Please __stop_asking__ what distro is right for you!
 

Guys, I know a lot of you are new here, but that question comes up multiple times a day. Please check out some sites like distro watch and linux.org before asking here! In case you don't find what you need there, let me tell you, right here, what distro is best for you.

For newbies -- Mandrake, Fedora, SuSE
For cutting-edge software lovers -- Gentoo, Fedorra
For those who want rock-hard stability -- Debian
For speed-demons -- Gentoo, Damn Small Linux
For experienced UNIX/Linux users not afraid of the command line -- Gentoo, Slackware

Now, I hope that will make things better and you won't have to come here asking about distros! Please?

A good solution to this is a user vote, "Best Linux Distro for NewBie's":
http://justlinux.com/forum/showthrea...hreadid=137678

I'm sure they aren't after backseat moderatrs trying to tell people what to do around here.

What's wrong with people asking the distro question? It doesn't hurt, sometimes they have interesting circumstances which can effect their decision and make your day slightly more interesting by reading about and anyway, nearly every distro thread states what it is in the title so if you don't want to read it don't click the link. Simple.

hi i have a question
wut disto do u think shuld i run cuz i hate windows & i think gates is the devil

:D Couldn't resist! :D

Seriously though - Mandrake and Suse aren't just for newbies. They're also ideal for experienced *nix users who just want to have a *nix box to actually do WORK on and not spend weeks on end to get the configuration "just right" - both distributions are VERY usable right out of the box without much tinkering at all.

$.02

Re: Please __stop_asking__ what distro is right for you!
 

Hi uman,

I just burned the 4 Slackware 10.1 ISO's to disks but now that I've read your reply and being a newbie to Linux I suddenly get the feeling that this may not have been such a good idea. Do you think this particular distro might be too much for me to handle being a first timer? Your opinion on this would be most welcome :newbie:

Thanks in Advance
conductor

Actually, slackware's not too bad. Just don't even think about installing Gentoo or LFS. If you know how to use Google and read documentation, Slack shouldn't be too bad. Unless, of course, you are unlucky.

you can do it, conductor!!! install that slack!!! it will work!!!
plus there is so much help available here in the slack forum, and several others, plus google, you'll be happy with it. give it a try, you will learn and you will like...

and yeah!!! what DJ said...c'mon, guys...seriously...can you imagine if someone asked a question about...ohhhh...i dunno, say

recording raw binary data as an MP3

and got shut down by people who had answered that question several times? this place is about learning and helping each other out...especially for newbies...we were/are all newbies at something, right? and sure, there's a plethera of information out there, but when it's all brand new, it's a bit daunting to try to sift through it...especially if this is your first few times here and you're still getting the feel for it :)

OK detpenguin, you got me :)

cheers, uman :)

Thanks for the encouragement detpenguin:D Actually I'd already made up my mind to try and install that baby, I just hope my system can take it. I've already tried a couple of distros (ELX & Amigo) but I couldn't seem to get them to install completely:confused: While I've got your attention for a minute I'd like to ask you about partitions. I recently repartitioned my harddrive in anticipation of installing another OS (hopefully Linux), as the new partition sits currently it's a FAT32, should I reformat it to an Ext3 and add a Swap before I attempt to install the Slackware 10.1 OS? The awaiting empty FAT32 partition is 8gb (actually 7.9).

Thanks All
conductor

Of course if people learned to search first, and ask later, all this agro would be moot .... :rolleyes:

@ #2 -
The JustLinux poll is a fine idea, except... 68 votes? Why don't we make one here, where a multizillion people always vote - and post a link in a nice and visible place on the front page?
Slackware is a fine 2nd distribution, IMO. Heavy for the starter.
Distrowatch is HORRIBLE for finding a starting point, when it posts roughly everything Linuxish. One could read the "Major Distributions" part... that tiny link in the area among all the others...

Ah, Slack for the newbie's... Don't forget to learn:

Yep... that'll probably come in handy once or twice.

It's not a good idea to use a fat32 partition for linux. Slackware will need about 3G for a full installation. I don't think you'll need more that 128MB for swap but it depends from the ram you have (512MB is really enough whatever ram you got) .
You may use fdisk or cfdisk to erase the fat partition and create the 2 linux partions you need.
Most slackware users use reiserFS instead of Ext3
In slackware forums there is a guide of how to do it all.

