from where to start
 

I am a beginner in linux. Currently i run linux through my usb. But i am thinking to remove windows & install linux onto my harddisk. So, i want your suggestion which linux distro to select.

I want all the things can be done easily as in windows like internet without drivers, cam, bluetooth,wifi,etc.

There mucst be all the software in linux as i use in windows like ms office, notepad++,etc.

Some friends suggested me of following distros

- Redhat
- Fedora
- Slackware
- Backtrack
- Ubuntu

So, as for a beginner, which one to select ?

Thanks

Hi Arjun,Welcome to LQ.

As a new user you can start with any linux, but better install the latest version.

In Ubuntu,fedora there are a lot of prebuilt tools available.

Redhat is also fine, but as its meant for enterprise use only,you have to struggle a lot initially to use all kind tools.

In any of the linux in the list, you can use internet.

The drivers are builtin the linux kernel. So you dont have to worry about the dirvers.

There are a lot of popular opensource alternatives available for those MS products.

You can use Libreoffice instead of ms office, bluefish instead of notepad++.

Thanks for the reply. So, in the above list can you suggest the distro ?

Any image burn software for linux?

I am using Ubuntu 12 in my laptop and work with it on daily basis, but its a debian variant. You can also use Fedora also which is a rpm variant. Its not stable but you can do a lot of research in it as you will get a lots of tools in it.

So you may use anyone. But if you are having dual graphics card, you have to struggle with the graphics driver with any of the distro if you use laptop.

yes k3b is a popular tool. You can use it for image burning or any kind of cd/dvd operation. It is opensource can be installed in any distro.

I prefer yum to apt so I voted Fedora but really the distro will choose you.

First of all, backtrack which is now known as kali Linux is a terrible choice for a noob. If you're friends have recommended that, then i wouldn't take what they say too seriously, they're noobs too, whom likely want to appear more knowledgeable than they really are - boost their egos.

All the things you listed you'd like to be able to do on Gnu/Linux, are you able to do them off your distro you booted off the usb? If you are, then you'll likely be able to do them on a hard drive install too. The things you listed all looked like things that are simple to do.
You listed you'd like to use a few programs which are native to Windows, "ms office, notepad++,etc". These programs are not available natively to Gnu/Linux. I highly suggest you use a Gnu/Linux alternative, such as LibreOffice instead of Microsoft Office, and Kwrite instead of Notepad (in fact there is so many notepad alternatives which are very good, it would be silly to use Notepad.).
If you insist on running Microsoft Office, you can install a program called 'Wine' which is a compatibility layer that gives a user the ability to run many Windows programs within Gnu/Linux.

As for which distro.
I've already said Backtrack is a terrible choice.
Redhat Enterprise Linux is a distribution designed for workplace use. It is rock solid, but a user will have to add third party repos to get many multimedia applications that usually users want. Redhat Enterprise Linux is also not free as in price. You need to pay money to run Redhat Enterprise Linux, so it wouldn't be a great option for you either.
Slackware is a great distro (my favorite), but it will not hold your hand. You need to read the documentation if you want to run this distro. It has a great philosophy behind it, but the philosophy makes some things a little harder to do than on other distros. Slackware gets a reputation for being hard to use, but i think that, that reputation is exaggerated. It is a fine choice and some noobs can handle it at first, but typically i don't suggest it to noobs.
Fedora is the distribution which is the core of Redhat Enterprise Linux. In other words, programs are tested in Fedora before they are deemed worthy of Redhats enterprise distribution. Fedora delivers a much more up to date experience than Redhat, and Slackware, but that means it will have bugs occasionally. While Fedora is a Enterprise supported and funded distro (i think funded), it is very community built and orientated; the community is also very helpful. Fedora does deliver better multimedia support than Redhat; but their focus on Free software is very strict and you will still need to add some third party (but often used) repos to get it to work the way you likely want it to.
Ubuntu is a nooby focused distro. They put special effort to deliver an up to date experience, and are comparable to Fedora in that way. Ubuntu often has bugs too. Ubuntu is a distro created and managed by a company named Canonical. Many new uses are very happy with Ubuntu; of the distros you mentioned, i would recommend this one.

As an additional note, there are certain pieces of software, that simply can not be shipped with any distro because it is illegal to possess them in certain states/countries. You will have to use a third party repo or grab the necessary packages from somewhere else if you desire to use these pieces of software.
Don't worry though, this is usually very easy.


