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Old 08-01-2004, 07:45 AM   #1
YBA^[x]
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Question picking a distro ?


Hey all.

Being fairliy new to linux I need a little help here. I need to pick a distro for my second old pc. I'm aware of that picking a distro might be a matter of taste and preferences but any suggestions would be appreciated. Since it's for the pc my girlfriend uses (mainly for internet surfing and homebanking), I need a distro that boots fast and is low resource demanding (she does not have the same amount of patience with computers as I have), and if it looks sweet too, then great. It is for an old k6-2 400 MHz with 256 mb ram. Rest of the hardware is rather old so I doubt there would be any compatability issues.

I've tried Cobind desktop without any luck. Either the cd wouldn't boot (version 0.2), or the system hangs at loading GUI (same but fixed version). Blag seemed to be to heavy, otherwise nice. Sourcemage I apprently did not have the skills to install, went wrong for some reason. SUSE and Mandrake are way to heavy. Fedora and Redhat will be as well, I suppose. I'm currently installing Vector Linux, time will tell how this turns out.

Regards.
 
Old 08-01-2004, 08:50 AM   #2
RobertP
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Because your system is unlikely to crash, the "heaviness" can be overcome by letting it run. Do not even shutdown the browser...

Another alternative is to set up your main PC as a thinclient server. She then boots and runs software on the faster machine over the LAN. Booting is a little faster than from the harddrive but programme loading and running will be many times faster. I assume there is cohabitation...
See report.pdf (.pdf report on doing this in a computer lab with 466 MHz 64 mB machines.)
 
Old 08-01-2004, 11:07 AM   #3
YBA^[x]
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Quote:
Originally posted by RobertP
Because your system is unlikely to crash, the "heaviness" can be overcome by letting it run. Do not even shutdown the browser...

Another alternative is to set up your main PC as a thinclient server. She then boots and runs software on the faster machine over the LAN. Booting is a little faster than from the harddrive but programme loading and running will be many times faster. I assume there is cohabitation...
See report.pdf (.pdf report on doing this in a computer lab with 466 MHz 64 mB machines.)
I appreciate your reply but I'm not sure this is the way for me to go yet.. although it's great stuff that might come in handy later on. Vector linux seems to do the trick for me so far, not the SOHO version, though, but I'll take a closer look at SOHO later on. Amazingly, VL boots faster on the k6-2 than both Win2k and SUSE does on my 1800+ box. Anyway, thanks again.

Regards.
 
Old 08-01-2004, 11:20 AM   #4
matruschka
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Hallo YBA^[x]! Since Vector Linux is stated to be a more user-friendly version of Slackware it seems to be a good choice to me,beeing a Slackware user.
However I'm a little curious about the safety implementations in the distro.What browser is available?is it easy to set up a firewall?
 
Old 08-01-2004, 01:35 PM   #5
RobertP
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Vector does seem to fit the bill.

Perhaps using ReserFS instead of ext3 might be a bit faster, too. I would not skip back to ext2 because the filesystem is more fragile.
 
Old 08-01-2004, 02:11 PM   #6
YBA^[x]
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Hey again.

matruschka - Well, the SOHO version is supposed to contain Mozilla Firefox 0.8 and some other browsers. As for security, I don't know.... I installed the distro (VL, not VL SOHO yet) today and haven't had the time to fool around with it yet... (and their website lacks info on this or at least I couldn't find it, anyway..) Time will tell, I guess..

RobertP - I do not know much about ReiserFS, but have heard it to be experimental still (not sure of it, though..), on the other hand, I don't know much about ext3 either, except that it supports journaling, whereas ext2 doesn't. (niefty little feature, I believe)
 
Old 08-01-2004, 02:38 PM   #7
NL-Stitch
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isn't there a table or something witch tels you witch linux is best stuted for you?

or can we make 1 ?
 
Old 08-01-2004, 04:29 PM   #8
shengchieh
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Here's my file on distributions.
My opinion - others may not agree.
Hope it helps.

Sheng-Chieh

-----

Here's my quick view of linux distributions.
However, do recognize that I runs Xandros, and in
the past, I ran Mandrake and Lycoris. I also used
Knoppix, Danix, and LiveCDdefender, all portable
CD distributions, briefly (to investigate a
problem with my wireless card). My comments on
linux distributions are what I observe, but did
not neccessarily used.

RedHat & Fedora
known for server, but starting to enter the
desktop market.

