Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: New To Linux; Which Distro?
An anonymous reader writes "I'm a very new user to Linux looking for a distro that allows me to control and customize, but I'm not sure where to start. I had a friend install Ubuntu 12.04 on my computer, with the E17 window manager and somehow I managed to crash it during the copying of some non-important files and now my computer won't boot (the hardware's fine though). I've found descriptions of Arch Linux to be spot on to what I'm looking for and want (Slashdot user serviscope_minor mentioned Arch a couple weeks ago and it caught my attention), but my experience in the terminal is literally about an hour. That said, I really want to learn more, don't mind hard work, enjoy challenges, and am perfectly willing to spend hours and hours for months on end to learn command line. Any suggestions, projects to start with, books to read, or tutorials to do to try would be appreciated."
Don't go looking for trouble. If you couldn't handle Ubuntu, Arch will drive you insane.
Xubuntu. Customization + hardware support + debian repo. :-)
SuSE has the best installation and configuration utility and has a ton of helpful user-run repos for packages. It also has builds for basically every windowing system, so you can pick your preference without any hacking, and when you do want to get down to brass tacks, the system will get out of your way (now that suseconfig is gone) and let you tinker as much as you please.
And when you screw everything up (half the fun, right?), it ships with a fantastic system repair tool to get you back on your feet. You can also use SuSE Studio to make a custom image if you have weird hardware.
It's a really great linux experience.
Arch Linux is a good fit for what you are describing. The wiki goes into all the detail you need, it will take time but you'll get there with perseverance. Enjoy learning Linux no matter what you decide!
wasting time trying everything until things work enough the way you need or you figure out what is wrong is what Linux is all about........
It's the distro with the largest user base and I'd assume the most active forums, which is a helpful thing when you have questions.
And I'm currently running a few different boxes with CentOS. Quite solid - it's based off Red Hat. Very secure, lots of support. GUI or command line, whichever you prefer.
... because it still works just like 1994
As you said, you were able to find descriptions regarding arch linux. I find their documentation and message forums to be the best of any distro that I have tried. It takes time to learn the command line, but once you do, then I find it easier to follow instructions that are well documented then fixing something that isn't well documented because it is supposed to "just work."
CentOS might be the best; it's a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, without paid support. (Red Hat's stated position is that it doesn't mind CentOS's existence). So if you learn that, you'd be able to leverage that for job opportunities based on RHEL, which is the industry leader on the server side.
One drawback: RHEL (and by extension CentOS) is oriented towards the enterprise rather than the consumer desktop; and towards the tried and true, rather than the latest and greatest. This is response to what its customers (IT administrators who have serious work to accomplish) have told them they're interested in. So it's probably not going to be a great platform for running games, for example - well it could be, but you'll have to be spend a lot of time downloading RPMs and trying to get things to work.
if you want a solid Gentoo distro w/ all the eye-candy & futuristic desktop environment.. try Saba
If for learning the command line, you want Debian stable.
Ditto if you want to learn F/OSS server software.
It's the cleanest playground for learning the proper way to *NIX
Choose any Distro with GNOME 3, Systemd and Pulseaudio and you can't go wrong.
You would lead a happier life if you chose to ignore their advice
I installed debian on my desktop in 2004, and I am still using it (on a desktop, a laptop and a netbook). Tried ubuntu, fedora, slackware, mandriva, always came back to debian (never as fast as the one time I gave kubuntu a chance). The only tedious thing was installing the closed-source drivers for my graphic cards.
Most other distros copy it anyway, might as well get the real McCoy.
If you're concerned about software freedom, consider is gNewSense, a Free-only debian derivative.
I would suggest - Install Ubuntu with unity (or kde or gnome ..) for starters ... install Virtualbox and do full Archlinux installation there (up to desktop manager etc, so that everything is running and working and you know how you got there).
Then you will be able to use terminal a bit and can install Archlinux on the system itself. Day to day usage of Arch normally does not involve much work on terminal.
If you're new to Linux, don't use Arch. Arch requires far too much hacking to get work and although I myself am a fan, a newbie will likely rage right back to Windows. The best casual distro right now is Linux Mint (With Cinnamon as a display manager) IMO. Linux Mint fixes what Ubuntu got wrong (Unity) and Cinnamon is a beautiful display manager with intuitive and familiar design.
As for working with the terminal, you need some motivation to keep you revisiting. Personally, my motivation was coding in C using gcc as a compiler, and vim as an editor. If you are up for a 'fun' time learning, use Vim exclusively as your text editor.
Ha ha! This reminds me of my first Linux experience, c. '95 or '96 with a kernel version 1.1 (Slackware version ????) that I got from a CD in a book. I experimented with mkfs(8). I learned a good lesson!
Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
If you really want to learn you might be better off having somebody walk you through fixing your existing system.
Very touchy topic, which distro to run.
I think Ubuntu is an okay start for you, mostly because it will mostly work and there's plenty of help (including various levels of help) for you to use.
Problem one for you:
1. You caused the boot issue. How?
2. Fix it.
This will start the learning process, a large part of Linux for me is it leads to learning. It's all there for one to figure out, eventually.
Anything is possible given time and money.
I recommend that (at least to start with) you stick with major distros. distrowatch has a reasonable list http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major
there are many hundreds of distros, mostly with little to distinguish them and some maintained by very small teams. if you use a distro that has small non-fulltime development team, then how long is it going to take for them to push a security update in to the repositories? what if one of their developers is on holiday, or has exams, or whatever. with the bigger distros they will have a security team to do this.
Then don't.
It's not 1995 anymore.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Somebody has to actually answer the question for there to be good pages for google to find. This sort of thing also ages pretty quickly, so I think it's worth reanswering at least yearly. Finally, this guy seems to want something that will teach him interesting stuff - not just something that has working flash etc.
So I definately think that this is a good question for SlashDot.
And personally I would recommend reinstalling Ubuntu. If you only have an hour of experience with the command line you probably haven't noticed that underneath Ubuntu is just about as "Linux" as any other Linux. Reinstall it and this time create a separate /home partition so that reinstalling the next time will not be painful. And then, learn to program - that's a nice 10 year project. :)
I'm a Fedora guy, but I don't think I would ever recommend that to a newbie. Ubuntu is definitely more friendly to new users.
I used to use Ubuntu, but found its system layout, window manager, desktop UI, etc. lacking. I switched to Fedora and could not have been happier. It give more control, but it good for the novice user. I recommend Fedora with GNOME 3 desktop manager.
"Something is not working, let's reinstall" is not very Linux way of doing things, so the very first thing to do is to fix your current installation, especially that you are "looking for a distro that allows me to control and customize". "With great power comes great responsibility" as you probably heard.
Mint is the new Ubuntu. They have been tweaking Ubuntu for years adding things that got left out by Canonical. Now that Canoncial has gone bat-shit crazy, they are in the perfect position to accomodate users that would otherwise be good candidates for Ubuntu.
Or you could just go old school and just use Debian.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Anyone who sets a beginner up with the "E" window manager probably also uses Gentoo because of their 'leetness, and is a bad source of information on how to properly operate a system either way. Reinstall Ubuntu and use the default window manager until you're read the entirety of http://ubuntu-manual.org/ and most of https://help.ubuntu.com/12.10/ubuntu-help/index.html. Ask questions on the Ubuntu forum, which has a *lot* of people. Then, after you've figured out how to get around a Linux system and have some idea of how it works, if you're finding things not working to your liking, look at other distros to see if they work in a way that you might like better.
Also, don't ever blindly follow directions from random blogs on the Internet. If you're copying and pasting commands, make absolutely sure that they were written for your specific distribution, and even then, try to figure out what those commands do before running them. And if someone tells you that you need to enable the root account for direct login, punch them in the mouth.
I think Linux Mint would be the ideal choice. It's easy to install, everything works out of the box and it has all the benefits of Ubuntu. Start off with something easy and explore the system from the safety of a relatively stable, friendly system. One can learn just as much working from Mint or Ubuntu as they can from Arch or Slackware. The difference is the user gets to work at the own pace, they're not thrown in the deep end and forced to learn at the system's pace.
And anyone who installs E17 on your Ubuntu system is not your friend.
it is pretty important to know that it is rare to find the distro you want on the first try. You'll probably be distro-hopping every few weeks until you are done comparing your experience between each distros. Then you will settle down, and invest your time on the distro you felt have the most pleasant experience with, doesn't matter whether it was because it provides more fun or just simply more stable. I've tried reading books when I began my endeavor with Linux, but it was more cumbersome than being helpful. There is simply no better suggestions than to just get wet really. Just use it on your daily lives, and you WILL encounter a problem or something you want to particularly do in Linux, I assure you. And when you do, that is when you will begin leaning all the quirks and galore of Linux.
Crunchbang is a nice, lightweight and simple distro. One tool per task comes preinstalled. Uses a Debian base, so it's stable. Great community for questions. (Very polite with no significant noob bashing) Clean and simple.
If you want to learn how some things work, it also doesn't spoonfeed. Most things are configured by hand in text files. (although that's still quite simple) The only real pain is that the menu has to be manually edited. (not that it is difficult)
Check out the development version based on Debian Wheezy which is now quite stable. It has a relatively up-to-date set of software.
I was a serial distro hopper until Crunchbang. It's perfect for me.
SuSE has still the best hardware detection and fool-proof installation system of all distros - yes, even better than Ubuntu and Ubuntu derivatives.
In addition to this, SuSE comes with one of the best KDE experiences out of the box. If you're familiar with Windows, you will be familiar with KDE.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Test the different distros live disks to see which works best in your situation. Then install it.
I love KUBUNTU, but if gnome or xfce is your thing- LMDE
Since you're good at breaking stuff :-), try out one of the live distributions: put it on a flash disk, boot it and play around. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_live_CDs.
And enlightenment is best to be obtained via bodhi linux.
Your choice of distro depends a lot on you're needs or goals I suppose.
If you just want to learn linux for yourself and want to understand what is under the hood. Arch is definitly a good choice as you will be looking a lot to figure out stuff but you will also have a decent community and wiki pages to help you.
Ubuntu has a good community but you probably won't need to tinker as much which may or not be good depending on your goal.
I've never really tried it but Slaskware would also be a good choice as it is minimalistic. Again if you wish to work under the hood.
If you want to learn for use in a work environment. Fedora or CentOS are probably what you need to look at as they are Red Hat based.
Suse would also fall in that work category I would say.
Debian would also be a choice to look towards but I personnaly tend to not like how old the packages are and since it's for learning purposes, bleeding edge is better I feel. Debian testing would be better and again in a work environment. I personnally don't like it as a main OS for home but that's my taste.
Canonical and Ubuntu are trash now, go with Mint.
If your main goal is learning the command line and learning about installing software from a minimal base (which it sounds like appeals to you from your description and mention of Arch), I suggest practicing on a cheap VPS instead of your own desktop machine. This has a number of advantages, the biggest one being that you'll be able to nuke it and go back to a base install of your distro of choice in 5 minutes flat. There are a ton of options for hosting low cost VPSes, I recommend Linode since they are popular and have good support, an excellent web based control panel so you shouldn't ever need to contact support, and a good choice of distros.
Running a VPS also offers you a good opportunity to learn about running various services such as web hosting, email server, DNS etc. if any of those things are of interest to you.
If you're more interested in the GUI side of things, maybe consider doing something similar but using virtual machines installed under your main OS. Again this gives you easy methods to reinstall/roll back.
go ahead and jump in
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
Then Arch should suit you nicely.
It's a very "shell-intensive" distro, but it's exceptionally well-documented. On one computer/screen, get the Arch Wiki open (possibly with linuxcommand.com in another tab), and get a fresh install of Arch on another computer/screen. If you don't have 2 computers, just load Arch in a VM. Arch is probably the best "learn Linux the hard way(tm)" distro around.
That's basically how I learned, and I'm infinitely better for it.
From what it sounds like, you may be in need of a distro that optimizes Linux for your hardware. In which case binary distros like Ubuntu and Arch will only cause you more headaches than you can manage. With Gentoo, that's not a problem. It's one of the easiest distros to use and it's optimized for your hardware, which makes it really fast and lean.
