Deciding What Distro To Get???
 

Hello.

Im about to get myself a new computer. It will be a AMD Athlon 64 6000+, 4gbs of DDR2 Ram, Geforce 8600GT 256mb graphics, etc etc.

Im wanting to partion half my hdd off for Linux, I breify used an old Red hat version ages ago like 4 or so years now. But im wondering what distro would be good for my new system etc.

What im wanting to do is:
A linux distro that is an alternative for windows.
Has to support the full specs of my machine (4gb ram, 64bit CPU etc)
Is it compatable to play windows games (like Counter strike, Civ 4 etc)
Looks nice and fancy (to show off to my freinds lol)
Comes with basic (or advanced if its still free lol) editing software
Can it run Photoshop/Adobe Audition.
Also can it play MP3/MPEG/WMA's etc from another partion.

Basically this is my personal computer used mainly for gaming and a bit of sound/video/picture editing on the side.

So what would you wise people suggest lol.

Thanks

You looking to dual-boot with windows? Just install windows first and leave space for Linux. As far as distro's go, withing days you'll probably have tons of suggestions on here.
Any Linux distro does that.
Depends on the kernel, anything with a 2.6.* kernel will do just fine.
You'll probably need an application like Wine or Cedega for that. I think their has been success with both of those games.
Using compiz-fusion.
You can get Photoshop to run with Wine, no so sure about Audition. You might want to try Audacity.
Totally possible. If the other partition is a Windows partition, you might need to do some very minor tweaking.

My personal preference is Ubuntu. As it uses Gnome, you'd probably be familiar couse Red Hat. Than, again... wait a while ans you'll get more suggestions. Or just search these forums and you'll fine hundreds of the same topics.

What you want I believe is going to be near impossible. As far as I know there is not a linux distro close to being an alternative for Windows. I'm sure most of the latest linux distros will support most of your hardware. I haven't heard of a linux distro that will run a windows designed program without the aide of a program called wine or running windows in linux in a virtual machine. I'm not familiar with either, I made up my mind if I was going to switch, I was going to live in this world. As far as your editing Gimp is as close as you can get to photoshop although I understand photoshop runs decent under wine. As far as you mp3s and 4s and wave should be no problems except due to laws most have to be set up after installation. I will say if you want to grit your teeth and work at it you will be surprised what you will end up with and how you can use it. Your whole idea of using the computer will change.

Yes, but I suggest that you do look for an amd64 or x86_64 distro - the 32 bit versions won' t be able to use all of your RAM.

I agree that Ubuntu makes a good choice but unfortunately it is either 32 bit or 64 bit exclusively. Which, in the first case, means less than 4 GB. And in the second one, all of your 4GB but some potential headaches with a limited set of applications (flash,java, ...) that have not been ported to 64 bit yet. They can generally be made to work but that may be more than you were looking for. All in all, with that kind of system, I would recommend Fedora 7, which combines 32 bit and 64 bit into a single system (providing that you get the x86_64 version, not the 32 bit one) so that you can easily install a 32 bit browser to run flash, java, etc. Or openSUSE. There s a fresh one out just today.

If you need to know whether it looks nice enough look up some screenshots on google.

I suggest Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS

That's quite a lot of power you are packing, what's it all used for? :-o

the clear and only alternative is openSUSE.org

Thanks guys, awesome reponse time too lol.

Um Ive heard of fedora, also Madriva or something was recommended to me.

Do those programs that run windows stuff (wine??) come with these distro's or do ya have to buy them separately. This vitural machine thing.. Ive heard about that and the ability to run windows in linux, how good does that work?

Im open to new software that does similar things to photoshop, audition etc so that isnt a problem just was wondering whether windows stuff is compadable yet lol.

As for the MP3's etc, what sort of tweaking do you mean. Im very profecient on windows (almost to the point of getting it to work properly lol) but havnt had much experience at all on linux at all.

Im getting Windows Vista cause I need a 64bit windows system to run my stuff, and to my surprise Xp 64bit is way more expensive lol or else I would have gone with that. Lol about about the power, I buy a new computer every 3 to 6 years and only get the maxium possible so it lasts the longest if ya know what I mean. And I hate Intel (random loyality to AMD i dont know why lol) so the AMD 6000 is the best lol.

Anymore thoughts on what distro?

I am running Opensuse 10.2 on my dell laptop with nvidia 7600 and 2 gb of ram.