Anyway, that's all the distros you mentioned covered. Personally i don't recommend any of them to you though. Try Opensuse, it's very stable, offers very new software, but not so new, it's full of bugs. It has a very good package manager, and a great system management tool, which is unique and not available in any other community distro.
The community is very helpful, and with it's system management tool, Yast, a nooby should find it a breeze to use.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask, a good idea is to read up on all the desktop environments before you install, so you can work out which one you'd like to try first. Gnu/Linux has many desktop environments available, unlike Windows, and it can be difficult for a noob to decide which one to go with first, when they haven't tried any. It's a very personal thing, and you'll have to try each one before you can decide which one really suites your taste. Since you can only do one at a time, i suggest trying Xfce or Kde on your first install, since these two desktop environments offer a more conventional approach, while still offering many features. Kde is my fav DE by the way.

Good luck.

Most Linux distro come with CD/DVD burning programs installed. If one is not there, you can easily install one; my particular favorite is K3B, which is part of the KDE desktop environment, but there are others, as well as command-line burning tools also.

Most of them also include LibreOffice, a powerful and full-featured office suite. There are other office suites, but LibreOffice is the predominant one. Again, if it's not there after the initial installation, it can be easily obtained.

The major Linux GUI text editors (kate, gnome-editor, kwrite) offer features similar or superior to notepad++. Command text editors are also very powerful, far moreso than any command line editors available in the DOS/Windows world.

What you won't be able to do is run Windows software directly in Linux--the operating environments are quite different. You can make some Windows software work in Linux using Wine, but I recommend learning and using native Linux tools rather instead of spending time doing that.

For starts, any mainline desktop distro should work fine. I'd recommend you burn Live CDs of the ones you are interested in, boot to them, then choose the one that feels best to you. Note that a Live CD, which runs entirely in RAM, will be inherently slower than an OS installed to the HDD.

I would recommend against RHEL or CentOS. Though they can be used as desktop operating systems, they are designed primarily as server software. You might take a look at Mint, Mageia, and OpenSuse. If you really want to learn how Linux works, also look at Slackware.

Hi:

I suggest Debian or Opensuse:-

http://www.debian.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA6dR_feBws

http://www.opensuse.org/en/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzUlniBucjk

Fedora is nice and cutting edge but Fedora does not work right out of the box.
You will have to install "Flash" and learn 'Yum' (commandline utility)

Red Hat: RHEL is a paid subscription. Like Knightron said mostly used for workplace or running a business.

When I was new to Linux 4 years ago even Ubuntu was hard for me until I read the "Ubuntu Linux Bible"
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyT...470038993.html

Which ever distribution that you decide to install it will help if you read the documentation that pertains to it.

Good luck to you; Arjun!
;) Cheers

Thanks @Knightron for very detailed & nice information. I really enjoyed while reading your post.

Ok, i am thinking to try ubuntu for now. Nobody till now suggest me of Opensuse. Well, i will first try this too through my USB drive.

Thank you very much for your time.

Thanks @frankbell for the reply & nice information. I am not asking windows software here. I was asking for the linux softwares similar to windows. As far as wine is considered, many friends tells that its full of bugs. Not all windows softwares runs on wine.

I was asking for notepad++, since i do programming & notepad++ provides good features to programmers. So, any similar software for linux will good.

Its too bad to search for dependencies in linux like flash or media. So, are RHEL or CentOS good ?

Thanks @Ztcoracat for suggestion & for your time.I tried to use Debian or Opensuse via my USB drive to check if they contains all the features i want through unetbootin but both didnt ran through my USB. So, i dont want to install them directly to my hard drive.

Firstly, such questions have been answered a lot of times before in LQ previously. My suggestions would be to read those topics first. It will always help you.

Next, the most important thing is that Linux and Windows are two different operating systems, different in all respects. They differ in principles, proprietorship and many more. So you can't expect Linux to be same as windows. Though there exist many Distro that is specifically geared towards users planning to switch to Linux from Windows.

I must admit that in order to understand Linux you have to think in terms of Linux - about how it works and what all are its philosophies which I think most of the users will admit. Microsoft office, the package that you mentioned belongs to Microsoft and you cannot expect it to be ported to Linux. You can however use the wine application to run those office applications on your Linux machine but there are some visual problems which you might face (at least that is what I feel).

Now, about the distros. For Backtrack Linux which you mentioned is not at all for the beginners and for that one I would completely agree with Knightron. It is specifically geared towards hacking purpose. Debian is a nice distribution and is very stable. Fedora is fine for developers but then it is not so stable compared to its parent, the Red Hat and also Debian. For beginners I would suggest Linux Mint or Ubuntu. Ubuntu however has lost many of its fans recently since the introduction of unity. openSuse is also a good distribution but some times it might get slower.