Is this a repost from 1997?
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
won't stay down!!
My experiences of the more "user friendly" distros (mostly Ubuntu) was that while they automated a lot of steps it left me with something not entirely dissimilar to Windows - bloated with similar performance and needing a lot of tweaking to trim it down.
The nastiest part of Arch now the beautifully easy menu system has been removed is installation, though thankfully it is very, very well documented. The effort spent in understanding it and learning the command line will pay big dividends when you come to actually use it.
As a leftfield choice have you considered FreeBSD? The documentation isn't as good as Arch, but it is very easy to get a working machine up and running.
There are really a *lot* of distributions to choose from. It really boils down to what you want to do with the desktop. Ubuntu (I use it, but not overly happy with the unity interface), fedora, SuSE, even the "lesser known" distributions all have pretty intuitive installers and interfaces.
But I cannot stress the benefit of joining a local Linux User Group. There are a lot of guys that will help you gain a better understanding of what you are actually doing - instead of copy/paste/panic (what the hell did I just do ??). You need to know WHY things work the way they do.
+1
I hate following a link from a search engine, just to see a snarky "go to a search engine" reply for the question I searched.
I would recommend Debian and Gnome. Ubuntu has too many bells and whistles and it can be funky to setup using bleeding edge kernels and drivers. Another alternative is Centos 6.2. It's essentially Red Hat. The desktop is quite nice. I expect you would learn more with Debian though.
you probably didn't crash it copying some unimportant files. Linux doesn't play that game.
The best way to learn is to fix what you've broken. That's how I learned linux.
Submitter's question seems to be asking two different things, so I'm not sure what exactly he's after.
If you want to get into *using* Linux, then the suggestions of Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, et. al. are the ones you want to go with. With snazzy GUI package managers and "app stores", they hand-hold and shelter you almost completely from the command line and the ugly under-workings as long as you don't try to mess around with them too much. They also tend to get in your way if you ARE trying to twiddle with the guts.
If you want to LEARN Linux, then go with a minimalist, hands-dirty distro. Slackware was my first Linux love many years back, but I hear Arch is pretty good in that respect, with a few more modern conveniences. I never messed with Gentoo, personally. Using one of those, you'll learn a lot about Linux, but it'll be some time before you get a "usable" system out of it. You'll probably also end up learning bash scripting and at least one of TCL, perl, or python as a bonus.
If your aim is the latter, though, then as far as books go, I don't think you can go wrong with the ORA "Animal" books, unless that's changed in the past few years.
What about Linux Mint? It's Ubuntu-based so it has all the advantages of Ubuntu (many packages, many third-party repos, huge community) but it also focuses on an easy installation and ease of use. Plus the standard Gnome desktop should be more familiar for users coming from Windows than the Unity desktop of Ubuntu.
Stick with the default Ubuntu or, if you prefer more classic desktop, go with Kubuntu
The very first Linux I used was gentoo which is even more notorius for being difficult, and that never hurt me. You seem like you are willing to learn, so Arch Linux is a really good choice I think.
If you want installation to be easier you can try Manjaro. It is based on Arch Linux but installation is a bit more user friendly.
He "crashed his Linux while he copied unimportant files and now it won't boot"? Come on, Timothy, this reeks of bullshit! (Or admit you wrote that yourself)
...you had to get a friend to install Ubuntu for you, you're not quite ready for Arch.
Mint. No question. Fast, easy, reliable. Gets you up and running entirely painlessly. I like the Cinnamon interface.
Ubuntu was what finally moved me over to Linux full time, but I don't like the whole Unity thing. Still it's the Ubuntu underpinning that makes Mint so damned reliable.
That said, I tried out running the newest OpenSuse KDE distro from USB last week, and am seriously thinking about it.
The main point is DON'T GET FANCY! Choose one of the above, and install the straight vanilla version. Then you can start playing.
Three Squirrels
Use Justin Bieber Linux.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/biebian/files/JBL_1.0.iso/download
doubleplus good. there's a whole world of knowledge out there, and we have so little time to appreciate it. is this your top priority? do you play a musical instrument? know how to cook fine foods?
My very first Linux distro was gentoo, and I would still prefer it over ubuntu any day (mostly because ubuntu has gone to shit the last few years).
Arch Linux is not bad for beginners, but if you want to have it a bit easier you can try Manjaro. It is based on Arch but has a somewhat more user friendly installer. Definitely give it a go, it's the only distro that allows you to have it your way without getting bogged down in too many details you don't care about. Arch really cares about KISS and it shows.
Here are the problems. 12.04 seems to be happy to crash at any time. it's a weirdest release yet. Try something newer, like 12.10. E17 doesn't have enough of a) users b) users that'll report a problem c) much developers (to my knowledge). It's fancy but has little functionality. Try KDE if you like bling.
I haven't posted to SD in years, but felt compelled to brush the cobwebs off and reply to your question...
1. This is a semi-religious question, so you are going to get a lot of vitriol in some of the responses; ignore it.
2. Gentoo is the "dive in the deep end, with weights tied to my feet and battle my way back to the surface" answer to your question. You build everything. You won't just learn the command line, you'll learn build tools, config scripts, environment vars, libraries, manual dependency management and more. I DO NOT think this is the right choice for you right now given how new you are to all of this. This will be the "death by a thousand paper cuts" experience that runs the risk of driving you crazy after 3 days of work and you still don't have a GUI running because of some esoteric error that you don't understand.
That said, if you insist that this is how you like to learn, go for it. The community/forums are very helpful and PACKED with information. If you do this, mentally prepare yourself for days and days of an unbootable machine. Reformatting and reinstalling over and over again. Getting a boot loader wrong, not installing Grub right, killing your install that was almost working perfectly because you changed a VGA boot option and now everything hangs... just prepare for these KINDS of things. Don't go in thinking "Awesome, I'll get this done in a day and have GNOME running" -- you won't, and if you do, something weird will break it out of no where and you won't have any idea what to do so you'll need to start over again.
I am not trying to scare you, just setting the expectation. If that sounds like heart-burn city, move onto my next suggestion.
3. Arch Linux -- You already mentioned this in your post and I just want to confirm that I believe THIS is the right choice for you. It is the perfect middle ground between Gentoo and something like Ubuntu -- you do get to know the ins and outs of the system, without the compiling/building/dependency pitfalls of Gentoo. This is an EXCELLENT place to start, get really familiar with everything and grow from (either down to Gentoo, or out of system management entirely into something like Ubuntu).
4. Ubuntu / Fedora -- Use these if you want a working computer, want to "try" Linux with a nice GUI and slowly become familiar with the underlying system through SOME GUI tools, mostly command line and have tons of support for your hardware. This is the "Mac"-esque experience you can get in Linux, in that you can live in the GUI all day if you want, but there is an underlying CLI/Unix world there under the surface if you want to mess with it.
5. Mint / SUSE / Kubuntu / Slackware / Whatever -- I have always seen these as different flavors of the same things listed above. I'd start with the primaries first and go from there.
Have fun!
If you like spending hour upon scratching your head then do linux from scratch. If you don't and want to be more efficient then install Ubuntu standard or Fedora standard in a virtual machine like virtualbox, snapshot your install whenever you're getting ready to try something stupid and dangerous, and play with them. If you are as patient as you say you are, and like figuring things out then Linux is a good place to invest time. However for the most part the "base" installs work just fine for grandma, as long as hardware is stable with it.
You have to be pretty cunning to crash Ubuntu as an ordinary user, so you are already
part-way there. (If you were running as the superuser (root) don't do that, m'kay?)
I'd stick with Ubuntu, myself, and when you install it leave an 8G (or more) partition
free on your drive so that you can install other distros, either from a CD or USB
stick, and play with them.
Good luck - Will
What do you want to learn? If you aren't a developer, or a network admin, then Linux doesn't offer for a typical desktop user. Besides frustration.
I use Linux on servers all the time on servers. It's great. But for the desktop...no. It's not worth it. Your best bet is to run Linux in a VM on a Windows box, and teach yourself how to set up a working Postfix and Apache server. That would be useful.
Linux Mint has my vote for your first distro. It's got a sane Desktop Environment, lots of packages, and plenty of forum posts related to it. And, (huge bonus here), the devs don't seem to be actively trying to screw people over (I'm looking at YOU, Ubuntu and GNOME).
You mentioned you were interested in hard work and challenges and all that good stuff. You could give the Linux Mint Debian Edition a shot. It was updated just a few days ago, I think. But I wouldn't recommend it. I'd say go for the Linux Mint 14 edition. The Debian people on here might not like me saying it, but there's a reason Ubuntu was very successful.
LMDE
Based on Debian Testing, so rolling release (once installed, never strictly have to reinstall)
However, be prepared for things to break. It's not as user friendly as the Ubuntu-based versions.
Mint 14 ;)
Not rolling release, so you will have to upgrade someday. I don't think this is such a big deal, since I broke most of my early installs messing with stuff. In other words, they didn't last long enough for me to upgrade. But that's because I didn't know what I was doing at the time. It was a learning experience
I'd also recommend you download the Cinnamon version. Cinnamon is a pretty nifty DE that takes GNOME 3 and actually makes it usable. MATE is pretty much GNOME 2, but I don't think it's going to be around for too long, so you might as well get used to the new stuff.
Once you've got the basics down though, I strongly recommend Arch or Slackware. Slack is what I run, since it's so stable. Arch is a great distro to tinker with and try new things on, though. Maybe once you've got Mint 14 installed, fire up a virtual machine and play around with the 'harder' distros. In my experience, Arch is a lot of fun, but Slackware has easily been the most educational.
And now, a parting joke that will get me fussed at. You could try Debian, too. You can pick which repo branch you'd like to use with it: Stable, Testing, or Unstable. So, as I see it, Debian has two choices: Ancient or Broken.
If you want/like to learn and have plenty of time to spare, my suggestion is Gentoo.
Best regards.
If you want to use GNU/Linux, then you need to learn the fundamentals of how it works. There is no easy path when it comes to GNU/Linux, you MUST learn and embrace learning. Slackware will give you an appreciation of what a package manager is, what dependencies are, and how to use a command line. Yes, Slackware is a hassle sometimes, but it is good for you. When you install it, the system is quite complete. You have A LOT of software already installed, enough to get you going so you can start browsing the web or going on IRC channels and asking for help. The Slackware people are not always sociable, so you can also try linuxquestions.org where people have to behave. I suggest Slackware for beginners who are serious about GNU/Linux and want to reap its benefits. IOf yo uare not interested in learning, stick with Ubuntu and hope for the best. Ubuntu is as close to automated as it gets. But that path will bring you grief. Go for empowerment. Once you go through Slack, THEN you can pick whatever distro you like to use like Gentoo, Arch, or even better, go for a Libre distro like Dragora...
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
I'm not sure the question has a straight answer. It reminds me a little of when I asked my dad about how to evaluate a good wine (about 20 years ago) I expected him to educate me about legs, tanin, body and other quantifiable methods for evaluating a wine. Instead he said it's quite simple really....you drink a lot of them and after a while you start to develop preferences.
In the late '90s and early 2000's I took the same approach to Linux and installed nearly every distribution I could get my hands on. Back in the day they were varietes of Red Hat, Mandrake, Corel, Slackware, Gentoo, Debian...after a while you develop preferences and one distro doesn't fit all needs. To this day I prefere slackware servers, ubuntu desktops, and ipcop for routers/firewalls. But everybody will have their own preferences./P
It is not 100% what you want. But IMHO you should learn to walk first before you try to run. If you were only interested in Linux to use it without much interest in its internals, but also without many problems, I'd recommend Mint. Since you want to learn stuff you can go for a bigger challenge. IMHO this would be Debian Sid. I cannot say much about Arch, Never used it. But Gentoo... I used it and liked for quite some time, but with a growing system the felt level of necessary maintenance became just too big for me. At some point it wasn't worth the effort. And Gentoo problems are very often Gentoo only problems, so not too much to learn for general Linux problems.
It's called OS X, and it's a lot like Linux. Except you're probably not going to hose your system as easily. It also makes backups and recovery a total cinch.
