Which Distro for me?

[frankwick]

I just got a new 800MHz PC and I want to run Linux. I have some unix experience, but have never ran Linux.

Tell me which distro you think I should use and why. I am a newbie.

Thanks.

[Tyr-7BE]

http://www.linuxnewbie.org/nhf/intel/distros/distronhf.html

[Dangerboy]

Like there is any question!!! Mandrake is the best distro period.

Unless, of course, you like to spend hours reading books, and enjoy spending all your brain power trying to remember command line commands. If you really like to modify text files to tweak your system, and you have no life, then you might want to go with something else.

If you want to stick the disk in, answer a few simple questions, and have it install everything, without reading ten 500 page volumes, then Mandrake is for you. If you lack self-confidence and you need to read ten 500 page volumes to make yourself feel like a bigger person, than by all means go with some other distro.

If you like sunshine, and have the ability to get hot dates, you might want to go with Mandrake. This will allow you time to hang out with beautiful women, and maybe even get a successful side business going!

Caution: The writer of this opinion may not entirely agree with the above expressed opinion, due to nice weather and lack of time to try every distro out there. The writer has not tried Suse or Debian yet. Mandrake is so nice he probably never will!

[Derango]

Well, I don't agree completly with what the previous poster said.

I do agree with his mandrake reccomendation. However, I believe strongly in using mandrake as a jump-off point for bigger and better things. I reccomend using mandrake to learn how to use the basic linux system, without having to worry about configuring hardware.

Then, once you're ready, jump into a distro that does less for you, such as slack or debian. I garuntee you'll like it. (well...I'm not THAT sure...but you get the picture)

[MichaelAnthony]

Well, I'm sort of new to Linux and Unix in general, but it seems to me that a large distro like Mandrake or Redhat is the way to go for ease of use (I got RH first) they come with all the bells and whistles (most you won't need, but...) if your looking for control Debian seems to be very malleable and of course LFS (Linux From Scratch) would seem to give ultimate control. I'm using Minix and a small floppy Linux called Hal91 to actually LEARN. But if your more interested in just jumping in to get to work, in as short a span as possible go with Mandrake, RedHat, or SuSE.

[frankwick]

Dangerboy-
What makes Mandrake so much better than Redhat 7.1?

Thanks for the good info!!

Originally posted by Dangerboy:
Like there is any question!!! Mandrake is the best distro period.

[mychl]

Try SuSE 7.1, it'll get ya going :D

[Tyr-7BE]

Dangerboy: Windows user? :p Hehehe...I'd kick your *** at linux! :p

And Drake isn't much different from RH at all...not at all. Drake has a few aliases thrown into its profile, some very fruity graphics and that's it.

[frankwick]

Please tell me WHY you like SuSE 7.1.
Thanks.

Originally posted by mychl:
Try SuSE 7.1, it'll get ya going :D

[mychl]

Well, first I had tried to compile kernel 2.4.2, and I was having problems, I needed it for my pci modem to work. Suse came with 2.4.0. Also, it detected all of my hardware, including my usb ports.

I also use kde, and it came with kde2, which is great.

I had tried to use drake 7.2, but I kept getting errors during install. I previously had drake 7, which was great also, but suse is just better.

Yast2, is great for configuring, although it can be a little slow.

Yesterday there was a thread the talked about suse making one mistake, and that was not putting apt get on their distro. I'm going to compile it in, and then I will have an os that I think is right up there with windows as far as easy to install and set up.

I'll admit that I still needed to tweak a few .conf files to get everything the way I needed it, but it came with 3 books. The easy install guide, a more advanced install guide, and also a book that discussed all of the software included.

It comes with X 4.1 (I think, but it is atleast 4...).

Another thing, the partitioning part of the install was a little different, but if you have even the slightest idea as to what you are doing, it isn't that bad at all.

The best part about it is that it came with about 7 stickers and a suse pin!!!!! :D

Anyway, I hope this helped a little, everyone has different needs of their os, which is why linux is so great.... but there is my $.02.

Gooodluck with what ever you choose...

Mike