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Old 12-21-2006, 03:41 PM   #1
NewbieOne8
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Which distribution of Linux , a newbie could start?


Hello
i'm a beginner ,newbie and i'm looking for an easy distribution of Linux to start ,i ve mandriva 2006 but i don't know if thats the right choice!
please help me with your advices , you're welcome!
thanx
 
Old 12-21-2006, 03:48 PM   #2
Robert Diggs
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Hi,

I started with Suse 10.0. i hear that Fedora Core 6 is pretty similar to Suse 10. SUSE 10.0 is very user friendly and easy to setup. Very similar to Windows in installation if that's where you're coming from.

Regards,

Brandon
 
Old 12-21-2006, 03:53 PM   #3
craigevil
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http://www.distrowatch.org Any of the top 20 distros would be a good place to start.

Google and try searching the forums as this question gets asked 10 times a day.

If I had to suggest a distro for someone like my mom that has very little computer experience I would suggest one of the commercial ones like Xandros or Linspire, free distro would be PCLinuxOS.

Last edited by craigevil; 12-21-2006 at 07:30 PM.
 
Old 12-21-2006, 04:06 PM   #4
chilebiker
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i started with mandriva, which worked just fine and made the switch from w2k to linux smooth and quite easy. after a a couple of months of learning the basics i wanted a not-so-bloated linux and i switched to arch.
 
Old 12-21-2006, 04:32 PM   #5
rickh
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Start with any of the most popular ones. None is any harder than the next. If in a few days you want to try a different one instead, feel free. Newbies shouyld plan on reinstalling at least three times in the first month. You will screw things up, and you will learn a lot by installing several times.
 
Old 12-21-2006, 05:36 PM   #6
ryedunn
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I would recommend something easy to install with a simple GUI interface. Everyone will have their own prefrence, each will give you a different response and rickh is right, you just have to jump in with both feet and give it a try for yourself. Personally, I would suggest you try Kubuntu... but thats just me.

On a side note, I would be curious to hear what people might say if you phrased your question like, "if you would to give your mom a linux distro to learn, which would it be"? (if they say LFS, Debian, slackware, etc.. they were abused as children)

Last edited by ryedunn; 12-21-2006 at 05:41 PM.
 
Old 12-21-2006, 05:43 PM   #7
rufius
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I started with Mandriva and still use Mandriva. I've always liked it though at times I admit they have lost their way since when I used 8.2. Its not the only distribution I used when I was learning but its the one that I most consistently use and I'd have to say Mandriva 2007.0 is probably the best version of Mandriva I've ever used. I would highly recommend it to any newbie and it works great on laptops which tends to be a pretty powerful selling point for me since I'm a college student with a laptop now and now desktop.
 
Old 12-21-2006, 10:19 PM   #8
ryedunn
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I too started with Mandrake.. but also got turned off around 9. That compounded by..

Standard Member ($66 year or 60 € year)
Silver Member ($132 year or 120 € year) Recommended level!
Gold Member ($660 year or 600 € year)
Platinum Member ($1320 year or 1200 € year)

Thats more than M$ wants! true its not required and I wouldnt mind donating some but that amount is just crazy. It turned me off faster than finding out a fat hairy guy is on the other end of the keyboard in my favorite chat room.
 
Old 12-21-2006, 11:40 PM   #9
rufius
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ryedunn
I too started with Mandrake.. but also got turned off around 9. That compounded by..

Standard Member ($66 year or 60 € year)
Silver Member ($132 year or 120 € year) Recommended level!
Gold Member ($660 year or 600 € year)
Platinum Member ($1320 year or 1200 € year)

Thats more than M$ wants! true its not required and I wouldnt mind donating some but that amount is just crazy. It turned me off faster than finding out a fat hairy guy is on the other end of the keyboard in my favorite chat room.
Heh, I've never paid a dime in my life to Mandrake/Mandriva. I thought the 9.x series was especially good but it went downhill in 10.x and 2005/2006. I never saw the reason to pay for the member fees. They only provide you with 3rd party software that just isn't legally available w/o payment.
 
Old 12-22-2006, 12:15 PM   #10
Andrew Skinner
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distro for newbie

I started with Mandriva 9.2 and stuck with it till Le 2005 (10.2) , I tested Fedora core (5) , pclinux, Mandriva One (2006 and 2007) , Ubuntu and most recently OpenSuse. I switched to opensuse 10.1 a few months ago, apart from having to setup updates manually this distro has worked best for me, i'd recommend opensuse to anyone.
 
