Linux For my shuttle

I'll be getting a Shuttle (not sure which model yet) in about a month or so and I wanted to get to know a bit of stuff in Linux - but im not sure which "type" is the best to use. Im just gonna be using it for movies and music and to learn how to use linux. Can anyone recommend a good one to use? A few people have said Redhat is good so im tempted to try that - any reasons why i shouldnt?

Cheers

 

personally i like mandrake best - its served me well for a number of years now, but most people here seem to hate it. Red hat is a very solid distro, with plenty of software included that will give you a fully running medai system, but i've heard SUSE is a metter distro for media type jobs such as sound video and graphics.

Anyone else got any thoughts?

 

Redhat is definately good as it'll give you EVERYTHING you could want to play with Linux with minimal downloading of other crap.

But it being the fat ass that it is, may be a little axing on a lower end machine

SuSE is teh media version of Linux, apparently, I've only heard, I haven't tried it yet myself. Gentoo might be good, as you build it form the ground up, so you could really get into teh guts of it.

Actualyl just check teh stickie, it's got a list of common distros and what they are best at

 

These are my impressions of the distros I've tried:

Redhat: Yeah, user friendly, unless you want to do anything other than browse the web or play games. The GUI is prety lame and clunkey, I disliked it alot. Installing stuff is a nightmare. "Oh, you want to do that. I'm sorry, you need to download 200 GB of RPMs you don't even need to satisfy my insaciable need for bandwidth " The update feature is nice, though

Mandrake: Good UI, and configuration is easy for the new user. Everything is made easily accessable through the "configuration pannel thingie-majig." It does hog resources, though, and installing it is a major pain. Also, it installs a lot of useless stuff you more than likely won't ever need, and wastes HDD space.

I am experamenting with e-smith server (http://www.e-smith.org), but that is only for those that want a dedicated server, and is not a desktop distro

I've heard good things about Gentoo and Debian, but never tried them myself. I'm thinking about Gentoo, but I'm not sure I want to let linux anywhere near my hard drive (last time, Linus and Windows wiped eachother out )...

 

Why not just pick a few that sound like they might fit your needs/skill level and give them each a whirl? Give you a better understanding of some of the initial pro's and con's of each, and you may find the one that suits you best.... Just don't be afraid to jump into a hole...then learn your way out... if you really hose it up...dump it and try again.

Its tough to answer what distro is better for each person... everyones perceptions are different at how they look at things and how they look back at them.
Personally I prefer Slackware over everything else... but then again i'd not reccommend it for someone just starting out unless they have some real background with the CLI....or i'm feeling truly sadistic that day (also can be read as 'ready to answer hundreds of questions')

 

cheers dakar thats a great idea might give it a go

 

Hello
i am in a similar situation to you ( not the shuttle bit) but just getting to learn linux.
I Like SuSe and i have experimented with most of the 'common' distros. i like the way things are arranged in SuSe and it seems the most logic to me. eg: most of the setup stuff is in yast. if you get a prof version almost everything is on the disks
if you cant download ISO's ebay is quite good.
just my 0.2

 

cheers chriss, i got my shuttle yesterday and am gonna install red hat today so hopefully itll go well!

 

Cool! good luck!
if you are like me you will end up reinstalling quite a lot after doing, well attempting 'interesting' things. lol BTFU and it is toleratable!
( i am sure this will be frownd upon by some but i think it is quite a good way to learn linux)

 

Jumping strait in, and ripping it open and breaking it, then trying to fix it, is the best way to learn Linux I find.

Keep your media handy. And for God's sake make sure you run the media check the first time.

 

good to see i am not the only one who does this
Jack please tell me what hard ware you are using and how it likes linux since i am becoming very tempted to buy one
thanks

 

Hi CHRISS

I'm using a Shuttle SK41G with XP2000+ but havent installed Redhat yet cos a) the cds i had were broke (so i downloaded Redhat 9, which is i suppose better than 7.1 i had before) and b) im having trouble getting the cd-rom to work for some reason it doesnt show in windows and so I will be taking it down to my dad's work tomorrow where i have more equipment, time and space at my disposal. Ill post when i get it all sorted to report any probs or anything.

JW

 

Been constantly trying to install Redhat and Slackware for the past few days to no success whatsoever, so it looks like windows for the shuttle, which is a real bugger cos one of the main reasons i got the shuttle was to learn linux

 

i personally recommend debian, u should only need the first cd (mebbe 2 & 3). http://www.debian.org

Its got a step by step installation but it doesnt give u pre setup gui. You'll have to install X from the command line. By settings things up yourself you'll learn things a hell of a lot faster than if its all pre-configured for you...

 

what is going wrong in the installations jack? is there a problem with the CD being recognised?
maybe this
will help.
Dont give up too easy!
good luck and keep us posted

 

Nope CHRISS it wasnt that but i will bear that in mind for later, thanks. It just keeps getting errors during installation and rebooting. I am about 9 mins from the end of downloading the first ISO again which i *hope* will sort things out! I'm not gonna give up though, using and learning linux was pretty much the only reason i got my shuttle! Will post back after download has finished and (hopefully) when things have installed fine!

 

Well after a whole day or trying to get my god damned shuttle to work, finally it does. I tried changing everything in the system to no avail, then found a stick of extra ram around, stuck it in and things work pefectly. grr to the dodgy ram! Anyway got Redhat installed fine but am at dad's work atm, so will be checking it out in more detail when i get home.

Thanks for comments everyone.
JW