Of course, I guess that, in between making silly mistakes to trash your system, tweaking your window manager makes you feel like a "hacker."
This is somewhat dated, but just for fun:
If Linux Distributions Were Airlines
Red Hat Airlines:
The standard in air travel. Most people have flown Red Hat Air at one point
or other. Some people like it and some people hate it and move on to one of
the other airlines. Passengers are all treated the same; they get stuck in
their seats and told not to ask questions -- everything will be taken care
of for them. They should just sit back, relax, and not touch of the fancy
controls under any circumstances, lest they send the plane into a tailspin.
Red Hat Airlines is fabulously rich.
Mandrake Airlines:
Mandrake bought a truckload of planes from Red Hat, put new engines in them,
re-painted them, and now run their own airline. Considered by many to be the
most friendly airline for first-time flyers.
Corel Airlines:
A new player on the scene, Corel Air thinks it can be the airline of choice
for a new generation of first-time pleasure flyers, and maybe even lure in
some business travelers too. Their planes are big, brightly painted, and
like Red Hat's they protect the innocent, clueless passengers from the
dangerous buttons, switches and blinkenlights of the cockpit.
SuSe Airlines:
An airline out of Europe that tries to be everything for everyone and
succeeds -- to a degree. Recently paid a huge sum of money to use a comic
strip in its promotional material. (And after they finally named the
lizard...)
Caldera OpenAirlines:
These guys go out of their way to make things comfortable for the business
user. They've got a pretty terminal, pretty planes, really good in-flight
movies, etc. But I had a bad experience with these guys once. They lost my
luggage. Quite a mess, really. Ah well, such is life. I never flew with them
again.
SlackAIR:
>From a distance, their planes look just like everyone elses. But up close
you can tell that they haven't been painted and little bits of wire stick
out here and there. But onboard, the seats are comfortable enough and there
are plenty of stewardesses available to help you readjust your seat if you
manage to break it. There is no in-flight movie but if you get bored you are
always welcome up in the cockpit. The pilots will be glad to let you try and
fly the plane and are happy to let you push whatever buttons you want, even
if you don't know what you're doing. Generally, novice flyers avoid SlackAIR
as they've heard horror stories about newbies pressing the wrong button and
causing the plane to explode.
Debian Airlines:
They have a single type of airplane; a huge sucker weighing 2400 tons and
carrying just about everything you can imagine. They've got kitchen sinks,
massage parlors, a paintball arena, and 294 types of cheese for sale in the
onboard, 24-hour supermarket. You can see from the terminal they have a huge
team of technicians working on their fleet, poking and prodding. Debian Air
is the only choice for some: everything onboard is built 100% by union
workers -- no shoddy, possibly dangerous, imports here.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
And you'll get at least 9 different answers. Maybe 10.
And they are all right.
Ubuntu has a lot of good points, especially if you are a linux n00b (as we all were at some point). It also has some fairly bad negatives.
I could go down the list of distros I have used and I would be saying the same thing about each and every one- positive and negative traits about all of them.
Just like even Winblows has good and bad aspects.
Personally, I ignore what everone else says in discussions like this and try distros out for MYSELF.
Historically I tend towards Debian-based distributions more often than not, but not true Debian itself. I really LIKE Debian, but the derivatives add things of value, saving me the time and effort of adding them myself.
I have had great experiences with Mepis over the years but I must say that Mepis tends to be a bit less than cutting edge. Stable though.
My own desktop is using Mint now, which does seem to be a fixed version of Ubuntu. Only been using it for about 6 months, so not sure how it will hold up over time.
I just did a project for a local school using OpenSUSE and I was very impressed. First time I had messed with OpenSUSE in years and it is very good now- using it as the sole os on one of my laptops now, in fact.
I have mucked around with CentOS a lot lately, and some older Red Hat stuff as I would like to be more familiar with that distribution for purposes of employability- both are good choices.
In the end my point is this:
The cost is nothing but some time and dvds. Try out different distributions and see what fits YOU best.
In the end, anything you can do with one version of linux can be done with any other- it is only the amount of work to achieve different things that varies.
Depending on why you are doing this for you could opt for FreeBSD.
My experience has been that FreeBSD documentation for a beginner is far better than Linux.
Bypass the question totally.
But if you *have* to run the penguin, go for Debian. Why get something 'based' on something else? Just get the original.
Sure it is possible, but i can cause problems. So the best thing to do is to first have a partition available. A dedicated HD is even easier.
Then download something lik the openSUSE DVD, boot from that and away you go.
What can be even better is a dedicated machine. If you have a bit older machine (some 3-5 years old) you can use that and not worry about breaking stuff.
But there is a trap. You will be tempted to go back to the other faster machine, so perhaps install Windows on the slower machine and Linux on the fast one.
Also give yourself several months and don't forget linux is not windows
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I suggest you go through the Arch Installation as you will learn a lot through the process
After almost 20 years in Linux I think I'm endorsed for good advices.
If you want to learn Linux, I think the best way is to install gentoo.
Just an instalation will teach you everything you need... 6 moths of use will teach you all the minor rest extra.
Then, format your disk and install whathever you please, you will be prepared.
While there are many reasons experienced Ubuntu users dislike Ubuntu, for new users it often gets very high marks. The problem is that the desktop your friend installed, E17, is not the best for new users as it is a) not widely used (as compared to the major desktops) and b) definitely an acquired taste.
What your "friend" should have done is installed either straight Ubuntu with it's Unity interface, Xubuntu with the XFCE interface or Kubuntu with the KDE interface. They all have their pros and cons, but what they have in common is that they are all very well supported.
Coming from a Windows world, KDE or XFCE will appear most familiar, Unity, is Ubuntu's main emphasis now, and receives the most support and the most new consumer-like features. While I am not a fan of Unity because of how I use my computer, for new users, it does seem to work very well, with a minimum of trouble.
Without knowing what exactly is broken with your E17 install, I hesitate to suggest this, but one can always open a terminal and issue the command: sudo apt-get install XYZ-desktop
Where XYZ=ubuntu (for unity) kubuntu for (KDE) or xubuntu for (XFCE). Assuming your networking is still working, that command may also fix whatever else is broken. But, and this is a big but, before deciding on KDE, Unity or XFCE (or even gnome-shell), I would search the internet for various opinions. They all have their pros and cons, just beware that people defend their choices like religious zealots.
Just stick with Ubuntu 12.04 with the default window manager. Imagine you got a new Mac and you are getting used to a new UI/UX. It is actually quite usable, and very stable. Everything just works, and you get a very friendly App store concept just like you get with Apple products.
I find all the other distros are just not as user friendly as Ubuntu for newcomers.
One more thing to consider is how Ubuntu is now branching to Tablets, Phones, and TV's. It's not inconceivable that in the next 6 month, you'll have a totally seamless experience with your content being accessible from all those mediums (Should you choose to also get an Ubuntu TV device, and an Ubuntu Phone or Tablet).
They are going the Apple way, in the sense that you're going to have a fully working ecosystem where all devices speak perfectly with each other and everything just works out of the box.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... time... to... die...
As an 5+ years experienced home user of Gentoo Linux (considered one of the more badass hard obnoxious distros) who abandoned Linux for Mac OSX, I'd say go with Linux Mint. It's easy to use with a Windows 98y desktop interface. I tried Ubuntu for work and it had issues with dual monitors. Ubuntu's default 3D stuff is just too much of a resource hog. That said, I actually liked Ubuntu's Unity interface for the most part. Maybe you should try Ubuntu with the default Unity GUI? It's very Mac-like for the most part.
I dabbled with Linux for many years, never really got anywhere with it, that is, until, I tried Gentoo. Gentoo was perfect for me because it helped me get around the learning curve of what Linux is all about. Following the Gentoo Handbook to install and configure a basic system made the Kernel, the boot process, daemons, scripts, package customization, compiling, troubleshooting, configuration (/etc/)... all in a process that can be followed easily in an hour or two. Now, I still love Gentoo, but I don't rely on it anymore. I recently moved my file server over to FreeBSD, and have mainly used Ubuntu, Debian and CentOS for most other applications, but its all because of Gentoo that I built the knowledge and confidence to be able to do any of that.
The choice of the distribution is not the crucial one, as long as you choose a beginner friendly one. The better question quest is How to learn Linux?, e.g. what books, what sites should you read? The answer depends a big lot of your background knowledge.
The funny thing is that the second link you see on google points you back to slashdot. :D
Plese do check Crunchbang Linux. Debian derivation -- works out of the box. great friendly community too.
Stop being a cheapskate and just buy a fucking Mac.
Compile your own code
you don't need apt-get to babysit you and install precompile binaries
compile the source yourself, it'll run better when compiled on your machine anyhow...
Slackware is the oldest and my personal opinion best linux distro
I've been using slackware since the 2.0.28 kernel... Never had any trouble, and I learned more than anyone only stuck on Ubuntu would learn.
Ubuntu is "Windows for linux" for linux fanbois that don't really want to commit to a true linux and want everything still done for them.
Get a real distro and burn Ubuntu
Back in my day you weren't allowed to post on /. before you tried at least 10 linux distributions, one *BSD and one archaic closed source UNIX variant. With the new owners it's turned into Computer Noob magazine.....
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
First off, don't install Linux (or anything you want to experiment/play with, for that matter) directly on your hard drive. Instead, download VirtualBox (a free, excellent, Virtual machine), then install Linux inside that.
If you do it this way, then:
a) You don't need to reboot to switch between Linux and Windows (the virtual machine just appears as another Windows app, although you cna full screen it if you want to)
b) If you mess up your Linux installation by experimenting, then your machine still works. You can even save your Linux installation at any point (e.g after installing a bunch of stuff), and get back to that saved point if you mess it up.
As far as which flavor of Linux - you want something simple to manage that works out of the box. When you gain experience with Linux in general then maybe try different versions. I recommend you start with Linux Mint - It's based on Ubuntu has a decent user interface ("Mate" or "Cinnamon" out-of-the-box, unlike recent versions of Ubuntu which come with a default tablet-centric user interface that you'll want to replace if you want to use it on a laptop/desktop.
I've just started Linux myself and decided on Mint
Ubuntu now phones home every search you do and not appreciated.
One could build their own Ubuntu but that's not my fix.
Mint will run everything Ubuntu will run at this time so has
a vast library to select from; once a Firefox plug-in is removed/disabled
your searches are between you and Google. Or run Opera like I do.
Linux Opera is backasswards; at the selection to open or close
I kept clicking on close and wondering why it wouldn't load.
I multi boot 2 versions of Windows 7 for my games and Mint
using EasyBCD -free for personal use and very easy to use
At anytime I can boot into Mint and play around for awhile.
I'm still too used to Windows to do anything productive with Mint,
but it will work out. One good linux game (for me) could make
a very big difference to my boot selection.
Good luck
Linux From Scratch. If you really do want to learn the ins and outs, and you really don't mind spending all the time ever.
http://www.mageia.org/en/
I've used mandriva for over a decade (it was called mandrake back then), since mageia was born i've used that (since mandriva as an organisation is so damn messed up). It's an easy linux to use. I don't like messing with kernels and compiling programs and such, i just want to use a computer for other things.
Sure i've had to learn some tricks here and there, but it's a desktop linux in my opinion.
I've tried others, but always gone back to mandriva and now mageia.
I can't believe nobody else has mentioned it. What the fuck has slashdot become?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
It has a UI similar to Windows, is popular and has lots of public support, and is as easy as any other Linux distro.
Guns don't kill people, "with glowing hearts" kills people.
Because some people want to actually do some work and not spend month trying to configure something to make it work.
I know professional IT people who spent YEARS trying to get FreeBSD working right and never managed to. Hardware support for FreeBSD is mediocre at best.
Mint is basically Ubuntu with some useful software and codecs pre-installed. It's designed to be familiar enough to Mac or Windows users that you can use it right away, so I found it helpful in learning the command line at my own pace. It's not as easy to upgrade to a new version as Ubuntu, though.
I'm a very new user to Linux looking for a distro that allows me to control and customize
As opposed to...?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
As an Arch user, I second that. Arch is not user friendly. It does not even have an installer any more; there is just an install.txt on the installation CD and you are expected to follow the instructions manually.