Old 12-23-2006, 05:49 AM   #11
jacook
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Kubuntu
http://www.kubuntu.org/

Mandriva
http://frontal2.mandriva.com/en/downloads/mirrors

PCLinuxOS .92
http://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/metalab/dist...glish/preview/
ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/metalab/distr...glish/preview/

This is the distro I use and recommend, Why because it works right out of the box. No need to configure Everything, everything just works. It also comes as a 1 CD install that is a live CD that you can install later if you wish.

BeatrIX
http://www.watsky.net/download.html

Mephis
http://www.mepis.org/

Vector Linux 4.3
http://www.vectorlinux.com/

DSL
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

Puppy Linux
http://www.puppylinux.org/user/viewpage.php?page_id=3

Slackware
http://www.slackware.com/

SLAX Live CD
http://www.slax.org/

BeatrIX
http://www.watsky.net/

Elive:
http://www.elivecd.org/

Linux distro choosers:
http://eedok.voidofmind.com/linux/chooser.html
http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/

Last edited by jacook; 12-23-2006 at 05:51 AM.
 
Old 12-23-2006, 08:28 AM   #12
mjjzf
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Quote:
Originally Posted by craigevil
http://www.distrowatch.org Any of the top 20 distros would be a good place to start.
I am puzzled. So you think he could use Debian, Slackware, Gentoo or FreeBSD as a beginner?
I would say that Mandriva is an excellent place to start. But I should add that I don't know any Linux users who use the same distribution they started with. As always, it can be compared to cars on that one.
 
Old 12-23-2006, 12:24 PM   #13
IndyGunFreak
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ryedunn
I would recommend something easy to install with a simple GUI interface. Everyone will have their own prefrence, each will give you a different response and rickh is right, you just have to jump in with both feet and give it a try for yourself. Personally, I would suggest you try Kubuntu... but thats just me.

On a side note, I would be curious to hear what people might say if you phrased your question like, "if you would to give your mom a linux distro to learn, which would it be"? (if they say LFS, Debian, slackware, etc.. they were abused as children)


I used to really like Mandrake(now Mandriva) 10.0 Official. Worked very well, stable, etc. The newest one however, caused so many system crashes on my PC, I was not impressed at all...

I'd recommend any of the *buntus. I personally hate Kubuntu, but more so because I hate KDE, not the OS. My pesonal favorite would be close between Ubuntu and Xubuntu. If you're PC is older, download Xubuntu(lighter desktop), if its fairly modern( over 1.5ghz 512mb of RAM..), I'd get Ubuntu....

http://www.ubuntu.com

Then use this link to set up the distro. It contains dummy instructions for almost everthing.

http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Edgy

IGF
 
Old 12-23-2006, 03:35 PM   #14
craigevil
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mjjohansen
I am puzzled. So you think he could use Debian, Slackware, Gentoo or FreeBSD as a beginner?
I would say that Mandriva is an excellent place to start. But I should add that I don't know any Linux users who use the same distribution they started with. As always, it can be compared to cars on that one.
Actually yes, I started with Debian as my first Linux system just a little over 2 yrs ago now, installing Slackware and Gentoo isn't any harder and they all have excellent documentation.

Personally unless it is for an older person or a younger kid that just isn't old enough to learn I wouldn't install a newbie distro for them.

Debian and Slackware are both stable and darn near impossible to break( two yrs and counting with Sid), and the number of packages in Debian is amazing; with Synaptic even someone new to Linux can install new apps. And with the update-manager keep a system updated with no more difficulty than they did updating windows.

If I had to choose a complete distro for someone with no Linux experience, like I stated before Xandros, Linspire and PCLinuxOS come complete with things like multimedia plugins and don't normally need to be tweaked for the average user.
 
Old 12-28-2006, 05:19 AM   #15
mjjzf
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Quote:
Originally Posted by craigevil
Actually yes, I started with Debian as my first Linux system just a little over 2 yrs ago now, installing Slackware and Gentoo isn't any harder and they all have excellent documentation.
Personally unless it is for an older person or a younger kid that just isn't old enough to learn I wouldn't install a newbie distro for them.
I... partially agree.
It is often difficult to see where people are coming from.
I am a LUG captain, arranging install events roughly once a month. I don't mind suggesting installing Debian to beginners, but I think that requires an experienced Linux user around when it happens.
 
  


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