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The Best Linux Distro for a New User?
GhostCypher asks: "I've been a Mac user for nigh on 12 years, and recently made the reverse-switch (yes, Mac to PC) due to an unfortunate accident to my PowerBook. Now that I have this spiffy new HP laptop, I want to run Linux or Unix of some flavor on it, but I don't know the best one to run. I've been considering FreeBSD and OpenBSD, as well as SuSE Linux, Fedora, and Mandrake. Could the wisened Linux gurus here offer some insight as to the best package for a former Mac user to introduce him to the greater world of Linux without major headaches in setting it all up?"
Fedora, but adding apt-rpm and a sources.list pointing to where the mp3 and flash suport is.
Knoppix is your friend.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
... If they just want to play around with it, get a feel for how it acts, looks, etc. without changing the contents of the hard drive, Knoppix.
If they are comfortable with using space on their hard drive, even free space on a fat32 partition, I would recomend Mandrake.
But that's just me. They could use the Mandrake Move CD for non-harddrive breaking as well.
-Rusty
You never know...
Could the wisened Linux gurus here offer some insight as to the best package for a former Mac user to introduce him to the greater world of Linux without major headaches in setting it all up?
Well, I love and advocate Linux use all I can, but know more than a few Linux desktop users that lean hard on their MacOS X Powerbooks. They're "UNIX", they have Word, Powerpoint and the usual Mac "it just works" stuff.
But if you have some influence with Apple, mebbe you could suggest an x86 port of OS X...:)
Realistically, any modern Linux distro is reasonable, but will lack a lot of the multimedia niceties that come out of the box with your Mac.
Maybe if you get CrossOver Office or Lindows it would help ease the pain of your loss.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
There're a thousand good distros out there, but there's really no competition - Xandros is the best newbie distro out there. You don't need command line. It's got most stuff bundled.
Sounds like someone hasn't tried Fedora. If theres one problem in the linux community, it's people who try 1 or 2 distros, and blindly carry the flag as if it's the only one that does the job. Fedora is simply the best, and I've tried nearly every distro over the past 6 years.
It's a legitimate question but definately flamebait starting distro religious wars.
To answer though, I'd say fedora is the best choice. You'll definately want to go to the dag site and install the apt rpm and then use that from now on. Also use Fedora Core 1, Fedora Core 2 is very new and was released extremely buggy.
Next up would be Mandrake, which is a little more user friendly but you'll have alot of trouble installing software. The reason is simple, 90% of rpms out there are made for redhat/fedora and expect the core libraries and such to match up with the names redhat has given them. All the core rpms for mandrake have different entries in the rpm database (even if the rpm is otherwise identical they've changed this for some odd reason).
As for Linux, well, you did ask for ease of use. I've tried several Linux distros, and they all failed in one way or another. RedHat was the worst -- the installer got into a nice graphics mode just fine, but somehow couldn't tell XFree86 what settings it used, and subsequently XWindows was a pain in the ass. Perhaps Fedora is better, but somehow I doubt it. Mandrake couldn't recognize my network card to save it's ass (but RedHat could, so a driver is available). SuSE wouldn't let me try without buy (no ISO), so forget them. I wouldn't touch Debian with a 20 foot pole because 1) they're so damn political, and I don't need that crap I just need an OS; 2) they're way behind on the kernel releases; and 3) they're so damn political.
Basically, I'd stay away from any distro that calls itself "GNU/Linux" because their political statement is their #1 priority, and you want the distro to be their #1 priority.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
I can't compare any of the BSDs with each other or with Linux, but I would personally recommend Debian or one of it's derivatives (Libranet, Xandros, Knoppix, etc.), but there are bigger issues than that, IMO.
If you have a friend that's a Linux/BSD guru, pick the same distro as him so that it's easier for him to help you when you have a problem. If not, then start looking at the advice presented here.
Disclaimer: I recommended some distros, but my recommendations are not necessarily right nor wrong. Don't flame me for my own opinions.
My friend, I'm no guru, but don't install OpenBSD on your laptop... im pretty sure it will not give you the experience you are looking for... As for linux, I liked mandrake for my first linux distro.
