Which linux to choose?

[vinith98]

Hello people,

This is my first post on digit forum. I am a windows XP user and I want to migrate to linux. As I am completely new to linux I have decided to by a book to help me out. I found several books on Linux and so I am a bit confused on which to go in for.

Firstly I want to know to the difference between different Linux like Fedora Core, Suse, Red hat etc.. Which of this is better and also tell me which is the new version.

Also please recommend me a good book. If possible please leave on link to linux tutorial page.

Please reply,

Vinith

[ambandla]

You can try any of these.

Ubunu
linspire
suse
mandriva

I love suse most but you will find ubuntu most usefull as you are first time user.
__________
Fedora Core/redhat linux is good but is not good for first time linux users .
Suse is very good solution for first time home use as well as first time admin use.

ubuntu, mandriva, linspire: all these are for home-only use and are exteremly simple. They can't do well for servers.

Just browse respective sites for version number.

books: hmm. try Running Linux, 5th Edition, Oreilly.

[PCWORM]

go 4 ubuntu....
u can even try slax or dynebolic which is given with the dec2006 cds of digit....

[mehulved]

Just start with Knoppix live cd and learn a few things. Check out the stickies in this section.

[Siddharth Maheshwari]

I think u should go for ubuntu.It resembles windows a lot .Morever u can get its 6.06version at ur home for free.I hav already got.
If u want the link for free ubuntu at ur home reply me.

[ashisharya]

go for ubuntu
u can download it or order a cd

[dissel]

And here is Ubuntu Guide Book
The book is actually focused on Installing and Configaring Ubuntu for Newbies.
It is .chm format...you can easilly view it Window OS.
Or If you already running Ubuntu then you need gnome chm viewer.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnochm

[Aberforth]

Since you're starting out I'd suggest Ubuntu 6.10 which you could get from a linux friend, tech magazine and burn it to a CD. Or you could do an order in Shipit which will ship home Ubuntu for free. Ubuntu is light and clean, has most apps you need and use can use it's repositories to get more. There are also a lot of third party debian packages which work well on Ubuntu. One point of caution, if you are a power user you'll be most happy with Ubuntu if you have a broadband connection, downloading updates and packages in Ubuntu do take some time.

If you want administrative and server apps out of the box as well as all the special effects, go for OpenSuse 10.2.

[vinith98]

Thanks you a lot for repying.
__________
Ya please give me the link
Thanx

[mehulved]

For ordering Ubuntu CD? Then it is shipit.ubuntu.com

[kumarmohit]

Try a live CD first, just to get the hang of things like Knoppix or DSL

[Pathik]

fc6 or mandriva 07 or opensuse 10.2.. But not ubuntu

[gary4gar]

Originally Posted by pathiks

fc6 or mandriva 07 or opensuse 10.2.. But not ubuntu

Why not ubuntu?

[planetcall]

Dont go for suse or any such variant which has commercial version. You will never get all the features in the free versions. Ubuntu is the best option and it is the most widely searched linux flavour as per distrowatch.com . It is better to download the latest ubuntu than ordering the free CD as for free they are giving the previous LTS release CDs only.

[gary4gar]

Originally Posted by planetcall

Dont go for suse or any such variant which has commercial version. You will never get all the features in the free versions. Ubuntu is the best option and it is the most widely searched linux flavour as per distrowatch.com . It is better to download the latest ubuntu than ordering the free CD as for free they are giving the previous LTS release CDs only.

+1

[NucleusKore]

First of all I would like to point out that a lot of users making a switch from windows to Linux end up comparing the two and cursing. Things are done DIFFERENTLY in linux, that doesn't make it any more difficult than windows. You have to be ready to learn new things.
If you go for a distro like Ubuntu you will have to use command line a little more often, than if you were to go for a distro like Open SuSE which is completely wizard driven.
I think in terms of third party packages (software), fedora has the widest collection, but then again you will have to fiddle around with commandline. If you are just an end user like me who wants to enjoy your OS and not become a computer engineer go for Open SuSE

[Aberforth]

Originally Posted by planetcall

Dont go for suse or any such variant which has commercial version. You will never get all the features in the free versions.

