQPprJyFBA&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCMQsAQwAw

I have to reformat anyway as I'm replacing the Win7 RC so I don't care about installing a couple of times if I must.

Really the only thing I need Linux to do is run BOINC which according to my research they all will and let me use open office, Thunderbird, and FireFox which they'll all do.

I really really liked the look of PCLOS when I had it a while back and to me going just by screenshots Gentoo looks more like it than the rest of them.

Oh yeah will any flavor of Linux allow me to do the spinning cube desktop thing?

 
Gentoo is a tricky distro because it requires compilation of alot of the software (almost everything?). If you want maximum flexibility and optimisation for your system this is ideal, but it's time-consuming as well.

If you are after a 64-bit version, you want the amd64 one. Otherwise go for x86. Everything else will simply not work unless you happen to have Sun SPARC or Itanium processors lying around. :)
 
Oh yeah will any flavor of Linux allow me to do the spinning cube desktop thing?
Click to expand...

Yup, just about any distro will do that :)

The reason why I'm recommending fedora and ubuntu is that they both update very frequently are user friendly and support a lot of the latest hardware and you don't have to compile anything unless you really want to.

Gentoo isn't as friendly and it usually compiles things from source, depending on what you're doing, so it can take a very long time to compile things and it's not something most people would want to do.

With ubuntu and fedora you pop your disk in, you run your installer and in about 5 to 10 minutes you've got a fully functional system. They're must faster and much easier.

Good luck :)
 
OK thanks guys I'll go with your advice.

I already got the iso for both of those burned to a disk last night so I should be good.

I'll install some time this week.

Thanks. :)
 


Yup :)

You won't find 'em on newegg or almost any other online store except maybe ebay.

There's almost no one using Intel Itaniums except a few very large companies and universities.

Finding parts for them isn't going to be easy either, there isn't a lot of demand for them, everyone's pretty much switched to commodity hardware.

Semper Fi :)
 
Hmmmm......... this computer that I want to install Linux on is connected to internet by means of a Netgear WN311T wireless adapter and it's looking like I may have some issues getting that to work. 🙁
 


Not sure I'm following?

If you mean what chip on the adapter I believe it's called a Marvell Top Dog.

The rest of the hardware is a DFI LP UT X48 board, Q9550 CPU, 9800GT, 2GB OCZ Reaper PC2-9200, Zalman 600HP PSU.

Has a card reader in it too, logitech illuminated keyboard, and a MX Revolution Wireless Mouse.

Wireless adapter is Netgear WN311T wireless N
 
Cool you'll probably be fine, all the important components shouldn't cause any problems :)

The WN311T doesn't seem to work well on any operating system, there's a lot of complaints from windows users. It might work under Linux or it might not, it's tough to tell.

You'll be much better off with a wired setup using your onboard LAN and it'll be much more secure that way to boot :)

There's ways to get wireless to work under Linux, if you've got to have it, if the built-in drivers don't work you can try NDISwrapper which uses the windows drivers under Linux. If the windows drivers are cr*p like the windows users are saying you might have some trouble but a cheap madwifi compatible wireless card'll fix that :)

You'll probably be ok.

You'll want to grab the nvidia drivers for your 9800, more on that later.

Good luck :)
 
Realtek-based wireless adapters seem to work fine as well. I have a $25 USB one which works without issues using the default drivers. The only thing that bugs me (not related to the adapter itself) is the stupid Gnome default keyring which was a problem whenever connecting to a network (after every reboot) and whenever using Evolution. It just doesn't tango with automatic login, but I managed to get it to settle down finally.
 
I've tried a number of distros over the years including the Corel mentioned by one. Years ago, I was brought up on and had to learn to install and maintain Xenix and UNIX systems but I'm an not a computer person.

While my kid has settled on Ubunto, I've never warmed up to it. Possibly because of my past with Xenix and UNIX, I'm used to going to root to do things. I preferred and had been using OpenSuse and really liked it. However, in doing some reading I decided to try Linux on a stick and after reading several articles, found that Fedora had taken the challenge out of it and has a nice little program to mount it on a stick. I had tried Fedora before and it was not bad at all. The stick install went very smoothly and it booted on my Compaq N610c, recognizing even the D-Link pmcia wireless card. I decided to install Fedora 12 on the laptop in lieu of OpenSuse and after finding the apps not installed such as an MP3 app, it has been very stable and fast. No issues other than a kernal crash on startup but, it does not seem to effect the operations. I've downloaded KDE and as well as several other GUIs offered. At this time I am comfortable in stating that Fedora 12 has become my distro for a long time.

I carry the flash drive on my keyring and also have the Windows PortableApps system so I'm good to go. In fact, I'm on the drive OS right now. I've tried the CD Live versions of Fedora 12 and the flash drive is far faster.

for the writer who panned Corel software, just to let you know, Corel WordPerfect X4 is a better office suite than MS Office and more polished but not as bloated as OpenOffice. I recently converted my office systems to it and deleted OOo and relegated MS Office for use only when totally necessary. X4 has been more stable and faster than OOo 3 on both my XP Pro and Windows 7 machines and has fewer crashes.
 


Well I finally managed to get Linux running but had issues with both distros for a while.

Fedora I just didn't really care for the package manager and no matter what I did I couldn't get it to install flash and run BOINC properly.

Deciding then to try Ubuntu I installed it and kept getting a grub error on startup that prevented me from running it.

Came to find that for some reason Ubuntu doesn't seem to like RAID arrays so when I disable that the issue went away and I was able to boot.

Ubuntu uses Synaptic package manager which is what PCLOS also uses so I was a bit more familiar with that aspect plus it did upgrades smoothly.

I just find Synaptic far more intuitive than what Fedora offers though I suppose for those comfortable working with a command line it makes little difference.

Now I just have to figure out how to get CUDA working in Linux since BOINC is not acknowledging my graphics processor at all.
 



I decided to give Sabayon 5.4 a try and must say I'm quite pleased with it so far and like that it has an X64 version.
 
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