Chaos is Divine *
Don't go with OpenBSD. OpenBSD has many noble design philosophies however "make the system usable" is possibly at the bottom of their list. I think they view "unusable base system" as the same thing as "confuses hackers if they get in & prevents them from doing any damage".
FreeBSD is considerably better but I'd still not suggest it for a unix newbie.
As far as user-friendly Linux distros go, I've had good luck sending friends to Redhat/Fedora and Mandrake (I'd assume SuSE is in the same boat but I've never given any real consideration to dropping the $$$ for it). Currently, I'd say that Fedora's the strongest option, it's more recent & seems to have more development energy than Mandrake.
Your best bet, however, would be to bite the bullet and go for Debian (or try a HDD install of Knoppix); once you actually get it up it should stay up & up to date (unless you're running unstable and try to update on a day when they're pushing seriously broken packages...).
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Why do you want to switch to Linux?
It really depends on your needs. Though I personally recommend Gentoo to all (yep, I'm a zealot :), because of it's great documentation, strong system control, and ease with which it teaches you Unix systems in general
My advice, start out with Mandrake, and after you screw it up or it screws you up, switch over to debian - with a little patience you will never want to use anything else.
I bet this is what happened to the Powerbook :)
...and tech worker productivity in North America ends early for the week, as everyone gets sucked into a straight-up Linux distro war. And then people will post comments referencing vi vs Emacs or KDE vs GNOME, and those will be taken up in all seriousness, as well.
/home on a separate partition so you can reformat and reinstall easily! **
My advice is:
1) If you have a high-speed connection and a CD burner, download a bunch of ISOs (Fedora, Mandrake, SuSe, Knoppix) and try them out. Probably half will detect your hardware correctly and half won't -- that can be solved but at this stage just use what worked. ** Put
2) Maybe try some of the new friendly distros like Lycoris.
3) You said your PowerBook is dead, but if you have another Mac around, I'd strongly suggest trying Yellow Dog on it.
4) And once you've been through all that learning experience, you'll be ready to switch to Gentoo!
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
There are so many variables involving your needs and preferences that there is no really good answer to this question. One solution would be to visit http://www.linuxiso.org/ , burn a couple of distros and install them to see what you like.
Personally, I have used three different distros: SuSe, Debian and RedHat. I like the Debian ethos and, if you're setting up a server, it is hands-down my preference.
RedHat used to be the leader but has stopped supporting desktop version and has been replaced with Fedora. When RedHat went public, they replaced their loyalty to customers with loyalty to shareholders - much to the detriment of their product. They had made several Microsoft-style moves to lock users into their product. I don't know if any of these maneuvers currently affect Fedora. If they do, you should avoid it.
SuSe is my most recent experience. I take my own advice and try different distros occasionally and I must say I am extremely happy with the usability and look-and-feel of Suse 9.0. You could certainly do worse.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
When I first started with linux I used whichever Red Hat was out 6 years ago. After a year I switched up to Mandrake. Mandrake had newer packages and supported my hardware better. As I used linux more and more I learned more and more about it. About 6 months ago I switched up to Gentoo. I wouldn't reccomend going to Gentoo or Debian right away unless you are particularly adventurous. But if you are the kind of user who really wont settle for less they are the only distros that give you "real unadulterated linux".
So what you want to do is use Knoppix Mandrake Suse, etc. And learn as much as you can from those. Eventually you will reach a point where you aren't learning anything new. You'll also start getting frustrated because things wont work, and you wont be able to change certain things. RPMs are easy, but overall fickle and confining. When you reach this point, set aside a weekend and print the gentoo installation handbook and get a livecd. Or go the debian way, either is good. Anything harder core than those two distros is more difficulty with little reward for it. Lunar Linux is about as far as you want to go.
Anyway the point is if you want to be a real linux guy and get the full experience and whatnot, start small and work your way up.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
No, I've tried Fedora. I've tried FC1, and before it the "TEST" releases, I downloaded and installed FC2T2, then yummed up to test 3, and have since installed FC2 on another machine. Fedora is nowhere near as slick as Xandros. Not a complaint, but I've yet to meet a Red Hat install that could function as a desktop sans command-line. If I had to choose number 2, it would be Mandrake. 9.1 was my desktop for months without a single boot into anything else.
