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Thinking about playing with Linux

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by gsg

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OK, first, the rules are NO BASHING of any OS, whether it be a flavor of Linux, Windows, etc...! I want some constructive opinions regarding the flavors of Linux.

I have an older workstation that I rarely use. I really don't want to upgrade it to Windows 7, and I hate to see it just sitting there, so I've been thinking about seeing if I could load Linux on it.

We have Linux servers at work, but no workstations, so I have zero experience.

The question is, what flavor of Linux would you recommend for a newbie who's thinking about dipping her toes in the Linux pool?

47 replies

by boxfiddler

Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu. Loaded them on an old lappie (came with WinMe), and loaded Ubuntu on a desktop that I've only recently stopped using.

All three loaded easily, found and made functional all hardware but the dialup (Winmodem).
Fedora and the sound system never got along, but that's about the only problem I had with it.
Mint is still on the lappie, and Ubuntu on the desktop. Video probs, there, need to rebuild. Will probably put it back on there, along with WinXP.

Of the three, I prefer Ubuntu as I found it easiest to manoeuver.

etu

by wookieshaver

No bashing of course, heh. I have installed and ran a number of distrubutions of Linux and I keep coming back to Ubuntu. There are a number of them out there but for sheer fun and ease of use into the Linux pool, I do recommend Ubuntu. If you want a more media player, movie player, and mp3 friendly out of box experience I recommend Mint Linux (which is itself an expanded offshoot of Ubuntu). That said, welcome to the land o linux! I think you will like exploring it just as much as I have.

by gsg

Sure, I rip the occasional CD if I can't get it from amazon as an mp3, but other than that, I'm not into the media stuff.

The biggest question I have is, what DOES it take to shave a wookie? I mean, do they hold still for the shaving, or do you have to dart them? And, what do you do with all of the hair?

by neon samurai

What is the distribution you use at work? If Red Hat then Fedora may be a comfortable starting point or one you can ask about around the cooler. If Suse then OpenSuse would be a good starting point potentially.

Linux Distribution Chooser
http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/

It should give you a good recommendation based on how you answer the questions. They have descriptions at each question if your not sure what to answer.

I'd start with five or so liveCD distributions that you can just boot the computer off:
- see how it recognizes your hardware
- see how you like the desktop
- see how you like the default program selection

You can get a feel for each from the liveCD without installing it to the hard drive.

If the LDC site doesn't give you enough:

PCLinuxOS seems to be well liked and have good hardware support. Mandriva was my preferred for a long time due to it's "new user" focus and hardware support.

Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu are popular introductory distributions.

Mint and ELive tend to be well polished also.

by gsg

But, I've done very little, and only in the apps that run on the servers. I've done exactly zero with the OS. All I know is that those suckers are workhorses.

Thanks for the link. I'll check that out.

by jaqui

I would actually recommend CENTOS
http://www.centos.org/
it IS a community branded RHEL so it is EXACTLY the same as you have on the servers

They leveraged the sources from RH [ easily done, RH honors the GNU-GPL ] and changed icons, a bit of text here and there, otherwise it is a binary compatible version of RHEL.
[ means you can point the package manager to the same repository as your servers and install the software. ]

by neon samurai

Jaqui mentions CentOS which is basically RHEL from a third party and with branding removed. I hear it does a nice desktop though it is often chosen for server use. Worth a look either way.

Fedora would also give you a good starting point. This is Red Hat's non-commercial distribution used to test things before they go into the commercial server/desktop products. Fedora 13 is the most recent version and looks very nicely done.

My thinking was that the common Red Hat base behind your servers at work and potential home machine would make it easier to ask questions of the nerds at work (depending on your relationship to the IT department). Forums can be good, documentation can be good but someone you know directly and can ask questions of is often the best (for all OS).

by seanferd

Don't forget that you can always change desktop environments, file managers, etc. Install a new one, and choose a session with you new desktop at login. You can usually find most distros with a variety of pre-packaged desktops. I quite liked Mint with XFCE, which I was playing around with recently.