For your programming part I would suggest kwrite which is far better than notepad++. You might want to try it out yourself and find it out. For the internet, well you might have some problem. Again, if things turn out fine you will find it easier than windows but if it isn't you might have to work hard on it. Now configuring the internet is the major thing you need to do because if that it is right you might probably never get back to windows. Generally wired connections are installed without any hassle.

Finally, you will definitely have problem with any linux distro in the beginning however user friendly that claim to be.

So my advice would be to make a dual boot and go around Linux for some time. Then decide on it.

Good Luck buddy.....

Glad you enjoyed it, i hope it was informative.

Wine does have many bugs, however, many programs, especially games run very well as well. Some of the bugs are trivial things, for example, i enjoy the game Diable 1. I have it installed through wine. The menus do not show up at the start. If i press 'enter' blindly continuously, it will load into my saved game and once loaded, the actual game runs flawlessly. Little bugs like this are the things you can expect from wine occasionally.

You should not have to find dependencies manually like that in most distros. Installing flash is easy on most distros. On Debian, it's a matter of adding 'non-free' to the end of the Main repo in the /etc/apt/sources.list.
In Opensuse i think it's in the Main repo, but if it's not, adding the pacman repo will fix you up easily.
And other distros are much the same.
The third party repos are built to work with the main repos of foo distro, so you normally do not have to search for the dependencies because apt/yum/zypper all have the abilities to work with multiple repos and pull in dependencies from one or the other.
apt is Debians and Ubuntus package manager; yum is Redhat's, CentOS's and Fedora's package manager, and Zypper is Opensuse's.
Redhat and CentOS are basically the same thing, except you have to pay money for Redhat. They are both very good distros, but they focus on stability and reliability, so they can be used in a workplace, for office stuff or server stuff.
There focus on stability means it takes a long time to make a release, because every peice of software goes through immense testing. While this makes a rock solid experience, a lot of the software becomes very old during this period. For example, the current version of CentOS has kde 4.3.4 in their repos, but the most recent version of kde is 4.12.0. There is a huge difference between those releases.
That is the main reason they're not used often on home computers. As a side note though, i will add that despite the old kernel, i have found that the hardware support delivered by CentOS and Redhat is very good.

Unetbootin is a way of making a iso boot off a usb rather than a dvd, so someone can install a disto on a computer without a cdrom. I don't know if the live function of some isos is supported, but i'm going to assume they are.
Debian does not come as a live addition by default, so it would not have booted like a live Cd, which is what you're attempting to do.
If you used the Opensuse dvd iso instead of one of the live desktop environment additions, then you're going to have the same problem as above.
That is likely why Debian and Opensuse didn't work.

Debian Live may be of interest to you.
From here:
http://live.debian.net/cdimage/relea...64/iso-hybrid/
Below is the download link to 64 bit version of Debian with the Gnome desktop. I provided the Gnome desktop link because that's Debians default, but i still recommend kde or xfce, which there is a version in the web address above.
Debian Live 64bit - Gnome

I would like to also provide a download link for the live cds of Opensuse, but Opensuse has some fancy complecated crap going on, on their website, and i can't find the web address to the actual download.
Here is where you can and likely already have downloaded Opensuse http://software.opensuse.org/131/en If you scroll down, there are live versions instead of the dvd, you might like to try one of them, if you previously used the dvd version.


Slower?? Slower than what?
Ignoring malware, and addware, Windows gets slow over time due to the design of fat32 and ntfs. Any Gnu/Linux distro should be formatted differently such as with ext3 which will not give you these issues unless you begin to fill up your hard drive.
I have experience equal performance from Opensuse to what i have with Debian and Slackware. I have no idea what you're talking about.

Here's a useful list of MS Equiv SW for Linux http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/...ndows_software
I would strongly recommend using them and not going the Wine route if possible.

One thing you will discover is that on Linux there are usually many alternative tools for the same job; its all about personal choice.
Most distros are free, so try as many as you want.