Since 1998 or so, I've used scores of Linux distros - some for "real," some to play around with. Everything from TurboLinux and StormLinux to Lycoris, Lindows, and Ark to Red Hat and SuSE.
If you haven't sprung for Xandros yet, you should. It's friggin slick.
I bet in a few years though, I'll be using Cobind. That pup py is nice looking and will be awesome soon.
First I started with mandrake, since everyone told me it was really simple to install. And it was, i'll definitely say that. After a few weeks i got SICK of rpms. they really are the devil. My friends raved about gentoo but said the install was hard. Well, for a newbie linux user with only 2 weeks experience i still managed to install gentoo just fine. If you can follow directions it's really not that hard.
However, i recommend Fedore Core 2 now. Redhat's installer, bootloader, and everything is absolustely gorgeous. It's without a doubt the best looking distro. With yum and apt-rpm now i here most of my complaints about the lack of good rpm support is gone.
Once you feel you're a bit more experienced though, you should try making the switch to gentoo or debian because they cater far more to the power user than a distro like fedora, mandrake, or suse ever can. It's harder to setup, but once you do you know everything about your system down to the config files which makes your life *much* easier when you need to debug random-problem-x with hardware-component-y. The do-it-all for you distros are harder for power users to use simply because we don't know how our system is setup!.
- tristan
It's not the best distro available, but it's easy to set up and run, and comes with installation, migration and operation support as part of the selling price. List price is $100, but it might still be selling for half that as the intro sale. It'd be my "For Dummies" pick.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
In the past few weeks I've installed SuSE 9.0 on a number of systems (PI 166 - Athlon 600) using the FTP install option. Assuming the system has at least 96 MB of RAM it's a breeze to install (using a temporary swap file gave many problems when I tried it).
Other than that, all hardware in those systems (ranging from proprietary OEM to self-build systems) was detected without issues. YAST is the best admin tool I've used with any distro (including Mandrake and RedHat (now Fedora)).
YMMV.
Site & blog: http://www.mayaposch.com
If you just interested in something that works and has everything that a linux distro may offer. I would go Mandrake.
And don't forget to use irc.freenode to ask questions on the #mandrake channel and they will help you with any problem.
-- I don't buy it, I grow it.
As people have already told you, it depends on the user. If they want to learn Unix, learn the OS and environment inside and out, how it works, etc., then stay away from the newbie distros. The hard systems are the way to go.
Slackware, FreeBSD, or Debian. Without the handholding, they'll actually learn the system. They'll be forced to drop into the command line to configure some stuff. They'll come to understand how it all fits together. This is a Good Thing(tm).
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
"without major headaches in setting it all up"
Unless this laptop was specially Linux "certified" I wouldn't even try it unless your main goal is to learn way more than you need about Linux. Save yourself the pain and just use the copy of Windows that came with it that you already paid for.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I get a kick out of many Linux zealots, how they think if something has a GUI and you can actually install it without dropping to the CLI to run some obscure command, that its too Windows like, and thus garbage.
Nearly every mainstream distro runs the same kernel, the same XFree, the same Samba, the same Mozilla, the same Evolution. Some may be older, or newer versions, but in general its ALL THE SAME SOFTWARE!
The bottom line, especially for someone new to Linux is to get them familiar with it, without frustrating the hell out of them, or making them dependant on the local Linux guru to do even the simplist of tasks. This will greatly increase the chances of them actually liking it, and wanting to learn more ON THEIR OWN.
People who recommend Debian to someone who has never install Linux before is simply throwing them to the wolves. Oh, but Debian only uses open source software? If this person has never installed Linux before, chances are they don't care! Oh, but you only ever install it once, then use apt-get after that. This is mostly true, but if they get frustrated before they even install it, what good is apt-get?
Apt-get used to be Debians one "killer feature", but that is no longer so. Every major distro has something similar, and in some cases something much better, especially for newbies. (read: Mandrakes URPMI, which is anything but new)
If your new to Linux, and your looking for the easiest route to get up and running with it, install Mandrake. Its as simple as that. Mandrake has some of the best hardware detection, and by far the easiest install process. Not to mention, once its installed, your not left out to dry.
