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Which Linux?

Started by ricekrispyw Sep 16, 2005 at 1:23 AM 23 replies 2.4k views

Original Post

Sep 16, 2005 at 1:23 AM

I'm looking at getting a laptop and installing Linux on in, but I'm not sure what distro I want to use. First off, I'm not looking to develop a lot on it (I'll stick with my Windows desktop for C++ game development, but I'd probably like to use Linux to do some Java development for school and some research I'm doing). Mainly I'm looking at doing day-to-day stuff. Typing papers, surfing the web (wirelessly), checking email, playing music, maybe editing some images, etc... I'd like a relatively easy install (very preferably, in fact almost necessarily, graphical), and to be more graphical desktop oriented and user-friendly. So, what distro would you recommend? I know someone who runs Ubuntu and says it's very good. Also, it has good package management, which is very important to me. I prefer the system that automatically fetches whatever dependencies you need. I've read that Mandrake 9.1 is very very good. Also Debian and SuSE seem to be very popular. Problem is, I don't know which one to use. So, any ideas would be appreciated. If you need to know more about what I want, let me know what, and I'll gladly explain. Thanks very much in advance. [EDIT] Oh, and, clearly, the more programs I can run on it the better. [Edited by - ricekrispyw on September 16, 2005 10:45:56 AM]

lethalhamster

Sep 16, 2005 at 1:26 AM

I like Mephis, but most people will say Ubuntu is good too. You'll have to check em out for yourself, but I definately think those should be at the top of your list.

ricekrispyw

Author

ricekrispyw

Sep 16, 2005 at 1:27 AM

Hey, Mepis does look good. Lots of cutting-edge stuff. Thanks.

In fact, it looks very good. Very user-friendly. How's the package management?

Wow. I'm reading a lot of great reviews about this. Looks like it's great for switching from Windows.

I did read something about hardware acceleration being bad. Does anyone know about that?

Thanks, lethalhamster. This one has gone to the top of my list.

lethalhamster

Sep 16, 2005 at 1:44 AM

Package managemen is great. Comes with Kpackage and Synaptic. I use Synaptic, it give you a list (really big list) of all the packages and you can select which ones to download and install(or uninstall).

ricekrispyw

Author

ricekrispyw

Sep 16, 2005 at 1:49 AM

Sweet. Now I just need to find a laptop that's decent that I can afford.

Rayno

Sep 16, 2005 at 1:54 AM

Most of the big name distros are pretty user-friendly these days. They all have package systems that make installing and updating software easy. They all have nice installers. So just go with one.

I have used Ubuntu (which is based off Debia) and it is very nice. Mandrake/Mandriva, Fedora, and SuSE have all been around for a long time and have good support. I haven't tried Mepis yet, but everyone seems to like it, so it should be fine.

ricekrispyw

Author

ricekrispyw

Sep 16, 2005 at 8:59 AM

Cool. I think that's what I'll do. Now about that laptop... [smile]

Ravuya

298

Ravuya

Sep 16, 2005 at 9:36 AM

Quote:
Original post by ricekrispyw
Cool. I think that's what I'll do. Now about that laptop... [smile]

Make sure the wireless chip is well supported -- my personal experiences with ndiswrapper are uneven enough that I can't advocate it to anyone.

Kevinator

Sep 16, 2005 at 9:48 AM

What do people think of Gentoo?

SKATIN_HARD

Sep 16, 2005 at 10:06 AM

I tried Mandrake one time and didn't like it that much. I hear good things about Ubuntu from friends, but I have never seen it in action.

DrewGreen

Sep 16, 2005 at 10:22 AM

Gentoo's my distro of choice. Once it's up and running the portage system is excellent (a bit like .rpms on speed) & saves a lot of messing about. There's also a GUI tool you can use to install new programs off portage (and probably remove them too but I haven't had a need for linux for a while & can't remember).

The install comes in three flavours & I have to say the first time I tried I was a bit confused by the documentation, (it's not as simple as redhat for example) but it makes sense now having reinstalled it a couple more times after my hard drive died, thanks to xp rather than gentoo. And you learn stuff in the process. Don't go for a stage 1 install unless you really want complete control, have a few days spare & don't want to use your computer for anything else... Stage 2 is much quicker and still pretty customisable. I haven't tried stage 3 myself but it's the quickest of the lot.
It says you will need to have a working internet connection to install, but there are livecds which don't need one.

nagromo

113

nagromo

Sep 16, 2005 at 10:31 AM

Mepis is the easiest distro I've tried. It uses KDE and doesn't work well with gnome, otherwise I would probably use it as my main distro.