The reason I use it is that it takes the least amount of effort to configure the environment the way I want it, with no extra crud floating around. With a user friendly distribution you have a hundred daemons running around doing nothing but take up RAM, the startup takes five minutes, and the UI drives you nuts. And, of course, every package has a bazillion dependencies that just must be installed, so you need ten gigs on your tiny SSD just to get the damn thing up.
If you are beginner, none of these things matter to you. You probably don't know what RAM is, and are not bothered by slow startup times. So install Ubuntu, or Mint, or whatever. Works out of the box and zero maintenance. You can thank me later.
You could save a lot of time by trying different distributions via Live CD/DVD. (Many distros install discs actually double as an installer and a live CD.) Obviously you don't want to do this long-term but it would be an easy way to test drive and see which stock interface appeals to you before jumping in.
I'd definitely go with a major distro so that it's easy to find setup/troubleshooting instructions online. Different distros may store files in different locations so even though all Linux flavors are largely similar, it can be really frustrating trying to look for a certain config file and realizing it's not in the same place as the directions say it should be. Once you're more experienced you'll know where to look but it can be a deal breaker when you're just getting started.
Some to look at are Ubuntu, Mint, and Fedora. Personally I prefer Debian-based distros but that choice is probably not very relevant until you start diving deeper into things.
I have nothing new to add to the distribution discussion. Personally, I started with Slackware but it was the mid-90s and there are more options nowadays. Even Slackware is easier to use than it once was.
For learning, you'll find plenty of resources online. If you're on a budget, you don't have to buy any books at this point. But a good single book I'm happy to have bought is UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook by Nemeth, Snyder, Hein, and Whaley:
http://www.amazon.com/Linux-System-Administration-Handbook-Edition/dp/0131480057
Every distro hopper will try a multitude of distributions and hop from one to another learning more as they go along. Eventually they learn how to use Debian properly and then they'll never look back and stick with it.
Go command line or go home.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I do like the Mint flavor. It's easy to install and doesn't have the Ubuntu attitude (innovation often done without sufficient thought) even though it's based on Ubuntu. A simple option is Puppy Linux. Also easy to install/run, and little upkeep, even if somewhat limited in scope.
The simple answer is Ubuntu on the desktop and CentOS/Red Hat or SLES on servers. The advantage of this arrangement is if you are looking for a job as a Linux admin or developer, these are (in my observation) the most likely distros you'll run into. A more complex question (run in 4 Mbytes, embedded, run off a floppy, ridiculous levels of security, home theater) yields extremely more complex answers.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
My 9 year old kid was told he could play minecraft IF he could, given a Debian 6 network install disk + a computer system, provide me with a clean, documented install script explicit enough that his grandmother could follow it. Two days later he was done everything. Took him 5 or 6 installs to have it documented properly, but he did it.
We have headless systems in production environments that started out as Debian 3 and have had upgrade after upgrade (now running Debian 6, soon to be Debian 7). Debian is rock solid and just plainly works. And costs nothing. There's a reason other distributions are building upon it. The only thing I don't get is why more people aren't avoiding the flavours of the day and simply going to the base.
Even our windows systems (we have one for accounting purposes) end up being VMs hosted on, you guessed it - a Debian system.
Gentoo
Do any distros use regular megabyte for 2^20 be default?
No weird mebibyte stuff.
Why don't you guys have friends or journals?
...is a desktop environment that is stable, robust and not experimental.
Enlightenment, Unity, Gnome 3 and KDE 4 all fail at least one of those criteria. LXDE is not robust. XFCE is not quite robust.
Ergo you want Trinity or MATE as a desktop, and consequently a distro that supports same -- specifically a simple, stable, robust, non-experimental one.
You want Debian (Trinity or MATE) or Slackware (Trinity). As a learning experience, take Slackware; otherwise Debian.
[2-cents]
Linux Mint with Mate Desktop. Easliy configurable and your user is not root by default. Multimedia codecs all come pre-installed.
If you want to build from scratch, then DO THAT . Download LFS and BLFS and use Arch as a base.. If you want a runnable distro that mostly stays out of your way and lets you do your thing, Mint is worth a look.
Done now.
[/2-cents]
Look, if copying unimportant files crashes a system to unbootable, we ought not discuss and suggest other distros. We should beat the s***t out of that distro. because then they'd screwed up all ideas Unix and Linux beyond recognition.
Any *nix distro that is allowed to exist must not allow this to happen, ever. Over.
I recommend Linux Mint to my friends when they first transfer from Windows to Linux. Mint isn't the best distro, but its a good starting point, especially if you come from a Windows background (with the exception of Win8). I always preferred the Debian-based distros (e.g. Ubuntu, Mint) rather than Fedora-based as they are much easier to off the bat.
What differentiates slackware is that slackware tries to give you the most pure "vanilla" experience possible with regards to third-party (non-slackware specific) software, which is the vast majority of software on your machine. This means that the software comes to exactly as intended by the developers, and that slackware itself introduces very few bugs and mainly concentratres on putting together a working system. Slackware is pure linux, but also the most unix-like linux, and some would say that it's the most stable linux you can get.
About 5 or 6 years ago I was looking for a new distro to install as a server. I wanted stability, long term supported releases, good community. I decided to go to the root of countless distros, Debian, and I've never looked back since. My only regret was not going to it earlier, it's great.
I think you could probably manage Arch. It is more work sometimes to upgrade and to keep things running, but the forums are great and the documentation is excellent. As long as you know basically what the various packages you'll be using are (know what X.org is, know what KDE is -- not details even, just the names and that you need them) you should be good. They've got a wiki; read through the instructions for how to install it and see if you know what it's talking about. Very stable too. I switched about a year ago from Mandriva and absolutely love it.
Mandriva is a great distro too, much easier to get installed and I've always found it to be a bit more stable than Ubuntu. I think it may be dying though, looks like the last release was a while ago...
Even if the submitter kinda implies he or she wants to learn by doing (or, "the hard way"), I can't get a feeling out of my chest that all this learning by doing would be much more effective with at least some reading homework before and/or during the doing. For that, I recommend at least skimming through this: http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/Unix-and-Internet-Fundamentals-HOWTO/index.html
Yeah, there's some stuff the submitter probably already knows or isn't all that interested about for now... and that's why it's a good idea to skim through first.
Before installing a distribution, do a little research to know if drivers are available for your hardware. My 2
My first distro was Arch Linux but those weren't pleasant beginnings. A lot of time spent with configuring the OS caused that I have migrated to Linux Mint and I use it until now. I'm quite satisfied and I can also recommend Linux Mint to beginner user.
...My personal choice is Fedora. I have been using it since version 5.2, it's now heading for 19. Just DO NOT install versions 17 & 18. The live CD is a very nice way to get a look without installing anything.
I had a bad experience with version 18 - the installer had been redone, but needed more work. I dropped back to 17, only to find the 64 bit install had issues. I had last upgraded from version 8 to 15, so I just dropped back to 15. It works. Period. Hopefully, by version 19, the installer will be fixed.
My recommendation would be to try several different distros in virtual machines until you come across one you like, then do a clean install (or a v2p if you're well versed in virtualization). Even after picking a primary distro, you'll probably want to keep a couple of vm's with different Linux flavors around in case you apply for a job where they use a different distro from what you're running at home.
This suggestion might get some derision but since you want to get your hands dirty and understand things better: Gentoo.
I started gentoo after a few months of linux experience and never looked back (2005). The documentation is awesome and the community is extremely nice and helpful. I promise you won't be disappointed.
Arch is also good, but in my opinion gentoo is easier to maintain.
sit back
I honestly think this is the best way. I've seen many go for "ubuntu" but you don't pass a certain level in which you can do nothing outside ubuntu, and you can barely get by within it.
If you begin with Ubuntu first you will then go onto appreciate Arch, when you're ready for it. Both have their place.
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
I'm probably late, I feel really bad but I'll tell you my experience. As a newbie, I was quite comfortable with Xubuntu. When it's installed it looks like a Mac with the Top bar and the Dock on the bottom, I didn't like that so I rearranged it by removing the Dock and moving the top bat to the bottom.
There were about a dozen 'plug-ins' on the right by the clock for Pidgin and such, and a nonfunctional 'Network'. I mean nonfunctional because there were no flashing lights, so I removed that (Disabled Startup) and replaced it with 'Network Monitor' which was customizable. Yeah so, it basically looks like Classic Windows now with a few other tweaks, like custom quick launch. What they (XFCE) call a Quick Launch with their own plug-in is unusable for me.
So basically everything is completely different than what was installed; I'd say that's pretty darn customizable. Stable too, and I don't have the problems with XFCE, for games, that people who use Unity do; like Full-screen issues etc. I have a few quirks, some of the software installed isn't what I like, I replaced SMPlayer with VLC and Xfburn with K3B, replaced Pidgin with Kopete and Gyache because I need Webcam support, Pidgin doesn't have it, I don't use Spyware Skype sorry. I installed Gimp and GtKam, Wine and Gedit. I'm happy.
So yeah, I even wrote a blog post to help new people who wanted it to look familiar. I admit however, I'm probably a little more advanced than someone who doesn't know anything about computers, But it was new for me when I installed it as my only OS. Even managed to convert two people. =p
I like Debian. Linux Mint Debian Edition is a good option, although I am using Crunchbang on my netbook. The latter is based on Debian stable.
Stability is the kind of virtue that you appreciate most in its absence. After an enthusiastic period of Fedora and Ubuntu use, I from time to time experienced issues with packages and drivers breaking on updates. These were usually resolvable, and forced a certain amount of CLI-foo on me, but there's only so many times one wants to wrangle with things that worked just fine yesterday.
Stability means having outdated versions of packages; you miss out on the new features as well as the new bugs. However, it's also pretty trivial to install packages from unstable if you really need them, and if all else fails you can compile from source (which is usually a painless process).
Ubuntu was certainly far less buggy than Fedora, and I certainly don't mind all you guys being Debian beta testers ;) but my choice of OS is going to be heavily informed by whichever one has the longest testing cycle.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
If you cant use any "mainstream distros" try a spesific one based off of Debian/Ubuntu or Redhat such as Mageia or Mint, personally OpenSuSe fits my needs 40% of the time while arch does 30% and the rest is a bunch of obscure or unknown distros (as well as ReactOS and Haiku ;) )
People once told me 68K ram was all we needed,
"enjoy challenges, and am perfectly willing to spend hours and hours for months on end to learn command line." The only real Linux is Slackware. You have total control of what daemons your running so it is a very secure system, you just have to keep up with the daemons your running, and Patrick V. takes care of that. It has a package manager, an easy install system, and if you start out with a full install, you will not be disappointed. If you really want to know Linux, then Slackware is the way to go.
When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux. When you want a computer system that works, just, choose
I'll get my coat...
About 15 years ago I experienced linux for the first time with RedHat, then move on to Caldera OpenLinux, then Mandrake and Fedora when I started college, then Debian after a while, and a few years later I started a long term relationship with Ubuntu (not very passionate, but really, really comfortable), after which I switched to Mint (for the very same reasons others describe: Apart from getting fat and bitchy with Unity, I felt like Ubuntu "cheated" on me with the Amazon deal and therefore lost my trust). I finally landed on OpenSuSE, don't know for how long, but it's where I'm right now and I'm very happy with it (And yes, I know about the deal with Microsoft: probably something to worry about in the long run but still good for me at the moment. And BTW I don't care to admit I'm a seasoned XP and windows 7 user, and maybe I don't know them as well as I know linux, but I think not to know your way around them proves almost as bad as not having some linux skills, and sometimes even worse). I also thoroughly tried other distros like PuppyLinux, Lubuntu, Slitaz, Slackware and Wifiway (from which I learned way more about cryptography and authentication than in any of my computer security related engineering courses). On my current VPS I started with Ubuntu Server but now I feel more comfortable with CentOS. I don't think I will ever need to be in such control over my distro's features, but in case I do I can always take the time of building something LFS based or use Gentoo so I can compile every package I want to install with my custom settings while maintaining a sane updating system and not worrying about dependence collision. From my experience, there's no one-size-fits-all distro, and that's the coolest thing about the linux ecosystem, so just try as many as you can and use that which best fits your preferences with the less customization effort, remembering it's not sacred marriage and you can move on if your distro stops pleasing you (though putting some time and effort in the relationship before sending it down the drain usually pays off :))
TL;DR: 15, 10 and probably even 5 year younger me would praise and recommend to everybody the distro I was running at that particular moment, but lately when somebody asks me which distro is better I always say: go to distrowatch and check some of them, giving each enough time to make an informed decision.
that's the spirit. the people who tell you not to go looking for trouble are the people who forget how much trouble they got themselves into.