It has nice GUI utilities to setup almost anything you want, all in ONE SIMPLE CONTROL PANEL. Printers? No problem, its easier then Windows if your printer is supported. Want to change screen resolutions? This is just as simple as windows too. What about a scanner? Yup, that too, simple. Even remote desktop applications like VNC/rdesktop Mandrake has simple little utilities to help you out.
I can hear people screaming right now. "Oh, but they wont learn how to actually use Linux then." You know what, MOST people don't care. They just want something that WORKS! If the Mandrake utilities work, thats great. If they don't, they can still dig in to the configuration files and get it to work. Just because the GUI utilities exist, doesn't mean the distro is evil, it simply means there are more options.
I've been using Linux since Slackware 3, and as the only OS on my home and work machine for the last 4 years. Mandrake is my distro of choice simply because I value my time, and when I want something to work, I don't want to have to spend hours reading man pages and forums to learn some obscure configuration file settings to just get my printer to work. I fire up Mandrakes printer utility, pick my printer, it downloads the drivers, installs them, and I print a test page. For things I care more about, like the Kernel I'm running, I simply download the latest MM patches and install them like normal.
Simply put, it just works. For newbies though, please don't try to push your ideals on them, simply help them get up and running as fast as possible and feel comfortable. Once they've done that, they can explore at will.
If you don't recommend Mandrake for this task, you either haven't tried it yourself, or you haven't given it a real chance. Because if you had, you would realize that NO other distro has put as much time and effort in to making Linux accessible to newbies then Mandrake has.
Open Source Time and Attendance, Job Costing a
I know this is flamebait material, but I'll do it anyways - as it's a good question.
The linux distros I've personally used are: Slackware, Debian, RedHat, SuSE, Turbolinux, Storm Linux and Mandrake. I've also fiddled a bit with Gentoo, but not much.
Slackware, for me, was a bitch. I was new to linux, and that was the first distro I tried. It was hell. No good documentation at the time, and nothing worked out of the box. I fiddled with it for about two weeks, then gave up. Forget that one.
Debian. Great system for servers. Used it for four years on various boxes. Only had a few problems with it, namely a single box when I updated from slink to potato, and a box where I attempted to upgrade mysql from 3.22 to 3.23 by using unstable on a few binaries/libraries. This was before potato was out, if I remember correctly. I've always thought that Debian sucks for workstations, but quite a few people disagree. It's neither very easy to install nor very easy to configure. When you've got it up and running it's extremely easy to maintain.
RedHat. Used it for a few servers, and use it regularly as a workstation at the University. To be quite frank - I think it sucks as both. I really don't think it's any good at anything. Neither the installer, up2date, nor default configuration works as it should. And this is "the" mainstream linux? Blargh!
Mandrake. I used to use Mandrake, but they fscked up a lot of things between 8.1 and 8.2 , and I've not used it seriously afterwards. I used to be a paying member of mandrakeclub - but really didn't renew the payment after the 9.0 release which stunk just as much as 8.2 for me. The problem was quite simply that 8.1 just 'worked' on my computers, while 8.2 and 9.0 was riddled with lockups, various flaws and lots of other stuff. It's a very NICE distro though, it's easy to install, shiny, and so forth.
I'll drop commenting on TurboLinux and Storm, as it's several years since I tried them out, and they never did impress me.
Now onto the distro that I really, really like.
SUSE!
SuSE both installs easily, and is slick, shiny and well built. It's obvious that a lot of work has gone into making things work out of the box, especially if you're a KDE user (and you should be). YaST is a really wonderfull tool when it comes to installing and updating stuff, it works wonderfully on my HP Omnibook 6100, it works wonderfully on my servers, my desktops, and all my works desktop computers.. we've also bought SuSE OpenExchange, which works like a charm.
In short, I've got nothing wrong to say about SuSE, and I've been using it for about two years now, after using nothing but Linux the last 5 years. No other distro has shown me such ease of installation, such ease of installing other programs, such ease of security updates, such ease of maintainance, and so forth.
A single negative and important note about SuSE though - it uses ReiserFS as default. Change it to ext3 or something else - ReiserFS is notorious for corrupting data. I've had three systems where ReiserFS has fucked up my data badly. I don't trust that filesystem. Steer away from it like a pest. It sucks. It's bad for you. It destroys your data.
*phew*.