I use Cedega

After trying a dozen different nvidia drivers, I found the release that actually worked properly, and am able to run quake 1-3, Counterstrike source, and Battlefield 1942, Battlefield 2, and battlefield 2142 with excellant frame rates at quakecon :)


I would suggest a 32 bit distro for compatibilty sake. You might not get the full benifit of your hardware, but it should still totally rock :)

Just a question: If you want something exactly like Windows, why don't you stick with Windows?

You'll never make a Windows out of a Linux.

Try Sabayon 3.4 - that looks "nice and fancy" to impress your friends. Don't know if it will fulfil your other needs though.

hi , this site has a distruibution page
http://iso.linuxquestions.org/

there like 200 differnet version and i think they have summmary of each not sure
by the way there all iso images so you will have to get a program to get the installation files like winraw or magic disc

This week my favorites are Fedora7 & PClinux. That will probably change by next week.

I will be getting windows too. Just want to try out linux again. Is Madrivia any good for what I want?

Give it a try and see if you like it

Yes, mandriva is pretty slick but I don't like the dependency issues you always run into sooner or later. I just installed Suse 10.3 - an absolute nightmare for anyone using 64 bit . Not recommended. If you want all or your RAM, go for Fedora 64bit or Mandriva 64 bit. They are quite similar if you look past the surface.

In threads like these, you will be suggested almost every conceivable distribution... We already have Sabayon! :)

There is really no reason to switch to linux, if you just want it to mimic windows. Instead of photoshop try gimp. There is no real alternative to Adobe Audition. Audacity is a wave editor... no comparison. The closest thing is Ardour, but I'm not sold on it. It can be used professionally though. I'm still hoping that some day Reaper (by cockos) will get a linux port. That's what I use on windows. I suggest you give it a try.

If you are going to use audio programs along with general desktop use it pretty much boils down to two, which are Ubuntu with the realtime kernel (starting with 7.10 -in a week or two) or the lowlatency kernel 7.04 (current version). JAD is the other one. (I haven't run it for a couple of months, so I can only really suggest Ubuntu at this point. You might want to wait for Gutsy (7.10)
I have no doubt that linux can be used for professional audio already, but even for me - I have nothing but linux at home, and run a small recording studio. - I still run windows in the studio.
Linux is catching up very fast though.

And there is almost no gain in using a 64 windows... Remember you need 64 bit applications to take advantage of it. A tiny little bit more so on linux, but I'm not sold either - I have a 64 bit cpu and run a 32 bit kernel.

I'm running openSUSE 10.2.
VirtualBox is a better choice for you if ur into CS.
Just install a WinXP in the VB(short for VirtualBox),and start it as you start it before, no difference.
I haven't tried running CS on VB, but my friends said it was ok, and the effects were wonderful.
Hope that helps.

Which distro to get
 

Let us keep it simple, If you had an older system I would recommend xubuntu but since you have a new machine ubuntu is just fine. A word of advice though, Linux and Windows are very different it will be tough to get a Linux distro that mimics Windows. That is like trying to buy a dog that chases mice and cimbs trees, try to take Linux for what it is.

Yeah but like mainly im after something that will support all my hardware and is fairly easy to use (although I learn fast lol) and with that wine program it should be exactly what I want.

So far im thinking. Madriva and Fedora although this Ubuntu also sounds good (althought the name makes it sound hard lol)

You're mistaken about this. In order to use more then 4GB of RAM, the distribution simply has to include a kernel configured to do so. Both 32-bit and 64-bit distros can do this.

The Linux kernel has a "High Memory" option. This option allows a 32-bit kernel to access up to 64GB of RAM.

Sure but why would you do that? Bear in mind that PAE comes at the expense of a performance penalty. Not to mention that some applications /drivers will refuse to work when PAE is enabled. Plus: I recently tried to use the server-kernel on Ubuntu 32 bit - no luck, my machine refused to boot. I don't know why but I wouldn't be surprised if it were because of the nvidia driver, which is is advertised on their site as incompatible with PAE extensions. Now if you use something like Fedora 64 bit, you have both 32 and 64 bit libraries so you can have the advantages of 64 bit while still being able to set up things like flash, java, realplayer etc with a very minimal extra effort. And 64 bit may not make much of a difference in most everyday tasks but when it comes to databases and processing multimedia, I can tell you that you'll see a massive gain in performance. And even with PAE, processes will be limited to 2GB.