I'm surprised that no mention of this surfaced, but, "computer crashed while copying files and won't boot" means that you have a hardware compatibility issue. Either an actual hardware problem, or just that the Linux kernel does not like your motherboard.
Linux systems running on compatible hardware just don't ever crash (almost).
Whatever distribution you decide to try next, beat the crap out of the system before you invest any time in configuration, or store any important data on it.
Maybe this is just a kernel version issue, but I would be very uncomfortable using a system on which this happened. I'd try to search google for info about Linux + your motherboard model to see if other people have encountered problems.
Cheers,
jf
Ubuntu is so 2008 ...Go with Linux Mint
It is everything Ubuntu hoped to be, but couldn't. With Linux Mint, everything has been tweaked, codecs works right out of the box. A trouble free and 'ready to go' Linux operating system. And Linux Mint has been # 1 on Distrowatch for ages.....
You do not have to build your own Ubuntu to avoid the "phones home" search, it's as simple as uninstalling the lens to fix that. Also it's a bit harsh to call what they do phoning home, what they do is anonymizing the searches so that Amazon can't track the users. if they didn't then people would scream that Ubuntu gives away every search to Amazon.
Just a side note - but if you happen not to have an i386 (32 or 64) PC, very few of the distros listed have a PPC binary available. That's the primary reason I chose Ubuntu12.04 -- because I could load it right up onto an ancient G4 Mac.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
So far off.....
The only difference between RHEL and CentOS is the Red Hat logos are removed. If you want to learn RHEL, CentOS or Scientific Linux will teach you that. Fedora includes a lot of software and features that do not exist in RHEL, and is very different due to Fedora's 6-month release cycle (much more recent changes/software).
You can use CentOS or SL to study for RHCSA/RHCE, but not Fedora.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Work to get Ubuntu in hand, make the CLI your friend in the process, then step into Debian and go from there...
My original path was Mandrake->Redhat->Debian->The world
This came in handy somewhat entering university and having RH and FreeBSD being the flavours we were expected to master (a while ago now...)
If you really have the time, and want to learn about Linux from the base up.. I suggest forgetting about standard distros, and hit up LFS.org Linux From Scratch will take you through everything from a base console system, all the way to a functioning GUI desktop environment.
Unless you intend to use Linux knowledge over years, DON'T! Linux and Unix systems have lots of complexity that you are probably not even aware exists. I wasn't. An undergrad CS degree alone is not sufficient. Pay a professional to tune an existing Linux distro for your needs. Heck, consider using a customized Windows build instead, yes it does exist. Microsoft pays its programmers serious money to focus on stuff that haxors don't care much about, like sound support, scanner support, easy adjusting of screen resolutions. Unix's design dates to the 70s, and if you look at some of the lesser important components, like printing, and video display (X.org), you can see the age, unlike their more modern counterparts in Windows.
However, if you are an aspiring coder, learning the details of the GNU/Linux system will make you a better, more well rounded coder.
Mod parent up.
Also the question doesn't indicate where they're trying to get to... but if it's "work" then RH/CentOS/SL own the space.
Enthusiasts use Arch, novices use Ubuntu, conservatives use Debian, business use Redhat.
(Debian is awesome if you have hardware old enough to use it, it's rock solid and I've seen it's version of the kernel/IP stack outperform Redhat as well, but it's a steeper learning curve and doesn't get you as many job interviews).
I started out with Linux in 1997. I used Slackware, Red Hat, SUSE, and Debian before switching to Ubuntu
(I also played with Arch a couple times). I found that each upgrade broke something. (In the 2.4.x days I had a
Promise controller that didn't work with a particular kernel; for no apparent reason, it just refused to work.)
My last Linux machine had 2x320 gig drives and 2x500 gig. Each set was set up in RAID1 and stitched together
with LVM. I had an external backup drive.
In 2010, I upgraded from Ubuntu 9.10 to 10.04 (don't recall exactly when, but 10.04 had already been out long
enough for the show-stopping bugs to be caught. Or so I thought.)
After the upgrade, I was greeted with a system that would not boot due to Plymouth crashing. There was no
way I knew of to disable or remove it. (And what exactly was wrong with the old splash-screen thingy? It had to
be thrown out and rewritten from scratch because it was more than six months old?)
So I tried to go back to Debian to get stability. Oh, but since my machine was only a couple of years old, it was
too new for Debian.
In the end, I ended up hosing the raid array trying to reassemble it. No problem, because I've got backups, right?
Yes, except they weren't recent; since I had been experiencing file corruption I needed to go back and figure out
which files to restore. Plus, Linux has a way of changing drive names with every boot -- this is especially if you
boot with a different kernel. Which means I had previously and inadvertently assigned the backup drive to be
part of the raid array.
Since I caught it, it was no biggie - except for being unable to figure out how to change it back. So when I'm
trying to get the array back... I end up wiping out the backup because it's "autodetected" as part of the array.
I switched to FreeBSD, then ended up coming back to Debian. But that just brought back the same ole / same
ole...
I boot up with one kernel, my sound doesn't work. So I boot up with another kernel, and the raid is reporting
missing drives. What happened to the drives? Oh, they're still there, they just have different device names!
This was about the time they came out with that article "24 things we'd change about Linux". The one that got
my attention was "We'd do away with dotfiles and get a Windows-style registry."
I went back to FreeBSD, and while I've tried to go back to Linux (Mint -- I really miss package mgmt.) there's no
way I can go back to Linux. GPT+RAID+LVM+GRUB2 is a zombie goatfuck -- no matter how many times I have
tried it, I never feel sure it's going to work. GPT + FreeBSD + ZFS? Worked every time I went back (even if it's a pain to set up).
PS: You can see why I'm posting as AC - not only would I have no karma left, but I haven't logged in since the
perfect storm since I can't remember my password.
Heh - Started in 97-98 using LInux with early version of Redhat, then went to Suse, and Mandrake, back to Suse for a long time then to Ubuntu. I'm not going to talk about my experience with Gentoo, other than I spent too much time compiling. I think I had a couple of Suse boxes running for about 3 years of uptime before a power outage.
Been on Ubuntu for about 3 years or so, and run KDE on top of it.
I just want something that works - and Ubuntu is that - makes the computer more transparent.. Package system is much better IMHO than Suse, and that's why I switched a while ago.
Oh yeah - and it runs Steam
..........FULL STOP.
with KDE 4, You never NEED to use the cli but you can do everything from the cli if you want to.
OpenSuSE
OpenSuSE Guide helps you to a good start.
Ubuntu is imho the Windows of the Linux world, they do much noise and the do very much to look nice and shiny...
It's much easier for you to specify your needs as there are hundreds of distros and packages that can be combined. To a first approximation pretty much all linux packages are available for all distributions.
Beyond that, most linux distributions are based off some other distribution. The description of Kubuntu as "Ubuntu, but with the KDE desktop environment" is perfectly descriptive.
So what distinguishes one distro from another? Besides what comes installed by default, the most significant difference is how those packages got there.
Debian is probably the distribution that the greatest number of other distributions are based on. It has a very very long testing cycle; it takes packages years to get into Debian's stable branch. Ubuntu is based on Debian unstable, and a shit-ton of things are based on Ubuntu, including Linux Mint.
Red Hat produces the next biggest family of linuxes. Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux are more or less analogous to Debian unstable and stable, respectively, but I don't think very many people are dumb enough to try and base a distro on Fedora. CentOS is RHEL with the logo removed, and Scientific Linux is also based on RHEL.
Next up we have Gentoo, Arch, Slackware, and Suse.
I was going to put a joke about Gentoo here, but it's taking a while to compile. Gentoo is a rolling-release distro where most of the packages that you use are compiled on and for your machine. You mention gcc, this is related, but you will probably not ever use it directly. Compiling packages yourself can make them run faster, but it can take a long time.
Arch is a well-documented, rolling release distribution. I'm not sure what else to say about them honestly, but "well-documented" is one of the highest compliments I'm aware of.
Slackware is the oldest and most "unixy" of the distributions. It uses an old bootloader, old unix-style boot scripts, and by default boots to a text terminal. You should use Slackware if you want to retreat into a cave for five years, to emerge with a profound knowledge of unix, a full beard, and a solid opinion on whether emacs or vi(m) is the best text editor. I'm pretty sure these things are highly marketable. No, really.
Suse hasn't failed yet. The last time I checked, they had a wonderful, polished experience, and great admin/configuration tools. I have no idea why they don't have more users, except that there's already a shit-ton of options.
It's probably fair to say that Debian stable, RHEL, and any derivatives will have the longest testing cycle, and fewest updates in any given span of time. There are many more distributions for more specialized purposes, such as BackTrack for pen testing, Puppy for small installations, Bodhi for those seeking Enlightenment. You may have to figure out what you need on your own there.
Whew! Let's take a break for a minute.
All right. So with all that in mind, you can install, as previously mentioned, pretty much all the same stuff on any and every distro.
Here is a guide on desktop environments. If you're a n00b, you're probably going to want one of those.
We also have another guide for more experienced users, or those on resource-constrained systems, that covers some of the more popular window managers. Because sometimes 2GB of gnome libraries gets a bit old. For the truly adventurous, this post covers 30 Window Managers in 30 Days.
Honestly, there's really a pretty limited amount of advice that one can give about using any particular distro. They're all substantially similar. Without any specific information about what you want to use, a recommendation becomes, well, exactly what you were complaining about. "Use XYZ bec
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Dual-booting is a hangover from the bad old days of tiny, expensive hard disks and underpowered PCs.
Newbies WILL break stuff and WILL churn through a few distros, so the best way to go is for them to install Virtualbox and test in VMs.
This allows surfing for answers to any questions they may have even if their Linux install fucks up.
As competence grows, they can shift to running Windows in a VM on a Linux host if they like.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I guess it depends on the hardware you have to make the quick transition to linux. I have a radeon 6570 card and every time i boot into the mint or ubuntu installer without the nomodeset i get graphical glitches and impossible to see anything. The ati opensource drivers suck. After installing the OS's under nomodeset I still can't go into normal mint or ubuntu boot because it crashes so I boot into recovery mode and drop down to terminal to start downloading the latest ati proprietary video drivers to make mint and ubuntu work.
I hate lxde, xfce, cinnamon, mate all these look like they belong in the 1990's. Unity looks more modern and kde can be modified to look modern. I had my linux fun and sticking to windows 8. Plus, windows blue updates and features will allow windows 8 metro apps to run on a dual screen. 4 metro apps same time with 2 full and 2 snapped. $90-$140 for basic and pro is a pretty good damn investment. Linux is free but I need to run my software so I need windows 8.
Years ago, you didn't have to care, install vanilla Ubuntu 8.04 and you're done. Later, it was Ubuntu 10.04. Then maybe debian 6 (debian squeeze) which was good when new but has an ancient kernel and ancient web browser, so it sucks (you have to know how to replace Firefox 3.5 with a less ancient version)
Now Ubuntu went on a weird track. It makes us feel uncertain (and we fear it, and we're in doubt). Also, if you stay away from all 3D accelerated desktops then you won't have to deal with them not working when your 3D driver is wrong, misconfigured or unavailable for a given computer etc.
Linux Mint 13 is the go-to choice, because it's 99.9% Ubuntu 12.04 underneath. It IS Ubuntu 12.04 for all intents and purpose.
I can recommend the Xfce edition since it has the simplest and leanest GUI of all official edition. Mate is more flexible (it's easier to move stuff around in the panels) but Xfce is more actively developed (next versions gain a few features) and you may try other small GUIs on the side (openbox, fluxbox etc.)
