How to pick a distribution for youself ?

Originally posted by cclavey You know, I don't actually know what the point of Knoppix is, can you even save anything?

Knoppix comes with Marcel Gagnè's book "Moving to Linux Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye!" and I think the point is that people can take a peek at Linux on their Windows machine without installing or changing anything, which makes it very user friendly and can, with the accompaning book, let someone know if Linux is the way to go instead of upgrading their windows os.
I have to submit that it was my first Linux experience (last month) and continues to be a diving board into the other distros while I search for the one to stick with.
It's a great os to get an iso on a cd and share with a friend. Right now I'm the only one I know who uses linux, and some have never heard of it. I'm the first one to tell them about it, yet I doubt the last...
I'm not using Knoppix now, as I started to download some iso's from http://www.linuxiso.org/ after feeling comfortable that I use it, and with help from peeps like on this forum, should be able to get further and faster than i ever did with windows...

Has anyone found college linux useful at all?????
It works fine but it doesn't support alot of stuff

myself, i'm new to linux, i played with storm2000 & had no sound or internet. tried mandrake 7 & install froze 1/2 way thru. tried rh7.2 & its now working except no internet. wanna try a later dist. ay ideas what i should use if im a "pro" at all windows OS's but bored & wanna try something new? oh..& .. um... is kde or gnome really that much different? i think kde is a BIT more MS like but any advantages to either?

Originally posted by dondon ...ay ideas what i should use if im a "pro" at all windows OS's but bored & wanna try something new? oh..& .. um... is kde or gnome really that much different? i think kde is a BIT more MS like but any advantages to either?

The latest SuSE is good. I switched to it from RH9 when Redhat changed their support to aim mostly at the business segment. A number of people in my Linux User Group swear by Knoppix, while others swear at it. If you choose a recent major distro you should not have too many harware issues, perhaps none. Two very popular distros are also fairly eccentric: debian, and gentoo. I have used gentoo, but even though it was about the most logically laid out distro I neve acclimated to the gentoo-ish way of naming things. Give a look at "linux 9.1" aka Fedora Linux, the open community spin off from Redhat.

In terms of functionality, I see no difference between KDE and GNOME. I don't use either of them, though I started with KDE.

Cheers--
Charles

thanx "cnjohnson", Are you using Linux as a desktop or a server or what?
I wanna be able to use this with my Wife too who is NOT computer dumb but not a techno nerd either. Just wanna be able to open up previously created word,excel,& access documents. any trouble there?....oh can i run dvds with fedora? or even videos with .avi, .mp2, .mov extensions.
(asking a lot aren't I)

um.. im from canada & it says my time of post is 4:59am its like 10:59 pm here (manitoba). where is this forum anyway?

Originally posted by dondon thanx "cnjohnson", Are you using Linux as a desktop or a server or what? I wanna be able to use this with my Wife too who is NOT computer dumb but not a techno nerd either. Just wanna be able to open up previously created word,excel,& access documents. any trouble there?....oh can i run dvds with fedora? or even videos with .avi, .mp2, .mov extensions. (asking a lot aren't I)

I am typing this on my Mandrake 9.2 desktop that I use everyday. I am a netwok contractor and I use both windows and Linux. Linux 99% of the time though. I use for my laptop, desktop, severs and just about everything. Its performance as a server is much better than windows. I don't have to reboot my servers everyweek for patching.

If you're looking for a great desktop distro I would highly recommend Mandrake. And once you get to know it you can get into the gits of it and really make it fly like slackware or gentoo. It all about tweaking it. But even out of the box its as good or better than windows. The applications availabe to Mandrake are really plentiful. I would recommend checking out some other site that the MDK community is running. I'll have one up shortly that will really help the new folks get going on Mandrake. So good luck.

If you have questions just drop me a line.

Sorry to get in this thread late, but I wanted to mention I too have never been satisfied by a distribution (as I read through many of these posts, I see I am not alone). I used to be a Debian fanatic, but then had to convert to RedHat because of the organization that paid the bills already standardized on it. After using RedHat for a while, Debian looked so incredibly old that I could not go back and now they seemed unnecessarily complex, but I _hated_ using a commercially managed distribution.

Then RH changed their business/support model, thus that I would have to pay for an OS that I have contributed my free time to (and fedora is not a reasonable solution for me either). Since I was not going to pay for it, I am forced off of RH.

