A newbie's linux flavour?

[Scorpion]

well,
Like before, I once again am seriously considering to enter the world of tux, but I am drenched by all these flavours of linux, which one suits me ?

I am not a geek- right now, but am planning to be.
I haven't got any office work for I am a medical student.
May be a few games and some programming experiments as a hobby apart from movies and music- yeah! I want to use it as my entertainment and experiment boxbox . I am not particular about user friendly environment within tolerable limits. No commercials like Suse.
Suggest me.

P.S:- Moderators pls excuse if I have to post it in the other- open source category, but any way it's a question for every one.

[it_waaznt_me]

The first I installed was RH7 .. Screwed my partition table .. Didnt supported my hardware (Most of it ) ..I removed it within a week for good time's sake .. I hate RH since then ... ...

[Edit] Eek .. I thought this was a poll asking which was your first GNU distro ...

Well ..For newbies I consider Knoppix is a good option ..After it .. Suse of course ...

[theKonqueror]

Originally Posted by it_waaznt_me

... Screwed my partition table ..
... I hate RH since then ...

Hey!!!! All tuxes give u a warning b4 writing 2 mbr and part table... (even RH 4 and below too). U shuld b careful while installation instead of blaming it to RH.

B.T.W, today, Red Hat has the widest HW support and is most widely used, stable and good distro. Even Mandrake is also a ripped from RH source codes, if u dont know.... Also, Red Hat Certification is considered as top certificatoin worldwide 4 linux. U shuld take a look @ latest fedora cores that RH offers.

[Scorpion]

Can I get SIFY Broad band on the linux machine?

[djmykey]

Hmm Knoppix is good for first time users coz it doesnt do anything with ur comp. But if u wanna install it n then use it Suse is good coz its just made as easy ans windows installation. Rh does crap at a given time but u gotta need lotsa info abt ur hw to setup RH and if u have a separate hdd then u must go on with RH (thats what i did ) .

[GNUrag]

KNOPPIX

Originally Posted by theKonqueror

Even Mandrake is also a ripped from RH source codes, if u dont know....

What do you mean ripped ? which source codes are u talking about ? All the source codes for each and every program are available for free to every developer and company and everyone is free to modify it and redistribute. Mandrake started out by repackaging the RedHat's CD contents by choosing selective packages for specific purpose.

For that matter even Knoppix, Gnoppix, Ubuntu, Morphix, are derived from Debian only. You can't blame like that.

[mail2and]

i'd say u use xandros....


xandros is the easiest OS to install and run.....


as they say... FOUR CLICK INSTALLATION...

even the partitioning is very easy and requires basic knowledge unlike distros like fedora

and xandros runs like a dream..... it even has a small icon in the system tray which indicates the data transfer just like windows!

also its fast and unlike fedora does not hang....

but the down point is that only the open circulation edition is free which is a bit old .. u know kde 3.1

well i must say that shudnt make a difference when u are trying linux for the first time....

i must say ubuntu installlation was a dream too

roftl whosoever said freebsd was a newbie's linux! phew! goood that u didn't mention gentoo in the newbie list

[Scorpion]

I installed RH 9 on my system- sorry I am not entirely a newbie. But that was when Digit gave a Linux distro DVD. I never used it though(I was preparing for my medicine entrance!), and recently I re-formatted my whole disk and am considering installing linux on the other partition(I am now a student of medicine!). Once again all set to get my hands dirty with many flavours coming on the Digit DVD , I want to try using it.
My modem was a winmodem and was useless, so I am considering going to braodband to get linux connectivity, will SIFY run on my linux?

[cool_dude_prav]

my vote goes for gentoo as it has the ability tp run for the best in your system...

as gentoo compiles in your system and uses your resources for compilation... hence, it is the best and also faster than any other... as it is optimised for your system...

also you cud alwqays go in for debian... with all the s/w 8700+ to be more correct... (Oh! my god!)

[ujjwal]

I hate modern versions of distro's like Fedora, Mandrake & Gentoo ... they have become quite bloated these days ... people call them easy to use, but what it means is that they come with a graphical installation with lots of eye candy.
If you want to install a good linux distribution, such that you can slowly learn about the OS ... then you should probably avoid those three.
A distro I haven't tried, but which is supposed to be fast and easy to use is Vector Linux . It is based on slackware, and is quite fast and stable even on old machines. It comes in a 300 MB ISO
If you are feeling a bit more adventurous, try out slackware 10. It doesn't have a graphical installation (you have text menus) but if you read the documentation, you shouldn't have much problem. I managed to install it, even without much linux knowledge.

[ujjwal]

@Scorpion - Yes, I indeed run sify narrowband on linux, and it runs. Their login client sucks though ... but you can use this unofficial one - http://www.sharma-home.net/pipermail...er/000446.html

[Scorpion]

@ujjwal - Thankyou, but the URL you specified doesn't point to anything, would you mind telling me the name of the program(alt. login client)?

[ujjwal]

Strange ... that link existed last I saw ...

Anyway, here is the direct link to it - http://puggy.symonds.net/~srp/sify.c

This is the C code ... compile it using gcc (gcc sify.c -o sify.o) and you will get an ouput file sify.o ... run ./sify.o to execute it. It may not work fully, as it isn't complete, but the author (Bhushan Tiwari) is working on it.

Support for the client would be here - http://forum.seo4india.com/Alternati..._BSD-t445.html

[tuxfan]

Knoppix becase you don't have to install anything. Just boot.

Fedora Core because there are most number of self help resources available for fedora. From books to online articles - amount of info available for fedora is more than any other distro. And its not that complicated as well. I mean, if I can learn to find my way around with some help, other can also do the same. And it didn't even require too much effort.

Usually, I use PCQ Linux which is based on Fedora Core 1. PCQ Linux 2005 is coming in March which will be based on Fedora Core 3. There is a lot of customisation done to suit our basic needs. Additionally, PCQ regualrly gives articles in the mag and also provide support in forum and thru their columns in the mag.

[Scorpion]

Thanks guys.
I now succeeded getting Fedora Core 3 on my system and accessed my SIFY broad band with this program. Truely Tuxed!

[daj123]

You should try SuSE Personal 9.1 if you're an end user.

[GNUrag]

Originally Posted by daj123

You should try SuSE Personal 9.1 if you're an end user.

Why not SuSE Professional ?

[khattam_]

SuSE Personel is best for newbies!! Easy to install, easy to configure, easy to use. What more would a newbie want??

[enoonmai]

I'd say Ubuntu but some people have been put off by the installation a bit, so for a complete newbie, I'd recommend Mandrake, and Ubuntu for the adventurous person who wants to start getting their hands dirty with Linux straight away.

[vijay_7287]

FC3 with the min install, easy to install and easy to use !!!

[dIgItaL_BrAt]

Mandrake or SUSe,though Ubuntu is quite good too.

[desertwind]

Dont you people think that this is a quite old topic to bump up. The original poster may have installed some distro, and (who knows) may be ageek by the time now.

[dIgItaL_BrAt]

now that u mention it,i finally realized that it's been almost a year since this thread was started!

[pradeep_chauhan]

what do i hear ? GENTOO bloated.?????????? come on guys..... Its the leanest cut one can possibly have. I mean it cannot get thinner. You select each package yourself. It does not get better than this.