Stildawn, far from being more difficult, Ubuntu may be the easiest of those three. But, as I pointed out, unlike Mandriva and Fedora, it doesn't combine both 32 and 64 bit libraries in its 64 bit version. Then again, it has some compatibility libraries which will take you a long way. It took me some extra work but I am running Ubuntu 64 bit and it can do about everything that Fedora does - if not more because it has more software to offer and is generally easier to set up and better documented.

Whichever you choose, if you decide to install more than one Linux, make sure that you are consistent with yourself if you have a newer motherboard. Make them all 32 bit or all 64 bit. Memory mapping in BIOS is a real PITA because it will either give you only 3GB under both 32 and 64 bit or all of your RAM under 64 bit but only 2GB under 32 bit.

ok so its looking like Mandriva 64 or Fedora 64? What one is more easyer to use and have less problems that a newbie like me will have trouble with? (dependency issues???)

Also I was wondering how easy is it to access the net with linux? You can use the same connection as Windows? Like I have a home lan connected to a ADSL Router. Will this still work on both windows and linux? (probably a stupid questions lol)

Your internet should work, I would think Mandriva would be more user friendly

ok. Cool.

Can ya make a poll on this forum? lol for people to vote between fedora and mandriva lol.

Also I think Ive figured out that KDE and GNOME are two different types of desktops?? (am I right) that run in linux..... Which one is the best for me?? (cause Ive found out the both Fedora and Mandriva come with both).

yes they are 2 different Desktop Enviroments(DE) there is also xfce which is a lighter desktop environment, I suggest you try them both, there are also tons of window managers like icewm, fluxbox, Enlightenment, etc.

I think you shouldn't use a 64 bit distribution at all. You will run into so many 64-bit specific annoyances. Well, it doesn't hurt to try, but don't waste too much time on it. If it doesn't work, use the 32 bit version.
Ubuntu is perfectly fine btw. I like Fedora too, but It is definitely less noob friendly. Can't say much about Mandriva.

Oskar, could you quote some of those annoyances? Flash, java, opera, realplayer, wine, etc - I've got them all working just fine even though I use 64 bit. Only realplayer is a bit of a problem on Ubuntu.

Stildawn, you can install both KDE and Gnome if you want to. Then you can simply pick one from the log-in screen. And either can be removed again too.

If you go for Mandriva, there is a new release out just today (mandriva 2008.0). Bear in mind that not all its software repositories may be online yet. A new release of Fedora is scheduled for early next month. Ubuntu 7.10 is due in a week or so.

Ok yeah Ill probably go with Mandriva then. Im buying the dvds here in New Zealand, Im not gonna download hence I cant really try them all to make up my mind. Does new versions of Mandriva come with heaps of unsolved problems (like windows vista)?

Also if im gonna have both windows and mandriva, do I install windows first then mandriva and does it come with like a duel boot option? (between mandriva and windows)

Thanks guys.

I've tried a few but...
 

I've tried several different distro's recently.
I started with FC4 on my old pc, many moons ago but couldn't get FC4, 5, or 6 to run on my new rig (AMD64 4400+ x2 with a nvidia 7300GT) i found Ubuntu very user friendly and requiring the minimum of tinkering i tried Debian but found it troublesome, Mepis i could never get workin properly. I'e just installed Fedora 7 and hey presto it works fab on my new box. it needs a bit of fiddling but i'm up for a little fun.
If you want it to work out of the box Ubuntu is the way to go if not --it's down to personal preference i think mine is Fedora 7.
Take your pick-- If it all falls on it's bum you can always switch to using windows till you find a distro you like

TTFN:)

Yes, it's always best to install windows first. Linux places a dual boot menu on your hard drive that would be hosed by installing xp (but Linux pretty much hoses the windows MBR too - it's a good idea to have a windows xp cd handy if for whatever reason you decide to remove Linux and you want to recover your windows MBR).

Will it have bugs? Possibly, nothing is perfect. But as long as you don't give it any exotic hardware, it should work a lot better than vista did when it was released. Mandriva has a livecd too (free as well) so if you could lay your hands on one of those, you would more or less know what to expect.

And on the subject of 32 versus 64 bit, Mandriva has traditionally shipped 64 bit dvds that allow installing either. If you don't like 64 bit, you should be able to install 32 bit from the same disc.

