Right distro?

Hey,

I'm completly new with linux, and these forums (wasn't sure to put this in the newbie part or here). I want to try a Linux distro so that I can learn the ins and outs of linux and also I would like to set up a webserver at some point. I've been told Slackware is a good place for me start. I've also been told that Slackware is rather like jumping in the deep end without learning to swim. So now I'm not too sure if this is the right distro for me.

I don't want to have all the fancy GUI like Windows because I want to learn how to use the command prompts and the way Linux does things. What things will I need to read up on to make sure all goes smoothly?

One more thing, is the latest version necessarily the better version?

Any help is appriciated. Thanks.

If you haven't already, I'd suggest getting the Slackware CDs first...

And if you already did that, I'd suggest getting the CDs for other distros as well... And while you're at it, get the CDs for any of the BSDs (I'd recommend FreeBSD, because it's the most popular).

Install them, and then choose the one that feels "right" for you.

Personally, I love Slackware because it's the distro that opened my eyes to how a Linux OS actually functions without hiding configs and stuff behind GUI frontends. However, I also understand that what works for me might not necessarily cut it for you.

Slackware is somewhat harder to install than some other distros. But then again Getting Gentoo to run can be just as hard. I have always used Red Hat products (from Red Hat 8 to Fedora Core 2) and I have experimented with Slackware (but I was too inexperienced then and too attached to Fedora now to switch to it). I have also tried Mandrake 10 Comunity and Lycoris and also Knoppix(which is a live cd distro, which you might try before jumping in the water as you say it) and DAMN SMALL LINUX, which is only 60MB and has it all you need for a first time linux experience.

The question about the new version being better than the old can be answered shortly. It all depends on what type of hardware you are running. If you have a brand new top of the class computer, then yes, a newer version is likely to support more of your new hardware, then again it might not However a newer version might be more unstable if it is very very fresh. What I am trying to say is this. No matter what distro or what version you use, you can make it all work (but it requires some time).

Stability is one thing linux is known for, so I really wouldn't put myself into this, though some people say Slack is the most stable distro, I have never had any problems with Fedora.

So. To sum up.

I would recommend Fedora Core 2 to you if you have 500MB of RAM and 1000MHz CPU. You will never regret it, I swear. It recognized all my hardware and it worked out of the box. I am running Apache web server with PHP and MYSQL on it for half a year (yes, still a noob, but learning quick) and have never had any problems. And it comes with KDE 3.2 which is a lovely GUI (and you don't need to install it if you don't want to, but it would be a shame). One thing I learned about linux is this. Why not use GUI? You will always have to dive into the prompt and fix some stuff the GUI cannot. For everything GUI is the easier way out. My advice is to install the GUI and use it for other things than the prompt. You can have prompt in a console window, while listening to mp3s ...

So to a beginner I would recommend Fedora Core 2.

But remember, no matter which distro you use, Linu will work for you if you will work at it some time. And once it is running, you won't have to work at it much.

Good luck!

Peace!

Mouldy_Punk, Slackware would be a good choice, you may have some difficulty with the installation, but there's always instye's site which i found very good, http://www.insyte.uni.cc/ . As for the for the fancy GUI, thats called X. You dont have to use it you can always use CLI( command line interface). Yes, this would help you learn commands. This is another useful link i found http://www.linuxtux.org/%7Ejuhl/slac...kware-faq.html it's a very useful FAQ and there's always www.slackware.com

Thanks for all your help. I was originally thinking of using fendora, but I decided against it because someone said a less user friendly distro would be better for someone who wants to learn.

On the topic of latest version = better. I will be installing it on my old pc so I shouldn't have much problem finding drivers for the older hardware? It will be a 700Mhz Athlon and a Nvidea 32mb TNT2 card. That will be the oldest hardware.

Thanks for the links, the first one I've come accross before and it seems helpful. Its nice to know I can turn X on and off as it pleases, I thought you either had it or you didn't. If I don't like Slackware, I'll just install another distro until I find one I'm comfortable with.

[offtopic] I've read that Sun Tzu book that you have in your sig [/offtopic]

yeah its a good book

Let me just add a few reading tips.
(1) Personally I believe SuSE to be the best distribution for beginners. It's as easy to install as Fedora, but has the best documentation around. The manuals that come with SuSE are outstanding (if you buy it, that is). They are well written and explain basics and advanced details alike. As a beginner you will appreciate good documentation, I guess. And even if you should decide not to use SuSE, but something else, in the long run, the documentation will still help you out, as most of it can easily be of help for other distros as well.
(2) Regardless what distro you choose, SuSE's online support database has lots of good and helpful articles. Just take a look at http://sdb.suse.com.
(3) If you want to check if your hardware is supported by Linux, again SuSE maintains a comprehensive database: http://cdb.suse.com.
(4) If you want to know more about Unix in general, my recommendation is an O'Reilly classic: Essential Unix System Administration by A. Frisch is really, really good. The title wrongly suggests that the book is for admins only, but the in fact it's very helpful for beginners, too, as it explains in clear terms what's going on in Unix behind the scenes.