This is worth a read http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm

Also this will come in handy http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz

I guess I am not talking about windows. I have used Mandriva for years and I was a big fan of it until recently when I tried installing openSuse. It was pretty good but occasionally it would have some graphical problem. And then at times dolphin would take much larger time to open. There were so many stuffs and I thought this might have slowed down the performance. It was then discovered that even commands like commands like ls and rm even take some time to perform (say about 20 secs or so) but even that is not expected in the command line mode I guess. My Mandriva machine was loaded with more stuffs but then for years it gave a decent performance.
What I have felt that process management in Linux is far better than windows. But for open Suse's recent releases I had some issues of getting slower at times. But believe that is very rare and the stuffs it ships with really outnumbers the flaws.
Few days ago I shifted to Debian and its doing pretty good.

@Arjun:
Even my friends complained my about your unnetbootin issue. You may try using the dvd and it will work fine. For ubuntu and mint I don't think you have any issue with the usb.

Let us know whatever you intend to do.

That's interesting to hear. That's unusual behaviour. I haven't experienced that with any distro. Thanks for elaborating.

Thanks @lemon09 for reply. I was not asking for MS office in Linux, but any tool like MS office in Linux. I am thinking to switch to ubuntu as well, since it provides many useful softwares builtin. Yes may be dual boot for some time is better option.

Thanks again @Knightron for reply. I got many things to learn from your post. I dont want to use wine untill i need it badly. So, softwares similar to windows for linux are the better option.

After reading your about CentOS latest version, i have tried it through my USB, its GUI is quite good than Ubuntu. Everything is placed in proper place & easily accessible. But, yes there are dependencies like flash player for video streaming which is not present in ubuntu. Cannot play video on browser.

Commands are different as well since I have also tried to install vlc player in it with this command

which it didnt got installed. Even i cant take screen shot of the screen through printscreen button.

Thanks @chrism01 for reply. Thanks for the nice software list. Very helpful.

I suggest Linux Mint for you, because a lot of things work out of the box, so you don't have to configure too much things after installation. Its comes with a media player, image viewer, libreoffice, proprietary codecs and a lot of other stuff that you have to install and configure in a less user-friendly distro.

I was introduced to Linux on Mint 9. I used it for like 3 months before I got tired of the crashes and bugs and went back to Windows. After about a year, I tried Fedora and fell in love with Linux. I used Fedora all the way until Fedora 18 then I switched to Debian 7 for more stability and I think I've found a home. I love this operating system. who knows, as I learn more Linux command line and become more familiar with Linux as a whole, I might try Slackware but for now I am happy with Debian. I use CentOS at work and like it very much as well. It is very stable and not too hard to use once you learn some Linux command line basics like adding repos, using VI editor, installing packages, and keeping up to date with security.

I think you will like Ubuntu. I do not suggest using CentOS as a beginner. Even as an experience user, CentOS often leaves a user of desiring more. It didn't even make the Desktop of the Year nominees in the Members choice awards this year here at LQ.
Remember Linux is all about choice, and you can use any desktop environment in any distro you want. Ubuntu uses the Unity desktop environment. CentOS uses the Gnome2 desktop environment by default. Gnome2 is no longer maintained and no longer supported by most distros; CentOS is one of the very few. Gnome3 is vastly different to Gnome2 and many users were not happy with the change, and so Gnome2 got forked and development has continued by different devs under a different name. It is now know as Mate.
If you liked how CentOS worked, than i'd suggest installing Linux Mint, Mate addition instead of Ubuntu. Linux Mint is Ubuntu with a few tweaks.
That makes Linux Mint sound insignificant, but they do some cool stuff. Linux Mint was the first distro to officially support Mate. They also made the Cinnamon desktop environment, and Cinnamon is pretty damn cool in my opinion. They have a unique menu as well, which in my opinion and many other peoples is the best menu, (I am jealous there is not a kde equivalent).

Yes, you want to go with a native Linux program before runnning a Windows program. Libre Office is a fantastic replacement for Microsoft Office. Every desktop environment comes with a native text editor, and i suggest using which ever one comes with your desktop environment to replace Microsoft Notepad.

Overall, the commands will generally be the same. That command didn't work because 'dpkg' is a Debian package manager. Debian and distors based off Debian (including Ubuntu) will use dpkg and apt.
CentOS is not based off Debian, CentOS is based off Redhat Enterprise Linux. Redhat uses the 'rpm' package manager. Instead of using dpkg, one would use rpm; and instead of using 'apt' (Debian's more commonly used package managing tool) one would use 'yum' (Redhats/CentOS's/Fedora's, more common package managing tool). Debians packages end with '.deb', Redhat's packages end with '.rpm'. One could loosely say that these are Linux equivalents to a Windows '.exe' file.
I do not suggest googling apt vs yum or anything similar in reference to these package managers versing it out, because they are both capable and very good package managers. The information google will bring up is likely obsolete and not worth too much. I mention this because people are STILL making judgements based off old information that is no longer relevant; instead of doing the sensible thing and actually trying them, them selves.

