Mickle

I'm looking at installed Linux on a dual-boot partition on my PC. Has anyone got any opinions on which make of Linux I should be looking at getting, what's the newest version and what's the easiest to install?

Cheers

Mickle

Cheers Dirty_Den I'll have a look at SUSE

WillieF

Redhat is the defacto standard but is very bloated these days.

I use the Debian version www.debian.org should tell you more.

stevencotton

Debian is the best I've used, not for beginners though. SuSE is the only (I think) European distribution, some people like to support that. I've used it a few times but always return to Debian. Red Hat is in my opinion almost windows-like in its bloat. There really are tens of distributions so you're not stuck for choice

Linux distributions

stevem2k

anyone tried the x86 version of Solaris ?

Run sparc sol9 here .. it's nice - even got evolution running on it when I managed to find an app to change uname outputs on the fly.

Steve

Mark Underwood

Mickle...I use a dual boot system with XP Pro and SuSe 8.1 Pro. I installed XP Pro first and then installed Suse 8.1 on a 20 gb partition. The install was dead easy and it picked up and configured all my hardware with no problem. The new boot manager in 8.1 (called Grub) is far better than the old LiLo of ver 7.2.

However once you have Suse 8.1 installed you'll see a boot option screen which if you do nothing will default to Linux. From the control centre I have altered the boot option to auto boot to XP.

I havew an old machine with Suse ver 7.2 and 8.1 installed. IMHO 8.1 is the dogs danglies. Tried Mandrake but didn't like like it.

gregh

I have heard good stories about redhat v8 desktop, v easy to install and configure.

Gedi

Stevem2k: yeah, i'm sat at a Solaris box right now. (although its not a sparc) I love it, its what I started on back in the days when linus was still playing on minix : ) I'm still a big fan now, as I am of BSD

[Edited by Gedi - 1/7/2003 11:57:47 PM]

[Edited by Gedi - 1/7/2003 11:58:17 PM]

snowcrash

slackware or peanut

why not make your own distro???

Mickle

I'm looking at the SuSE website now and there's a free download for the OS, is this ok or should I splash out and by the Personal or Pro version?

(What's the difference between personal and pro?)

Gedi

Snowcrash : I have made my own distro. I run 2 of my own. I have one for testing/hacking the 2.5.* kernel. I find this more productive for testing as you can get shut of all the ****e that commes with the comercial distros. The second distro I have of my own is my stable one (currently 2.4.20). With this one I am currently toying with the idea of introducing Xwindows under Gnome (to stick with the GNU projects). However, its not easy because I am not the worlds best with graphics. I would love to implement my own themes from scratch. I really need to learn Gimp

Mickle : I think the version you are talking about is the live evaluation edition. This will be fine to start with. However, be aware that many popular software packages are not included and you will need to install them yourself. (no big deal if you know what you are doing) the only reason I say this, is that some of the stuff you might want may not come in RPM form, and you will need to grab the tarballs, maybe even compile source yourself. This will take some knowledge with the linux structure and gcc.

The difference between personal and pro mainly lies in network tools and to some extent development tools.

Dirty_Den

Mickle - what did you decide to go for in the end? I've ordered myself a copy of Suse 8.1 Professional, look forward to having a play with it.

Den

dowser

I don't go anywhere without my Knoppix CD - a Linux desktop on any PC with a cd drive

Richard

swan

Review of Mandrake 9.0

In conclusion:
"I've noticed, after using Mandrake 9.0 for a few days, that the era of funky application crashes and X-server misfires seems to be over.. /me crosses fingers really hard. The overall sense is that Mandrake has matured into a tool that anyone could make use of - those familiar with Linux and in need of the advanced capabilities of a "real" distribution, and those who have never used Linux and are coming fresh from a Windows environment. There's nothing to figure out - just point and click and run the applications... as long as you've installed the second CD, that is"

chockymonster

I'm moving away from redhat, playing a lot more with debian.
apt-get is my friend

Dirty_Den

Suse Linux has the reputation of being most 'user friendly'. Red Hat is probably the 'defacto' standard, but from reading the RH 7.1 Professional manuals, they aren't as well written or presented as the Suse manuals.

I've got the Suse 7.2 distribution kicking around at home, but I'm probably going to get the latest version of Suse, 8.1, to get the updated kernel, drivers and YAST.

http://www.suse.co.uk

Probably best to buy whatever you decide to get from Amazon - they seem to be priced realistically.

Den

[Edited by Dirty_Den - 1/7/2003 11:52:21 AM]

Gedi

Here's my low down : p

SuSE - Great for beginners and advanced. I currently run 8.1 pro. Its very secure 'out of the box' and Yast2 sax2 etc easies the burden
Mandrake - Good for beginners, gets a bit boring
Red Hat - Much config to do to harden it, I don't understand its popularity
Debian - Cool but different. Some people have trouble changing due to the slightly different structure.
Slackware - Most UNIX like distro. Most difficult to use, mostly shell based. much more back to roots than the rest. My personal favorite.

[Edited by Gedi - 1/7/2003 3:28:34 PM]