Just burn it to a CD and stick it in. You shoulld be in a working graphical environment, and you can install it to HDD using a regular graphical application. It also worked with allmost all of my hardware.

I second the idea of doing a little research before buying. If you buy one with wireless that has good Linux drivers you'll save yourself a lot of trouble.

[Edited by - nagromo on September 16, 2005 7:31:37 PM]

Rayno

Sep 16, 2005 at 10:49 PM

Quote:
Original post by Kevinator
What do people think of Gentoo?

Actually I'm running Gentoo right now also. I really like it, but it is very time consuming to install (especially if you do a stage 1, which I did [rolleyes]). But like DrewGreen said, you do learn a lot, and it is very customizable.

I wouldn't usually recommend it to those new to linux. Besides being time consuming to install, you also tend to have to make a lot of choices about what software you want or don't want. While other distros will just give you a good mix of stuff.

ricekrispyw

Author

ricekrispyw

Sep 17, 2005 at 12:17 AM

Quote:
Original post by Rayno
Quote:
Original post by Kevinator
What do people think of Gentoo?

Actually I'm running Gentoo right now also. I really like it, but it is very time consuming to install (especially if you do a stage 1, which I did [rolleyes]). But like DrewGreen said, you do learn a lot, and it is very customizable.

I wouldn't usually recommend it to those new to linux. Besides being time consuming to install, you also tend to have to make a lot of choices about what software you want or don't want. While other distros will just give you a good mix of stuff.

Good to know. Yeah, I have a hard time thinking of myself as a noob, but I guess when it comes to Linux, that's exactly what I am. I'm going for the user-friendliness. After even more searching, I still think MEPIS is my pick.

jfclavette

138

jfclavette

Sep 17, 2005 at 12:19 AM

Just chiming to give a vote to ubuntu. [smile]

Will F

112

Will F

Sep 17, 2005 at 1:29 AM

Quote:
Original post by ricekrispyw
I did read something about hardware acceleration being bad. Does anyone know about that?

The open source drivers for nvidia and ati cards give pretty crappy performance. However, you can download official drivers from the respective companies which are fine (though i've only used nvidia cards, so I can't speak for the ati drivers).

Right now I have Ubuntu and Fedora Core installed on a couple of computers and have been happy with both of them.

ricekrispyw

Author

ricekrispyw

Sep 17, 2005 at 1:33 AM

Cool. I'm looking forward to Linux. I will have to make sure, though, that all the hardware on the computer has professional Linux drivers.

Thevenin

Sep 17, 2005 at 1:46 AM

Ubunto, because its simple (Relatively speaking).

Will F

112

Will F

Sep 17, 2005 at 1:46 AM

One other common hardware problem is modems. Many modems out there are "winmodems" which require proprietary drivers (which most companies have not released for linux). This isn't that big of a deal anymore as more and more people are using broadband (and some winmodems now have linux drivers) - but if you're going to need to use a modem, make sure it's linux compatible.

daviangel

135

daviangel

Sep 17, 2005 at 3:46 AM

Quote:
Original post by ricekrispyw
Hey, Mepis does look good. Lots of cutting-edge stuff. Thanks.

In fact, it looks very good. Very user-friendly. How's the package management?

Wow. I'm reading a lot of great reviews about this. Looks like it's great for switching from Windows.

I did read something about hardware acceleration being bad. Does anyone know about that?

Thanks, lethalhamster. This one has gone to the top of my list.

I've been using different distros of linux since redhat 5,suse 6,etc and I personally recommend either suse 9.3 or fedora core 4 since they have the best laptop support of any distro I've installed.
And if your laptop has anything other than and nvidia chipset your hardward acceleration is going to suck or be nonexistent. Although I believe ATI has finally provided some decent linux drivers in last couple of months.
Using nvidia drivers on either suse or fedora is doable by a newbie. Anything else requires the expertise of a linux guru to get working properly in my opinion.

p.s. Last time I checked ubuntu which is based on debian java support sucked too which I saw in action since my friend is a debian linux admin and I watched as he took several hours to get java somewhat working on debian so he could use bittorent. So I'd check into that since you mentioned java. Also I might add he never got hardware acceleration to work on his computer running ubuntu since he was using an ATI chipset for his laptop.
Finally I recommend you check out linux laptops website for specific model laptop you are going to get to see if there are know problems with hardware and distro combinations.

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