Also, if you don't want to burn CDs, you can always load the ISOs on a Flash drive. Easy way: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/ Some distros can also be configured for persistence of settings, etc., on the Flash drive.

Neon: I've looked for something like that distribution chooser for other people to use for a while. Nice find!

by seanferd

Your side, Their side, and the Truth.

And really, I have no vested interest in the command interpreter/terminal/shell wars. I'm sure that heavy-duty Unix geeks will look upon my little joke as one of those horrifically pathetic and corny "dad" jokes. :p

by jaqui

that every other shell for a cli is a fork from the Bourne Again SHell. :D

so the facts support your weak pun. :D

by seanferd

I dinnae know that.

I knew that all the shells I'm aware of are forks (excepting the original sh (Bourne shell) of course). But I did not know there was not a non-Bourne-fork shell.

I would have assumes, has I thought about it, that someone must have said, "Fork this, I'm mot satisfied, I'm writing a new shell from scratch."

And so we have terrible pun #2.

by gypkap9

I used to work in a department where the servers were all AIX. Very stable, people were lest tempted to hack things.

by jkameleon

I've purchased new box with preinstalled Ubuntu for my computer illiterate daughter, because she's dead scared of computer viruses for some reason, and uses computer only for web browsing, music, movies, and a little bit of study.

It works lika a charm, no problems at all. Daughter was able to find her way around immediatelly. It connected to home LAN & internet without any trouble at all. I had some problems finding proper software for iPod, but even that took me about half an hour tops.

by gsg

Oh, I'm right smack dab in the the middle of the department. Not only that, I keep everyone's favorite gum and candy on my desk. I'm more specialized than server/hw, so I make sure I take care of those guys in thanks for all the work they've done for me.

by gsg

The liveCD thing is brilliant, as is the pen drive. I've got both the CDs and the drive available, and will be going through the chooser that Neon Samurai suggested.

I have a 4 day weekend this week where I'll be getting all of the chores, etc.. done day 1. Playing and test driving the different distros sounds like a good project.

When I make my selection, I'll see if I can make a good list of why I liked that particular distro over the others, and post an update.

Thanks for everyone's awesome suggestions!

Edited to Add this update:
I took the test, and you guys are just too good. Here are the 100% results based on the test: Mandriva, Kubuntu, Ubuntu Mint, Ubuntu, and OpenSuse. I think I'll test Ubuntu Mint and Ubuntu first.

by neon samurai

I just finished a Debian 6 Squeeze build on an X201. Outside of requiring the generic Vesa video driver; it's up and running pretty (encrypted hard drive and all). Now to finish off the polish with field testing against my training targets.

(Debian would have been my suggestion if you had previous experience with distributions)

by gsg

I downloaded the Mint .iso, and made a liveCD, and wanted to test it out, so I put it on a machine set to boot from the CD Drive. It failed. So I dinked around and took the advice to create a bootable USB stick. Wow, was that easy! I just formatted it with Fat32, put the boot utility on there, and then put the Mint .iso and the Ubuntu .iso on there, and I was good to go.

Until I tried to boot with Mint... It seems that out of all the download sites, I pick the one that had a bad .iso. I was able to boot to Ubuntu, but I got a message that the Mint .iso was bad.

At least I know booting from the USB stick works, and all I have to do is download mint from a different site and put it on the stick.

So, off to a slow start, but I have hopes that it will get better!

by neon samurai

As was recently demonstrated by Gentoo and UnrealIRCd, check the MD5 hash to confirm what you got was undamaged. if the MD5 from the site doesn't mach your local MD5 hash of the ISO then it may have been damaged during transfer. (ISO are usually pretty robust but it's just a good habit for any software you download).

Also, what hardware is in that machine? The graphics card seems to be a sticking point for some people.

by gsg

It was definitely damaged. I downloaded the file from a different site, and it was a different file size. I didn't check the hash as I'd already deleted the old file.

I finally got both Mint and Ubuntu on the USB stick, AND defragged, which was another small, albeit timeconsuming, challenge.

