:-) This is the problem! :-)
Often you can find that the hardware is supported, but this means only that someone somewhere was able to make this device work!

If I must set up my PC for certified hardware, I must have a 386 based PC, with less than 512Mb RAM, no USB, no Digital Camera, no ADSL, no NIC at 1Gigabit, no Geforce or special video card, etc etc...

But some software (related to 3D grafic) required more than 512 Mb, special video card, etc etc :-)))

Thus, at the moment, I must use WinXP, learning more about Linux and searching for more drivers! ;-)

G

:I hear you loud 'n clear Briotti, Linux does have limited support for most modern hardware. Its a fact. Linux always seems to be last in line as far as support from hardware vendors goes.
In the end you're left with two options; 1-only install supported hardware, 2-get adventurous and get your hardware to work. For a newbie you'd have to suggest taking option 1, to give them a stress free Linux experience, so they stick with it. The more Linux users there are, the more attention the hardware vendors might give to the Linux community.

Just my opinion, remember, I'm a newbie to.

My system, which setup easily with Redhat;
AMD 2400
512mb RAM
80gb HDD
Gforce MX 440 64mb
Intel 10/100 Lan + onboard nforce LAN
Netcomm Roadster Hardware Modem
EPOX nForce II motherboard with the onboard sound running great.
DVD drive...that doesnt seem to wanna play DVD's...yet!
CD burner that runs great with Redhat.
Redhat networks easily on a Windows LAN, connects to the net via the Netcomm or via the LAN gateway to an ADSL connection.
Plays Quake III and America's Army great!

All set up by a newbie who read every readme there was, every help file I could find and tonnes of research. Its not bleeding edge technology, its not specialist hardware but it sure goes alright! Stick at it, get your hardware to work, Briotto, I think it's worth more street cred' to say you recompiled your kernel, got the latest piece of hardware to run under Linux and such. I just took the easy way out, I'm a newbie.

Redhat Rocks!

)) No, there is a misunderstanding )) IMHO there isn't the *perfect solution*, but everything is related to the environment.

I prefer the 2. approach (get adventurous), basically because I'm devoloping software related to 3D, thus I need some features that are stable on WinXP. Because I prefer linux more than win, I try to make my hw works.

But this is possible for me because I have time to spent on it, and i like to learn :-))).

If we want more linux user, i think that resource must spent on make linux more friendly, to have easy to find resource (like drivers, installing procedures, and so on).

Don't forget that most pc users (almost Win users) don't know the difference between floppy and hd! ;-))) Most of them didn't ever seen a console (more of them don't know MS-DOS ;-))))

As example: I had some problem with my 3COM on board card (1Gigabit)... I have found a thread in LQ, with a useful sparse information... I want to ask every guy the procedure adopted to make this card work and write an HowTo :-))))

G

Coudn't agree more. The user interface could be streamlined more for the newbie. IMHO Redhat and Mandrake represent both ends of the scale; where Mandrake has too many control panels to confuse a new user, Redhat a too few, or they seem to be lightweight versions...not enough fiddly bits. I've found the same with the two Ditros' install procedures; where Mandrake has a far better hard disk setup, where even a no-brainer can get it right, Redhat has the most confusing and hardest to configure. The package install routine of both lack clear descriptions, and naming, of individual packages allowing a newbie to install the wrong apps. Or too many apps to do a single task. Redhat beats Mandrake here 'cause it as an "install type" selection (workstation, server..etc), as well as "minimal" or "Everything" options.

Mandrake appears in a hurry to introduce the latest packages, where Redhat takes its time. Increasing stability. I ran Update on both Distros after an install and Mandrake downloaded 640mb of updates, while Redhat only downloaded 250mb of updates. A new user doesnt want to be waiting for 600mb+ to come down the pipe. Even 250mb is out of the question.