Thanks to helpers
 

Thanks for reply. I have just tried Linux Mint through my USB. Of course as you said, it comes with most of the useful built in softwares, for which we dont have to go anywhere else but i found many problems in it too. First thing i found is it is too much slow. When i opens any application, it takes much time to open an application. It also got hanged many times. As many users have mentioned, it is not stable.

Thanks @erik2282 for reply. As you said, i tried Linux mint. I too find it full of bugs & made my system hang many times. I would like to try debian, but it dont works with live USB. I will have to install it on my hard disk.

Thanks @Knightron for reply. As in these days, i have tried all the 3 Linux distros i.e. Ubuntu, CentOS, Linux mint through my live USB. In all those distros, i found CentOS is much stable. Ubuntu & linux Mint got hanged many times, Mint got hanged even much more time than Ubuntu. CentOS doesnt got hanged even a single time. I like the GUI of CentOS rather than Mint & Ubuntu. The problem with CentOS is that, it dont comes with pre-installed softwares like libre office, flash player, media player, etc.

I have tried to installed vlc through this method.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...n-linux-34911/

This method i got through a member of this forum. I have already had the vlc files & i just ran the this command.
You mean i have to download vlc files with .rpm package?

Since you're comfortable with CentOS, Stella might be a distro worth looking into since it's based on CentOS. Stella includes proprietary codecs, VLC, LibreOffice, etc. so it'll save you time in hunting down the typical software found in beginner-friendly distros like Mint.

The developer includes his own repository with this distro that carries VLC among other programs. You can view the list of programs available in this repo here: ---> http://li.nux.ro/download/nux/dextop/el6/SRPMS/

That guide is a very round about way to install VLC, it'd be much easier to just run,
Either way those guides (and the command above) are designed for distributions that use Debians package manager.

Like i said, CentOS uses a different package manager, you're going to have to add a new repository and then do 'sudo yum install vlc'.

One of the most important things you need to learn if you intend on using Gnu/Linux is the following: 'Google is your friend'. What that means is you should search your question in a search engine before asking a question; and i really can't emphasis that enough.

I seriously advise against using CentOS. You are going to have a steep learning curve.
If you insist then you'd do well to read the documentation on their website.
Here's a link to the wiki, covering repositories, to get you started.
http://wiki.centos.org/AdditionalResources/Repositories

If you read that and use a search engine you will can work out how to install VLC quite easy.
If you try this and still can't install VLC, then that's a sign to use a different distro at the moment.

Good luck.

Thanks @MCMLXXIII for reply. Yes, in case of stability & GUI, i like CentOS over Ubuntu & Linux Mint. But the problem was of softwares & dependencies.

Now, as you suggest me, i will try Stella as well if it is stable, although never heard about this distro. I dont want to have problems like crashing, unstability,dependencies,etc as with windows. So, thank you very much for your response.

Thanks again @Knightron for reply. As i already mentioned, this command
didnt worked(may be of repository problem), i tried
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...n-linux-34911/
this method.
But thanks for the information. Sorry if i bother you, but members here are very well experienced with Linux. So, i thought to get the proper distro for myself which fulfil my needs as a beginner.

You are not troubling me, i was trying to teach you how to find answers.
The thing with Gnu/Linux is if you have an issue, 90% of the time someone else has already had the same issue and worked it out. If you do a search, not only do you prevent other users repeating them selves, but you can usually also find the answers quicker.

Ok

Thanks for your suggestion & for your time.

I just tried Stella on USB. Very nice OS. Better than Ubuntu & Linux Mint in terms of stability & full of inbuilt softwares. What you say friends ?

Never heard about that one. However if are fine with it then carry on. No matter whatever Distro you try, Linux is all about configuring your system to fulfill your own need. I would suggest you to work around for a while and then learn things common to whole of Linux (like utility tools to configure and installing software from the source). This will give you a grip about Linux rather than things specific to a distribution.

Good Luck!!!!!!

I too have never heard before about this distro Stella. A user named @MCMLXXIII suggested me about this distro. I tried it. It runs very softly & smoothly without any crash or hang which i got problem with Ubuntu & Linux Mint. So, i like this one.

So, right now continuing with this one. Any other suggesstions are welcomed.

Thanks