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
Echoing some of the other posts here: It depends what you want to get out of Linux.
If you "just want to use it" (i.e. you just want a nice desktop system that isn't proprietary, or just want to try out some Linux programs) I'd recommend (roughly in order of preference):
If, on the other hand, you actually want to learn Linux:
Those would be my suggestions, anyway.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Everyone has their opinion on the best distro. However, if your main goals are easy, stable, cheap, complete, MadrakeLinux is your choice. Ohter people will say other distros. Often I think their reasons are that everyone's goals should be speed, congiruablitiy, community-led, 1 CD install, etc. instead of easy, stable, cheap, complete. Pick the distro for your goals.
- Gentoo: fast, configurable, community-based
- Debian: stable, community-based
- Knoppix: 1 CD install.
- Fedora: cutting (bleeding) edge
- etc.
Madrake 10.0 official will be available free at the end of this month.I'll have to play the part of the resident Gentoo zealot...
I like Gentoo because of a few characteristics:
1. Up-to-date stable packages - usually released within a few weeks of their upstream releases... GNOME 2.6 just went stable yesterday, and kernel 2.6.6 was stable the day it came out.
2. Tinker-friendly community - Gentoo is desktop-hobbyist-friendly, with a great community. I like the feeling that yes, my desire to tinker with a new X server or the latest Mozilla is fully appreciated and supported.
3. Easy package installations - one-line package database updating, package installations, etc., plus the whole self-compilation idea lets you customize the packages to your liking, while still within the confines of the management system.
4. Wonderful documentation - the installation is the hardest part, but with the Gentoo handbook, you'll be up in no time.
Of course, it does take time to get it up and running the first time, and for packages to compile, but I find it to be worth it, simply because it doesn't that that long, and you only have to do it once. Binary packages and a binary installation are available as well.
WeRelate.org - wiki-based genealogy
I tell people not to think of it as the "command line" - I think it's more like "keyboard shortcuts" for the core system...
And by extension, a system with no CLI is like a program with no keyboard shortcuts: You shouldn't be FORCED to use them, but some things are always quicker and easier that way.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Though largely it depends on your goals.
If you want a linux system that will be up and running with the least amount of hassle, mandrake, knoppix, rh, etc are all fairly decent.
But if you're really out to LEARN linux, you want something like slackware or debian. Not as simple or hassle-free to set up, they tend to be lacking in simple GUI based setup utils. But you get a better chance to dive in and learn linux. As opposed to learning your distro.
1995: SCO UNIX (I know, i know, but I had to use it at work)
1997: Slackware
1999: Debian
2000?: Gentoo
2001?: Back to Debian
Still using Debian (mix of stable+testing) and, barring conflict.dependency issues with mplayer-k7/libvorbis, I've never been happier.
I'd recommend starting with Slackware - it worked for me.
--- We are not in the 8th dimension. We are over New Jersey.
How I installed KDE 3.2 on SuSE 9:
)
:) For people who ask me what to run, I say SuSE because that's what's on my desktop right now. The servers are a different story, but no one asked about them...
download all packages in "SuSE9.0" dir on ftp.kde.org (ftp.us.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/3.2/SuSE/ix86/9.0/
change to directory containing all packages
type "rpm -Uvh *.rpm"
enjoy KDE 3.2
It wasn't hard at all. What gave you problems?
BTW, I recommend SuSE to newbies because the installer's pretty easy, the KDE's pretty well integrated (K3.2 comes with SuSE 9.1), and pretty much everything they'll want to run is already compiled and available for SuSE. I've used Xandros (yeah, I've *also* used all of the distributions as of a couple years ago when a bunch started showing up, been Linuxing for more than a decade, etc, and prefer SuSE) and wasn't all that impressed. I think SuSE's better.
Good advice for a newbie? Figure out who you're gonna ask questions of, and run what they run. The same stuff runs on all of them, but not everyone can provide support for all distros.
I tends to be more secure out of the box than other distros. It has a superior package system that doesn't break your system or install lots of unnecessary crap. It has superior BSD style init scripts that are easier to manage (no need to wrestle with multiple levels of scripts and symbolic links). It puts files where software developers intend them to be instead of second-guessing them. It doesn't try to tie you in to nonstandard admin tools. These last two points make finding answers on the internet a lot more productive, since you have to spend less effort trying to adjust the information to your machine.