In an OS you only need one browser, one file manager, one terminal and so on. A new user fresh from winblows is just gonna get confused and end up not liking Linux at all. The single app' theory seems to be whats happening here with Redhat. On my install at least. From what I read on the 'net its a trend with all the new Distro's as well, thankfully. And whats with the two or more desktops? Freedom of choice sure, I'm down with that, but the choices could be more clearly described. And apps from one Desktop should work seamlessly on another, IMHO. I run Gnome but there's a few games from KDE I'd like to get fired up for the kids, without switching desktops.

Mandrake wins as far as installing new apps though, Redhat isn't difficult but involves using the terminal occasionally.

Linux on a whole represents the best "new-to-computers" platform. How can I say that when Linux can be hell to set up? Cause a new user on windoze can install whatever he likes, delete whatever he likes (I have WinXP, it can be done) and generally introduce as many viruses as he's likes. Being 100% user friendly and easy to manipulate has its draw backs to. Then theres the whole Linux theme of freedom and so on.

I have no idea which Distro represents the best development platform..but it'd probably be one of those "no bells & whistles" command line driven jobbies like Slackware.

Here's a theory, what about paying for drivers? If a hardware vendor had a small team of Linux developers they could sell the drivers, signed and tested for a particular Distro'? Is getting all of your hardware to work seamlessly worth paying for? Just a theory.

Sorry for the extra long post. It'll never happen again

First, about me: I’m an intelligent person (don’t really mean to brag) and I learn very quickly. (Computer stuff anyway.) I’m kind of a Linux newbie, but I’ve worked with Debian (which I hate), Slackware, Mandrake, and Red Hat.

Second, I’m sorry if you like Debian, but I just always have some horrid problem with it. Even if I can get it to work, the way it is set up pisses me off. I know lots of people use and love it, so it can’t be all bad.

Ok, the stuff I want to discuss is concerning Mandrake 9.2, Slackware 9.1, and Red Hat 9 which I will refer to as Fedora Core 1. At the time I’m writing this, Red Hat has recently quit producing their desktop solution and started the Fedora project, which is coming along very nicely.

My first experience with Linux was with Red Hat… version 7.2 or 7.3 I believe. I was amazed at how much nicer Linux is than Windows. Anaconda made installing Red Hat easier than installing Windows. I just needed to type in a root password rather than a CD key. It worked with everything but my evil software modem, which is why I still had to have Windows (I was young and didn’t have a job, so I couldn’t get a better modem). Using Red Hat, I learned a lot about Linux. I could install rpms, configure some stuff, and do a few command line tricks.

Later, I started playing with other distos. By this time, I had decided I liked KDE much more than gnome, although they were very close. The big differences were that KDE put all the settings in one place while gnome had settings in a File/Folder type of setup where everything was individual. KDE also let me do some interesting things with the backgrounds, the taskbar, etc. I just liked it better. Mandrake, of course, just loves KDE. And I loved Mandrake for that! It even seemed to run faster, but I think that may have been my imagination. Mandrake followed that same pattern. All the settings were in the same place (to my delight)! Mandrake also kept all the drives mounted as root and allowed me to eject CDs with no unmounting, just like under Windows. That was a feature I liked too.

Now as I was playing with Mandrake’s control center, I wanted to know what it was actually doing in case I would need to directly edit configuration files. So I started looking into stuff. That’s where Slackware comes into play.

People were telling me that Slackware forced you to learn things because it didn’t do so much of the work for you. When I finally tried it, I was surprised to see that it was very easy to install and get up and running. I expected a difficult time. Then I get a hold on Slackware’s update system called Swaret. I made sure I didn’t install any graphical system other than X. Then I used Swaret to install the kdebase package. From there I had to get startx to give me KDE and so on. I never did get the dcop server running correctly, but everything else was fine. I learned a LOT from Slackware and it had become my favorite desktop system. I had gone from Red Hat, to Mandrake, back to Red Hat (version 9), and now to Slackware 9.

And now I like Fedora =)

Fedora uses Anaconda, which I still think is the best installer, even though Mandrake has a very nice one as well. Another thing about Red Hat and Fedora is support for Gnome. I noticed that Gnome *sucks* on the other distributions I tried, but under Fedora, you will notice a “start here” link on your desktop that has everything you could imagine in it and it’s purpose in primarily for use in Gnome.

