Linux

[The Scribe]

As I said in another thread, I'll soon be installing Fedora but the comments made in that thread got me wondering what everyone uses and why?

Do you have likes and dislikes? What are they? What would you recommend?

[iecep]

I have heard great feedbacks with Red Hat 9

[Terminator]

yeah RedHat 9, and 10 are cool.

Personally i like SuSE. I think its the best for home use.

[wildfire]

Redhat makes me sad, because it strays from the whole Open Source thing that is at Linux's core. i use Debian. Long live the free!!

[Terminator]

You can have RedHat for FREE. Its under GPL, RedHat can't charge for Linux.

The fees they ask you when you 'buy' RH Linux is for their support. If you prefer not to have support, then you can just download and use it. No offence.

This is a common misunderstanding about Open Source and GPL.

They are FREE to USE and not FREE of charge. Once you get a GPLed s/w, you can do what ever you want with it, you can distribute it free of charge or for paid, but the only condition is that you give your customres every right u have with the s/w.

Its hard to understand, rt? But its a beautiful philosophy.

[frozsyn]

Originally posted by wildfire@Oct 20 2004, 06:18 AM
i use Debian. Long live the free!!


I don't really try Debian (15 minutes). But I have to. Dselect is a bit... something... no ? :)
I use Gentoo, but the Portage database use a lot of memorie on my harddrive.
Anyway, it's a very good system.

[oblivious]

Mandrake 10
Red Hat 9

Both are excellent and I really wish the whole world would convert to it :D

[Loser]

Since I will probably someday be getting Linux, what would be good for a starter?

[oblivious]

Either one i listed is great... but if your used to windows... try out lindows (YUCK) it's the closest to windows you will find out there in the Linux world.

Otherwise go with Redhat or Mandrake... Mandrake would be a better starter though :D

[The Scribe]

I didn't realise there were so many. Are they similiar to operate, or complete different?

[oblivious]

Depends... there are your 3 basic types...

Graphical Interface (Windows), Command Prompt Interface (DOS), and Mixed.

Some are better for servers... some are easier to use... some are more compatible with Windows Programs... some are just plain confusing.

Make sure you do your research before wasting your time downloading a 3 GB distro... and then find out you don't like it cause you don't know wha the heck you are doing :P

[megaman_c]

personally i prefer redhat 9 and 10 too

but the thing that i didn'T like on 9 is that you'll get trouble if you want to install a USB ADSL modem ! darn .. this was really hard to configure

[crimsonmoon]

We use Red Hat 9 at work to run our Snort IDS system and it works really well. When I was in class awhile back they showed us Mandrake and I was really impressed with it! Going through the install process was much more easier than I thought.

[mahangee]

I think im gonna get Mandrake. The Beta AMD 64bit edition. Just need to d/l it now.

[The Scribe]

My partner had a huge problem with his computer yesterday and for some reason couldn't reload anything... :(

He finally managed to get Xandros on his system. Being a windows user, he's got some learning to do but he's adapting quite well.

[crimsonmoon]

mahangee you can't go wrong with mandrake!

Sribe I can relate to your friend i've always been a windows user myself and it's quite a leap going to linux. It's like going from gui back to dos:)

[mahangee]

Only problem I might have is the partitioning because my windows one is NTFS. Oh well Ill risk it.

[frozsyn]

Originally posted by The Scribe@Oct 22 2004, 03:20 AM
I didn't realise there were so many. Are they similiar to operate, or complete different?
2420


Yes, there are all similar to operate. The difference is in the way to install precompiled program, to manage the system, and the selection of programs.
If you like hack your system, there is also some big difference in scripts used sometime, but for much of them, there are based on RedHat or Debian so...

[The Scribe]

In 24 hours he's learned a lot but he can't figure out how to install Firefox. He'd prefer to use that than Mozilla (even if they are similiar).

I don't understand it but he thinks it's something to do with the extension. Don't all Linux programs open all extension?

[megaman_c]

Originally posted by mahangee@Oct 23 2004, 11:39 AM
Only problem I might have is the partitioning because my windows one is NTFS. Oh well Ill risk it.
2650

why ?!

don't you have partition magic ?! :blink:

[mahangee]

Nope. I dont have it.

[azzracing]

I dont know that Much about Linux, and have heard that when switching from Windows to Linux it has some conflicts with some of the hardware that is popular with most systems that were configured for Windows. Like Ethernet cards and some Video Cards. More info on this or a URL to compare the specs would be great

[mck9235]

I have a question, im thinking of going t o Linux. But will all my programs work on linux that work on windows?

[shimp999]

Originally posted by mck9235@Nov 5 2004, 09:23 PM
I have a question, im thinking of going t o Linux. But will all my programs work on linux that work on windows?
6082


Yes and no. Windows software does not run in Linux, unless the software developers create/port a Linux version. In most cases you'll be able to find Linux versions of the software you use in Windows. For example: if you use Photoshop, there's a Linux equivalent called The Gimp. (go to google and look these up if you're curious and want more info). Now the cons to all this? One can argue that "free software" doesn't have the quality as professional. I kinda/sorta believe in this idea, but at the same time, I prefer a lot of the free software in comparison to their professionally made counterparts.

Also, there are programs in Linux that allow you to run Windows software natively. For example, Wine. But that can take some effort to set up and it has been usually hit or miss in my experience. There are also programs like Crossover and Win4Lin that allow you to run Windows *in* Linux, so you can run windows software.

My recommendation? Dual boot. Make another partition, find a Linux distribution that interests you, and try it out.

And back to the forum topic, I use Gentoo Linux.

[mahangee]

Yeah I use dual boot but with my Linux Distro Mandrake I found it had all the programs I need. It even has Openoffice which just rocks because you can do all your work on it then save it as a windows filetype so you can print it off at school.

[ayie]

I Use FreeBSD, Knoppix and CRUX.

Why FreeBSD? For me it is a REAL operating system. There are plenty of HowTo and articels about it on the *net. If i got a dead end .. i just search the problem solver in Google, very handy.

Why Knoppix? We can just bootup from CD's without having to slice up the hard disk. I recommend this for users who wanna start using linux and they want to get use with linux enviroment. Kewl .. I carry around the CD everywhere just in case. Most of my friends start using Linux now .. they became like me .. sick of internet junks stuff like viruses, trojan bla.. bla ..

Why CRUX? This Distro is awesome for me .. it's lightweight and it run pretty fast in my old machine .. I install it on my IBM 300GL .. Pentium 2 266Mhz with 64MB of PC66 SD-RAM .. kewl ~!! i like crux. If i got p4 laptop, I'll surely choose CRUX for my distro. CRUX's Portal (http://crux.nu/)

Where's the windows?? Lol .. i dont need windows to survive :D

[akshay]

i would also recommend redhat 9 and 10 (fedora core).. thy are simply awesome! the gui! its the best! but hogs up 2 much of resources though!
but its kinda wort everythin! far more better than windows!.. microsoft rulez! but it sucks 2! ;) (no hrt feeligs moderators nad mr. bill gates)

[highvolt]

Depends on your personal preference, really, and of course, your needs. I like SuSE a lot, but I love every distribution...