Thanks Perfect,

Actually I prefer to use Partition Magic to create and format partitions as I really don't want to take the chance of losing my current Windows OS should I make a mistake with fdisk. I'm running 512mb of ram with 32mb of it shared for my onboard video. Everything I've read thus far says that the Swap partition should be twice the physical ram. Doesn't that mean that my Swap should be about 1gb? That seems like an awful lot if that's the correct formula :confused: I think it might be a good idea to go and get that guide.

Cheers
conductor

The rule of thumb is dated. It was more relevant in the old days - as perfect_circle says, 512 Megs should do it no matter what.
As for partitioning, there was a problem earlier with some distributions not being able to detect partitions created with Partition Magic. When I have to partition a system, I use Knoppix or PCLinuxOS and run the program QTPartEd. It is simple, intuitive - great

The guide says to use twice the physical ram you have but trust me on this, u dont want to use 12,5% of your linux space for swap. I have 1G of RAM. If i had to use 2Gb of hd for swap i would stop using linux(well ... thats not true). If it weren't the 512 MB of swap partition fedora had created automatically when i had 256 MB of ram, i wouldn't use more that 128MB of swap. Also, if you want to be able to resize/control your linux partition with Partition Magick then don't use reiserfs. Use ext2 or ext3 (better ext3) because as far as I know P.M does not support reiserFS.

Who said newbies can't install Gentoo? If you follow the instructions you can't go wrong. You mightn't have any idea what it was you just went through but you can do it ;)

There is no best distribution. Repeat after me: there.is.no.best.distribution. We are Linux users or Linux users to be - get used to doing a little research. Distrowatch, our search function and a number of other resources are available to help with the decision, but as with a favourite colour or which car to buy the answer is "what do you want to do with it?".

My advice to anyone who wants to use Linux is this: just use it. Try out a few different distributions and see which you like best. Make an informed decision. We are all biased here towards our favourite distros and can only tell you our favourites.

Thanks perfect,

And thanks to all of you. You're all very helpful.

Yeah I understand the 2x the ram formula for a Swap partition was the rule of thumb in the past but now that's changed, that's a good thing. Anyways it's time to bite the bullet and get this Linux train on the track:) Wish me luck.

I'll be Back
conductor

No kidding. I recommend trying Slackware as well - try several distributions and learn a bit,and decide which you like. Try the harder ones, and easier ones like Suse and Mandrake as well.

If you're going to install Slack, then read up on unix system basics.

You've got to know your /usr/bin from your /dev/null.... as it where.....

There are plenty of slack how-to's out there - look in the forum here....

I would point out that Slackware is a KDE centric distro -- gnome development has stopped
I've just installed Ubuntu. And while it was easy it did screw some stuff up/the gui conifugration crashes....

The old .ICEauthority issue, perhaps? Yes, that annoys me heavily..

even tho' i use slackware(only 'cos i couldn't be a**ed to do a 6hr gentoo install), i wouldn't recommend it to anyone anymore.Mainly 'cos there is no package manager with the default install. I've heard of slapt-get but haven't tried it.

as a matter of interest, does any1 know of a good reason why i couldn't copy gentoo from my laptop onto my desktop? I'd only have to edit grub.conf and fstab, right?

I tried RH9.0 but I decided to move to SuSE since most people who I know say that it is very user friendly and is easy to learn,

What about installpkg,removepkg and pkgtool?

yeah, but those are pre-compile tgz packages, you might as well use rpms as there's more of them.

If you're talking about a straight copy (all files from one machine straight to the other), my guess is you're going to be in trouble.
The whole operating system is configured to run on specific hardware, so you're taking that configuration and trying to run it on totally different hardware. I don't see that working out too well for you.

And the slackware checkinstall (the one in the 3rd CD) works great if you want to compile something and pack it.

checkinstall is excellent....i use it on both slack and suse.

true! but if i re-configured/compiled the kernel before i boot into it, that should work shouldn't it?

So, the conclusion with Slack is that you don't like it, since you think it doesn't have an adequate package manager, but haven't tried the ones there are? That's a bit... limited.