New to Linux PLEASE help

Kurohana · 05-08-2007, 07:00 PM

recently ive been getting into programing and upping my network security unfortunately Windows XP is incapable of running some of the recommended programs given to me...

basically my question is which linux should i use that is most capable for programing and is free?

my friend downloaded Knoppix for me and told me its an iso file that i can boot up directly from the cd...is this another form of linux or is this just a program? can someone explain knoppix for me please? moving from XP to linux is a big leap for me and im hoping things work out fine...

Tinkster · 05-08-2007, 07:10 PM

Hi, welcome to lq!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kurohana

recently ive been getting into programing and upping my network security unfortunately Windows XP is incapable of running some of the recommended programs given to me...

basically my question is which linux should i use that is most capable for programing and is free?

Any, really. Just check on http://iso.linuxquestions.org/
Some will have all you need on the iso, for others you'll be
able to add the things you need via their package management tools.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kurohana

my friend downloaded Knoppix for me and told me its an iso file that i can boot up directly from the cd...is this another form of linux or is this just a program? can someone explain knoppix for me please? moving from XP to linux is a big leap for me and im hoping things work out fine...

http://www.knoppix.net

Read all about it ;}

Cheers,
Tink

camorri · 05-08-2007, 07:25 PM

Knoppix is a complete operating system on a live CD. You can run it by putting in your CD drive, and setting up your BIOS so the CD is the first boot device.

You do not need to modify anything on your hard drive to run it. Knoppix is a great way to introduce yourself to linux. There is a wide range of software on the CD.

Some things to understand about linux in general. First of all, most distros are free, if you have access to the internet, can download it and burn a CD then linux is free. Linux differs from windoze in that it is available in many distros. They all use the linux kernel. What is different is the collection of software that comes with each distro. Other differences include how software is managed, and the custom tools that come with each distro. The installers are different. I consider the installer a tool, I'm not sure everyone else would.

There are lots of free programs available for all distros. Most are free. There are some commercial programs.

Hope this helps.

jay73 · 05-08-2007, 07:30 PM

In my experience, Fedora, Ubuntu and Debian are the ones that offer the widest range of programming applications. Knoppix is great but has one serious disadvantage: you can't install any additional programs.

phantom_cyph · 05-08-2007, 07:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jay73

In my experience, Fedora, Ubuntu and Debian are the ones that offer the widest range of programming applications. Knoppix is great but has one serious disadvantage: you can't install any additional programs.

On the contrary, you can install Knoppix then install additional programs. Or, you can remaster it, but you probably aren't ready for that.

Here are other LiveCDs: (excuse the long list..., and these are only from Canada, UK, and US.)

Quote:

1. aLinux
aLinux (formerly Peanut Linux) is an independently developed Linux distribution with RPM package management.

2. amaroK Live
amaroK Live is a stripped-down live CD of the GNU/Linux operating system, based on PCLinuxOS, with a fully functional amaroK music player. It is meant to display the features and power of amaroK. The goals of this project are: create something cool to promote amaroK, offer an easy way to introduce people to amaroK, provide a way to demonstrate the new features of amaroK when a suitable Linux installation is not available, and make it easy to remaster the live CD.

3. CentOS
CentOS as a group is a community of open source contributors and users. Typical CentOS users are organisations and individuals that do not need strong commercial support in order to achieve successful operation. CentOS is 100% compatible rebuild of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux, in full compliance with Red Hat's redistribution requirements. CentOS is for people who need an enterprise class operating system stability without the cost of certification and support.

4. Clusterix
Clusterix is a modular Linux live CD based on Morphix, Knoppix and Debian GNU/Linux. Clusterix features the openMosix clustering software for setting up clusters without much effort.

5. eLearnix
eLearnix is a self contained, Linux-based, tutorial operating system that comes on a CDROM instead of a book. We give you the instructions to burn the CD and load the whole thing absolutely and positively free. The only way to learn Linux is by running it! eLearnix is based on Slackware Linux.

