Right - decided to take the plunge and go all out for Linux - Power to the Penguin! Anyways, now comes the hard bit (well before messing with kernels!) which distro do I go for. I'd really appreciate some help as the bewildering array of distros has done exactly that. I got an e-mail suggesting Gentoo and I have been impressed by the documentation and support forums despite it being aimed at the power user. It also seems to be very up to date in terms of kernal and KDE 3.0.1 plus wide range of additional packages I'd appreciate any suggestions that people have for distros which have great or excellent documentation that an intellingent newbie could understand. I don't mind a non GUI install as long as there are detailed instructions for the installation process. If it helps, my hardware is: Epox K3A+ Athlon XP 1700+ @1700ish (changes regularly!) 2 Maxtor 740X 40gigs - RAID 0 GF4 Ti4400 onboard sound 3com 905C-TX NIC MO LK204-25PC LCD Thanks to anyone who replies :dude: Coolrunnin.
I actually just got done installing SuSe Linux 8.0. I actually inserted the disk, booted up my laptop and left the room. When I got back, 30 minutes later, it was waiting for me to login!! Seriously, SuSe 8.0 is very easy to install, there is some input needed, but nothing to complicated! This coming from a expereinced Windows user!
Don't forget to look for software availability as well. You'll understand more when you get a bit of experience, but a more popular distro will have more software written specifically for it (rpm's) so you don't need to compile your own. The big four (IMO) are RedHat, Suse, Mandrake and Debian. But distro's are a personal subject and it seems the one you learn on is the one you end up sticking with.
Thanks guys, I was looking at suse 8.0 but was a bit concerned about the M$ like installer with my hardware being newish and all - It's not like a laptop with a 'guaranteed to work' spec I was thinking that the installer might just give some error about hardware not supported and crash - my M/b is not in the hardware lists for Suse 8.0. Also can SuSe 8.0 boot from a RAID array - not being funny but I seem to remember something somewhere about problems with linux and IDE RAID (probly a stupid question but an important one!) How fast is SuSe compared to Gentoo or similar? Any relevant performance differences between distros? ( and I don't mean '0.5Fps in Quake III' type insignificant performance differences ! ) Keep the info coming please
These are tough questions, especially since I don't use either of these distro's! The answer to your RAID question is that if your BIOS will boot from RAID, then so will Linux. If your BIOS does not support RAID booting then you will need to put your Linux boot partition on a non-RAID disk, then the rest of the system can go on RAID. One thing though, if it is RAID 0, why use it? Linux will support software RAID 1-5 for true data redundancy but it is too much to explain here, but if you want to know more then that should do it. On the question of speed, remember the distro's are all based on the same (well should be) Linux kernel version, the only real differences will be what software you get, and as you mentioned, the quality of support. The hardware support is being constanly added to, so check their sites regularly for the latest compatability lists.
Thanks again Kong - you're a lifesaver I think I'll go with SuSe 8.0 until I get a bit more knowledge about the workings of linux and used to how the o/s behaves etc. I think, tho' this is a bit of a wussy option, I am after all a complete linux newbie so as long as I can use KDE or Gnome for day to day then delve into the command line when I want to learn things properly everything should be o.k. SuSe should also have a great range of software available for it (it seems like that to me from the site)- I'll get the professional distro so I get all the extra bits and bobs as well so I can put it on my server at a later date (using win2K atm ). I also think getting an off the shelf distro will give me LOADs of literature to study and curse at when I mess up the install j/k Yes my M/B will boot from RAID and I've just found some nice new drivers for SuSe on the Epox website so that should be fine Found a few LCD apps as well so looks like SuSe it is! Also my HPT372 will do RAID 0,1 and 0+1 - I will, eventually be running 4 Hdds in raid 0+1 to give me speed without risk but for now I'm just gonna be risky. I'd rather use the hardware RAID mainly just because I can and if frees up another IDE connector for more devices in the future
I run slackware, which means I compile everything myself basically. But it's all good experience. Depends what you want to use linux for. If it's just for learning linux in case you need to or want to use it for something in particular in the future then it would probably be good to go for a distro that doesn't do everything for you. Depends how much new stuff you feel comfortable dealing with at once.
I've never used linux before so I thought it'd be good to have the system up and running and explore it as I go along and get more confident. I was, as I said before - very impressed with Gentoo's documentation despite it being a 'proper' install. My problem is that as this is my main rig I really need it set up properly - If I f**k it up I can't use my rig! It doesn't matter that much I suppose as I have got my extra old win2K rig to do most stuff on (twin P3 550, U2W SCSI rig ) which will do most tasks inbetween me messing with linux so I suppose I could cope? I would really like to have a custom distro like Gentoo would provide but I am dubious as to whether I could put everything together correctly what with me being a Noob and all. In the future I will be going into networking so I think compiling a distro could be very valuable experience.. A bit daunting tho'. I've downloaded all of gentoo's instructions to read... I think I might have a blast at installing Gentoo then when everything crashes and burns go out and get Suse 8.0 Never know - I might be able to get it to work, I'm usually lucky like that (though I always tell people it's skill ) I've got ADSL so downloading distros is no problem and I've always been a cheapsk8 when it comes to buying software
Damn right! This is what got me started on Linux in the first place! People don't know what their missing. Just go for it, play and learn.
Yeh I LOVE the idea of running an o/s that's developed 'cos people want to and share it amongst everyone who wants to use it as well as the gloating factor that you can sit there smug as can be when some windoze user is ranting on about how their system is always loosing documents and bloo screening.... gotta get linux sorted out Right I'm off to get me some ISOs Muahahahahaha
Guess who's just got his ISOs all sorted out Thanks for all the help guys -you've provided me with some great info that has helped my hunt for distros and config info no end Cheers I'll be posting all my problems now tho most'll be in the Gentoo forums.. I'll let you know how Gentoo goes as well incase anyone else want to give it a blast... Coolrunnin'