But again, the choice is up to you. Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva - all good IMHO.

So is Ubuntu more user freindly than Mandriva but it doesnt come with 64 and 32?

So would you reckonmend getting the newist version of mandriva or an older one? like 2007. something?

Also so when Im installing windows and it comes to the partion part of the install (im assuming Vista installs the same as xp) do I 1. Partion the drive how I want and formatt both the partion i will use for windows and the partion I will use for linux, or 2. Partion and formatt the windows partion and leave the linux partion as unformatted?


By the way..... 5 More weeks to go!!! YAYAY lol.

Tough question. Both are user friendly but Ubuntu has the larger community (by far) so it should be easier to find online tutorials, support, additional software packages, etc. Also you can order a free cd directly from the Ubuntu folks but it tends to take up to five or six weeks to arrive. And yes, it's either 32 or 64 bit. For about every 64 bit package, Fedora and Mandriva will install its 32 bit version too. Ubuntu doesn't but as I pointed out, it has some compatibility libraries that allow installing things like 32 bit flash, java, etc. on the 64 bit version of the system.

I don't recommend going back. Both Mandriva 2008 and the upcoming Ubuntu/Fedora will have better support for newer hardware. That said, the current releases run just fine on my own system (Core 2 Duo6600, Nvidia 7600, 4GB DDR2, 4xSATA2, ASUS P5B mobo). The only issue I have is that Ubuntu 7.04 can't use my PATA optical drives although it handles the SATA dvdrw very well. That may be solved in the new release, it can't say yet.

That would seem the best approach. When I first started using Linux, I shrank my xp partition so I could install Linux too. Dual-booting just wasn't very reliable until I ended up reinstalling the whole lot exactly as you suggest. No more issues since that day. I think that it's best to let each system carve out its own home.
My god, are they transporting that system on horseback?

Ok. So to make Ubuntu work on my system mint how hard is it to make the libraries or whatever work? Cause I wont be very profficent on linux for awhile lol.

Ok yeah I though so about the partions it makes sense.

Lol no 5 more weeks till I have enough money to buy the damn thing lol, then maybe 2 days till I get it. Im right on target (set myself a budget etc lol)

What do you mean by libraries?

Not very hard. And it's all documented on the net. All in all, it's just a matter of selecting the 32 bit compatibility libraries from the software repositories - nothing could be easier - and then installing nspluginwrapper yourself (for flash, java, adobe reader plug-in, ...) That's a bit more work but if you stick to the tutorials, it shouldn't take more than a few minutes.

Well, if you're still to buy, do some research first. CPU, RAM, hard drives, no problem. Pay some attention to the motherboard though, some just are not very Linux friendly.

Lol man it sounds like ive got alot to learn...

Ok ill look up the mother board im getting.

Ok im getting this board.

Gigabyte GA-M52S-S3P nVidia nForce430 Socket AM2 ATX Motherboard

Looks OK. You may need to get the sound card driver from Realtek yourself as it was not included in the kernel until recently (but maybe that has been dealt with already, I can't tell).

Ok cool. I have a mint sound blaster uology card in my old computer that I may install in my new one. Will that have any problems or is it just a matter of downloading the driver from Sound Blaster...

Also does Linux have like a downloading program, like Imesh or Limewire? And if so can ya download files ment for windows?

Also Im planning to partion my drive into three. 1 for windows, 1 for linux and 1 for all my music/movies/videos/downloads and games. My question is will linux be able to see into and access the third partion to play the MP3's and Mpegs etc..

Sound Blasters should be supported although things may differ from vendor to vendor. I have a fairly recent one from Creative and it works perfectly (drivers already included with Linux).

How many do you need? Ten, Fifteen? Limewire has a Linux installer, There is Frostwire, DC+++, ... (have a look on getdeb.net if you're going the Ubuntu way - you'll find a nice selection of what's available). Don't know what you mean by "files meant for windows"? Do you software installers for windows? Or media files for windows? Yes, quite a few windows apps can be made to run if you install WINE first. I have things like Utorrent, Irfanview, FastStone Image Viewer, Dreamweaver, Flash, ... - they work fine but some apps do not (it''s a work in progress). If you mean media files, Linux will play those just as well as any windows box - as long as you make sure that you install the proper codecs from the online repositories.

No problem. Install the ntfs-3g driver in Linux and you'll even be able to write to your ntfs partitions. Just bear in mind that Linux out-of-the-box is more secured than windows and that you may have to tweak a few settings to be such allowed access. Nothing complicated, though.