I wouldn't agree with that. OpenSuse is not a low-end free version of SLED, it simply misses the technical support you'd have got with SLED and a few proprietary apps you wouldn't get even in Ubuntu. So you are not losing anything either way, you gain some thing in Suse as has features which Ubuntu misses. And being opensource there will always be a free version of Suse, if Novell considers to discontinue it someone else could take up the OpenSuse project and get on. Novell took over Suse only recently it existed much long before that.

@NucleusKore - Agreed

First Linux is not Windows and neither it is geeky. I am not a geek but after mastering Linux I found it a lot better than Window albeit different. The learning curve isn't that steep and after you become Linux user you'll find its worth it. And it's not Linux's fault Windows games don't work in Linux (which is changing now) and there are loads of free 3D games in Lunix which would require you to pay an arm and a leg in Windows.

[mehulved]

Originally Posted by NucleusKore

I think in terms of third party packages (software), fedora has the widest collection

Debian has the most followed by Ubuntu AFAIK, even Suse has more apps than FC, atleast last time I checked.

[Aberforth]

FC's attitude towards proprietary softwares and it's step motherly treatment by RH compared to RHEL led me to choose Suse instead. FC isn't the distro with most packages and neither its the best for a newbie as it is made to be bleeding edge instead of stable.

[NucleusKore]

Originally Posted by tech_your_future

Debian has the most followed by Ubuntu AFAIK, even Suse has more apps than FC, atleast last time I checked.

Ok, that's why I said I think

[vinith98]

Hello,

I ordered 1 ubuntu cd from shipit.ubuntu.com Will they charge me for this. And also how much time will it take to get delivered

[Pathik]

u shd get it in a month or so depending on availability....
its FREE

[caleb]

I too am new to Linux (2 months old)...tried
Mandriva 2007
Ubuntu 6.06
Fedora Core 6
Open Suse 10.2
...all in that order...they are all the latest versions...except Ubuntu...I think Ubuntu 6.10 has already been released if I'm not wrong.

I get the DVD's for the same from "Linux for You magazine". If you are a newbie to Linux that is the magazine to read plus it gives you one new distro each month on a DVD and these DVD's are far superior and easy to install than the DVD's dished out by Digit, Chip or PC World for Linux.

I stuck with Open Suse 10.2 for it's shere wealth of info, repositoris available. looks & ease of installation from a novice point of view.

I found Mandriva 2007 to be the annoying & slowest of them all, but Linux as a whole (regardless of the distro) is a bit annoying and time consuming affair for someone new to open source. Also the DVD I got bundled only Firefox 1.5

Ubuntu was easy and I liked the chocolate color background but it it lacked the kind of "experiance" I was looking for especially because I am a Win XP fan.

Fedora had a lot of neat options during installation but did not give me enough to statisfy a complete mutimedia experiance...guess it's due to my favouratism for GDE as Fedora only offered me Gnome & Firefox. Also I like Konqueror better than Firefox 2 (I know many will pounce on me for this...but it is my personal view with no offence to all the Firefox fans).

For someone like me (who is very new to Linux) I found it easy to install all the required repositories for Open Suse 10.2 very easy including playing & ripping DVD movies, and getting all the Nvidia drivers (which I found very difficult in Mandriva, Ubuntu & Fedora).

Try Open Suse 10.2 you might like it...but regardless of the distro you choose be prepared to invest a LOT of time installing and learning Linux. I think as someone who is new to Linux I find it to be the biggest drawback for anyone thinking of migrating or even trying out Linux plus another biggest drawback is that most Linux forums have really hifi guys discussing open source as if it is rocket science.

I have found very few that actually make it simple for a newbie to understand (no offence to anyone in this forum)...this is where Windows scores over Linux. Maybe this is something for the Linux fraternity to think about.

