Recomandation for Distro

[edisav]

Hi folks,

I'm trying to find a new Linux Distro that will be user friendly. I've used Slackware in the past but it demands too much time and tweaking, and I just don't have the time for it. Now don't get me wrong, Slackware is great but perhaps I'm too dumb too f#@$%+ dumb to figure it out

I want something that is more friendly and intuitive. I've read good reviews on Mandrake and excellent review on Xandros and Lycoris. I'd like to hear from you. Any sugestions out there?

Please be objective and don't put down any distro. What matters is that Linix grows regardless of its distro.

Thanks!

[SAJChurchey]

Mandrake is very good for beginners.  Easy to navigate interfaces plus it has all the tools and packages you could need.

[dishawjp]

Hi Xinix,

Welcome to the forum.

You'll probably get about as many different suggestions as you get replies, but as a realtive newbie to Linux let me try to take a shot at this.

There are several distros that shoot for the recent converts from Windows.  These include Lindows, Lycoris, Xandros, SuSE and others.  Let's call them "soft core" distros.  Then you have some "medium core" distros.  Mandrake, Red Hat, and others.  

Slackware is definitely, from what I've read "hard core" Linux.  I can't speak from personal experience since I'm a realtive newcomer to Linux and only experienced in Red Hat, but from my reading, that's the score.

There are hundreds of distros, try a flavor and have fun. If it's not to your taste, blow it away and try another.  It's not like it will cost you much more than your time

FWIW

Jim

[preacher]

Ive literally tried too many distros. To tell you the truth, I like user friendly distros. Im a Mandrake fanatic, and it includes a few things that Red Hat left out, so I'll reccommend it.

[Doogee]

yeah ill chip one in for mandrake aswell

the main reason is it has a Fool Proof install (easy to use partition manager and stuff)
and once you get it going its all very easy, most things has a graphical tool to configure or you can open a terminal/boot to a terminal an do it all via command line.
I reckon its just as full featured as red hat and by far easier to use and setup.

Just make sure you choose Expert mode on the start of install cos it gives you more customization of the packages to choose.

[LorKorub]

If you could figure out Slackware, go with Debian.  You have nothing to lose.

[Abigail]

I would say Mandrake. Installing Linux have never been easier! Mandrake 9.1 is coming out soon. Maybe you should wait on that one?

[Calum]

i'd say mandrake for sure, although you will have to a little bit of tweaking i think.

for stableness mandrake 9.0 is as stable as a horse's house, but 9.1 will have updated versions of the included packages of course.

[slave]

Here is the lowdown:

If you like Gnome, use Red hat linux 8

If you like KDE, use Mandrake (not my choice personally) SuSE, or Yoper (http://www.yoper.com)

If you want to be a huge geek who loves an installer that's dumb as dirt and requires that you make your own config files by hand basically, choose gentoo or debian.  Debian is much easier to install though, and actually does some configuration for you.  Gentoo I would avoid, it's for "power users" only and you have to compile something whenever you want to install it.  This makes it run a little faster (theoretically) but it's very annoying to have to wait 2 hours to install Mozilla.

[Vuohi]

I'am trying to find me a suitable distro too. As an new user i would like to know, if i try Mandrake first, do the comp have to be online ? Will the distro need to load some parts or could i download the hole working OS ? The comp i like to use it has an WinXP and i dont like the windows to go online at all. It has partition of 20G waiting for the Linux OS. Is there a problem looming because the XP is there allready ?

Thank you,

Vuohi

Edit: found a good newby quide. One qestion still remains. Is there a problem with the partition for the linux or will the Mandrake installation do the job itself. And is 20G too much ?

[ March 06, 2003: Message edited by: Vuohi ]

[Calum]

nope you don't need to go online at all, the only thing you need to do is run the mandrake installer from the CD (it's best if you have all 3 installation cds) and remember to select 'advanced' and 'expert' at any point where it tells you to select 'beginner' or 'basic'.

with 20GB, i would suggest installing pretty much everything except the servers, also i would let mandrake partition your free space automatically at first. when you get the choice of a bootloader choose GRUB and install it to the master boot record (MBR) and all should work fine.
only other thing is that it would be best for you if your windows xp partition was fat32. sometimes it will be an ntfs partition and these are fiddly and dangerous to edit, so if you want to open and save files from your windows xp partition, you need to change it to fat32 (or you need to make a separate fat32 partition that both linux and windows xp will be able to use for sharing files on).

good luck!

[TheQuirk]

Mandrake 9.1 will be able to partion NTFS provided there is no data at the end of the partion (so you'll have to defrag first).

[ March 06, 2003: Message edited by: TheQuirk ]

[Pantso]

quote:Originally posted by TheQuirk:
Mandrake 9.1 will be able to partion NTFS provided there is no data at the end of the partion (so you'll have to defrag first).

[ March 06, 2003: Message edited by: TheQuirk ]

I thought that only the Xandros installer could resize NTFS partitions.   :confused:   Anyway, back to the original questions. I too would recommend Mandrake but I've heard great reviews about Xandros as well.

BTW, DOSMan I wouldn't list SuSE as a soft-core distro but rather as a medium-core one, according to your classification.  

[choasforages]

or build your own linux distro. but that is "hacker" and i don't think you would find it satisfying. go with mandrake it should be simple enough. and for the "from source" distros, you would shityourself if you ever see what a simple -march=i686 can do

[choasforages]

btw, ever try a *bsd? they tend to be very solid and work, but alot of games and such are out of the question