The Jedi Academy- Which distro?

Which distro?

Dec 08 2006 05:09pm

Bail Hope of Belouve
- Student

Hi everyone.

After testing Vista for school-purposes, I came to the conclusion that it's just not my cup of tea (high cpu-usage for one), and I'm thinking of gradually switching to linux. Right now, I have a dual-booted computer with XP and Vista, but in two weeks' time, Vista will be uninstalled.

I've seen Macs and their performances and while I am impressed, I just don't have the financial capabilities of switching completely.
I've worked with Knoppix Linux in the past, so I do have some experience with it and now I'm looking to switch to Linux completely. I'll do this gradually though, while Microsoft still supports XP.

I've been googling around, checking out all kinds of different distros and narrowed it down some.
So far I have my eye on:
- Gentoo
- Ubuntu
- Mandrake
- Debian

Other suggestions are always welcome of course!

The operating system I want has to be able to:

- offer a good compatibility with other systems. If I type something in a text editor and save it, it's imperative that it can be read on other Windows-run systems. It also wouldn't hurt if it's possible in some way to make a network between Windows-based computers and my Linux laptop.
- offer a user-friendly experience. I do have somewhat of experience with Linux thanks to Knoppix, but I'm not looking for anything that's too 'command-line', if you know what I mean. By user-friendly experience, I also mean that it must install easily enough. I've never worked with those tar.gz. files that you have to compile yourself, so a distro which avoids such files is preferred.
- offer a good compatibility (or emulation) so that programs normally run in Windows can be run in Linux.

So, if you have any suggestions at all, please give me some advice to aid me in my dilemma.

Thank you very much.

and friendly greetings from rainy Belgium.
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Comments

Dec 22 2006 02:29pm

solitude
- Jedi Council

The problem with apt is that its meant to make it easier to install packages by sorting dependencies for you and making it more user (and especially new user) friendly.

That in itself its a good idea. The problem is that when apt goes wrong, it goes _really_ wrong and its difficult and messy to fix. If you do want a package manager to fix dependencies for you, the ports system of BSD or gentoos portage is far better as thhey can never break in the way that apt can. (like stop you from being able to install anything). Thw alternative is slackwares approach where you sort it all yourself. timeconsuming, but it works well and lets you do some nifty things (like ignore silly dependencies that arnt really needed)
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Dec 21 2006 04:33pm

Bubu
- Hubbub

Glad to hear it!

Welcome to the free world!
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Dec 20 2006 04:24pm

Bail Hope of Belouve
- Student

Thanks for the offer guys.
It's all worked out now though.

(I'm posting from Ubuntu)

I've tried various user guides, but none of them worked until I found a really old one, for an ancient version of Ubuntu. This one worked like a charm and hasn't stopped working once since

I've also added my folding client to Ubuntu, so I can just keep on folding.

I'm getting a pretty good hang of it in the meantime. Completely configured my wireless through the terminal, which was a first for me but after some practice those commands are quite easy to use.
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Dec 20 2006 12:11pm

Icco
- Student

Ya you can drop me a line too.

In terms of insults, I'm just having fun

but really is apt that bad? I mean I've been using it for five years and only ever had two problems, and i might add, those two problems were because of pure user error.
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Dec 20 2006 06:55am

Bubu
- Hubbub

Bail add me on msn: barlevalon at gmail dot com

I'll help you.
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Dec 19 2006 09:28am

solitude
- Jedi Council

Quote:

FreeBSD ftw!

Agreed.

I hope everyone here who recommended ubuntu will hang around to help Bail.

Especially after he tried to use synaptic to install a package and he encounters dependency problems.

(ie. if he needs to upgrade a blocked dependency, or the he has a more recent version of a dependency than the package checks for)
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Dec 19 2006 04:44am

darkskye
- Student

FreeBSD ftw!
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Dec 18 2006 05:03pm

Bail Hope of Belouve
- Student

I have to admit that it's amazing how Linux can tell me in one second what wireless networks are available in this region, while Windows takes 10-15 seconds. Linux even gives more details on these networks as well.

If only it would connect as well

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Dec 18 2006 05:07am

Acidic
- Student

Ubuntu is the best.
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Dec 17 2006 06:24pm

solitude
- Jedi Council

Quote:

solitude, i hate to say it but your on crack bro, no offense, so of my best friends are druggies, They just don't no shit about computers :p

#1 offensive, no need for insults :x

#2 package managing is great, when it works properly (eg, bsds ports, maybe gentoo portage)

apt and associates can go wrong VERY badly leaving you with a mess
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Dec 17 2006 02:38pm

Bail Hope of Belouve
- Student

I installed it to my computer. So far I've not been able to do that much with it though, as it's quite reluctant to let my wireless network work.

Ah well, I'm getting closer to the solution already and the Ubuntu people are helping me as fast as they can.

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Dec 17 2006 06:21am

solitude
- Jedi Council

Quote:

You're already going to install it, but I'd just like to chip in and say Ubuntu as well. Great choice.

If you do like apt (god knows why... :p) why not just use debian?