The distribution search began, and nothing was good in my opinion. Well, what to do? Create your own! but this is a big job to maintain, so spread the load... offer a solution that allows other community members to help in the maintenance, and make it a _true_ community project.

Today, this is known as cAos (http://caosity.org) and is represented by a new forum here at linuxquestions (http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...?s=&forumid=44).

If you are like us, and unsatisfied by the current distribution offerings, then at least check us out. Hopefully you will be excited about the solution as we are, and even join in the fun. package maintainers and core developers are needed! We are very active on IRC (irc.freenode.net, #caos) so drop by if you are ever around those parts.

Sounds like a good idea, I only glanced quickly at the site, but can you maybe outline what you think are the best parts of a distro, how cAos does it, and how others fail?

Originally posted by Atmchicago Sounds like a good idea, I only glanced quickly at the site, but can you maybe outline what you think are the best parts of a distro, how cAos does it, and how others fail?

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that others have failed... I don't think they do, but I also don't see most of them as being the <i>sweet spot</i> distribution.

To summarize, a distro is really only a conglomeration of free software (generally speaking) taken from the community. Each distribution is basically characterized by:

1. how it is managed (corporate/community, stabilizations and longevity)
2. what packages it includes (applications and versions)
3. what value adds it provides
4. administration paradigm (package management, FSH, etc...)
5. Compatiability and use of standards
6. cost to use

In order to avoid getting involved in a holy war, I think it is a good idea to investigate this yourself. Think about how each distribution fills these requirements, then compare them. I would be interested to hear what people think...

Personally, I want a community maintained RPM based Linux distribution. One that offers new current packages, plans for longevity and stabilization, real community involvement, etc...

thanks so much this is really nice
vivek

Unfortunately you simply can't believe the distros claims for Linux based on our experience with SuSE's Office Desktop 8.1... and there in lies the problem.

We spent a year reading distro reviews, talking to current Linux users and reading Linux forums to get the big picture. After careful consideration we purchased the full Retail SuSE Office Desktop distro @ $100 because it included "90 days of free installation tech support". As it turned out, SuSE lied and does NOT provide ANY Tech Support for their product even if you pay for it. This has been documented by our company and other SuSE customers, and even by iindustry Linux journalists. It's a dirty little secret no one is willing to stand up and speak out about...

So BUYER BEWARE applies to any distro purchase and especially to any SuSE product. Because as we and many others have confirmed, if the distro does not install perfectly (and it rarely does evidently), or if you need some Installation Tech Support you absolutely will NOT be able to obtain it from SuSE.

Many distro mfgs. have the false illusion that consumers desire to be Linux programmers and selling a hacked distro for good profit is the end of their obligation to the customer. This is a foolish business model. Most consumers use a PC as a tool. They don't desire to be Linux geeks, they just want a reliable, secure, O/S that functions as advertised. The current Linux environment requires consumers to use command line entries in an effort to repair the botched automated (shell) installation. This is unacceptable. If people want to see Linux as the defacto desktop standard, which would be good for everyone except Microsucks, then some company needs to get their act together and delivered a full featured graphical interface version of Linux that delivers the goods and not just empty promises.

As of this point in time, Linux is simply NOT ready for Prime Time corporate or consumer desktop unless you desire to be a Linux geek and spend your days figuring out how to manage a perfectly good O/S without a good shell.

The installation may not be the easiest thing ever, but I found slackware's REALLY easy - it isn't graphical in the sense that you use a mouse, but it is in the sense that you really don't need to use the command line.

Ultimately this is an unfair comparison - what % of windows users actually installed windows from the cd, and what % had it installed already? The vast majority already had it installed. If they didn't, they would also have to partition their disks etc etc... Distros like Redhat have preconfigured options (workstation, server, everything etc...) KDE and GNOME are both very usable, and quite frankly, not all that different from windows.

So once Dell and others preinstall linux on computers it will be a huge boost for linux. I think walmart sells Lindows pcs, but lindows sucks... oh well.

Quick question:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/bg/advice/distributions.php
http://unixshak.org.uk/index.php?pag...pe=howtos&id=9

Could just be my Internet Security Settings, although, those two links don't work for me. Do they work for anyone else?

Thanks.

The first one's source code is an empty <html><body></body></html>, and the second one timed out.