Don't deal with bugs, and don't deal with GUI crap, concentrate on learning the classical command line instead (ls, mkdir, chmod, chown, grep, less, piping stuff into head, tail or cut, sort.. also ps, top, kill, kill -9, killall ; ifconfig, lspci, lsusb, nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf, ctrl+alt+F1, chvt, service your-display-manager stop.. and for a newbie why not look at /etc/network/interfaces, /etc/hosts, /etc/hostname, /etc/default/grub) /usr/share/doc.. Pipe your output into something so that you can actually read it. Have fun trying to read /usr/share/doc/foo/Changelog.gz
Learn to get info from the system without googling constantly : man pages, your-command --help, apt-cache search, apt-cache show,
Also, debian vs ubuntu is irrelevant. It's mostly the same stuff.
Other distros have a bad rep (redhat/Cent OS is a dinosaur, fedora crashes) or aren't used by many people or don't have much software (I tried OpenSuse once and there was just little software compared to the very high amount in ubuntu)
Arch linux or Gentoo or something else may be great, I don't really know, but maybe try it after one year of linux experience.
I just switched from Ubuntu to Mint (yet another one based upon Ubuntu) and am actually quite pleased with it. I'm fairly well-versed with Linux at this point but nobody wants to have to repair or diagnose their "daily driver" so I used Ubuntu for quite some time.
I can safely say that Linux Mint is ready for the prime time and offers quite a bit more customization than stock Ubuntu with all the same stability. Give it a shot!
If you're coming from Windows, presumably, you want to use KDE because it's closer to Windows than GNOME is. And openSUSE is THE KDE distro to use.
It's got everything, it's supported by a large development community, it's stable, it has better QA than Ubuntu ever will, its software repositories are large and well-stocked, its GUI system management tools are very good (maybe the best). They also aren't prone to "radical" experiments in user interfaces like Ubuntu is.
I've used openSUSE for several years now after having had bad experiences with Mandriva and Ubuntu (specifically Kubuntu) in the past. No distro is perfect - currently I have issues with something on my system - I suspect the NVidia proprietary drivers and/or Firefox - that's causing frequent maxed out CPU situations. openSUSE 12.2 is the first time I've had issues of this sort. Previous releases have been perfect. Hopefully 12.3 will resolve these issues. And not everyone has them, just me and a couple other people in the openSUSE forums apparently.
But you can't go wrong with openSUSE. It's one of the top five Linux distros out there.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
If you couldn't handle Ubuntu, Arch will drive you insane
Methinks that guy may find the Slackware distro packs more punches
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
No. It doesn't, really.
Install Gentoo, if you can navigate your way out of a paper bag, then surely you can install gentoo.
Hi to 4chan, Slashdot has /g/tards among u!
I see many suggestions for going to Ubuntu for new users. I have been running OpenBSD for the last 15 years. The last Linus I ran was on 5 1/4" floppies and was pre-version 1. What is suggest for this "new user". Thanks
I started in Linux using Ubuntu, back around Breezy Badger I believe. At that time there was a fair amount of configuration that had to be done manually, but increasingly Ubuntu shifted towards doing things through GUIs with a fair amount of automation. And Ubuntu was great for its large repository of packages, etc. Eventually though I tired of having to install binaries that sometimes lacked the features I wanted--including in the kernel itself. And Ubuntu actually discourages compiling your own kernel. So I ended up switching to Gentoo, which is exactly the opposite--aside from helpful build and maintenance scripts everything is managed by the user including that compiling a kernel is a standard part of the install process. I don't think I'd recommend it for someone who hasn't really worked very much in the terminal. Even so it is a tremendous learning experience to build a kernel and one that I definitely think every serious Linux user should at some point pursue. Arch might be a good compromise, seeing as how it is based on Gentoo but uses more precompiled binaries. That said, I haven't used it myself.
Centos is a good stable choice. Some of the packages are a bit old but it is very very reliable. It would be my first choice for a novice.
Xubuntu is a reasonable choice because it has a stable if a bit primitive UI on top of a more complete and up to date set of packages.
Mint Cinnamon is probably the nicest desktop Linux available. I've recently started using it and like it a lot. I have had a few glitches with it though so it may not be quite as stable as I would like to have for a noob.
Ubuntu 12.04 LTE is another interesting choice to start with. Has the funky Unity UI but at least is missing the keylogger and other piracy issues. Enable gnome classic on the log in and you have a nice stable but comprehensive setup.
Install Gentoo. Make sure to wipe all existing operating systems before starting. Enjoy.
By which I mean, a distro that runs Gnome2. I've been using Linux as my primary desktop OS since sometime in the late 90's and I actually work as a shell programmer. I am not interested in using some new UI that is designed to run on a tablet, or that is written by some cabal of out of touch developers for their own masturbatory purposes. I want something that is easy to install that I don't have to waste a lot of time dicking around with. I assume most other people who have lives feel the same way. My 2 cents:
CentOS: A clone of Redhat Enterprise Linux. It is quite stable but does not have quite the same selection of packages as Ubuntu and its derivatives like Mint. Also, the software tends to be lag a bit behind faster churning distros like Ubuntu. But if you don't care about living on the bleeding edge, CentOS is for you.
Mint+Mate: An Ubuntu derivitave that runs the Mate UI, which is a fork of Gnome2. I'm using it now on my home PC. It's fast enough for me and I have it set up so that it looks very similar to the way I had 10.04. So far I have had zero problems with it.
In short, if you want to be on the bleeding edge and don't mind a few bugs, get Mint+Mate. Otherwise, get CentOS.
Your friend is a very bad person. Your friend should have installed Bodhi Linux or Vanilla Ubuntu. Again, your friend is a very bad person.
A better Linux than lin-sux. Apple FTW.
I have been using OpenSuSE for almost 20 years now (well is was just plain SuSE back when I started) and it is the most consistent and useable distro' I have ever used and I have used Slackware, Yggdrasil, Redhat, Mandrake, Debian and Ubuntu and always kept coming back to stable, consistent SuSE. Others will have their opinions but you really should give it a try. Between the wonderful YAST for configuring things (you don't need the command line for most of what it will do for you) and the fact that it just plain works on all my hardware (that includes wireless, HDMI, sound and SATA) you really can't go wrong. They have many repo's for installing software to support proprietary things like WMA files and others. You have the option of a network install (very small install cd then all the packages are downloaded from online repo's) or can download a DVD image for most non-proprietary packages. You have the option of many different desktop managers (KDE, Gnome, XFCE, LXDE, and others) that all have great default configurations out of the box. Try it, and don't listen to the nay-sayers who will whine about the supposed things with Novell and Microsoft, OpenSuSE is independent of that stuff...
Buddha of compassion
To expand on a couple points:
Some distros make it more or less easy to install rights-restricted software, like the stuff you need to play mp3s or DVDs. Neither Fedora/RHEL nor Debian allow nonfree software in their repos, but it's generally a fairly painless process to add a repo that does.
Ubuntu will, IIRC, ask you during the install process if you want to install such things, and Linux Mint comes with the media codecs by default. For other distributions you should research this issue.
Fedora and Ubuntu are the "big" distros, more or less, although Mageia seems to be climbing up DistroWatch lately. I had written off that project as dead when its Corporate Overlord bit the dust, but it's probably worth checking out. I hope I may say with enough accuracy that it is of similar quality to OpenSuse.
Fedora and Ubuntu have the biggest corporate backing and are likely to represent the most polished experiences. Ubuntu has its own way of doing things, most notably they have implemented at least two desktop environments (Unity and UNR) and their own startup process. Startup tends to be one of those big differences between distributions, but it's something you can safely ignore as a n00b user.
Fedora and Ubuntu use incompatible packaging systems, which tends to be irrelevant for a couple of reasons that aren't worth going over here. Generally you should figure that [a] any distro that is described as being derived from any other distro is package-compatible, and [b] it's very uncommon to need to install a package outside of your distribution's package management tools. We don't download software off websites, pretty much everything that you would ever want to install comes in the box.
It's hard to come up with too many more big important differences between these things, really. Desktop environments make a pretty big difference. Distros, not so much, especially among the big players.
Oh, and I forgot to mention. If you ever want to give yourself a real education in Linux, try Linux From Scratch. You'll probably even survive the experience. By contrast, slackware will be a friendly and trivial introduction, and Gentoo... ...sorry, my Gentoo joke is still compiling :(
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
that changed when BSD was confirmed to be dying.
Linux Mint 14
Linux Mint was the first distro I used, and I think it's superior to Ubuntu as a first linux fistro (especially now with Unity). On top of that, it's a great distro in general, so you might not want to switch from it! In any case, it's a great starting distro, and then later you can move onto Arch.
If you wanted Ubuntu with E17, the natural choice would be Bodhi Linux, which is the actual E17 flavor.
http://www.bodhilinux.com/
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
real computer men never customize, cause they use lots of diff computers, and if you go away from the default, you spend all your time on customization
in othe words, if you care about customization, you have way to much time on your hands
Ubuntu has a terrible support community and the packages are usually full of silly bugs that no other distro has. I know this sounds like Troll bait... But the reasoning behind my statement is that they consistently suggest the most bizarre fixes for even common problems. If there is a "root of the problem" they will never attack that, but rather suggest outlandish (and nearly always incorrect) fixes for all the child problems instead. This is not productive or enjoyable. Ubuntu refuses to cooperate with upstream projects - they'd rather ignore them and cry when things don't work.
If you like Ubuntu, try Debian or some sort of direct Debian derivative instead. Unlike what many people like to say, Ubuntu is *not* Debian.
You mentioned that you like the look of Arch Linux - great distribution and excellent community. Unfortunately your skills are not up to the level that *mainline* Arch requires, but this does not prevent you from using a friendlier derivative. I suggest Cinnarch as the best friendly derivative because unlike Manjaro or Chakra it uses the main Arch repos instead trying to mix (well actually, that's not completely true, but for the purpose of the argument it is) and become broken as a result.
Another really good choice is Fedora - great distribution and excellent community. There are a lot of RPM haters but the truth is that anybody who has used a *modern* RPM based system knows that common arguments thrown up by crotchety old neck-beards and rabid Ubuntu fanbois are moot. There are a lot of haters of the new installer and not without reason - but keep in mind that most of that hate is purely hype. Of course there is going to be problems with the first iteration of any software.
Why Linux?
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
I'm fascinated by the volume of posts to this. I must say that the vast majority of posts remind me of "baby duck syndrome" (the first big thing that moves is mama!).
I would download Zorin OS to get your feet wet. It is fantastic! Very easy to use for a Windows user.
If you crashed an OS as the result of copying files, and claim that the hardware is fine, you're clearly hiding back story. The problem is probably not which distro that you're using, but rather computers in general.
Debian is my favorite distro - for servers. it is absolutely not suitable for a desktop for a novice. in fact, I have decades of Unix administration and systems programming experience and *I* don't even use Debian for my desktop. Debian has too many rough edges in the desktop realm, and as of 2013 A.D. there are still useful non-free wares for which free software doesn't exist. sorry, but that's the real world. Don't tell a novice he must suffer and waste hours of time and have incomplete functionality for getting stuff done because it's against your RMS-religion. That non-free software of which you have so much contempt will help the novice (as it does me) get stuff done. I wish there were free alternatives, but there are not. The real world is not as nice as we'd like.
Why Linux, after all? If you want to learn about system administration, NetBSD is a good choice. It is not a good choice if you are looking for a desktop OS, however: it can be done, but it is not done for you.
Don't ask any more questions.
Arch is fine if you want to DIY.. it's not like Windows though. Once it's set up there is always an issue. Plug in a USB and away it goes? Forget about it - spend precious time reading up on it, set it up, only to forget how to do it next time you set up your machine or something goes wrong with it.
Laptop tools break, hibernating - rebuild the ramdisk, Pulse - good luck.
Mint just works out of the box.. then why the hell have I been using Arch for two years? The community is very good - a bunch of sarcastic dicks at times.. and will ignore you if you're a newb - but they really know their stuff. Hop onto the Ubuntu IRC and they stop short of licking Windows. (no pun)
Gentoo is a nice compromise with respect to the community - but the learning curve is much higher.
