Linux Chooser

Take an interactive poll to find distro of your choice/best suited:
http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/index.php?firsttime=true

Just a little diversion
My suggested Distros: SuSE, Mandriva, Ubuntu
( PCLinux OS = 4th because requires some Linux knowledge)

Regards

 

Ubuntu, Mandriva, Kubuntu and Open suse for me who dont know anything about Linux. I always thought Mandriva was for professionals...

Luckily I already use Ubuntu, it isnt as easy as windows. Couldnt recommend it to my less computer savvy friens yet, but the developers are obviously working really hard to make it easy, and little googling has solved all the questions this far.

I have tried different Linux distros for years but always lost interres coz its been a hassle to do stuff in it.
But for the first time, with Gutsy Gibbon, I have not given up after a couple of hours. I´ve been running it constantly for two days now.
When I manage to understand wine better (or Roboform comes to linux) I dont think I will be that far from migrating..
Somehow Linux feels more fresh with the constant and fast development. And I just love the new lightning fast Compiz. Yes, its eye candy but useful such imo. And pure joy not having to worry about AV or firewall (yet anyway)
Who knows, soon I might be one of those aggressive fanatics on different commentary fields whenever something is Written about Linux (I hope not, fanatics doesnt make Linux more appealing really)

 

PCLinuxOS is by far the easiest Linux for the n00b to use.

By gosh I'm using it. That's proof.

http://www.pclinuxos.com/

 

I installed PCLOS recently, but when I tried to open Synaptic Manager, clicked in password, SynMgr. would flash&close without being able to use. Upgrade to GutsyGibbon proved troublesome. So far DSL (last stable& current beta) and FeistyFawn work great, other than resolution issues.

 

Actually, PCLinuxOS 2007 is probably the easiest of them all and the only one that really doesn't require any knowledge or experience with Linux. Most of the others need at least a little tweaking to get them fully functional.

 

Sounds like you may have just typed in the wrong root password.... although I'm sure that occurred to you....

 

The suggestions for me:
Mandriva, openSUSE, Debian, Kubuntu, Fedora, Ubuntu.
Interesting that I have tried most of them.

 

The results were the same in LiveCD as was the installed version. The root password worked in everything except Syn.Mgr In LiveCD (root) and installed (the one I gave during installation). PCLOS actually replaced XP completely, but I couldn't add/remove programs or check for updates. I still use the LiveCD for playing and will wait a month or two and re-dLo to try again. As far as adapting to wide-screen resolutions, recognizing my printer and opening apps. quickly, PCLOS is my 1st choice by a mile!

 

My personal favorite now is SuSE 10.3... very slick and polished, easy to install and setup, works out of the box except for videos, just download VLC and you're set. A overall well done distro now.

 

Wow, that's weird then. I have never encountered that one myself. Sometimes odd things can happen with releases though, specific to certain PCs and so on. I had trouble with SuSE 10.2 installer, which then cleared up fine in 10.3. But yep, you gotta have access to Synaptic for sure. You may have better luck with the upcoming next release of PCLOS hopefully...

 

Hello,

Ooops, it gave me Gentoo!! And Slackware...

Anyhow, the easiest I have found are ... all of them actually. They are all equally simple (save Slackware or Gentoo in fact). The only difference is personal taste and personal compatibility.

There could always be little incompatibilities that might steer a choice.

Example, my confession: I have upgraded one of my Ubuntu 6.10 to 7.04 two days ago. Lo and behold, I have encountered some errors. Apparently, the 7.04 kernel does not like my hardware too much - no restricted drivers and beryl white screen. I'll upgrade up to 7.10, but if the little quirks remain, I might downgrade to 6.10.

It comes down to which mistress pleases you best. I'm having my affair with SUSE and Ubuntu, each one winning one or the other round. For example, Ubuntu did struggle a bit with Beryl, while SUSE was flawlessly smooth. But Synaptic is so much better than Zenworks. And so it goes. The love tale.

All in all, with so many distros available, all you need to do is try them all, see which one you like best. There's always a chance of some bugs or hardware incompatibilities, but these are either ironed out in new versions or enhanced ... A bit of googling and patience will usually sort everything out, unless it's more kernel-ish.

