Over the last year and half I have had a love hate relationship with Linux. I have tried the easy ones that are WYSIWG installers. Mandriva, OpenSues, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, PC Linux, Kubuntu and a couple of others. I seem to get collapses and other problems and then have had to reload, or my computer has had problems, but some have been stable on a 32bit comp and then I hit the snags of trying to keep upto date with Gimp and other software. If you don't know how to get around the system packages you are stuck until the OS admin get to load the updated packages. By the time they get there the newer updates have come along and gone.

I recently bought a new comp without an OS, 64 bit loads of RAM, more than I have ever had of spec and the CPU and Memory monitors rarely move over halfway. I do photography and love trying different softwares. A bit of ripping and possobly 3D blender.

I thought it would be great to keep WinXP and I have that, but a lot of the large disk is ready for a good Linux. I decided to try Kubuntu 64bit and that fell within days. I have at the moment Unbuntu 64bit and that is failing and not really coming up to expectations. I seem to be searching for updates and they are not there. Mounting seems to be a problem and there are other things that are not stable. I need Wine and that isn't working great on it either. There are certain photographic software I can only get in Windows and some work, or have worked very well with certain software.

So I am looking for an easy installation of a Linux OS that is 64bit and is stable. Easy to get the updates and easy to load software from other sources. Is there such animal?

Or is there a one that is what I want but needs some time to get the installation right?

I am really looking to seeing your answers as I would love to be able to say I chucked Windows out and be totally reliant on Linux.

Tony

I really like 64bit Mepis. But if you already don't like Kubuntu, I don't think Mepis will be a lot different. Maybe Mepis installs a tiny bit easier, maybe the "Mepis Assistant" menu choices make a few sys admin tasks more obvious for someone without a lot of Linux experience. But most of what you get shouldn't be significantly different from Kubuntu, and I don't know what was wrong with Kubuntu for you.

I didn't see anything in you description of problems that was specific enough to respond to meaningfully.

Why do you want to keep upto date with Gimp etc.? That is a lot of effort for questionable benefit. Most of those packages are not improving that fast.

For a specific package where you have a specific reason to want the newest release, it is usually easy to build that program from source. Sometimes there will be dependency issues, but building a program from source tends to reduce those vs. loading a pre built binary that is newer than your distribution.

Is that 32bit XP or 64 bit XP? Most licenses for 32bit XP restrict you to 4GB of address space, which means only about 3.25GB of ram (32 bit XP has PAE support and the ability to access far more than 4GB of ram, but the license restricts it.)

If you have lots of ram and XP can't use it anyway, you would be better off either using Wine or running XP as a virtual OS under Linux.

Specifics??

Tony photoPlus
To start with Ubuntu
Ubuntu it self has already a lot of Package.
You get even more when you add the repositories of midibuntu
About photos Ok it not my main hobby so GIMP and Picasa should me well
Most distros this days are rather easy to keep it updated , but it takes some times to learn it.
But it also take time to learn a distro
I agree with you photos work needs a lot of RAM

I like Fedora. I run both the 32- and 64-bit versions and don't find any problems in the 64-bit version which wouldn't be there in the 32-bit version.
Also the available software is the same, so you don't miss out on anything when using the 64-bit version.

Do you want purelib (only 64-bit) or multilib (can run 32-bit programs as long as dependencies are met). Technically multilib is more complicated, but also more versatile, because although rare there do exist programs that are 32-bit only, such as wine (even if it did work with 64-bit it would only run 64-bit Window$ programs).

Of course, everyone will recommend the distro they're using, so I will too. If purelib then bluewhite64, if multilib then slamd64. Don't expect bleeding-edge tho, but expect stability.

Not necesarily. Wine just convert api calls, there's nothing stopping from doing so from 64 to 32, and I guess that it won't be even too difficult, since x86_64 cpus can run 32 bit code without any problem at all, natively, which eases the whole thing.

Note that wine is a 32 bits application, and since a few months is has the capability now of running win64 apps (it can be enabled at the configure stage), so, doing the opposite would be quite trivial compared to that.

I use Gentoo, but I wouldn't go as far as recommending it just for this case. The OP is free to read about it and try at gentoo.org, and decide if it suits him or not. In any case, the default profile for gentoo has multilib enabled, but there're also no-multilib profiles which can be used.

Thanks a lot for the info, still haven't configured which to actually choose. Thanks John for your valuable input I hadn't realised the info you had given me, its great food for thought. As for what is wrong or has been wrong with Ubuntu, Mint and Kubuntu I didn't keep a diary as it would be quiet an epic. As for Kubuntu, well that just collapsed and had quite a derisory reply.

Two things that are important,
1 I have an upto date Gimp. Reasons Gimp is developing quite nicely and is ironing out its awkwardness. So each time it developes it does get better in 2.6, as yet I have not seen a retrograde. Photography is importnat to me and is the main requirement
2 Stability. I see Distros renewing all the time and reading about each one tells me how much thought has gone into it and the trials. It doesn't matter if its not the latest KDE. I am not a fan of Gnome (I dislike it really), it like working on a computer 10years ago, but if that is the only way to achieve stability in Linux then that is the way I shall have to go. I am not sure of the other desktop environments and haven't explored them.

I do have problems grasping on to things these days as I am on constant morphine so assessing what is being written can be difficult. Morhine just destroys your ability to think and its very frustrating.

Thanks once again, would still like to see what else turns up

Tony

Someone seems to be very active at updating gimp binaries for Mepis8. To get access to those, just add the test repo as described in this post
http://www.mepislovers.org/forums/sh...ad.php?t=18148

I just looked here:
http://mepis.blue-pearls.net/testrep...amd64/Packages
and it says that test repo has gimp 2.6.6

I don't know how that compares to other distributions.

Also the fact that he has been able to rebuild gimp from source so far ahead of the rest of Mepis 8, probably means gimp has no difficult dependencies when building from source. So you should be able to use the latest gimp version at any time from sources.

I agree. Mepis defaults to KDE.

I just had a look at Mepis and it is not a free distribution. Money is very tight as I can't work. All monies now is spent due to the new comp which was £300, couldn't afford a new monitor thats why I am using WinXP. The comp came without an OS, which reduced down the costs and gave me a bit more for my monies. Also to get a good linux on the system.

I had paid some monies previously to a Linux distro as distr before and I don't mind doing that, but not for the next 6 months . So Mepis is not in the frame at the moment. Thanks, I would rather be honest, it is embarrassing. I hate not being able to work and earn but life can be cruel.

Tony

Then I'd repeat my suggestion of giving Fedora a try.
It usually offers quite fresh version and I'd say it's rather stable, despite being quite bleeding edge.
Also it has a nice collection of Gimp-addons in the repository.
By default it comes with Gnome, but you can easily install KDE.

Ok, lets go there. Now I have scoured Fedora and the dowload for CD seem to be 32bit. Which is the 64 bit download?

Thanks

Tony

On the right there's a big link saying "Show me all download options in one page!"
There you can find the download-links for the x86_64-version.

I just took another look and couldn't find anything that says a donation after using the free .iso download is other than a suggestion. There is certainly no request for money obvious in the actual installer, liveCD, or installed system, nor any limits on copying or use.

You can buy Mepis, and I guess if no one did, he would stop doing the work. But you get the same Mepis from the free download.

Thanks for the info I have a bandwidth so will have to reassess and its all bittorent and not just a simple download. So will have to work out when my bandwidth is ok on the 5th how to use a bittorent

Thanks

Tony

There also are direct downloads on the Fedora-page I pointed you to if I remember correctly.
But for stuff like this BitTorrent often enough can be faster than using HTTP or FTP to download.