I just got done booting with both of them, so I know I am now set up to begin testing tonight.

First impression, from a purely, "ain't that purty" standpoint is that I like Mint better. I've not delved into the guts at all, so that's just based on the superficial colors and layout.

by slayer_

It's still presently my favorite. Just wish there were more programs for it (specifically media players and games).

by peconet tietokoneet

I have tried many Linux distros but they have not come up to the security that i needed. I tried out Xandros (and it comes with it's own book to help you) and bought it, it connects to any Windows system through the network. I have it as my back up server (many hdd's installed) and mapped the drives for easy access. If you are interested read more and download here:

http://www.xandros.com/products/desktop/

Trial version:
http://www.xandros.com/products/home/home_edition.html

I know it is not for free (though you do get a trial version to test out) but to me it is the best for my photographs (of which i have well over 5000 pictures, raw and in jpeg formats, and data.
So, if you want it to seamlessly connect to your Windows over the network then this might be for you, or maybe not.

by jaqui

since they all claim bash compatibility, if they aren't, then they cloned the base bash functionality.

by seanferd

I'm mostly just saying that I'm surprised there isn't some departure from bash-like/clone/fork. I'm just that clueless. :^0

by jaqui

the transferrable skills from one posix os to another thing.

just like vi(m) is on all of them.
there are certain tools that are expected to be on all unix and unix-like systems. the bash being a lowest common denominator tool.

ifconfig, vi(m), mail, more, less, sed, grep.
all on every one of them. with the exact same arguments [ switches for ms people ].

it's why post secondary comp-sci courses cover command line only for their unix/linux segment, the cli tools are the same.
it's the gui wrappers that are different.

by licensedpenetrationtester

Hi,

I would suggest you redhat version 9 for or Fedora fordesktop use. It is easy to install and use. Redhat 9 can also be used for servers also.

Let me know if you have more questions.

Cheers

by jaqui

to suggest something that old.
it won't support modern hardware at all.
[ I know, I have a distro even older that won't support above a pentium 2. ]

by seanferd

Unless you mean RHEL 9, which is still a bit dated, and not free.

It was my first modern Linux (i.e., not 60 floppy images that needed compiling). ;)

by jaqui

since RHEL is currently only releasing version 5, how can you say RHEL 9 is dated? it isn't even on the market yet.

by noah212

I just went through this myself.Since you're using desktop hardware I'd load Fedora. It's very common and there is loads of support. At my office CentOS is the preferred server distro, and Fedora is the workstation version.

1. Download the Fedora 13 ISO (http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora)

2. Burn the ISO to CD/DVD and boot your desktop from it. Alternatively you can install from a USB stick. Directions on page mentioned above.

3. Fedora setup will take care of the rest.

Ubuntu would be my second choice.

Here is a quiz which will help find the right distro for you.

http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/

Noah Wolff
Online Tech
www.onlinetech.com

by charliespencer

"Introducting a 'Hitchhiker' drink into the 'Star Wars' mythos.

15 yards, yellow card, pit road 'stop and go', 5 minutes in the penalty box, and the opposing team is allowed two free throws and a penalty kick. The league office will issue a statement Tuesday regarding additional penalties and a possible suspension :D

by neon samurai

.. how is he to be held responsible for seeing through time and space resulting in a confusion of realities?

by wookieshaver

That must be some reference to this "sports" humans speak of so often. Hmmm, must take notes for the guide. Arguing the whole multiverse sort of mish-mash thingy, star wars and hhgttg universes' need not be exclusive with proper transport and a very big therapy bill to handle the after effects.

by ansugisalas

the improbability of a hitcher showing up isnt' even in the 1*10^-8's.

EDIT: aaaand seanferd beat me to it by half an hour... *grrr* :p

by seanferd

switched on the Improbability Drive, and wookieshaver isn't in the shielded part of the ship.

by em dubyah

Mint is absolutely fantastic, usable immediately w/o having to download extras. I like Ubuntu also, but I find Mint to be even easier.

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