Whats the best Linux download available

thanks for the link, it is very interesting. I was wondering if it is posible to get free unix downloads as well. thanks again

 

From the article I posted:

 

my bad, did'nt pay atention to that last part.

 

well, you could download one of the BSDs, which are probably "more" Unix than Linux. Basically, many Linux distributions have moved more towards the general-use desktop, whereas Unix is generally the domain of the "uber-nerd" if you will. That's not to say that there aren't Linux distros intended for the hacker-type, it's just that FreeBSD won't really hold your hand like Anaconda or YaST.

 

ah, thanks that is what I was what I was trying to find out.

 

Would you say ubuntu crashes as much as windows or less. Any comment are welcome.

 

Much, Much less

but I have to admit that I have experienced very little crashes with dual processors on windows as well.


The Major thing I noticed is that, it's much easier to kill a program if it hangs.
On windows Killing a program when it hangs can sometimes be impossible.

 

I am a fairly new at Linux I just started messing with it 4 months ago, it can be tricky on laptops.

I have an old Dell Lattitude CPx that I have been trying distros on First, Eventually I'll load one on my Dell Lattitude D810

So far I have tried

Linux
Ubuntu 6.06 Installed it and used it a couple of weeks it was OK.
PCLinuxOS 0.82a BigDaddy Installed it been using it exclusivley over two months now
Sabayon 3 Mini Booted the Live CD only, looks nice I have to do a full install and try it

BSD
PCBSD Looks pretty, couldn't get my WiFi card (PCMCIA Ralink RT2500) working right.
RoFREESbee also looks cool but would install on the CPx


The main reason I stuck with PCLinuxOS is because it just worked. Surprisingly it took less fiddling with conf files than Ubuntu did, it's easy to use and navigate. It's fast and stable on and old PIII 650 laptop with 512MB RAM.

The Sabayon Mini runs pretty well on the old Cpx surprisingly, i had heard that it was bloated and you need pretty new hardware to run it, but that's not the casse with mini at least. I'll probably install it on the D810 first so I can try XGL Compiz. Overall though Sabayon looks well put together.

 

I'm gonna give PClinuxOS a try, Even tho I'm not too found of KDE yet.

But being that you said it took less fiddling than Ubuntu, I'll at least see how Live CD treats me.

 

That's the beauty of Linux, you can just keep at it until you find what's best for you.

 

I'll give a shout out to mandriva 2007 which was just released this month (can be found on bittorent). Mandriva is very easy to install, has 3d desktop/xgl
And as a new version is so recent, it should support most hardware.

 

What is the most recent updait to ubuntu out there. I have seen daper and a few others, alittle confused

 

Dapper Drake is the newest stable version - 6.06.1

However, wait another week or so, and Edgy Eft becomes stable - 6.10

 

Can anyong give me an i Idea what the difference between fedora and ubuntu is. honestly, it seems like there are to many versions of linux out there.

 

The MAIN difference (there are more) is that Fedora is an rpm based distro, whereas Ubuntu is a deb based one. The types of packages you can install on your system are affected.

I liked Fedora, it was the first distro I ever tried. Too bad version 5 had early issues with installing from DVDs. I'll prolly check out version 6 though.

 

Another major difference is the number of available binary packages for the distribution - think of it in microsoft world as packages being available from microsoft.com.

Debian has 16 THOUSAND available packages. With a click or text command it will find the appropriate package, download, and install any of these 16,000 packages.
I belive fedora has far less.
Mandriva has the 2nd most number of packages, it makes up for this by being easy to install (debian has traditionally not been so installation friendly).
Ubuntu is a debian based distro, I'm not sure about package compatiblity with debian.
Suse's SLED 10 is a commercial distro from Novell, it can be downloade fr free (without support from novell). Suse is behind mandriva in number of packages, but its also been easy to install. I think its more stable than mandriva.

Fedora has far fewer packages than any of the above.

Here's a distro thread:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=473458

 

not to sound like a fedora fanboy, but for an average web/e-mail/office app/multimedia install, fedora will be fine. just because there are 16,000 packages does not mean you have to install them all.

for RefinedPower:

there are a lot of different distributions of Linux out there, but often they reflect different philosophies about how Linux should run. it also makes for a more competitive atmosphere of sorts, I would say. they all can have the same applications, so really it doesn't matter what ones you choose.

 

I haven't tried it yet, but I ran it from the LiveCD and it ran perfectly. I plan on installing version 6.10 when it comes out, but it's gonna be light (~15 gigs of space). I'm just gonna use it to test Xgl and other 3D things out in Linux, something I have never been able to do on the MR7500.

Sorry for the delayed post by the way.

 

It's so hard not to download everything. lol

 

So basically play around with a few and find the ones I like?

 

Exactly! That's why there are so many. I suggest something from the .rpm camp, and something from the .deb camp, and see which sort of style you like, then you can narrow down your choices.

