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Old 09-26-2003, 09:37 PM   #1
TallAmericano
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Registered: Sep 2003
Location: Edmonton, AB, Canada
Distribution: SuSE Linux Prof. 9.3
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Question just starting...need some advice


I'm a disgruntled Winblows user and would like to tinker with Linux. I have 2 pc's sitting on my desk: 1 Compaq Presario with XP pro, AMD Duron, 700mhz, 512mb ram, 20GB drive with 7 GB free space. The other is an old Digital Pentium 2, Win98-SE with 80MB ram and 4GB hd. I would like to format the older one and install Linux on it, but ,would it be able to handle it? I can increase RAM to 128MB...
And my Presario, should I dual boot (at least until i get weaned off of Winblows)?
The next question is which distro would you recommend for a Newbie? SuSe or RedHat? I am a quick learner...I don't really get too intimidated with technical issues.
Your thoughts on these issues would be much appreciated!
Thanx.
TallAmericano
 
Old 09-26-2003, 09:46 PM   #2
Skyline
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Registered: Jun 2003
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As you mentioned, I'd increase the RAM to 128mb on the old computer - you should be able to install and run many distros in graphical mode with 128mb and a peniutm 2. (it will be a tad slow though but certainly fine for starters and learning etc etc)

As for dual booting with XP pro - that's fine - 7gb is enough for a nice Linux install with space left over for data.

I'd consider Mandrake 9.1 aswell as the others mentioned.

Repost if there's any more questions.
 
Old 09-26-2003, 09:54 PM   #3
Greyweather
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Registered: Aug 2003
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Re: just starting...need some advice

Quote:
Originally posted by TallAmericano
The other is an old Digital Pentium 2, Win98-SE with 80MB ram and 4GB hd. I would like to format the older one and install Linux on it, but ,would it be able to handle it?
Yes, it'll be able to handle it. The main thing is that you'll probably want to use a lightweight window manager like IceWM or Fluxbox, or a lightweight Desktop Environment like XFCE rather than KDE or GNOME.
Quote:
The next question is which distro would you recommend for a Newbie? SuSe or RedHat?
For the Digital, I'd say neither. I'd recommend Libranet or Vector instead. For the Presario I'd say Knoppix or Mandrake, which would probably also be fine on the Digital if you did the memory upgrade.
 
Old 09-26-2003, 11:04 PM   #4
linksocc
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Registered: Jul 2003
Location: US
Distribution: Mandrake 9.0 1st/9.1 2nd/Gentoo 1.4 now
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Quote:
The next question is which distro would you recommend for a Newbie? SuSe or RedHat? I am a quick learner...I don't really get too intimidated with technical issues.
as you say if you don't get intimidated try Gentoo, it was my second distro and its awesome and pretty fast too
 
Old 09-27-2003, 08:49 AM   #5
fatgod
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Registered: Mar 2002
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
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the buzz around the UK is SuSE for beginners... dont know why, but I happened to start out on SuSE and I loved it immediately
 
Old 09-27-2003, 03:06 PM   #6
hindenbergbaby
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Registered: Sep 2003
Location: Boston
Distribution: Gentoo, Slack, SuSE, Ubuntu... Flavor of the week
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I've been using SuSE for a couple of weeks, with most of the problems I've run into being my own dumb fault... It's a nice little distro, IMHO. I've found that when you're installing it, you're best making sure that a) your BIOS is up to date (it kept hanging on install until I updated my BIOS) and b) that you accept the monitor and graphics defaults that it supplies you during install. I tried to get fancy and ended up losing my graphical interface.

A word about SuSE: their manual is great and well worth the $30 for the manual and CDs, but their tech support isn't so good. You call them, and they either tell you that that's out of the scope of the free installation help, or they send you a link on their website, which you could find yourself...

All in all, I'm happy with it, though I hear Red Hat is pretty comparable, and there are print books up the wazoo with Red Hat.

sheo
 
Old 09-27-2003, 05:34 PM   #7
TallAmericano
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Registered: Sep 2003
Location: Edmonton, AB, Canada
Distribution: SuSE Linux Prof. 9.3
Posts: 25

Original Poster
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Thumbs up Thanks you guyz...

Thank you all for the info and advice...I appreciate it. I'm going to try the SuSE Live Eval cd on the Presario...Already tried Slackware's Live Eval and it was great. If I'm gonna go and spend money on a packaged distro, I may end up with either RH9 or SuSE 8.2. I haven't found a Live Eval version of RH, although I will also give Knoppix a try.
Cheers!
 
  


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