One things that may not run so well is the games. Some will run with WINE, some will run with CEDEGA (an enhanced commercial version of WINE) but you shouldn't expect Linux to take everything. Then again, you still have windows, right? Plenty of folks around here are keeping their windows on just for the gaming part.

It's been over a year since I tried it, I admit. But I still feel like I'm regularly coming across howto's where the 32-bit part is just one line to install the package, and the 64 bit users have to set god-knows-what up.
The ones you stated are sufficiently annoying though... Don't get me wrong, I got most stuff to work, but it was just way too much pain.
I do use realplayer at least once a week to get video and audio streams of lectures... If helix doesn't work either, I'd have to uninstall it right there.
Anyway. The OP seems to be sold on it. Just try it then.

There are many choices for Linux but gaming is really for people who have a lot more experience than you have with Linux, I use windows for games and linux for the internet.
I think that Ubuntu is a good first choice for newbies and it will keep you intertained for about 3 months and then you will want to learn more about Linux, then you should start looking at distro's that are more challenging like kanotix or sidux, but perhaps you want a more moderate distro then Mepis is a good choice and if you have a older machine the Mepis lite is a good choice. You will find like many others that one distro will not completely do everything you want without
a learning and that means reading, if you have problems with that then stick with windows, Linux requires the ability to read and learn new ways to do things.

You might want to consider installing CoLinux (aka Cooperative Linux) in Windows given your focus on gaming. That would let you avoid dual booting and run Linux applications at native speed (unlike VMWare etc.). The main downside is it uses more memory since you're running two kernels at the same time, but that shouldn't be an issue in your case. You can modify CoLinux to use other distro's such as Ubuntu , Debian, Mandriva, Mepis or SUSE.

http://www.colinux.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoLinux
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/li...nux/index.html
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=81444 (using Ubuntu with CoLinux))

Which distro
 

Hi, I just received my live cd's.

Mint 3.0
PCLinux MiniME
Puppy 3.00
XBuntu
Slackware 12.0
OpenSUSE 10.2
SLAX

The only which ran in memory was SLAX, Puppy and PCLinux. It seems I don't have enough memory to run them live. XBuntu had a memory test which gave me the following error.

Failing address 000111da654
Bad 09080808
Error Bits 01000000
Count 1

None of the above with the exception of Puppy could recognise my mouse. I guess the main experimentation will start on Thursday when I will backup windows and start installing them onto hard drive.

It also described my chipset as i440BX when I was under the notion my chipset is x86...can anyone explain this anomaly? Does that mean I have chosed for the wrong chipset?

I don't know. What is it that you ordered? But maybe the chipset is simply identified by manufacturer/type rather than by architecture? There are a lot of x86 chips out there, you know.

If you receive indications that your memory may be faulty, download memtest and put it on a floppy. It is a very reliable application although it will take some time to complete its job. Don't take anything for granted because XP was doing fine. I ran a new computer with XP64 for three weeks and I didn't get any sign of hardware issues although I was getting more and more corrupt files. It's only when I installed Linux that I discovered that one of my sticks of RAM was (or had gone?) bad.

You're confusing CPU type (x86) and chipsets (i440BX). x86 typically means the software was complied for 386's or better, while x64 means it was complied for AMD64 , Pentium D, Pentium Extreme Edition CPUs etc. Your distro doesn't care what chipset you use - its just a group of chips that are designed to work together, and are usually marketed as a single product.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_440BX

Slackware doesn't have a livecd that I know of

Ok cool I also have a creative sound blaster card so it should work then.

Um which one of the peer to peer trading (downloading) programs have the fastest download speed (Ive heard from my brother that Linux downloads alot faster than Windows) and also have the largest user base lol.

As for the partion question, that sounds all good, I was just wondering if I had to make two sets of my Mp3s for windows and linux.

I think I might start with Mandriva as I wont have to set anything up to use 32 and 64bits. I will probably move onto others once Im familar with the basics. I can get any distro I want for 24 NZ dollars which is fine by me.

aMule is good, it connects to the eDonkey network. The OS has nothing to do with the download speed.

No, you can access windows filesystems from linux.

have fun.

While Slackware doesn't have a live-CD, slax is a slackware-based distro many people seem to like. I have not tried either it or Slackware.