new to linux - seeking help
 

Hello all: I have a PC with Windows ME loaded. I want to install linux in it. I mean...I want to have Windows ME and Linux loaded in the same machine. I have not partitioned my hard drive yet. My questions are: 1) What kind of linux flavor is powerful, yet easy to install? Is it Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSe, or something else? What do you guru's recommend? 2) If I want to install any one of these linux flavor, do I have to partition my hard drive first? or the linux installation will automatically partition the hard drive? 3) What's the different between publisher's edition/personal edition/ enterprise edition of a linux flavor? Which edition you guys recommend for a beginner? 4) My long term goal is to install Oracle 9 on linux. Which flavor of linux best supports oracle?

I would really appreciate your feedback. Thanks in advance.

1) please search this site for recommendations, but all the ones you mentioned would be fine for you.

2) you will need to make space to install linux, but most partition for linux itself is done within the installation.

3) the number of discs. i recommend the free one.

4) there is no real relation to how well each distro will support a particular pacakge. some might have it;s won newbie friendly configuartion tools, but that's all the difference can be.

Chris is totally correct about searching as there have been a fair number of questions about this

Personally, as a newcomer to linux myself, and not knowing whether window$ ME is formatted on your harddisk as NTFS or fat32 doesn't help,

but, if it's fat32 my suggestion would be maybe to try mandrake as it would do the partition it's self you can stick the cd in and boot it for install and follow the instructions for the recommended stuff - that's basically what I did though I had the luxury of an unused fat 32 partition already on my hdd as my pc arrived with XP pre-installed as NTFS and two other partitions formatted as fat32 - one called "recovery" which I left alone and the last one (name unknown!) which is where I put the linux installation

At any rate, if you sort yourself the disc's, and run the first one under windows it gives you some info and tutorial stuff regarding partitions.

You cud try something like "partition magic" to repartition your hard drive then the rest would be straight forward.

regards

John

As a newbie myself, I tried out about 20 different distros on my computer and always came back to Mandrake, RedHat and SuSE as being the best for my purposes. I was looking for a full replacement for Microsoft XP (as opposed to a distro where I had to continually reboot into Microsoft because I couldn't solve my problems) . Depending on what type of hardware you have, you may find that 'smaller distros' do not support your hardware.

If you want to have a play around with different distros, go ahead. If you are looking for a fast efficient switch to linux, then definately go with one of the three you listed.

Do you have a broadband connection with unlimited downloads? If so, then just download a bunch of distros and try them out. They only take 30mins to install. Have a look at www.distrowatch.com. That should point you in the right direction.

BTW - I wouldn't worry too much about your concerns about the difficulties to install. They are all pretty straightforward. Certainly SuSE, Mandrake, RedHat are all exactly the same. Although some people will tell you otherwise.

Well, being a total linux newbie, I decided with the personal edition of Mandrake. I used partition magic to easily make an extended partition, but then I felt like an idiot after I read and learned more about filesystems and partitioning; you can partition right from the install. Well, I've seen another thread say that Mandrake is for newbies, Red Hat and Suse further up, and Slackware for experts.