Finally a reply to your questions, based on personal opinion.
Slackware is excellent. You will have to know a bit about Unix/Linux before you can make certain things work. But that doesn't mean the Slackware is difficult. In fact, it's one of the easiest distributions around. You will have to learn how to edit configuration files, but once you get used to Unix, you'll probably find that in Slackware all these files are where you expect them to be.
If it is good for you right now depends: Do you prefer to get your system up and running in full, including support for multimedia devices like DVD writers, wheel mice and TV tuner cards automagically, and *then* start to learn Unix? Then you might be better off starting with something else. But if you are ready to invest a considerable amount of time in getting all these things working one after the other, reading a lot of documentation and searching in forums (well, that's probably not your problem --- you are here!) then you will probably love Slackware. Your learning curve will be very steep, then, but that can be a good thing, if you want it. With a little patience the investment will pay off, as in a month or two you will really know your system.
To get a quick impression if Linux in general or a specific distro is for you, I recommend you to download the live CD's of all the distros you find interesting. There are live CD's available for Slackware and SuSE, but I also recommend you to get yourself a Knoppix CD (downloadable ISO image), as this makes a great rescue system for any system --- in fact I use it most of the time to fix problems in broken MS Windows installations... ;-)

Regarding your hardware: It's definitaley powerful enough for *any* Linux or BSD. All mentioned distros should install on it, if you don't have exotic PCI cards fitted. You may have to get the NVIDIA drivers from NVIDIA's web site in order to make X (GUI) work well. Instructions how to install them should be included.

Is the newer version always better? With Slackware, usually, yes. With SuSE (and most others), no. I discovered Slackware when I tried to upgrade my SuSE system on my old Pentium classic notebook (120 MHz, 40MB RAM), only to find that SuSE can't be installed on older hardware any longer. So I gave Red Hat (now Fedora), Debian and Knoppix a try, first, but either they wouldn't install, or I somehow just didn't like them. At that time I was afraid of trying Slackware, as rumour had it that this was an arcane, cumbersom, inelegant, unfriendly distribution. But finally I gave it try --- and got hooked.

So if I recommend to you starting with SuSE, if you are a beginner, it's not because I want to distract you from Slackware --- it's just that a little experience with Unix/Linux is simply necessary, and it may be a bit overdosed if you try to learn all there is at once. If you want it that way, however, there's nothing wrong with it.

Slackware a great distro. It's only a matter of time for you to find that out yourself.

Finally, I support Azmeen's point of view that BSD could also be an option --- but afaik it's still a bit harder for beginner to get to grips with BSD distros than with Slackware. Keep in mind that they exist, but don't choose the height of your hurdle too high for the time being.

Good luck and have fun!

gargamel

If SuSE will help me understand linux a bit more, I'll install that, get the hang of it then move to slackware. Whats a live CD? (Probably a stupid question) because I've heard people talking about live cd's and to be perfectly honest I don't know what one is. Or I do know but am used to calling it something else.

I'm downloading the 9.1 ISO SuSE now, will it install alright with Windows XP as a second OS? I've changed my mind of installing it on my old pc, because turns out my old pc's power supply is in the "good" pc (forgot about that).

EDIT: Installing SuSE isn't going to mess up XP or any files is it? I have XP on C: (FAT32) and everything else on D: (FAT32) both are on the same hard drive just different partitions, could I install SuSE to D:/Linux for example?

Thanks

EDIT (again) : I've found something on the web about linux uses more that one partition I guess that throws my idea of installing it in a folder out the window. I'm just going to wait until I get around to buying a new hard drive. Then use my current one for Linux stuff and the new one for XP stuff.

Originally posted by mouldy_punk If SuSE will help me understand linux a bit more, I'll install that, get the hang of it then move to slackware. Whats a live CD? (Probably a stupid question) because I've heard people talking about live cd's and to be perfectly honest I don't know what one is. Or I do know but am used to calling it something else. I'm downloading the 9.1 ISO SuSE now, will it install alright with Windows XP as a second OS? I've changed my mind of installing it on my old pc, because turns out my old pc's power supply is in the "good" pc (forgot about that). EDIT: Installing SuSE isn't going to mess up XP or any files is it? I have XP on C: (FAT32) and everything else on D: (FAT32) both are on the same hard drive just different partitions, could I install SuSE to D:/Linux for example? Thanks EDIT (again) : I've found something on the web about linux uses more that one partition I guess that throws my idea of installing it in a folder out the window. I'm just going to wait until I get around to buying a new hard drive. Then use my current one for Linux stuff and the new one for XP stuff.

