Lets talk LINUX

General Computing *nix and other operating systems
1

Lets talk linux my friends :slight_smile:

My P3 running MS has given up its ghost. I have decided to run linux on it now. Small problem is, I know very little about linux as it stands. I have played with knoppix, but wasn’t too impressed, and it got all messed up so I got rid of it. I first need a distro to use. I would like your suggestions on what to use. I am looking for somthing that is sort of easy to install (I am an experienced PC user and can figure most things out but nothing too complicated) I would like it to be rather full featured and easy to expand on so I can learn and grow with it.

Any suggestions would be swell.

2

Redhat/Fendora was my gateway, and the install program has come a long way since I first used it

3

Maybe not for the purists amongst us, but try Ubuntu 5.10.

Single CD download, then 20 minutes to install and you are up and running. Comes with all the usual goodies, browsers, email, graphics packages, open office etc… Currently running on half of the farm here.

Live version available too if you want to have a play without disturbing an existing installation.

4

In my opinion the most polished and fully featured distro arround is SuSE ( 10.1 is the latest) no live CD yet
Ubuntu is probably the easiest to get into with its live CD - but ugly
Fedora Core 5 is solid - server oriented - I find it the most intuitive to set up .
I run SuSE (desktop) and FC4 and 5 (LTSP server and crunchers) at home
All are reasonably easy to install .

5

I’ve just updated to SuSE 10.1, but it’s huge the complete install is 6 CD’s (including an optional one containing flash player, java, basically stuff they want to give you that’s not on an open source licence).

6

I’d suggest Suse as a “almost everything” type distro, and Ubuntu for something a bit more lean yet highly polished and functional.

7

Ubuntu for a starter in Linux.

Only distro I’ve ever felt remotely comfortable using :slight_smile:
Would propably switch over fully for a desktop if I didn’t play games or have to use MS proggies for Uni…

8

could i recomend Mandraxe Linux 10.1? Its 3 CD’s :frowning: but freely downloadable online but its got tones of software pakarges with it as optionable installs and it appears great for servers mes tink…:slight_smile:

9

I would say for a first go, try every LiveCD you can find and see which one you like first. Most have liveCD’s now with the exception I think being FedoraCore. I would say to go with Fedora Core4 (not 5 yet :wink: ) a nice easy install and all apps nice and simple to config with tons of online help.

Ubuntu is a debian based kernel, slightly trickier to deal with in my experience, but then I had RH9 first so I’m Fedora based.

DT.

10

I’m using Fedora Core 4 right now.

Gives me Firefox for browsing and Xchat for IRC.
I can print to my Windows printer and play my MP3 collection from a windows shared drive.

If I felt like it I could setup Thunderbird Email on here as well. Its on here I just havent configured it.

Give it a go, it will do just about everything except play UnrealTournament.
If you get stuck with anything Im sure we can help

11

My first endeavour into LINUX was only made possible with Ubuntu. Others gave me too many issues. I would try Ubuntu as a first choice

12

Well… I have gone with Ubuntu for starters… I liked the idea of an “all-in-one” install cd for my first dive into linux.

Toasted 2 CD’s copying the image to the disc before realizing that my burner had died. Copied it with another burner and its configuring the packages as we speak (or I type). Its taken a little longer than 20mins but thats cool. its an older pc and and even older HD. I’ll probably have a tonne of questions when I get going so bear with me :slight_smile:

Thanks for all your answers!

EDIT: DT, I had used knoppix live cd’s for a while… I need somthing on the hard drive to play around with…I was using the knoppix live cd over a NTFS (or was it fat32?!) drive and I guess linux didn’t like it so much… cheers!

13

Ok. My first question. I have got Ubuntu loaded… works great. I installed SMB to allow shared folders with my MS network. Now I am having difficulty accessing it on my other machines. The linux machine shows up but then asks me for login information… I have tried my password but it doesn’t work. any ideas?

14

I think you need to create some SMB users

Have a go with this link http://ubuntuguide.org/#installsamba

15

Right on the nail :nod:, you need a specific SMB password as well as a login to access the information.

16

Many, many thanks! Worked great! Stay tuned for more help requests :slight_smile:

17

Ok. I have been using SAMBA for the past bit to share folders with my XP rig. When I logged off on my XP rig, I had SAMBA crash the whole linux rig after giving several warnings one on top of the other and then the computer was unresponsive and I had to do a hard shutdown. Rebooting got everything back, but I think changing users in XP caused SAMBA to do somthing funny. Is there any way to avoid this?

18

No idea, I’ve just about avoided using XP entirely but never had that happen between Win2K and linux.

Was it a one off or is it repeatable ?

19

Well… the nature of my work requires me to have XP on my main rig… it would be way way to much hassle to switch at this time. I haven’t tried repeating it either… I will let you know when I logoff next. I was just curious if anyone else had a similar issue. The linux box is folding and hard restarts are bad for folding :slight_smile:

20

I’ll have a go later once I remember which box has XP on it.
Think I put the XP drive “in a safe place” and switched it to fedora.

So this was an XP shared folder mounted on Ubuntu ?
Or was it an Ubuntu Folder mounted on XP ?