 

rpm camp includes mandriva, suse

 

just curious what ubuntu is, rpm or deb, and what is the difference? I just ordered a live cd of ubuntu. I will probably play around with it and see were that goes. Do you think that Mandriva is better than ubuntu or is it just kind of like beauty, it's in the eye of the beholder which is best?

 

Ubuntu is in the deb camp.

With Linux distros, it's the Eye of the Beholder thing, really. I started out with Fedora Core 4. Had a few issues with that, so I had a look at Ubuntu 5.10. Loved the way it handled packages, but still couldn't get some hardware working correctly. Tried Mandriva 2005 after that, didn't like the Fischer Price look, and switched to PCLinuxOS. That was nice, but wireless wouldn't work and ATi drivers were at that stage hard to work with. During this time, I also came to appreciate Gnome over KDE. I thought KDE was a little bloated, although Windows switchers might like it because of the familiar interface.

After PCLinuxOS, I tried Arch Linux 0.7.1, and although I had a few troubles initially getting over having to use the command line so much, it was the first distro I could get wireless on, so I stuck with that for a while. I also likeed the fact that it was always up to date, and that the isos were more like nightly snapshots than releases (like Gentoo-ish).

Then, when I had to reinstall everything following purchasing my new laptop, I couldn't really be bothered reinstalling everything from command line. So, I used a beta of Ubuntu 6.06, and it installed everything from the get go! So, since then, I've stuck with Ubuntu.

Just try a few, and you'll quickly discover what you do and don't like. Then you can ask around for what distro would be best for what you want, and you can narrow your choices further, and get the best possible Linux experience.

 

Thanks, I will do that.

 

Between Ubuntu, Debian, Mandriva, Suse, there is no "wrong" choice; if it installs, then u'r good to go

My algorithm is, pick one, see if it install easily, if not, move to the second choice ...and so on.
Debian had acquired a reputation of being a bit hard to install, so its not been in my top 2 list, thus I havent installed it. I havent also tried Ubuntu as I've always used mandriva/Suse.

So chill, the worst thing that can happen is than a distro wont install and that u may have to go to u'r second choice

 

I wouldn't even stop there. Try at least four distros I say. Because installation is only half the battle

And a tip, when installing, specify a separate /home partition. That way, if you screw up the install, or don't like the distro, you can swap over to a new one without losing your documents.

 

What else is there

 

Getting everything to work how you want it so that you feel sufficient to not use windows.

I had to compile a whole new kernel just to use my companies Unix VPN client. Then I couldnt use the linux-restricted packages anymore for my wireless or my NVidia so I had to custom compile ipw3945/ieee80211 and then had to compile the 9xxx NVidia drivers again to get Beryl working.

I even figured out how to get BT working to dial my phone's EVDO to get online.

The ONLY thing that I have not been able to get working, period, no way jose, is 802.11x and that is because my company has a badly setup 802.11x PEAP/MSChapv2 configuration that just doesn't hardly work in windows...

 

I like Ubuntu and SuSe, myself.

 

What distro are you using? I found it absoluely horrible to connect to my university's wireless until I found an add-on tool in Ubuntu called Network-Manager. installed that and a front end (network-manager-gnome) and now it scans for wireless networks properly, and lets me input security details for WPA Enterprise and PEAP servers.

 

And you have an Intel 3945 chip, Sylvain? I can't get Network Manager to detect any of my network connections.

 

Yeah, I have the Intel chip. It wont automatically detect my uni wireless, but will connect once I input the settings. But with unsecured and my WPA at home, works perfectly.

 

Sylvain, I use Network-Manager on Edgy RC and it works great. It just doent feature support for MSChapV2 which is the stupid system my work has decided to use.

Pitabread, have you remember to edit your interfaces file to disable the kernel from assigning resources to the devices?

 

Yeah, I'm going to download Edgy as soon as it's released. I know the RC is out... But I'm paranoid.

 

The first thing I did on my brand new HGL-30 was install the 6.10 beta. It has actually worked really well for me and I have had NO problems at all. You should try the RC.

 

It comes out Thursday, so I'll just wait.

 

Yeah, in the meantime, I might have a gander at Fedora Core 6.

 

Don't waste your time. It's not worth it, especially if you ever do anything with multimedia

 

I just watch movies/listen to music, surf the web and code C++ with Linux. Might try gaming when ATi support AIGLX. What are the disadvantages of Fedora in this regard?

 

same as ubuntu, but there's no EasyUbuntu to download and get all the codecs automatically

out of the box, both pretty much just support OGG

 

Is there any good photo editing software out there for linux?

 

The GIMP? It works in Windows, too

 

I will check that out, thanks for the sugestion. any others

 

Hey GIMP is great!!! Thanks for the sugestion.