I'm also installing my Linuxes on fairly new hardware, so I'm really testing the latest support for newest stuff, which might cause a few bugs here and there, but it's the best way to learn.

All that said, the new user should probably try either SUSE, Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS.

Cheers,
Mrk

 

...funny, they got Foresight-L but most testers here wasn't even given that choice.

Foresight-L to me, is even easier to manipulate for newbies, than Ubuntu (any flavours, including latest r10.x ).

 

Community forum, livecd, conary package manager, nice repo browser .... look's good cm. Thank's for the lead.

Homepage: http://www.foresightlinux.org/


GF

 

Results for me:
Kubuntu
Freespire
openSUSE
Mandriva
Ubuntu

I have tried Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Debian, Sabayon and Slax. Every time I had trouble with WiFi. And I connect via wireless at home (have been to lazy to bring the LAN cable to my room, but sometime I will) so each time I get stuck and can't really do much, except when I can get a place to connect with cable. So I go back to Win each time.
Now I am triyn wifi-slax... You can put it on a usb-drive, so no modifying of my laptop's drive partitions... So far it recognizes my wifi card, but I can't connect yet... I hope I manage to fix that this week...

 

"So far it recognizes my wifi card ..." - Doesn't help us any. Post the spec's.

GF

 

I have a Dell Inspiron 6400/E1505, with Intel i945 Mainboard... Wireless card is Intel iw3945...
Anyways, Wifi-Slax detected it and i'm working on get it to connect to the internet...
Maybe I'll start posting for help soon

 

Is the driver ipw3945 (I think) in your /opt directory?

Alt present, loaded (yes I know you have iw): lsmod | grep ipw3945

If installed check "auto daemon loading" here - http://ipw3945.sourceforge.net/INSTALL

++++++++++++++++++++++++

You can overlook most paying attention instead to:
*Don't type this # it only signifies root.

This is the best I can offer not running a wireless card of my own. Hopefully it's enough to start in motion the wheel's of progress. Should you wish to make it official, take the initiative and open a new thread titled "Help Configuring Intel IW3945 WIFI Running Slax" or "How To Configure Intel 3945 WIFI While Running Slax" .... something along those line's. Mod's will handle the break.

Update: See here - http://www.slax.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19134. *Mind you I know not which version, nor which kernel you've got prepared, six final look's to be out soon. One more worth review, posted by "velosprinter."


GF

 

Thank you GlobalForce
I really appreciate your suggestions and will take a look into it.
I'll tell you how it went!

 

I just installed a new hard drive and I partitioned it with 30GB for some flavor of Linux. I used Ubuntu (premade) a little in a VMWare machine and have the live CD and have used it a little bit but am basically a Linux newbie. I could see from the little I used Ubuntu that I would have to understand WINE before I install any version of Linux as the one application from Windows that I cannot live without is the Proxomitron. I have run everything through Proxo for five years and before that had Ad/Subtract from the moment it came out in beta. Seeing ads, gif animation, flashing marques, having to endure crap at my home site when I have special Proxo filters, etc. has not happened to me for so many years I can't stand a minute of any of that. I hate using a public computer. Not having Proxo in the VMWare Ubuntu drove me up the wall immediately and I couldn't even really try Ubuntu.

I took the interactive test and it said:
Ubuntu
Mandriva
Suse
kubuntu
Freespire
xandros

I have never heard of the last two distros.

 

Sorry for jumping into this Linux thread, but if someone is curious about trying different flavours that is not based on the linux kernel, but with the same desktop environment (except for Solaris Express DE), here are some suggestions:

PC-BSD
DesktopBSD
Nexenta
BeleniX
Solaris Express DE

/C.

 

Cerxes, I sure appreciate your jump into this thread.
I'm very fond of the BSD style *nix and I have used freeBSD for a long time. openSolaris looks very promising too.
My experience is that both *BSD and *Solaris offer less adequate support for hardware components than linux. When I tested openSolaris a few months ago it didn't have any support for wireless WPA security.