-- $SIGNATURE
...but I wouldn't recommend them for a newbie. The install's just not geared for newbies.
Has nothing to do with the fact that Gentoo doesn't have a pretty-pretty graphical installer. The docs on the gentoo.org site are _great_, you follow the bouncing ball, and poof. You've got a Gentoo Linux system. Stuff Just Works. Cool.
Here's the problem: Before you have a functional system, you gotta decide: What kernel do I want? 2.4? 2.6? One of the modified kernel branches like -ac or gentoo's "gaming-sources"? Which syslogger do I want? Do I want ncron or vcron?
I'm not entirely certain your average newb has any desire to figure out how to answer those questions for his first install, so I'd recommend against Gentoo. Get 'em hooked, then they might want something like Gentoo.
It's really quite sad, though. You have to make all the decisions, making it unsuitable for neophytes, but once you make those decisions, Everything Just Works, which'd be excellent for the newbs...
Mandrake's a good starter distro, plus it works well on HP Laptops, especially ones that use the Radeon IGP chips. I'd say use that distro, otherwise you're going to be doing a lot more work than you probably want to be doing at first...if you want to go a little more advanced than that...try installing Slackware, but only if you've got someone to go to for assistance... on IRC or otherwise. I've had good experiences with both. No matter what, you're going to want to pick up the skills necessary to run any build of linux. The distro stops mattering so much AFTER you get to the point where you have a command over *nix style operating systems. Anyway, have fun with it!
Ow! My head hurts!
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
I think Knoppix is an interesting idea, but I'm not sure that the questioner really needs a whole different operating system that requires shutting down whatever you're doing and rebooting whenever you want to do a little "grep" or "wc" or whatever. (If Knoppix now works as just another application without requiring a reboot, please respond and correct me.)
As an owner of Macs, Windows PCs, and a Linux server who uses Solaris at work, what I find I need on my laptop is the customized drivers and other goodies that come with it in the version of Windows XP that comes with it, plus the ability to run Windows GUI apps that have no acceptable equivalent in the Linux world, plus the array of command line Unix tools that I find so amazingly useful when I'm working on a Unix/Linux box.
Dual booting doesn't work for me. Having to wait for a reboot to use grep or wc is like having to get dressed in the middle of the night to go out to an outhouse in the dead of winter. (And I guess that makes DOS a chamberpot.)
Unless the machine I'm using is a server itself, in which case I need the full Linux (which is what I do with my home server), I find that combo of Cygwin plus the customized Windows that your manufacturer provides with their hardware to be a great solution (for a laptop, for today).
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
If you think FreeBSD is going to be too difficult for a Unix novice, then why would you recommend they try any Unix? It's hard to be more Unix-like than the BSDs. Are you advocating Linux over BSD because it's more Windows-like? If that's what you want, try Lindows, or Lindos or whatever they're calling themselves today.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
No Linux install will be as easy as a an OS X install, because PC's have such a range of hardware compared to Mac's. That said SUSE is quick and easy, if you get it wrong first time just try again, after all it's a learning experience. Make sure you set the BIOS to allow writing to the boot sector, that gotcha has been the my single biggest source of free beer from clueful Windows users making the switch to Linux.
Personally I went with Fedora Core 1 and installed from the CD in Red Hat and Fedora Core Unleashed. (Amazon. ) I got mine at the library.
The book walks you through some trouble spots you might encounter and nudges you towards some options that may not be obvious from the Fedora literature, like having yum look at freshrpms.net instead of Red Hat (for packages that Red Hat might regard with disdain.) It even walks through installs of the UT2004 Demo and Enemy Territory.
blarg.
If you want to USE Linux, install a Debian derivative like Mepis or Knoppix.
If you want to LEARN Linux, install Gentoo.
-- "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." - R.A.H.
The FreeBSD installer does tend to do a good job of recognizing hardware, which is obviously vital for a newbie. It's a million times better than Debian, for instance, but maybe not quite as "automagical" as Knoppix. (Considering that Knoppix always recognizes the monitor correctly, why the heck does any Unix installer still get it wrong and require you to edit XF86Config by hand???) USB support in FreeBSD is relatively new and buggy (still lots of posts on comp.unix.freebsd.misc from people trying to get their keychain drives working, etc.), so that might be a reason to prefer Mandrake.