SuSe
known for server. Has some progress in the
desktop market.

Mandrake
known for desktop. Helpful if the user knows
unix already.

Xandros
known for desktop. Very easy to use by
beginners.

Lycoris
known for desktop. Very easy to use by beginners.
However, it is not suitable for advanced users,
i.e., old libraries (can't do geeky stuffs). I
recommend Xandros before Lycoris.

Lindow (Linspire)
known for desktop. It is bad security practice
to run as root. If you're going to take the
trouble to learn linux, you might as weel have its
better security. Avoid Lindow.

Debian
used by geeks. Known to be rock-stable. There
is no rush to fulfill commercial means, so a new
distribution comes out when it is ready and no
earlier. Also known for server.

Slackware
used by true geeks. Like debian except no GUI
(i.e., window interfaces).

Knoppix
known for bootable CD

Mepis
known for bootable CD

There are hundreds of other linux distributions.
I think I covered the bigger ones.

There is no one "best" linux distribution. You have
to decide what are you using it for, i.e., desktop,
server, or both.

If you want to test drive without installing linux,
go for CD bootable distribution like Knoppix, Mepis,
Mandrake Move, DaniX, LiveCDDefender, etc (Knoppix
or Mepis seem to be the big two).

I like Xandros, but then, I only do simple stuffs
and some programming (complex, but can do because
Xandros is Debian-based). Also, I do no server
stuffs.

You may wish to slowly transite from Window to
Linux by learning softwares that run on both
operating systems. I.e., learn

OpenOffice (word processor)
www.openoffice.org

Mozilla (web browser and email)
www.mozilla.org

Firefox (web browser)
www.mozilla.org

Thunderbird (email)
www.mozilla.org

Opera (web browser)
www.opera.com

Gimp (photo)
www.gimp.org

I use Mozilla for both web browsing and email because
Firefox and Thunderbird have not reached a stable
version as of early 2004 (i.e., stable version >= 1.0).
However, Mozilla will be discontinued in the distant
future and replaced by Firefox and Thunderbird.

Unfortunately, there is a lack of linux games. Also,
many software has not been ported from Window to Linux.
Again, think about what you need before shifting.
 
Old 08-01-2004, 04:33 PM   #9
mago
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Vector defenetly does the trick but then you will have a problem with updates and so on...


I have a latitude laptop Pentium MMX 266 with 96 MB of ram and a 3GB HD running really smoothli with slack 9.1.
I can have the GUI up with no problems at all and play full screen video with all mighty MPlayer...

I tried before Vector but Slack sill plays better...

Look at it, will worth the effort...


Cheers!!!
 
Old 08-01-2004, 04:37 PM   #10
tutwabee
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Sounds like you need a user-friendly Slackware-based system.

Another alternative is that you could take any other OS (I prefer Fedora) and disable services you don't need and such. Systems like Fedora and Mandrake are very user-friendly but the graphical boot and the many services slow them down greatly. I like Fedora for yum because I don't like to search for updates myself.
 
Old 08-01-2004, 04:43 PM   #11
Mara
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Moved to Linux-Distribution forum, as it's a distribution question.

Vector seems to be a good choice, I'd also check Debian and Slack.

There were ReiserFS and Ext3 mentioned above. Reiser is not experimental anymore. The choice between Ext3 and Reiser is a matter of preference (like the choice of distribution...).
 
Old 08-02-2004, 12:31 PM   #12
YBA^[x]
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Hey.

First of all, sorry about posting in the wrong forum. Second, as for my original question, Vector is in fact a splendid solution to this. Yesterday I installed VL SOHO 4.0, though KDE 3.2.2 is a bit slow, it runs smoothly. There were post install issues (configurating matters), but propably caused by ignorance rather than any distro flaws. Since it runs on the box my girlfrind uses and due to her demands for higher uptime and usability (woe to those who defy her), future experimentation will be done on mine, rather than her's. I appreciate all of your replies and I might just wipe my second hd with SUSE clean in favour of Slackware one of these days.

EDIT:

Just thought I'd let you all know that SUSE is out and Slackware is in (and most likely to stay). I cannot explain what it is but using Slackware, rather than SUSE, "feels" better or more "right" in a way. Crappy arguments, I know, but that's how it is for me. I may just dissapoint my girlfriend and wipe the old hd clean yet again.

Last edited by YBA^[x]; 08-05-2004 at 05:17 PM.
 
  


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