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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."
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!
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
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!
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 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
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
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.
Better than this would be Cooperative Linux. With coLinux you can run a full distro under windows. Add VNC and you can even get GUI apps to work.
This of course is assuming that you are not going to go through with setting up a dual-boot system or such. Personally I run Linux 90% of the time and only run windows to get to the very few apps that I need that don't run in wine or have a linux equiv.
For a linux distro I reccomend Mandrake for laptops because they have a somewhat cleaner support for odd hotplug hardware that is common use with laptops. (WiFi cards for example)
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.