However, I just can’t shake my addition to KDE. I just love it! I love the way it does everything. I love the way I can make the taskbar icons bigger at mouseover, I love how I can make the wallpaper change every three hours, I love the menu editor (and I HATE Mandrake’s custom menus, but you can shut them off, so…), and lots of other stuff. It’s just really nice. Mandrake is the master when it comes to KDE. Fedora, however, make catch up soon. They have some nice new support for KDE that evil Red Hat didn’t. Finally, we’re getting some respect!

So, I think if you like KDE, you will like Mandrake. If you like Gnome, you will LOVE Fedora. I’m sure there are a number of exceptions to the rule, but I think it’s true over all. I am, however, one exception. I like Fedora a little more than Mandrake.

Another thing I should say here is that I like my GUI. Many of you out there want to use the command line as much as possible. Hey, more power to ya and HAIL SLACKWARE! But I really like the boxes and buttons. Fedora is really pretty right out of the box with the Blue Curve (which Slack comes with too I think!).

So I’m going between Slackware and Fedora. I like to play with Slack, but Fedora is more my style. I’m not going to choose one. I’m keeping both. I have a tray in my desktop that lets me slide out the tray with the hard drive in it, pop another one in, slide the tray back into the slot, and use the hard drive as the new master with the other OS on it! Then I use Ghost’s to store backups of the entire first hard drive in the second hard drive’s sysimgs folder.

So what’s your style?
KDE – Mandrake
Gnome – Fedora
Command line – Slackware
Ice – Well, I’m no expert here, but I’d say you could use Ice the same with any distro.
Other – You’re sick, leave me alone. All that’s left is TWM and other evil managers that are incredibly annoying.

And hey, one more thing... let's not forget that a distro is really just a collection of packages plus whatever installer and configuration programs the distributor supplys. Like I said, it's all personal flavor. Maybe you like Mandrake's stuff better than Fedora's. I do, but, I just like the way Fedora is set up.

Oh yeah, and I just remembered something... I HATE MANDRAKE'S CUSTOM MENU!! OK, I didn't forget it, but I thought it was worth saying again =) That thing messed me up bad when I decided to stop using it after installing 30 Apps.

Edit: Forgot one more thing... Red Hat does Aptget better than even Debian (I'm talking about the synaptic GUI). I havn't gotten to try it on Fedora yet, but if it works... WOA BABY! I LOVED the version of synaptic for Red Hat! I expected the same thing under Debian, but it totally sucked. It didn't have nearly as many nice features and selections.

I originally started my experience with RH8 then moved on to RH9. I have odd hardware to begin with so those times with RedHat were an eye opener for me. When Mandrake 9.2 came out I gave it a shot and it supported all my hardware right out of the box no questions asked which makes me put A LOT of confidence in Mandrake. I for one recomend it highly to any new windoze refugees. As for RedHat and their new business move, I probably won't go back, but I might try Fedora some day. In the end when I start logging in the months of experience on linux I will switch over to Debain or Slackware for more of a control over my system.

-Phlit

**Still to this day I refuse to install WinXP on any computer!***

Real men write their own programs in assembler. Compiling someone else's C code is for keish eating noobs. JK, but I find people who believe "harder is better" are usually thinking with their egos.

That said, I like the flexibility a CLI offers and the ease-of-use of the GUI. I want my cake and to eat it too. Whereas Windows has reduced everything to the lowest common user denominator, the vidiot, Mandrake offers the best of both worlds. There's no reason an experienced user should have to endure clicking the next button a dozen times in a wizard to change one configuration option. Conversely, there's no reason an inexperienced user should have to learn every aspect of editing Samba files to share a dir. Mandrake, in my opinion, has found the ideal balance. That doesn't make it a noob distro, however. If you want to do something the hard (and fast) way you still can. You're just not forced to.