[praka123]

For Ubuntu Users,u can apt-get install blubuntu-look theme package to transform from default brown color to a pleasent blue theme.presently am using the same.i tried removing even the smallest brown color present on Edgy-while starting up,U'll see the same brown background even after installing Blubuntu.so i made default a custom Blue color using edgy menu>System>preferences>Desktop Background>Desktop Colors=Blue
yeah it is "gnome-background-properties" command.but yet to change usplash to BLUE
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Inco...t=blubuntu.jpg

Blubuntu aims to be a theme as complete as the default theme that can be a sibling to 'Human'. It aims to maintain the same level of polish, but sacrifice some of the uniqueness for ease on the eye
The colours will be less bright and more blue than the current Human theme.
The theme will aim to be cohesive, so that you feel like you are using a system developed as a whole, not made of many different applications
For edgy we will be pushing ahead with the art centric 'top down' approach for the theme, mainly due to ime contraints. However, there is a /BlubuntuPonder page for collecting ideas and concepts that will allow us to rebuild future versions from this foundation.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/Blubuntu
for all ppl here is my edgy /etc/apt/sources.list

prakash@ubuntu:~$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list
###gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --recv KEY
###gpg --export --armor KEY | apt-key add -


deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy main restricted universe multiverse

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy-updates main restricted universe multiverse

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy-proposed main restricted universe multiverse

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy-backports main restricted universe multiverse

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy-security main restricted universe multiverse

deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu edgy-commercial main

deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb edgy 3v1n0

deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt edgy main

deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb edgy beryl-svn

[desertwind]

Originally Posted by caleb

but Linux as a whole (regardless of the distro) is a bit annoying and time consuming affair for someone new to open source.

It may be for a persone migrating from another OS. This problem of course occurs. It happen within distro also.

Like, my little sis(aged 9), from the beginning, is working on GNU/Linux. She started playing games on my desktop. Since I didn't want her to mess up my system settings, I created a user for her and she started working. After a few months, she has done things that I never went through.

On a later stage, she found it extreme difficult to work on my cousins laptop, which is loaded with Windows.

[mehulved]

caleb
Those who find linux troublesome are the ones who are well versed with Windows. They have forgotten the effort they had put in to learn windows.
When I started using Linux, I hardly knew much about computers, I was struggling to use windows too.
I needed someone to help me around with both windows and linux.
Like desertwind said about his cousin, same applies to me. I have tried XP and Vista after using Linux for a long time. Now, I find windows too uncomfortable to use, since I am used to Linux's freedom, options offered and ease of software availability that not so with windows.
It's just a person's habit which dictates whether a distro is good or bad.
And what's GDE? I think you maybe saying KDE.
And asto LFY's DVD's they sux. They stop working too soon, most of them. This I was informed by a few GLUG members and it indeed happened to be true.

[praka123]

^^ Did u said u started ur computer life with GNU/Linux?that was gr8,
But in normal circumstances U r forced to learn in Windows.also will make new users thing Windows and Computer is same.

GDE may be GNOME DESKTOP ENVIROMENT eh?

[subratabera]

Originally Posted by praka123

^^ Did u said u started ur computer life with GNU/Linux?that was gr8,
But in normal circumstances U r forced to learn in Windows.also will make new users thing Windows and Computer is same.

True...
BTW, the real advantage of having Windows on your system is the availability of drivers. You can use any hardware with windows. Thats make it really simple for newbies. With Linux, they can't even think of installing a new driver for some specific hardware they have. For example, I am a regular Linux user but was unable to enable Beryl on one of my friend's new system which has VIA chipset. I've tried each and every possible way to install it but failed. Even knoppix 5.1.1 failed also. So, I think its the driver part which makes Linux tough for newbies...

[desertwind]

Even the driver availability is a matter of time. It's not the fault of gnu/linux, but of hardware manufacturers who are not supporting.

I always choose hardware that supports my software, not a software that support my hardware.

[subratabera]

Ya I know that. But many users buy their systems without knowing anything about Linux hardware compatibility issues and when they try to install Linux, it disappoints them. As a newbie they try familiar ways to find drivers and fail. This make them go back to Windows. That's the real problem with Linux IMHO...