You are right, though. These *nix derivates deserve more attention!

 

WoW !, I couldn't imagine my PC usage would depend on one program And how would you feel about not needing your AV's, AntiSpyware ?

Proxomitron isn't the only animal, lock down isn't limited to Windows.....

Linux runs Firefox, Opera and uses all available options for both. For those who can't stand even an ounce of net glamor there's Dillo (fastest browser on earth).

Just to name a few other options (I'm sure there's others)

DansGuardian
OpenDNS
Privoxy
Tor-Tork
Squid-SquidGuard

BTW, I don't think the Linux Chooser is very good.

 

My results were Xandros*, PCLinuxOS, Mandriva, FreeSpire, OpenSUSE* and Kubuntu. The stars denote (the ones I haven't tried) the ones without Live-CD's. Oh well, I'll try again in April...

 

Every Proxo user who moves to Linux goes through agony and a large number come back to Windows because they can't live without Proxo. I have seen so many posts about this over the years. The only happy Linux users who were Proxo devotees on Windows are the ones who have managed to get Proxo working on some flavor of Linux. Privoxy is lousy. It is in no way a substitute for Proxo.

As for how I would feel about not needing antivirus well I go for long periods with only an antivirus program on right click demand only. I practice safe computing and really only need an AV to scan downloading programs and email attachments. I use Fx and Opera. I noted that Fx runs really good on Ubuntu. But the web was not being filtered through Proxo and I want to see the web the way I want to see it not the way webmasters want me to. Proxo is not so much for security as for allowing me to see the web as I wish to see it.

For me, my motivation to seriously look at leaving Windows is solely because of Microsoft's WGA crap and the fact that they are moving to a web based subscription model for Windows and I strongly object to that too. I like XP a lot and still like my other computer with 98SE. It's Microsoft's attitude toward its customers that I object to. I don't like being called a thief apriori and I don't want a web based OS (plus, I don't want DRM which is going to be used by Microsoft for a lot more than copyrited music and movies). I think most folks coming now to Linux are coming to get away from Microsoft and not because they really want Linux.

 

Of course not, just a toy..
@cerxes thx for the reminder re the *nixies

I have had an interesting time with PC-BSD: I really like it for oob functionality and imho is a real contender for my desktop and will be looking at The FreeBSD 7 and DesktopBSD releases.
I really congratulate the PCBSD devs for what they have achieved.
The Nexenta looks like it might be worth a look.
Heh: I suspect the forums at PCBSD are a little nonplussed at my amazingly naif q's.

What I have found to be a terrific aspect of my forays into the Linux and *nix world is the amazing smorgasbord of options. I have been able to run very fast desktops on a couple of really old LT's with very little effort for my simple needs.

It will take some time to get to grips with some new concepts and tbh I have been looking for the lazy options to be up and running with minimal effort.

By lazy options, for me, I mean amazingly sophisticated user friendly releases of PCLinuxOS , PCBSD, Mint, Sabayon, Freespire, MandrivaOne, VectorLinux, Knoppix.
Also had good experience with Arch and Absolute.

I have, heh, challenged myself with DSL and Puppy and Fedora7: interesting.

All free. !! Live CDs, VMWare, VirtualBox...., easy installs if you want: and I aint no expert.

I dont have wireless at all and so avoid what seems to be a common issue for many.

I am still sussing out best printer/scanner/projector support.
I will be getting some newer Hw soon: wait and test again...or use this box: will be great.

Ftm this is just experimenting and familiarising: steep curve ! but doable, very doable.

I am not able to move away from M$ completely yet for some business apps, but not having issues at home. Experimenting with presentations for work.

I know I'm not telling "the pros' anything they dont know: just letting anyone know it can be done.

Not quite but very nearly a full replacement for M$.

From a Distro_watch review of Mandriva2008:

See; for me it was INCREDIBLY exciting to have a whole superfast OS doing almost everything I needed with style just oob in 700mb, in minutes: literally: AMAZING.
Play with it, use it, learn, dont panic about breaking it: fabulous.
regards.

PS: watching wubi with interest hoping someone may port it to PCLinuxOS