6. Featherweight Linux
Featherweight Linux is an installable live CD based on Feather Linux. It is a full featured distribution with a small foot print that is light and fast, even on older machines, but still carries a knockout punch. It comes with a minimal KDE desktop and several favourite applications.

7. Fedora Project
The Fedora Project is an openly-developed project designed by Red Hat, open for general participation, led by a meritocracy, following a set of project objectives. The goal of The Fedora Project is to work with the Linux community to build a complete, general purpose operating system exclusively from open source software. Development will be done in a public forum. The project will produce time-based releases of Fedora Core about 2-3 times a year, with a public release schedule. The Red Hat engineering team will continue to participate in building Fedora Core and will invite and encourage more outside participation than in past releases. By using this more open process, we hope to provide an operating system more in line with the ideals of free software and more appealing to the open source community.

8. GentooTH Live CD/USB Linux
GentooTH Live CD/USB Linux is a Gentoo-based Russian/Ukrainian distribution designed to run from a CD or a USB storage device.

9. Grafpup Linux
Grafpup Linux is a desktop Linux operating system based closely on Puppy Linux. Its goal is to be as useful to graphic designers and other imaging professionals as possible while still remaining extremely small and fast. Grafpup is a live CD of only 75MB with current versions of GIMP, Cinepaint, Inkscape, and Scribus. Grafpup is also very user-friendly, with wizards for doing most system tasks like connecting to the internet and installing to hard disk or USB drive. There is also a powerful package management system, "pupget", with a very extensive and ever increasing list of additional packages available for easy installation.

10. Helix
Helix is a customised distribution of the Knoppix live CD with excellent hardware detection and many applications dedicated to incident response and forensics.

11. Hikarunix
Hikarunix ["hee-kah-roo-nix"] is a Linux live CD based on Damn Small Linux and dedicated to Go - a popular Asian strategy game. It is known as Baduk in Korea and Wei Qi in China where the game started somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 years ago. Today it is played in nearly every country in the world and has even been played in space. This CD was designed especially for Go players of all levels. Whether you've been playing for decades or have never heard of the game until now, this CD is for you. Any machine that can boot to CD can boot to Hikarunix instead of the computer's regular operating system. Since it boots entirely in RAM and only borrows the peripherals, Hikarunix doesn't touch the host machine at all.

12. Karoshi
Karoshi is a free and open source school server operating system based on PCLinuxOS. Karoshi provides a simple graphical interface that allows for quick installation, setup and maintenance of a network.

13. Komodo Linux
Komodo Linux is a distribution based on PCLinuxOS with a custom set of packages and a new theme.

14. Linspire
Linspire is a full-featured operating system (based on Debian GNU/Linux and Ubuntu) like Microsoft Windows XP or Apple Mac OSX. Linspire offers you the power, stability and cost-savings of Linux with the ease of a Windows environment. In addition, Linspire features exclusive Click-N-Run (CNR) technology that makes installing software on Linspire fast and easy -- simply find the software you want in the Click-N-Run Warehouse, then click and run it!

15. MEPIS Linux
MEPIS Linux is a desktop Linux system that is also easy to configure as a dedicated server. It is designed for both personal and business purposes. It includes cutting-edge features such as a live/installation/recovery CD, automatic hardware configuration, NTFS partition resizing, ACPI power management, WiFi support, anti-aliased TrueType fonts, a personal firewall, KDE, and much more.

16. Mutagenix
Mutagenix is a Linux live CD based on Slackware Linux and Linux-Live live CD build scripts.

17. Myah OS
Myah OS is an independently developed live CD designed for desktop use. It is built with custom build scripts and optimised for the i686 processor architecture.

18. Nexenta OS
Nexenta OS is a complete GNU- and Debian-based open source operating system built on top of the OpenSolaris kernel and runtime. It is a result of an inspiration and desire to build a complete system based on the SunOS kernel and GNU software.

