Linux Gurus Need Info

Okay I have a raw 20 gig partition on my HD. Want to play with Linux and need to know what to get, what to do, all the info. What version should I get, is it free, free is good and what utilities you all recommend. Also what format to apply to this 20 gig raw partition..

Thanks

 

go to www.ubuntu.com for everything you need.. ALMOST EVERY LINUX IS FREE

 

if you want to just explore around, you can try a live-cd first...

It takes no hd space since it boots off the cd

 

knoppix would be a good one to to start off with, it's nice and easy to use, has just about any thing you'll need, and you can just run it off the cd if you want to.

 

I tend to agree with yomister and Zak above. if all you want is just poke around, get a live cd. I'd go for ubuntu, because the beta cds these days ("flight") have an option of installing the system on your disk (from what I've read).

My experiences are mostly with SuSE because of my desktop rig (x64) and from that part, I can tell you that the stable releases are good and stable and, if you're not trying weird updates and "go with the program" accepting updates from yast repositories you're ok.

Formatting: I've found in many years of linux that one should apply several simple rules to keep things tidy:
1. put your "home" in a separate partition. This way, when you change distributions or upgrade or even mess up your distro with a weird package you have your data "safe"
2. make sure you have a swap partition. Only if you have mor than 2G you can "skip" the swap partition. I have the swap on a simple rule: approx equal with the memory installed, but no less than 1G. And I use the swap to signal me that I'm running too many things at the same time more than anything else.
3. spend some time selecting the packages you want to install: for example, a newbie doesn't have an acute need for the C++ compiler; that can be installed at any point in time anyway. Every distribution I know offer some sort of choice on packages one can select to install. There's absolutely no point in installing 9G of a full SuSE distro.

so my opinion on your formatting is as follows:
since you have windows only, that would be your first partition (if you have a dell, you'll get two partitions). For the sake of the comment, I'll assume you only have one.
If your hard is ATA, then the partition's name is /dev/hda1 (your entire harddisk is /dev/hda). if your hdd is SATA, then it's identifier is most likely /dev/sda

Using the distribution GUI, select "custom" and do the following:
1. create a new primary partition (/dev/hda2) of about 7G and select the mount point "/"
2. create an extended partition (/dev/hda3)
3. in the extended partition, create a swap partition of 1G (/dev/hda5)
4. create another partition and select the mount point "/home" (/dev/hda6)

the safest format type imho is ext3, but reiserfs is quicker and on ATA i've never had problems.

then go and install your fav distro

ps: bear in mind that I'd advice you to first try one of the live CDs and follow the steps I've described if you actually decide to install a distro on your harddrive

Good luck!

ps2: if anything is unclear, please send me a PM.