Linux

Mandrake 8.0
It''s probably the easiest for newbies.

Oh, and FreeBSD 0wnz Linux

~~~~~~~~~~
Martee

They''re probably right about Mandrake being easiest, but Redhat worked fine for me (I''d never used and form of Unix before installing it). All distro''s have their quarks though .

quote:

---

Original post by Martee
Oh, and FreeBSD 0wnz Linux

---

Can''t all of us Open Source people get along ? Heh.

[Resist Windows XP''s Invasive Production Activation Technology!]

Slackware 8.0. ''Nuff said.

Free Speech, Free Sklyarov
Fight the unconstitutional DMCA.

Commander M

quote:

---

Original post by pouya
well, when you say you don''t know which distribution does what, that means that you have very little (or nothing at all) experience in linux.

---

Actually, although I don''t have a huge experiece with Linux, I have used redhat and dragon linux, along with whatever version my school had on one of their computers, I also used Unix during the time I was taking classes at the local university.

I have enough knowledge of it to know it''s better... I just don''t know enough of the differences between distros, and people just tend to flame about them anyway.

Thanks to all for your help.

---

Drakonite

[Insert Witty Signature Here]

Make sure it is an Up-to-date Red Hat if you do choose it... because the install for RH5 had a fubared partitioning tool and caused my HDDs to become surprisingly blank (and also gave me far too much hassle in being able to repartition them... install win2k.... fubar around with the partitions in that... etc)

Anyway... the moral of the story is to eat your vegetables...

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - The future of RPGs Thanks to all the goblins in the GDCorner niche

quote:

---

Original post by dwarfsoft
Make sure it is an Up-to-date Red Hat if you do choose it... because the install for RH5 had a fubared partitioning tool and caused my HDDs to become surprisingly

---

Actually I once installed RH5 and it was easy and hassle free.

FreeBSD is pretty easy to intall too. It comes with best installation GUI type thing I''ve sever seen. It''s really easy to install. And you can call up opon it to add/remove packages etc.

Mandrake 8 or Red Hat 7.1 .

If you choose Mandrake, I recommend choosing the development option or custom. For some stupid reason, it doesn''t include the compiler by default (!) and you have to rely completely on RPM (like InstallShield for Linux I guess).
Red Hat is nice but don''t even think about using it''s FTP server or BIND. Get ProFTP and BIND 9.x instead.

I''m surprised that no one mentioned debian. So I will:

Debian

PS: Check out the great site www.linuxnewbie.org

quote:

---

I'm surprised that no one mentioned debian

---

That's because whenever debian is suggested to a newbie on a linux group, other people start flaming with arguments like "Debian is too hard, it's not for newbies".

But apart from that, I totally agree with you, Debian is by far the best choice. No bloated installation of over 1.5 Gigs without even having a compiler like in mandrake. An easy to use package install system (esp. the dependency tree, rpm can't compete with .deb). A full install with X, development tools, web browser, etc. on a 500 MB hard disk :-) (Actually I can get that on a 200 MB disk as well, but we're talking about newbies here :-)

And no KDE standard installed, so don't worry about running debian on your P166!

Edited by - Tassadar on August 6, 2001 9:39:37 AM

I really dont understand why people say Debian is hard to install.

It''s the same with Slackware. There''s no graphical installation, but it''s all simple and easy to use. Very step-by-step installation. Many people say Slack''s not for newbies, but it was the first distro I tried, and I did fine. Every time I tried another, I came back to Slack because it was better.

Free Speech, Free Sklyarov
Fight the unconstitutional DMCA.

Commander M

I''m new to linux also (planning on installing it in 2 days time), and was wondering if removing Windows completely would be either brave, noble, or just foolhardy?

I still have windows on my dual-booted machine. The main reason is for the games. While you COULD try using wine to run Windows games, unless they are OpenGL, it may not run too well. Plus, I have a crappy printer that has no Linux support (stupid Lexmark...). Other than that, I just don''t want to spend $100 on something like VMWare.

If all of your hardware peacefully coexists with Linux and you don''t care if you might not be able to play all of your old games (and some new ones) then you can go ahead and nuke windows. I plan on not doing that until XP is the only windows used, since I would NEVER buy that POS (even if it is what Windows 95 should have been...)

Free Speech, Free Sklyarov
Fight the unconstitutional DMCA.

Commander M

Dont get Corel Linux. I downloaded it a few weeks ago onto my other PC and I totally hate it. I''ll have to download Mandrake and see how that is.

Well, I got slackware and installed it last night.

But I got two questions for anybody here that could answer them for me...

1. How do I handle mounting/unmounting the cdrom. When I had red hat there was a program that did it all for me, but not with slack. When I tried to do it, it couldnt'' find the cdrom to mount it.

2. How do I set up my gefore2mx?

3. How do I set up my cmedia 6 channel sound card ? (doubt anybody here will know this one... although I should have this one figured out tonight.)

Thanks for all you input!

---

Drakonite

[Insert Witty Signature Here]

1. What commands were you using? Try typing ''mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom'', or something like that. If that doesn''t work, try ''mount -t cd9660 /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom''

2. Grab the source to the drivers from http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=linux. Run ''make install'' on both packages. Then edit your X config file, which will probably be somewhere like /etc/X11/XF86Config-4, and change the Driver line to read ''Driver "nvidia"''. That should do it.

3. I have no idea


~~~~~~~~~~
Martee

quote:

---

Original post by Martee
1. What commands were you using? Try typing ''mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom'', or something like that. If that doesn''t work, try ''mount -t cd9660 /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom''

---

hmm... that first is pretty much what I was doing... I''ll try the second one when I reboot.

quote:

---

2. Grab the source to the drivers from http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=linux. Run ''make install'' on both packages. Then edit your X config file, which will probably be somewhere like /etc/X11/XF86Config-4, and change the Driver line to read ''Driver "nvidia"''. That should do it.

---

I tried before, it has some error when it tries to make the kernel part.

---

Drakonite

[Insert Witty Signature Here]

quote:

---

Original post by Drakonite

I tried before, it has some error when it tries to make the kernel part.

---

Unresolved symbols. I installed Slackware today (I downloaded it a day or two ago) and had the same problem. I emailed NVidia to find out what exactly to do (I don''t just want to go messing with stuff ). I''ll post their response when they give me one (they were prompt and helped a lot last time I had to ask them for help, last time it was actually a bug though, this time it''s just a missing header or something).

[Resist Windows XP''s Invasive Production Activation Technology!]

Well, I came accross a page on Nvidia that says something about this, but their fix doesn''t work. I don''t know if I didn''t install something I should have or more likely, slackware''s directory structure has been rearanged a little.

Hm... and now the same thing is causing me not to be able to install my CMedia 8738 6 channel sound card...

Null and Void -- is it slackware 8? that''s what I got, and I think this is a problem with it.tructure has been rearanged a little.

---

Drakonite

[Insert Witty Signature Here]