19. One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)
One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is an initiative to build a low-cost laptop computer with a pre-installed operating system and applications designed for children in developing countries. The operating system is a Linux-based solution, a heavily customised edition of Fedora Core with a special graphical user interface called Sugar. Among applications, the system includes a web browser built on Xulrunner, a simple document viewer based on Evince; the AbiWord word processor, an RSS reader, email, chat and VOIP clients, a multimedia authoring and playback environment, a music composition toolkit, graphics toolkits, games, a shell, and a debugger.

20. PCLinuxOS
PCLinuxOS is an English only live CD initially based on Mandrake Linux that runs entirely from a bootable CD. Data on the CD is uncompressed on the fly, allowing up to 2GB of programs on one CD including a complete X server, KDE desktop, OpenOffice.org and many more applications all ready to use. In addition to the live CD, you can also install PCLinuxOS to your hard drive with an easy-to-use livecd-installer. Additional applications can be added or removed from your hard drive using a friendly apt-get front end via Synaptic.

21. Penguin Sleuth Bootable CD
Containing many useful tools, Penguin Sleuth is an adapted version of the Knoppix Linux Live CD. It includes tools that are useful when performing a forensic computer analysis.

22. Rails Live CD
Rails Live CD is a specialist distribution providing a pre-configured and fully operating Ruby on Rails development environment on a bootable CD. The distribution is derived from PCLinuxOS.

23. rPath Linux
rPath Linux is a Linux distribution built with the new Conary distributed software management system. Conary is designed, based on many years of Linux software packaging and distribution development experience, to automate many of the tasks that have made it difficult to build Linux distributions. rPath's mission is to provide system software that is easily tailored to suit unique application needs. rPath Linux, built with the Conary distributed software management system, is not only a distribution in its own right, but also a base technology explicitly designed to enable you to create purpose-built operating system images using the rBuilder Online technology.

24. Scientific Linux
Scientific Linux is a recompiled Red Hat Enterprise Linux put together by various labs and universities around the world.

25. sidux
sidux is a desktop-oriented distribution and live CD based on the unstable branch of Debian GNU/Linux. It was originally created by a group of developers who split from the KANOTIX project and launched their own distribution.

26. STD - Security Tools Distribution
STD is a customised distribution of the Knoppix live Linux CD. STD focuses on information security and network management tools. It is meant to be used by both the novice looking to learn more about information security and the security professional looking for another swiss army knife for their tool kit. The tools are divided into the following categories: authentication, encryption utilities, firewalls, penetration tools, vulnerability assessment, forensic tools, honeypots, intrusion detection, packet sniffers and assemblers, network utilities, wireless tools, password auditing (crackers) and servers.

27. Ubuntu Christian Edition
Ubuntu Christian Edition is a free, open source operating system geared towards Christians. It is based on the popular Ubuntu. Along with the standard Ubuntu applications, Ubuntu Christian Edition includes the best available Christian software. The latest release contains GnomeSword, a top of the line Bible study program for Linux based on the Sword Project. There are several modules installed with GnomeSword including Bibles, Commentaries, and Dictionaries. Ubuntu Christian Edition also includes fully integrated web content parental controls powered by Dansguardian. A graphical tool to adjust the parental control settings has also been developed specifically for Ubuntu Christian Edition. The goal of Ubuntu Christian Edition is not to bring Christianity to Linux but to bring Linux to Christians.

28. VectorLinux
Vector Linux is a small, fast, Intel based Linux operating system for PC style computers. The creators of Vector Linux had a single credo: keep it simple, keep it small and let the end user decide what their operating system is going to be. What has evolved from this concept is perhaps the best little Linux operating system available anywhere. For the casual computer user you have a lightening fast desktop with graphical programs to handle your daily activities from web surfing, sending and receiving email, chatting on ICQ or IRC to running an ftp server. The power user will be pleased because all the tools are there to compile their own programs, use the system as a server or perhaps the gateway for their home or office computer network. Administrators will be equally as pleased because the small size and memory requirements of the operating system can be deployed on older machines maybe long forgotten.

