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Hello, I am tired of Windows and need to dual boot with Linux anyway to help me with course work. I'm not new to Linux; I've used Knoppix, Red Hat, and SuSE. I like Red Hat the best, and SuSE the least(unfortunately that's the one we're using in the labs - maybe I just need time to get use to it, I haven't used Linux properly for at least a year or so).
I thought Ubuntu would be the obvious choice - I'm not interested in complications just to make myself feel like more of a tech head. However, I found the community to be VERY questionable - they pride themselves on the spirit of "UBUNTU", try to make it about the people, yet they seem to censor people's personalities from what I can see. They tie the distro in with the forums too heavily, and because of that, there are no alternative forums. I like to think I can be random and quirky and silly in my own topics as long as they have a point, but it didn't please people.
I got banned for 3 weeks very nearly, and my topic asking for help was deleted, because one of the mods misread what was written on a Tin of Beans... I got no apology and had to wrestle with them to get it reversed. When I pointed out that this trigger happy moderating was a problem(one or two of the other members in the IRC channel had been banned too that were active at the time) they just told me to make my own Distro, as if that's practical. I don't think "our forum, our rules", is a good philosophy when you have a bit of a monopoly and when your forum is tied to the reputation of a very popular version of a popular operating system. I really dislike putting "property"(as if you can "own" a gathering of people) rights over people like that; there is no "safe space" online like there is in real life, and I don't think I could function on that board because of that, I'd only get angry at the staff.
This has put me a little off Ubuntu and perhaps Linux in general as I'm not sure other Distro's. If there is a Distro of Linux that's easy to install and use like Ubuntu. Or maybe another Ubuntu support base.
Once I get this sorted out, I need to find some apps to replace some I'm currently using in Windows that won't run in Wine...
If you don't want to use ubuntu, help urselves with fedora, but sometimes you'll to deal with the dual booting problem, because fedora 6 ,sometimes, detect the windows partition.
This should also be helpful , because you said u like redhat,
I personally ,also, like fedora.
But suse is good too.If you have suse in your labs , maybe suse would be a good choice. I personally use suse 10.1
It packs alot with it. And I personally had no problem with suse(may be because i don't dual boot!).
If don't want to use ubuntu,and want good support from community , then i think that RH9 is a good choice.or even fedora(coz commands don't change much.)
Personally I suggest ,for you, suse linux.
In case you don't bother about bugs in software. Or sudden killing of processes, go for mandriva.(I absolutely don't like it, it got too many bugs.)
Iv'e just sucessfully dual booted with mepis without any complications . . . SO LONG as i just kept with the two. Mepis 6.0 uses the Ubuntu repos' and Is easy to work with.
Mandriva sounds interesting... would it be a good alternative to Ubuntu?
Madriva, formerly Mandrake, has a long history of being buggy. It's a newbie friendly distro but I don't know of many who keep it for very long before moving on to something that works better.
SimplyMepis is a good newbie friendly distro. SuSE is a decent distro if a bit buggy once in a while. Ubuntu isn't all that bad. If you like Ubuntu use it and just avoid their forums. You can find out pretty much everything you need to know right here at LQ.
MEPIS sounds interesting but DistroWatch says it's badly in need of improving the look and feel, which is a factor for me.
How would I fare with the install version of Knoppix? I really liked that interface...
Don't beleive everything you read at distrowatch. Download and burn the LiveCD and check it out for yourself. Warren does an excellent job with his little distro.
Any distro you download gives you plenty of options to change the look and feel, especially if it's KDE. If you want some "cool" looking stuff out of the box, then I would suggest Damn Small Linux, based on Debian. Or Zenwalk Linux, based on Slackware, or Elive linux based on Debian. Damn small linux uses Fluxbox for its window manager(gotta love flux!) Zenwalk uses xfce, and Elive uses Enlightenment, Which, for eye candy is probably the best. Unfortunatly, even though all have been recently updated(zen and elive in particular) you are somewhat limited to how much extra "stuff' you can get onto them unless you know your way around pretty well. Out of the larger distros, Slackware, while a little more difficult in the beginning, is highly configurable, and Mepis 3.4.3 uses all Debian repos(if you want to keep away from ubuntu)and Debian has EVERYTHING! Also, I have only mentioned a few of the more popular Distros,(I've actually tried around 11-12 at this point) there are many, many, many, more. If you want to try something really simple, made for a newbie, try Puppy linux, its pretty good for a jumping off place. . . . oh, and by the way . . . . Like my message says, . . . . i keep coming back to Debian Etch, with Slack a really really close second.
I'm starting to think maybe I've been a bit harsh on Ubuntu... it's not as if most forums are any better, it's a problem but one too big to anything about right now. But I don't want to leap into it either...
Thanks for all the replies, they will help me consider which distro I want to use.
There are a lot of distributions out there, it seems to be a process of trial and error.
The best strategy is to eliminate as many distros as you can by setting up some sort of criteria. For example the last time I changed distros, I decided that I want to use apt-get not rpm. When I stopped using Mandrake, it was still difficult to get all of the libraries I needed to run the programs I preferred. I ran Debian "Woody" for two years after that. Installing new software was now easy.
I had a hard time configuring hardware with Debian. So my next criteria was that most of my hardware should work with the new distro. I downloaded and tried four or five Debian based distros.
Early on, the contest was between Ubuntu Warty Warthog and Mepis 3.(1?). Mepis was well ahead, once Breezy Badger was released, things changed and I was happy there.
I was also impressed with:
- the fact that it used sudo by default
- how easy it was to install and switch between other desktop/window managers
Other criteria might be:
- level of freedom
- live CD
- installation from network and cloning
- security needs
- networking capability
- Windows Like
- hardware limitations
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