I really like FreeBSD because of its ports system, but I'm not sure it's right for a typical newbie. For one thing, you tend to get in situations where you upgrade libfoo-2.0.so.200 to libfoo-2.0.so.400, and then that breaks all the apps that expect the older version. A typical newbie would not have the slightest idea how to deal with this. (And no, recompiling the app from the latest cvs doesn't always fix it.) Also, compiling a new app often forces you to do "make deinstall ; make reinstall" cycles on a bunch of libraries, which is a pain, and would probably be scary and confusing to a newbie. The ports system is also only as good as the work of the people who maintain the individual ports. Since FreeBSD is more popular as a server system than as a desktop system, some of the ports of GUI apps, games, etc. aren't maintained very assiduously.
I'd actually be interested in hearing from people who've used the latest and greatest Mandrake GUI for installing applications.
Having said all that, one big advantage of FreeBSD for a newbie is that you can buy a book on FreeBSD, and what they're describing is the system you're running. This is not true for Linux. For instance, you can buy O'Reilly's Running Linux book, but it's trying to describe every Linux distro at once, so there's lots of "If you're running RedHat, the command to add a user is this, but if you're running Debian, it's this." Personally I like Lehey's The Complete FreeBSD, but the FreeBSD Handbook is also good. (I felt that FreeBSD Unleashed had too many of the wrong topics, and the screenshots were illegible.)
Find free books.
Went to Linux/Unix on a new x86 notebook and tried a few Linux distro's and FreeBSD, but each of them had a few things that really annoyed me. Some didn't work well with the hardware of my Siemens notebook, but most of the time it were just those small things you miss, that on a Mac just work.
... get yourself a cup of coffee and when you get back it works." Too bad they never told me that we were talking about a dimension in which a minute lasts half a day and that the cup of coffee was to be picked up in Colombia .... In the end, people started taking my machine home, in order to fix it. Yes, support in the Open Source community really rocks. No bad word about that, but a usable machine never really materialized ...
:)
:)
... and got me an alumium Powerbook :)
What I especially didn't like were those "Let me fix it for you" events. Goodwilling Unix cracks that absolutely wanted me to adore my Open Source system. "It will take about five minutes
First of all, I'm not a Unix geek. I learn fast, but it clearly wasn't fast enough. I travel with my computer and I found it h*ll to make the thing work on all different networks I must logon, using all diferent settings... in the end I was just glad when I was able to browse the internet and 'webmail' became my best friend... aaaaaw.
Second of all, I don't like it to mess with my OS each day. I did like the terminal though.
Third: it was clearly a bad choice to put Linux/Unix on a productionmachine of someone not willing to mess with an OS each day. I should have put it on a spare...
After six months of really hard trying, reading manuals, raiding forums and bothering all kind of Unix specialists in my addressbook I gave up and bought a new Powerbook with OS X and put all Linux distri boxes in my cupboard for 'later'
I hope for your sake, that you have better control of your bloodpressure than I have and that the distro's have become a whole lot better since Q1 and Q2 of 2003.
Looking from the bright side: the whole experience made me rediscover the ease of use of my Mac, thought me how to find my way in OS X using the terminal
Slax
SuSE
Mandrake
Knoppix
these four are the main seem to be the main live disks and should give you a feel for what is out there, I've used all of these and find them all easy to use, the advantage to Knoppix and Slax are that the Live disks can be used to do a Hard disk install where the SuSE and Mandrake ones can not. If you would like to look at other distros I'd recommend looking at THIS site, as it is dedicated to giving you access to as many distos as possable.
To use these you will need to make sure that you have CD burning software that allows you to burn an ISO image, most does though some burning software likes to play hide and seek so you may have to look for it. you will also need a High speed internet connection to down load most of these.
One other option is to see if there is a Linux User Group (LUG) in your area, usually someone at these will have a live CD laying around for you to have as well as be able to offer help to you while you start out.
this is by no means a definitive list of Live CDs if anyone knows of other please add to my list with your links, thanks.
"Napalm is nature's toothpaste" - Chef Brian