29. VideoLinux
VideoLinux is a PCLinuxOS-based distribution with focus on DVD backups, video encoding and transcoding, DVD authoring, format conversion and pretty much anything else you want to do with video.

Hope that helps...

oskar · 05-08-2007, 08:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jay73

In my experience, Fedora, Ubuntu and Debian are the ones that offer the widest range of programming applications.

I agree.
There are a million choices, but especially if you need alot of packages, and sometimes obscure packages it comes down to those. (if you're new or lazy)

I'd hate to push you into a direction though. I would recommend you spend a couple of months on one of those, and after you've gained some basic knowledge, try a few other distributions and see what works best for you.
good luck and have fun...

also read the "read before posting" sticky on the newbie forum :P

jaepi · 05-08-2007, 09:08 PM

yeah yeah, lot's of choices..try those distros that are in "mainstream"...lol...why? because, it has lot's of users...and if you happen to have questions or problem, lot's of 'em can help...

phantom_cyph · 05-08-2007, 09:19 PM

I would not exactly describe Debian users as being "newbies or lazy". It is much more configurable than Ubuntu will ever be, and is very bad to people to start with. The following you don't want to touch unless you have an idea of what you're doing: Slackware, Gentoo, and Debian. I am not calling myself "guru", but you do not want to start with the above.

jay73 · 05-08-2007, 09:28 PM

I keep wondering why some must insist that Debian is somehow more configurable than Ubuntu. It's basically the same thing only Ubuntu comes with more options pre-configured. There's nothing stopping anyone from making adjustments to those. Then again, it's probably true that you will learn more about Linux by using Debian etc. I started from Fedora, then moved to Debian and finally to Gentoo and FreeBSD; only then did I adopt Ubuntu. I picked up so many things along the way that my perspective on Ubuntu is completely different from that of anyone who just arrived on the scene. But it's a long way if your objective is to be up and running in as little time as possible.

Kurohana · 05-09-2007, 01:41 AM

wow i gotta say this was the fastest and most thorough replies i ever got in any forums...thanks alot you guys...

as far as knoppix goes it ran well and i even enjoyed some of the preinstalled games...my problem was not knowing what the other programs do and how to connect online wirelessly

ladio · 05-09-2007, 02:07 AM

Why don't u give SuSe a try as well. It is a great OS.

Zmyrgel · 05-09-2007, 04:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ladio

Why don't u give SuSe a try as well. It is a great OS.

SuSE isn't a OS, it's a distro

Anyway I'd recommend you check the top 10 distros in distrowatch.com and choose one of them and start to use it. Ubuntu, SuSE, Fedora, Mepis, Mandriva are good newbie-friendly distros to begin your Linux experience. As you get more skilled you might want to test the Debian, Gentoo and Slackware but they require more tweaking to get going.

phantom_cyph · 05-09-2007, 05:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jay73

I keep wondering why some must insist that Debian is somehow more configurable than Ubuntu. It's basically the same thing only Ubuntu comes with more options pre-configured. There's nothing stopping anyone from making adjustments to those. Then again, it's probably true that you will learn more about Linux by using Debian etc. I started from Fedora, then moved to Debian and finally to Gentoo and FreeBSD; only then did I adopt Ubuntu. I picked up so many things along the way that my perspective on Ubuntu is completely different from that of anyone who just arrived on the scene. But it's a long way if your objective is to be up and running in as little time as possible.

I once used Ubuntu for a while. I stripped it down as far as I could, removed almost all programs, installed a lighter environment, deleted gnome, and it still worked slower and froze more than Debian ever has. Thats why I like it better, but Debian is not good for people just starting off.

brianL · 05-09-2007, 06:35 AM

I would definitely recommend Ubuntu, you will easily be able to install anything you need for programming using Synaptic.

Kurohana · 05-09-2007, 01:51 PM

ok...so i have ubuntu, fedora, suse and other popular distros...when i got to debian i was a bit confused and discouraged...is it really 16 iso's to be downloaded?? that seems rediculous....