In the Linux world, the most famous LiveCD (I personally recommend it too) would be Knoppix. Just burn it onto a CD, and boot with it. You'll have a fully working Linux system without even installing anything (ie. it doesn't touch your hard disk).

With regards to your partitioning problem, it can be solved (ie. resized) with tools such as GNU Parted... but since, you're still new to Linux, you might be more comfortable with Windows apps such as Partition Magic.

In the Linux world, the most famous LiveCD (I personally recommend it too) would be Knoppix. Just burn it onto a CD, and boot with it. You'll have a fully working Linux system without even installing anything (ie. it doesn't touch your hard disk).

How does that work when saving settings etc?

Originally posted by mouldy_punk How does that work when saving settings etc?

Well you really won't be able to save your settings but its a good way of exploring the linux environment.
Knoppix is debian based.

You can get Slax which is slackware based.

Well, you actually can save settings:
You can save your settings between Knoppix sessions using most forms of removable media, including floppy and Zip disks. To save your settings, click on the K button and select KNOPPIX-Configure-Save Knoppix Configuration. From there you will be asked to select the settings you would like to save from a list. Next you will need to select a device (such as a floppy drive) from the available devices on your system. Select the appropriate device, insert a blank disk and click OK to save your system settings.

If you want to use Knoppix without regularly performing the above process to save your settings, you can create a persistent home directory for your files and settings on a hard disk or floppy/Zip disk. If you don’t employ a persistent home directory, any files you save while in Knoppix may be deleted on reboot.

If your computer normally runs Windows 95/98/Me, you can create a persistent home directory by clicking the K button and selecting KNOPPIX-Configure-Create a Persistent KNOPPIX Home Directory. Currently, Knoppix does not support writing to NTFS formatted disks, so if you use Windows XP/2000 you may not be able to save to your hard disk and instead should use a floppy or Zip disk.

Knoppix is worth experimenting. For experienced Linux users, Knoppix offers a handy way to take your computer with you in your briefcase. No matter where you are, you can always access the same software in a familiar environment. Knoppix is also a great rescue CD.

I started with Mandrake and other "easy-for-beginner" distros. Then got Slackware and had to give it up after months of trying to get things to work right. I wanted to really learn Linux so chose Slackware, but the learning curve was too steep for me. I couldn't navigate in commandline enough to do the simplest things. I couldn't understand the simplest directions because of the unwritten assumptions in them that I had more commandline knowledge than I did.

But the interesting thing was, when I gave up on Slackware and went back to Mandrake, I found myself working more in commandline to configure it than I had before. eventually I went back to Slackware and have stuck with it ever since. To me, no other distro has such a good "feel" to it.

Just because a distro like Fedora, SuSE or Mandrake has a strong GUI interface for configuration doesn't mean you HAVE to use it. You can use commandline in any distro. What I've found, however, is that the distros with GUI "Control Centers" are harder to fix with commandline. They have more files in weird places than Slackware does. Sometimes they won't let you fix them as easily as Slackware will. Slackware has files in logical places just waiting for you to edit them. It can be as easy as adding or removing a "#" mark to enable or disable something. And for most of those configurations, you can use a text editor in KDE to open, create and change the files if you're not comfortable enough using Vi in a terminal.

I use Vi in a terminal to "adduser", configure X, and install packages. For the other stuff I make it easy on myself and use Kwrite in KDE.

HTH,

Siri Amrit

I think I'll have a look at a few live CD's and see what I like the look of before I install anything and mess up my PC

I picked up PHP/MySQL coding quite quickly so hopefully I will be able to pickup the linux comandline quite quickly also. I am quite familiar with the DOS command line so it can't be that much different...can it?

My XP partition is FAT32 because at the moment I only have a 20GB hard drive. I'm getting a 120GB tomorrow though so I'm going to format everything any way. I'll try some different Live CD's today/tonight then tomorrow I'll install my favourite

[offtopic question]
A Win 98 computer is networked with my XP pc. If I change the file system over to NTFS, Win 98 can't access the XP system. If I have a 120GB hard drive. Will FAT32 be alright?
[/offtopic question]

have a look at my Amigo linux, which is Slackware9.1 in a zipfile. it's pre-installed with light GUI and starts up just like KNOPPIX, using a bit of KNOPPIX and RedHat stuff to do a pretty good and fast(30sec) basic configuration, with a new fstab built from scratch, and even gives you a chance to TEST your X configuration.
After unzipping onto a FAT partition. Boot with the boot floppy, and 3 minutes later you can be online browsing for the few extra CLI packages you'll need. If you like it, just create some linux partitions and migrate your whole install there. Or Zip whole thing up and clone it or transport it anywhere. unzip again, boot and configure fstab and X and GO! Easiest install of a Slack-alike around. And Amigo now runs the same way, from within NTFS partitions using a 3-click install!