Failing that, xubuntu has the same package manage (synaptic), is based on ubuntu, but uses xfce as its desktop manager. much lower resource use than gnome or kde
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Dec 16 2006 01:39pm

Kenyon
- Lord of the Dance

You're already going to install it, but I'd just like to chip in and say Ubuntu as well. Great choice.

Dec 16 2006 01:12pm

solitude
- Jedi Council

Quote:

solitude, i hate to say it but your on crack bro, no offense, so of my best friends are druggies, They just don't no shit about computers :p

Apt is amazing when it comes to package managers, it's far better than anything else in that sense when it comes to that type of distro. Also all debian based distros(mainly ubuntu and debian itself) now have great support of read write ntfs. two years ago this was not the case, but now there are no problems. I wouldn't edit system files or do major document tree rebuilding but it works great.

it sounds to me that you are just against full out packaged distros, you want something, like slack, that isn't very good for new users. Slack is a great distro, don't get me wrong i use it for my server, but not good for someone just starting in linux. If you want out of the box easy to use linux, go ubuntu

for a package system which has recursive dependency handling, bsds ports is only the sane solution.
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Dec 14 2006 08:17pm

Icco
- Student

Ya gnome is pretty awesome, of course its been around for years, and vista is the new copycat on the block

good luck man
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/Icco

Dec 14 2006 08:07pm

Bail Hope of Belouve
- Student

Hey everyone.

A quick update on how things are progressing. In about five days time I'll be able to install Ubuntu permanently. Until then, I'm running the LiveCD and learning as much as I can.

I already found out that the Ubuntu Community really is as good and friendly as was promised by a friend. They already solved some of my questions.
I like how Ubuntu looks a lot like Vista (with one eye closed, but you can't deny there are similarities) while not asking that much from your system at all.

I also like the games that were supplied with the OS :p They're a good passtime.

EDIT: OMFG, TYPO!!
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This comment was edited by Bail Hope of Belouve on Dec 17 2006 02:37pm.

Dec 10 2006 10:19pm

Icco
- Student

Dec 10 2006 11:58am

Bubu
- Hubbub

Quote:

Do _not_ use ubuntu or any debian based distro. apt is an evil what must be expunged.

Please elaborate.
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Dec 10 2006 12:25am

solitude
- Jedi Council

eep, double post but I would recommend pc-bsd http://www.pcbsd.org/ for ease, which has 1 click installable pachages like windows and recursive dependency checking.

if you use a linux system over bsd, use the ext filesystem, as windows can read and write natively to it with a clever kernel hack. also, linux can read and write to fat32 reliably. i would only trust its read access to ntfs though
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Dec 10 2006 12:23am

solitude
- Jedi Council

Do _not_ use ubuntu or any debian based distro. apt is an evil what must be expunged.

I would recommend either slackware linux or pc-bsd for a beginner. Those will give you a lot of flexibility, and show you all the ins and outs of _any_ unix based system.
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Dec 09 2006 03:56am

Bubu
- Hubbub

I second Ubuntu.

Quote:

offer a good compatibility with other systems. If I type something in a text editor and save it, it's imperative that it can be read on other Windows-run systems. It also wouldn't hurt if it's possible in some way to make a network between Windows-based computers and my Linux laptop.

Any linux system should be able to do that.

Quote:

offer a user-friendly experience. I do have somewhat of experience with Linux thanks to Knoppix, but I'm not looking for anything that's too 'command-line', if you know what I mean. By user-friendly experience, I also mean that it must install easily enough.

Ubuntu.

Quote:

I've never worked with those tar.gz. files that you have to compile yourself, so a distro which avoids such files is preferred.

No distro will avoid .gz files because they are nothing but compressed archives (like zip). If you don't like compiling stuff when you install, forget Gentoo. Ubuntu is, again, your best bet.

Quote:

offer a good compatibility (or emulation) so that programs normally run in Windows can be run in Linux.

You will always have some trouble with this. Howeer, I've had good experiences with wine, and it works under any distro.

So, to summarize: I've used all four of the distros you mentioned. Currently, I'm using Ubuntu. For me, it is the easiest to install, maintain, and update. On top of that, I found ubuntuforums.org to be the most awesome place on the internet. People there will help you with anything and at any time.

If you need help with anything, give me a shout, add me to msn, whatever.
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make install -not war

Dec 08 2006 11:29pm

Icco
- Student

not to be a fan boy or anything, but ubuntu is your best bet. It's got a great user interface, and can easily be patched to use windows drives:

http://www.lifehacker.com/software/ubuntu/hack-attack-top-10-ubuntu-apps-and-tweaks-195437.php
http://www.lifehacker.com/software/ubuntu/ten-tips-for-ubuntu-users-196375.php

debian is much less user friendly, but fun to play around in. Gentoo is the least user friendly, and mandrake doesn't work well if other distros and OS' on average, but i get mixed reveiws. I didn't like it though. If you need help drop me an email or IM, because to be honest i don't read the forums that often (once a month max :p )
_______________
"this is Icco. Icco is old. Icco is lost. Icco is cool, but Icco doesn't know what the meaning of 'macrophageal sex'." - Vaughn
/Icco

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