Phat Linux: Somebody talk me into it. (Should be easy.)

[WakeUpNeo]

Hello Forum:

I want to try Linux, but getting Red Hat to work on my PC has been troublesome to me in the past.  I'm not much of a techie, so troubleshooting hardware compatibilty issues kinda strains the limits of my attention span.  I'd rather go bass fishin'.

So, can someone just tell me if Phat Linux will REALLY sidestep all the hardware issues I encountered while trying to install Red Hat... and just run under Windows XP Pro once installed?

All opinions and witty remarks are most welcome, but I'd especially like to hear from anyone who has installed Phat Linux under Windows XP Pro.  How'd it go?  Is it safe?  Will it work?  How much bass fishin' time will it save me?

Thanks for reading...
-WakeUpNeo

[Laukev7]

Well, that depends. What hardware do you use? What problems did you encounter with Red Hat? Hardware support is pretty much the same from one distro to another. Maybe you used an old version of Red Hat which didn't support your hardware?

[WakeUpNeo]

Okay don't laugh, now.  I'm using a Gateway 2000 P2-266.  Heyyyyy, I said no laughing!

Here's the Phat web site I read:  http://www.phatlinux.com/about.html
It sounded to me at the time like they were saying it's the easiest to install, and the screenshots show it running under windows.  I thought maybe it worked with the hardware abstraction layer in Windows XP but maybe that's wishful thinking on my part.

-WUN

[WakeUpNeo]

Almost forgot to mention:  I tried installing Red Hat 6 (or was it 7?) and the modem, NIC, and sound card didn't work.  (It's not a WinModem, either.)  

Anyway... Red Hat aside, it's down to Lindows or Phat for me now, and Phat is my first stop.  

Thanks again y'all,
-WUN

[Laukev7]

Both Red Hat 6 and 7 are very outdated. The latest version is Red Hat 9, which should have equal or better hardware support than both Phat or Lindows.

As for the screenshots, that's only the installer under Windows. Phat Linux is designed to function in a FAT32 or NTFS partition, but you still have to boot into the OS.

[avello500]

i had problems with red hat 6.1. what i did was to run the live evaluation of suse 8.1 to see if hardware would be an issue. it turns out that red hat 6.1 was older and less comprehensive on newer drivers.
so my suggestion is try a newer version of red hat or suse to see if your going to have more hardware probs.

hope it helps.

[WakeUpNeo]

Okay... so the consensus seems to be that I should try the latest version of Red Hat as a solution to the hardware issues I ran into with an earlier version.  Thanks, I'll give it a try.

-WUN