Both have good Wiki - Gentoo edging it. (the Arch Wiki can be a bit vague at times)
Stay away from Ubuntu. If you care about the future of FOSS at all - stay the hell away.
There's plenty of decent debian derivatives that take the pain away - even my phone runs one FFS.
Go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Linux_distributions
Print out a section.
Put it on a wall.
Throw a dart.
Load that distro.
Post to Slashdot and you'll hear a bunch of good and a bunch of bad about the 'choice' you made.
Seriously though, research some of the mainstream ones (Fedora, OpenSuse, X/K/Ubuntu, etc.) and see what they say. Poke around on some of their forums. Ask the people (and trolls) residing on those forums why you should choose that particular distro. Just remind them that you are not trolling, just looking for honest input.
"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet." General James Mattis
the best troll ever.
Run knoppix from USB or CDROM and you've got something almost unbreakable with most applications people look for in a distro. You can have a read/write area on USB or if you use the CDROM (or DVD) you can use a USB stick as a persistent home area so any changes you want to keep will be there on the next boot.
Since it's debian based it shares a lot in common with Mint and a few others suggested here.
It will run on nearly any x86 machine from the original pentium up, and it's a useful tool for dealing with MS Windows machines that won't start up or other tasks you want to do outside of the MS Windows OS (clone disks, resize partitions etc).
Since he's presumably not talking about using it as a server, he could take PC-BSD and it would work just fine.
1. The objective is (as I understand it) to learn Linux, not a particular distro.
2. CentOS is very easy to set up, and it's rock-solid.
3. What are these key differences in config to which you allude but do not name? Last time I installed CentOS, the only difference I could see with upstream was the removal of the RHL name and logo. Seriously, I'm curious.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Thing is that GNOME 2 is no longer supported. People who want to continue w/ it would have to either go w/ MATE, or risk GNOME 2 falling behind in terms of not being able to support newer software that requires GTK3 or later. At least, migrating to MATE, people would have a fork that is being maintained. GhostBSD, for instance, has just released v3 of their OS w/ GNOME 2, but announced that this is their last release w/ GNOME 2, and that future distros will bundle MATE. Centos will have to determine whether they too want to either go w/ MATE, GNOME 3 or whatever else. My suspicion is that they will just be following whatever RHEL does, so let's see how that works
Depends on what you want to do. If learning how to grope your way around, it boils down to how the system is made; and there is no better place to start than LFS.
- Point Made.
Earlier today I wanted to post in THIS thread and recommend Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop. "Somehow" it went mad and I posted under the thread below this article, about MariaDB. Apologies for any confusion.
Linux Mint has become the new Ubuntu, where almost everything runs straight after the install, first time.
On a distro, I prefer the ones that require a separate root a/c to be created, rather than one that assigns the default account that is created as the root account. I then use that root account only to install or update new software, so that the changes permeate throughout the OS to all user accounts. I tend to create multiple user accounts for different purposes, as well as more for other family members, so I prefer that the root account be separate. I don't want any of the user accounts to screw up the base system.
I would say go for Arch !
It is NOT an easy distro to handle, but as you have time and want to spend time reading their documentation, which is really complete, it's the best choice for you ! Just have another PC to read documentation while installing .
And beside this i love that rolling release system.
Give it a try !
Viewing video in your terminal is actually possible, but you are limited in resolution to how many characters fit on your screen. For most people, that's going to vary between "very, very low-res" and "what the hell am I even looking at?" (inclusive). However, most terminals will also let you shrink the text fairly arbitrarily. Performance shouldn't be any worse than any other framebuffer video.
links2 -g will get you web browsing with images in the terminal. A little clever shell scripting will get you YouTube via mplayer. With a little luck you can develop this into a new hobby -- finding abstruse ways to skin cats.
Linux From Scratch, www.linuxfromscratch.org
This is not going to be running the first couple of days but if, as you say, you want to learn about GNU/linux this is the ultimate start. This is not that much operating system but more of a book. It will show the basic components like install the GNU software, build your own kernel, compile your compiler, set up a package manager (if you want).
If you want to learn. This is the way. It will be frustrating as hell at times but you will learn a lot. If after all that you feel like you messed up and want try a normal distro, pick any of the somewhat more advanced distros like Arch, Debian or Gentoo and you will feel right at home.
Asking Slashdot, you'll get vastly differing opinions but you'll likely get some interesting information which will likely be useful.
However... the only way to really know which distro is "right" for you is to try several and pick one.
So I would suggest geting out your favorite Virtualization software (VirtualBox, KVM, etc) and try several distros at once. Find out what you like.
I recently did this back in August 2012. Here are the distros I liked:
*Mint Debian 201204
Fedora 17 (18 has a yucky installer)
OpenSuSE 12.1
*Debian (Squeeze, Wheezy, Sid)
Arch (fastest package installs by far, no sound in a VirtualBox VM)
*Pear Linux 5 (looks just like a Mac, except a Pear in place of an Apple. Fun to play with.)
Slackware 13
Vector Linux7.0 (based on Slackware, has package management. Fun, snappy.)
Least recommended: Gentoo. Attempting a base install + KDE4 was a THREE FULL DAY compile, after which X refused to start. Very frustrating.
2nd least recommended: FreeBSD, only because there's no GUI by default, and I couldn't find instructions to install one.
Regardless of which you choose in the end, best of luck to you. :)
I would recommend Debian. Stable, fast and clean look. Haven't had any problems on PC. On NB was issue with wifi, because of drivers. Mint is also good, because it is made to easier migrate from win. It looks like win and many things are quite intuitive. Though mint doesn't motivate you to use terminal ;D
Don't tell a novice he must suffer and waste hours of time and have incomplete functionality for getting stuff done because it's against your RMS-religion.
Today is "make up shit about RMS day". Again. Just like every day.
RMS things proprietary software is bad and should be avoided where possible. He even stated for the record that he hasn't avoided it completely: prior to Linux making GNU self hosting, all of GNU was developed on proprietary unix systems.
It's now got to the self hosting stage and *he* can run a 100% free software system. He also advocates strongly using Free Software where possible. He also evnagelises the many benefits and user friendliness[*] of free software.
Put please, stop making up crap about RMS.
[*]Software than never stabs you in the back is friendlier than the alternative.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
On a primary computer, I find it makes sense to go with a distribution on which things actually work, since there is plenty to learn even then.
In my own case, on my primary machine I run Ubuntu, but with XMonad as a window manager and I do all my disk operations in XTerm. This has forced me to learn a great deal, and indeed configuring XMonad is not a small undertaking for a nondeveloper.
On my secondary machine I alternate between Debian and Arch, initially with the intent of eventually displacing Ubuntu as my primary OS, but those installations still have things not working which on Ubuntu just work, so I may just stick with what I've got. On your primary computer, you won't have the patience to have essentials not work for weeks on end.
The point of this particular thread-let is what to learn if you're after an IT career. I don't know of any respectable Unix admin that would choose Fedora over CentOS in the enterprise.
CentOS (and Scientific Linux) are both well-respected, stable OSs built from the RHEL source. It's basically Redhat without all of the licensing silliness.
As was mentioned in another thread, Unix is best learned in a VM that's regularly snapshotted. That way, if you hork things up, you can revert without a lot of pain. Having to set up a system from scratch because you broke it and keep breaking it will dissuade new users from learning essential skills.
I also suggest that if someone wants to learn to be a Unix admin, learn the vi editor. Don't use a gui-based crutch until you're proficient in vi. I know a lot of people like emacs, but vi is an essential tool.
Learning to write shell scripts is also an essential skill, but stick with a mainstream shell. Csh is godawful, and zsh is too obscure for the enterprise. Ksh implementations used to be very spotty, especially when moving scripts between Solaris and Linux.
Learn some of the other tools like awk, sed, grep, cut, sort and uniq.
There's a huge shortage of decent Unix admins and a glut of Windows admins. Most of the Unix Admins we interview can't script unless they're stealing from something someone else wrote and most don't understand the innards of how the OS even works.
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
CentOS is also pretty horrible for doing gaming and running it on laptops. It's an enterprise OS and doesn't have the consumer-friendly bells and whistles one sees on Ubuntu.
I run CentOS on my servers at work and Ubuntu on my linux box at home
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
...or maybe even Xubuntu/Lubuntu.
http://nathanlindsell.blogspot.com/
Plain and simply the easiest distro for those migrating to Linux for the first time
/home directory on a separate partition during the initial install. This way you have the option to completely re-install or upgrade your OS without losing your user data at some point in the future.
Use 13 because it is a Long Term Release model, and choose either the 32 or 64 bit version according to your needs
Although not new to Linux, I've been using Mint for years as my primary desktop, and it does 99% of everything I need to do. For the remaining 1%, I use Crossover or Virtualbox
I've recently installed it for my fiance on her laptop, which previously ran Vista, and not only does it run BETTER than Vista ever did, she's completely happy, and has never used Linux previously
I've used Knoppix, Puppy, SUSE, Centos, Ubuntu, Mepis, Arch, Vector, and even DSL, but for migrating to Linux with little or no previous Linux experience, you simply cannot beat Linux Mint.
The only other word of advice is to check up on how to set up your
Differences between how you act when some one is watching, and how you act when no one is watching, define who you are
e17 desktop uses a Ubuntu base and includes no blot at all install the packages you like.
Try Linux Mint! It never gave me any problem. Welcome into the Linux's World!
I'm neither "experienced Linux user" nor "very new to Linux", somewhere in between.
When I looked for Linux as a secondary desktop (internet banking, development) I tried Ubuntu first.
It drove me mad with the "ubuntu one" interface.
Tried SuSe Linux, and still using it. While being free, it also has a bit of commercial polish.
Ubuntu is bloatware. I suffered with it for six months before wising up - I mean it boots slower than fracking Windoze XP! I discovered Crunchbang and it rawks - it is everything that I expected Linux to be. You may find the default UI boring for man, it boots in less than 64 meg and so swiftly. You can tailor the UI if you must but damnit, screw the bells and whistles, i just wanna run my apps! Highly recommended.
First thing to learn on the way GNU/Linux is you should be calling it GNU/Linux.
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#why
If you just want linux, grab your kernel of choice here
https://www.kernel.org/
If you have the time and motivation: go with LFS to learn stuff
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/
Seriously, you're looking to play around - buy a new Rev. B Raspberry Pi and get into the gooey goodness of Hardware (if you want to), Peripheral Cables, *and* a unique Distro that was built for experimentation based on Debian.
Other big advantages: If you make sure you backup / shift any essential data files, mucking it up beyond belief will only result in your having to burn a new image to an sd card. (Not format a hard drive and do a major reinstall.) Want to mess with Arch? It's a matter of getting a different SD card, burning the image for Raspberry Pi, slot it and power it up. Lots of support for hardware hacks, etc. Big community of experimenters trying this-and-that. Let's say you blow the whole darn thing: You're only out $35 plus shipping! :D
Disadvantages: you need another computer with capability to burn images to SD cards if you're seriously experimenting. Only 512K RAM, fixed, about 300+K available. Documentation can be a little confusing, since there's two different revisions which have gone through several hardware changes (had a big problem that I thought was a blown board, only to find I was led-by-link to an earlier revision of Raspbian.) You'll need an Ethernet cable and plug in, until/unless you get a USB WiFi working. You're more-or-less groundbound (until/unless you get a low power LCD display and set up your own powering connections...) No real-time clock; you'd have to homebrew your own on top of it. You can spend a lot more on the peripherals and cables than you will on the computer itself.
(Spoken as one who's played with Ubuntu, Mint, Puppy, and now playing with both Raspbian and Raspbmc and now have both a media center *and* an experimental playground.)
Asking this question on Slashdot is akin to opening Pandora's Box.
Learning to write shell scripts is also an essential skill, but stick with a mainstream shell. Csh is godawful, and zsh is too obscure for the enterprise. Ksh implementations used to be very spotty, especially when moving scripts between Solaris and Linux.
Learn some of the other tools like awk, sed, grep, cut, sort and uniq.