/ramble_on

I must say I agree with your post the most. I've found the same thing with Mandrake. I don't have the RedHat experience for a really good usage comparison, as my Redhat 7.3 install defaulted me to a GUI login and it locked tight at that. I was a noob then (now I'm 1/2 noob, 2 years later). Since I had the Debian floppies, I gave Deb a try. I learned a lot, for sure. It was comfortable (and, for the person who asked about where Stormix went, I tried that too - 2000 Rain edition - got the disk in my stack somewhere). I got a really nice-looking and acting desktop out of the deal, but thepackages were SO OLD, so I went for the 'unstable' branch. It was nice, but a lot of my Gnome apps would get hosed about once a month, as something was released into Deb that was broken. Then it was the screwed up dependancies for KDE 3.x. That sent me packing. I found Mandrake 9.1 and it loaded up fine, recognizing all my hardware and installing what I wanted. It 'just works'. And, it DOES run faster than a lot of distros, because its compiled for i586 and up. It won't work on 486 or 386. If you have to use Linux, I'd say Mandrake is the best for a newer person who may not have the resources to go and replace flaky hardware. Mandrake supports the most hardware out there - PERIOD. I'm not a developer, so I don't know for sure whether its as good or better to develop on than other distros, but it seems to react to my CLI manipulations as well or better than other distros I have tried (and the *BSDs as well - NetBSD is soooo comfy feeling, once you get it up and running, but hardware support is still lacking). If one could clean out the cruft as easily with Mandrake (or other distros, for that matter) as you can with Debian, it'd be a super-winner. Nothing beats "apt-get clean"!

I've tried (or used) Debian 2.x (in regular and Stormy flavors), Redhat (which worked at console fine), FreeBSD, NetBSD, BeOS, Yoper (which is really fast on my P-III), all Win32(and 16, incl DOS 4, and 6), Mandrake 6.2 and 9.1. From and installation perspective, Mandrake 9.1 wins hands down. From a usage perspective, it seems to work as expected (you're right, SUPERMOUNT is wonderful - and you can block users from these drives to, you know). Now, if I could just shut off the boot messages, so my 4-year old doesn't put it in interactive mode......

/ramble_off

Just doing some midnight reading and had some thoughts to post:

The whole Redhat vs Mandrake discussion is really irrelevant to what its all about. People wrote that the install is much easier with Mandrake over Redhat, or Mandrake is more user friendly etc.

If any of the above is you, thats what linux is not about. Linux is about the portability and power of programs that are written respectively by its programmers.

The reason why you should be having the the "Redhat vs Mandrake" discussion should be more along the lines of structured heirarchy or kernel configurations. I would also say the biggest reason why this discussion should exsist is how well are bugs maintained, or how well is the distribution itself maintained.

And my final thought is you shouldn't worry too much on what distribution your using, they all run the same things. If your not sure how to do the simple things, then maybe Mandrake would be a better choice being it has front end utilities that are more eye appealing, but in the end so does any other distribution, just download it!

Also anyone who read the earlier posts about downloading slackware; You can download it, but its kind of pointless. Theres nothing better or worse then slackware besides the install. For those of you wanting to really learn how Linux works I would probably recommend running what I run, my own distribution! You can learn more about how to build your own distribution from scratch from the Build Linux from Scratch project(go google it)

First of all, my post is one of the most recent in the list and I posted it years ago. This thread has been dead for a long time.

Second of all, you say all you want about "what Linux is about" but the fact is that Linux is about whatever we make it. Linspire turned Linux into a system that is simple enough for just about anyone to use. Redhat and others make great server distros (especially since companies like Oracle support them). Different distros have different objectives and different implementations. Nobody can speak for us all and say what Linux is about, because the moment you do somebody else will defy you.

Now that I'm typing this a few years after my above post, I'm laughing because Debian is my favorite distro now-a-days. They fixed up synaptic, the installer, and a few other annoyances. Redhat is still my favorite for servers, but Debian is my desktop. Why? Because it's what I like. Yeah, I could list tons of reasons, but I don't want to right now because I'm at work. It shouldn't matter anyway since users can look and experiment by themselves. However, some distros are better for some people... I tried to deal with Debian when I was a newbie and that didn't work out at all.