Linux Desktop

[enigma]

What version is the best for a desktop? I have basicly all of them at my disposle (not like thats some big accomplishment). Or should i use some form of Unix?

Basicly i go to these forums, chat, make flash and websites, network, some LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT programming (like lighter than "Hello World") but i need to be able to proxy, crack open some ms progs, and i need a GUI. oh and it would help if i could hook my palm up to my desktop. And i use Adobob (Adobe) Photoshop (or i could settle for a nice Linux version of it, since i doubt it works on *nix) Ok well i appriciate any help

[voidmain]

RedHat 8.0

[Calum]

from what i have heard, i might agree with void main. go and have a read through the posts at unix.com, they have some well rounded comments about which variant is best for what purposes. like i say though, i think void main might well be right. i use mandrake 9.0 and it does all that stuff too, but it looks like red hat 8.0 is a little bit ahead of mandrake this time round.

[Pantso]

RedHat 8.0, Mandrake 9.0, SuSE 8.1 (in random order).  

[Crunchy(Cracked)Butter]

I'll vouch for suse!

[Master of Reality]

*retracted*
...wait i could delete this because i'm a mod.

[ November 04, 2002: Message edited by: The Master of Reality / B0B ]

[DC]

quote:Originally posted by The Master of Reality / B0B:
RedHat 8.0, just do a full intall of everything that comes with it.

A full install of redhat? That's sick! No-one should do a full install of redhat!

Either you install a server, in which case you drop most 'normal' programs and (optionally) X11, or you install a desktop os in which case you drop all the servers (except Samba, maybe). A full install is, depending on what you use the thing fore, a horrible waste of space (and speed), a security hole, or both.

Photoshop doesn't work under Linux (not well, anyway), but the GIMP should suffice (IANA graphic artist, so I don't know for sure, but it should suit all your photoshopping needs).
X-chat is good for chatting (there are numerous others).
For the GUI, use Xfree86 with KDE or Gnome (there are other choices besides these 2, but I think these two are the best for a beginner. If you wish, you can check out others out as well).
Programming: make sure the basic development packages are installed (compiler ed, GCC is the man), that in combination with any editor should suffice for light programming. There are some GUIS for programming available as well, like Kdevelop, if you want them.
I dunno 'bout flash, never used it. it sucks at any rate   . There is probably something available for it, but you'd have to ask someone else.
HTML can be written with any editor as well, and there are some that have syntax highlighting for HTML (KDE's Advanced editor springs to mind, but there are more).
Linux (and Unix in general) rules at networking, though compatibility with MS OS'es is less than perfect (it is acceptable though). Install Samba (client and server) for MS filesharing support.

Linux should do the trick as choice of the base OS. Any recent fairly known distro should do, like Red Hat, SuSE, Mandrake, Debian. I personally don't like Red Hat 8.0, it does stuff I don't like, but it'll work anyway. All of them have the stuff mentioned above.

[Master of Reality]

meh... you just gotta shut off some of the daemons.... and its not that much of a security risk as it is a waste of speed/space... but then again i have 1GHZ AMD and more than 30GBs of extra space. And i am behind a firewall.
Anyways... I retract my above comment and give this one:
do a custem install and read what every single fucking package is before deselcting/selecting it like i did about 20 fucking times when i started using Linux. It took me about 3-16 hours for each install but it was worth it.

[Doctor V]

For a first time user, mandrake.  If you have a bit more experience using *nix, RedHat.

V

[Bazoukas]

quote:Originally posted by The Master of Reality / B0B:
meh... you just gotta shut off some of the daemons.... and its not that much of a security risk as it is a waste of speed/space... but then again i have 1GHZ AMD and more than 30GBs of extra space. And i am behind a firewall.
Anyways... I retract my above comment and give this one:
do a custem install and read what every single fucking package is before deselcting/selecting it like i did about 20 fucking times when i started using Linux. It took me about 3-16 hours for each install but it was worth it.

 I am greedy. I selected each and every package that came with RedHat 8.0  

[Master of Reality]

quote:Originally posted by Doctor V 0.8.7:
For a first time user, mandrake.  If you have a bit more experience using *nix, RedHat.

V

havent you tried redhat 8.0!!!!!!!!!! Its better  than mandrake for new users.
 

quote: I am greedy. I selected each and every package that came with RedHat 8.0

so did i.

[DC]

quote:Originally posted by The Master of Reality / B0B:
meh... you just gotta shut off some of the daemons....

So they're enabled by default. That's a security risk in my book. If you don't need it, make sure it *never* sets itself on - that means always disable by default (you can always set it on without problem, setting it off *might* be to late - or you can forget it. You never forget to set something on, since otherwise it won't work. Setting something off has no direct noticable effect).
 

quote:
do a custem install and read what every single fucking package is before deselcting/selecting it like i did about 20 fucking times when i started using Linux. It took me about 3-16 hours for each install but it was worth it.

I'd advice this as well - problem is that the choice is simply overwhelming. I had no idea which one of the 10 or so IRC clients I wanted to install on my first Linux setup.

[Doctor V]

quote:Originally posted by The Master of Reality / B0B:

havent you tried redhat 8.0!!!!!!!!!! Its better than mandrake for new users.

I did try it, briefly.  here are the major differences I noted.  Mandrake detected the windows partitions on my drive, and made it very very easy to set up a dual boot.  Red Hat did not, I had to use fdisk manually, and I never got lilo to work properly (will try again tonight).  I personally hate having to double click to open things, thats the M$ way.  I know this is easy to change, and maybe good for a new Lin user.  Anyways, RH does look alot better, and probably functions better too (I'll know more about this in coming weeks).

Off that topic, I have been thinking of doing a full install of RH8.  Some say that a full install is going to be a terrible waste of space, but how about for someone who will use the computer as both a server and a desktop.  Then there are dependancies.  I figure you may as well install everything in case somthin you want to install later needs a certain file you otherwise would not have installed.  Then, although a full install would take alot of space, it shouldn't affect performance at all.  I have an 80Gig HD, space shouldn't be a problem.

V

[voidmain]

Go ahead and do a full install if you want to play with everything the distro comes with. It will *not* make your machine slower by installing everything. It is true that there are some services I would turn off if you have your machine directly connected to the internet but if you are behind a firewall like most people that use Linux are they aren't a risk.

In fact there aren't any glaring holes in anything that is turned on by default it's just that you shouldn't expose things that you aren't using. For instanace, turn off the NFS and portmapper stuff for sure if you are not going to use it (I do periodically use NFS for testing so I just turn the services back on when I want to use NFS).

I personally always do a "custom" install and install *almost* everything. There are a few things that I don't install like Emacs and Tex. And on my Athlon the entire install only totalled around 30 minutes from the time I stuck the first of the 3 CDs I used in the drive until had the last unused service turned off after my one and only reboot when the install completed.

[Master of Reality]

I install everything because i am too lazy to sort through packagesin my old age... and i want to try everything out.

I finally got the first two CDs for RH8.0 burnt properly (I had to punk a CD/R off a fiend). Now i gotta buy or punk another CD to burn Disc 3 onto.