There's a huge shortage of decent Unix admins and a glut of Windows admins. Most of the Unix Admins we interview can't script unless they're stealing from something someone else wrote and most don't understand the innards of how the OS even works.
zsh isn't too obscure for the enterprise...it comes with RHEL. zsh tricks are better left after learning sh, bash, and ksh though.
Let me tell you how I learned about Linux as a desktop operating system, then I'll recommend how to avoid some of the pitfalls.
In 1996 I installed Slackware distribution on my PC. It was challenging. I learned a lot. Sure it was as user-friendly as wrestling with a rabid bear. But I felt very accomplished once it was up and running. I was hooked on that. My experience prior to this with computers was limited to Windows 3.11 and just enough Unix to get through an introductory Fortran class.
The next year, I started using a Suse Linux distribution. That added to my knowledge because they do things differently. Then I got a small laptop and installed Debian on it. That worked much better for me. It isn't as difficult to install as Slackware. Apt-get (a package installer in Debian-based distributions) takes care of dependencies fairly automatically.
Over the years I've also had experience installing and/or using Red Hat, Fedora, Linux Mint, Puppy Linux, Suse, Arch, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Linux Mint, and I've built several Linux from Scratch systems. On these systems I've used various desktop environments and window managers such as E17, XFCE, KDE, Gnome2, Unity, FVWM, Fluxbox, CTWM, etc.
If you're determined to learn Linux I recommend:
1. Ubuntu (or one of its variants) for a beginner.
2. Slackware (or maybe Arch) when you're more advanced and ready to be challenged.
3. Build a Linux From Scratch system if you really want to know how it all fits together, but not until you're ready for it.
Here's my final advice on the matter. Run! Run to FreeBSD as fast as you can! Save Yourself!
Seriously consider trying Debian Wheezy. I use it as my desktop and have been enjoying it a lot. It is pretty bleeding edge and will get you closer to the OS then Ubuntu will. As much as I love Arch I could not justify the time spent administering my desktop anymore.
http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/6.0.6/i386/iso-cd/debian-6.0.6-i386-netinst.iso
Casteism
Overally, Ubuntu 12.10 is the perfect distro for me and I use it for work and play. It's also nice that Steam installs quite well on it and I can even play some Team Fortress 2 and CounterStrike on it. However, DO run "sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping" on it first thing after install. NASTY feature.
The answer is simple. Just use the latest version of Ubuntu. Ignore anyone who recommends otherwise. And get onto freenode on IRC (install xchat), and the nice folks in #ubuntu will help you if you ask politely and are patient. There are currently 1775 users in that channel right now, so it can get busy.
--- wad
PclinuxOS.. or Puppy linux are the best and easiest for the newbie to linux. support is good and also something new to try..... http://www.pclinuxos.com/ Enjoy, Jim Douglass ACØE Garden City, Kansas ac0e@arrl.net
James Douglass Garden City, Kansas Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle
I'm becoming more and more of a Mint fan. It's easy to set up, looks nice and doesn't have Unity! It has debian at it's core, just like Ubuntu, but without most of the bullshit.
640k ought to be enough for anyone.
but for what?
I picked up a phrasebook.
It's called "Linux: phrasebook"
it's by Scott Granneman
from Addison Wesley from 2006
Their networking stuff is a little wonky
trying to get it to work with windows.
But it's most if not all the basics
(for command line interface)
New to Mac? Which OS X???
Then Slackware is the distro for you. Forget all the rest.
Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with Ubuntu, but, if it's not working for you, try Fedora. Download LIVE CD version that will fit on a USB drive. Have someone help you set it up to make it bootable. There's a prog called Linux Live USB. http://www.linuxliveusb.com/ That works pretty well.
THEN plug it in and boot it up. If you like it, most of them can be installed on your hdd with just a click.
That no onea has mentioned the fact that he is using E17 as a desktop enviroment. Enlightment is a great project but is lacking in developers and testers and the 17 version is still very buggy. Instead of reinstalling your distro, just install kde or gnome, they are not bad, pay no atenttion to the whinning jerks here that say that gnome is all ruined now, it is just not true.
Look, I have read through much of these comments and I have to agree with the people saying it is a preference. I do NOT like Ubuntu, but I love MintOS which is a spin off of Ubuntu. It is just friendlier, and works great for my entire "Winblows" type family. Took a weekend to change everyone over, took a couple days for everyone to know where "mail" and "internet" are... but from there... smooth sailing. Good thing about an Ubuntu base at this time is that "Steam" the gaming platform, is officially supported there now if you are into that.
My recommendation for Noobs, or even moderate users is to TRY MintOS... if you want something more stable than an Ubuntu base, and do not need the thrill of having the new features built into KDE and such... go with something like CentOS. CentOS is a RedHat based Distro, that is very stable, and supported by a huge community. I use it for our servers at work at around 250+ servers... and never have issues (of course I am not using X, but I have used CentOS X environment (for you noobs, that is the GUI interface) and it is not bad.
Point is there are hundreds of distros you could try, many of those having live CDs you can test it with. Stay with KDE if coming directly from Windows... it will be more familiar to you. As to you people bashing (not to be confused with #) the other distros... everyone has their own preference and use of the system, bashing just shows ignorance.
Where there are windows... there are doors to get the F out.
I deleted Ubuntu last year (or maybe the year before I can't remember) after using it since Feisty, because I got fed up of the way it got more and more windowsey, and apparently harder to configure than before unless you use the gui tools - what finally killed it for me was the new Gnome UI. Installed Arch, haven't looked back since. Before Ubuntu I ran Debian for quite a while on my old laptop, loved it, Mandrake on my desktop, Slackware until I decided I didn't like the attitude of Slackware folks, before that I tried Fedora, SuSe (pre Novell thingy), others I can't remember. Started off with Red Hat 6.2.
Don't like RPM based distro's much because sooner or later you have to hack RPM's.
My 6 or 7 year old laptop goes from cold to LXDE in just over 30 seconds with Arch installed almost straight out of the box. Configuration was mostly easy - just a few text files to edit and a bunch of stuff to install, and the guides on Archwiki are very helpful - not perfect, I did have to hunt around to resolve some things. So I can start doing stuff faster than ever. Happy.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
If you were never impressed with Windows from 3.0-8, install Ubuntu. I'm in this camp, while they are/were the defacto standard I find MS's UI designs nonsensical. But if you think Windows 95-Vista had an excellent UI and were blown away at their intuitiveness, install Mint. You can get more of the desktop shortcuts, quicklaunch bar, and crammed 300px x 300px start menu by using Mint. If you miss that. Mint also has slower updates due to lack of server infrastructure, a sparse dev team, and does not offer automatic in-place upgrades. Ubuntu has none of those problems. For me there's only two choices I care about, Ubuntu and CentOS. Both are solid. Plenty of people religiously hate Ubuntu's Unity interface, but Ubuntu just works.
http://www.accountkiller.com/en/delete-slashdot-account Stop visiting Slashdot.
Your attempt will likely fail. But what you learn in the process will be priceless. So you should go for it anyway. Arch has pretty well detailed docs. If you have a second pc or something that you can read these with while you install you should do that. Otherwise links and ctrl-f1 though ctrl-f6+ are your friend.
I've used various Linux distros over the years, dating back to 1995. I've installed Linux for newbees on occasion too. Ubuntu set the bar to a new high for ease of install, auto-configuration, updates, and installing additional software. And Ubuntu 12.04 is still a good choice. A few years ago, I followed the path from Ubuntu to Linux Mint at version10.04 LTS, and am currently running Linux Mint 14 (cinnamon). I recently had the pleasure of installing Linux Mint 14 for a linux-newbee. A 73-yr old retired engineer. And he loves it! So, if your looking to try something new, only a bit different to Ubuntu, then I suggest you try Linux Mint 14 (cinnamon). It is very easy to install. And you will not be disappointed.
This is one of the simplest and easiest to get started with.....it has E-17 Enlightenment and right off the bat, a nice Simple fairly quick Browser Midori. It comes with a "WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT &nice clear instructions on how to set it up. It initially had just a few basic APS plus a nice easy APS LIST, complete with descriptions of what each is about and does and a very easy INSTALL setup on the page with eaxh spas discription. It has Forums, news items and comments with a bunch of users giving you straight opinions on many of the aps! Enjoy it.!! Another good Linux O/S is MINT, AGAIN LIGHT AND FAST. LOOK UP VARIOUS systems Videos on the net too! But Arch is not for Newbies....I know 'cause I'm one! If you want to go Ubuntu....take a Look at ULTIMATE EDITION too.
Salix, (a slackware based distro) is now my favourite environment. Espcially the XFCE environment. It's fast and stable.
If you are fine with investing hours in learning archlinux and don't mind spending another times after updates that break your system (and if you perhaps even enjoy it), Arch is for you. In the beginning it will most likely be hard, but Arch has amazing wiki and community allowing you to easily solve problems. After some time you'll learn what to do to not break your system after every update or even how to fix it. I myself found out months after running updates that I actually have to check for config file changes manually. Also watching the arch update mailing list is essential. It will save you lots of trouble.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way explain what Archlinux is and what it is not. Consider the page before trying Arch for yourself.
...Puppy!
There is only one true GNU/Linux distribution out there it's called GNU/Linux CHOICE :)
For all newbies out there, just remember:
Linux is an Ocean - it's so easy to get lost or simply drown.
Start with small steps.. start with dual boot, live CD... or smth like that. Read, learn... and soon you will forget about windows.
On the rpmfusion.org website is a mention of rpmfusion spins. The most recent entry is a spin of Fedora 18, created in Russia.
This spin has all the codecs that you would find with Ubuntu, includes chromium, flash player, and libdvdcss2 (ask about it).
There are some extras too, in the way of tools for developers.
I was a skeptic, but when I installed it last January 15th, 2012, I did not know what to expect. What I got was a super stable release, with everything in it that I needed for a desktop and laptop.
http://rpmfusion.org/Spins and under it
RFRemix
RFRemix is a Linux distribution developing in Russia and based on Fedora, RPM Fusion and Russian Fedora repositories. All codecs, flash and proprietary video drivers are available from the box. Your can download installable DVDs and LiveCDs with GNOME, KDE, XFCE and LXDE. DVD contains full language packs as in original Fedora. Default language for LiveCD is Russian, but it can be changed.
I selected the DVD which is in English, and after the installation was complete, I pointed Chromium to my preferred website(s).
All Fedora operating system updates are from Fedora and rpmfusion.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
If you want to learn Linux, take an old machine and install Slackware. That's how I did it in the mid 90s. It took me about a month. If you want to learn how to use linux, I'd say try Mint KDE. It's flexible, user adjustable (enough to drive you crazy), but can be used from the first install, before you learn how t do much with it.
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Penguinclaw here :D
My pennies worth is check out the forums of the distros suggested as you will probably be relying on them for some answers as you find your feet. Are they noob friendly? Are they friendly?
Now IMHO Ubuntu is nice but as mentioned is based on Debian unstable, plus their forum is so vast that it can be difficult to find the right help... all noobs are pointed to them. If you like Ubuntu I believe Linux mint is apparently the way to go and the forum is good.
Fedora is much more stable than it used to be and also has a great forum. There is even a rolling release version called Tumblweed which will mean that once installed you should never have to reinstall or upgrade the distro.
For me though openSUSE would be my recommendation. The latest release is stunning and stable. You have, as mentioned, the choice of desktop environment , community repo's making unmaintained software easy to install (Nvidia drivers, libdvdcss2.....) and the forum is a friendly bunch. This is the free version of SUSE but is basically the same but without the commercial support which you won't need if you're keen to learn anyway.
Also don't forget you can install a good stable Linux distro on one partition and maybe play around with a more complex or unstable version as needed..... keeping your all important data safe as you learn. There will be many howto's on this elsewhere but multi booting is such a great way to experience the linux/bsd world :)
I have ran with the version Ubuntu not a huge fan, lots of nice features although not really what i was looking for. If you are looking for something easy to use i prefer to use Linux Peppermint. Really nice OS, still in development, although installed it for my 5 year old and he can function with the OS very well, and it just works. I installed it in an old HP desktop with Old P4 running 1 gb of ram and the system perfoms well with the peppermint.