I want to change my operating system from Windows to Linux , what’s the the best Linux system: Debian, Suse, RedHat, Mandrake or another one?
(for programming and using BOINC)
Personally I like Fedora Redhat, but other swear by Suse and Mandrake. The are pretty much all built on the same core kernel.
I also am a Redhat user, but would not comment on which is best, as its the only version I’ve used
DT.
Does RedHat run on AMD Duron 1100 MHz with 256 SDRAM?
Certainly will, I’m using a P3/500 at work with Redhat 8 instead of a Sparc workstation and its quick enough for my needs. Shames the Sparc 5 for all sorts of things performance wise.
what do you want to use the box for ?
Might sway us towards one flavour of unix if we had a bit more info
Depending on how self-motivated you are…Gentoo. With respect to performance tuning, package/ports management, and configurability in linux distros it is unrivaled imo. I would put Debian and Slackware a close second. Ease of set up and learning would definitely go to distros like Suse, Mandrake, and Redhat/Fedora.
Any linux distro will support Boinc and provide basic development utilities.
Principal I want to use it as a workstation, with programms how:
- spreadsheet
- word
- and C++ /C#
and maybe a network connection.
I’m a fan of Suse. Snag is the pro version isn’t free, and I don’t think the personal version has the C stuff included.
I’d suggest against Debian. From what I’ve seen of it, it isn’t very newbie friendly.
I haven’t used Fedora or Mandrake recently so can’t comment on those. For distro ideas, visit http://www.distrowatch.com/
Isn’t the fastest Sparc 5 only 170 MHz? As advanced as the Sparc may be for its day, the P3 is a lot newer and faster. The only advantage I can think of for the Sparc is that its SCSI drives were often 7200 rpm long before IDE ones were around.
For more of a Sun feel, why not use Solaris?
At my first ever “job”, I was writing C on a Sparc 4. I vaguely remember SunOS 4 and fvwm. My 486 was faster than that…
I would suggest Mandrake or Fedora if (as I am) you are new to the Linux world as they are a breeze to set up and run. I have both here and I love 'em.
I also have Red Hat 9, but this has been superseded by Fedora.
I have had in the past three different releases of SuSE and I found them to be an absolute pig, but Mackerel likes them - you will often find this as different flavours suit the way different people work.
If you want a play - try downloading Knoppix - it will run straight off the CD with no configuration, and no need to wipe your existing Windoze disk.
HTH
Thanks for your posts, I think I try it first with Fedora/RedHat.
And when this will fail I try it with Mandrake.
There are a fair amount of people on these forums running Fedora/Red Hat, you could do a lot worse than try it - you’ll be pretty much guaranteed to get help on any problems
The best one is probably the one that you end up feeling most comfortable using. Fedora 2 and Mandrake are probably the easiest ones to choose from. I use both but prefer Mandrake. Take a look at http://www.distrowatch.com to get an idea of what is around and, if possible, download a few of the different Linux versions that may take your interest. However, for someone who is a raw beginner to Linux then the Fedora / Mandrake options are probably the best way to go.
Regards.
Kaibigan
Nope, this is a four year old Ultra-5 running at 400Mhz with 512Mb of 50ns memory I’m drawing comparisons with.
You never said it was an Ultra
I had a Sparc 5 - Solaris ran horribly slowly. Never managed to get any version of Linux to work on it though.