Which LINUX should I use ?

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nach p

Journeyman
Hey ,doodz I am using Xp sp2 .I want to install Linux as 2nd OS on hard disk.
I want to know that which Linux should be appropriate (Installation as well as learning point of view )for me as NEWBIES ,so that I will download it.
Please ,Help me guys.
Thank U in advance
 

mehulved

18 Till I Die............
Aww come on please post it in Open Source. Please search this it's been posted n number of times in Open Source. You can go for
!) Fedora Core 3 or 4
2) OpenSuse 10
3) Ubuntu/Kubuntu 5.10
4) Mandriva 2006.
All are newbie friendly. I would suggest Ubuntu/Kubuntu 5.10. But, all are equally good.
 

suhasingale

Journeyman
Go for SUSE 10 OSS (Open Source Software) its really cool and free. The difference in both paid and free version is that paid version contains some more softwares integrated which are not open source.
 

mehulved

18 Till I Die............
No linux will support windows executables i.e. exe files out of the box. But, there are softwares like wine, cadega, crossoveroffice, etc which let you run windows programs.
You can use cadega for running windows games. I haven't tried it myself so I can't say how good is it. But, why do you want to run exe's on linux? Linux has so much softwares itself.
 

paul_007

Padawan
actually i'm not worried about softwares ,i'm worried about games cause CD and DVDs have exe files to install the games ,how should i tackle it??

and one more question is linux and its apps are also resource hungry like XP?
 

ujjwal

Padawan
If you have lots of software/games on CD's which require windows, then it would be better you run them on windows itself, atleast untill you find their equivalents in linux. You can run many windows games in linux using cedega, but results may not be perfect.

I would recommend Ubuntu or Mandrake as distributions.

Regarding resource usage, the results vary by a huge amount. Taken by themselves, linux applications are generally quite efficient and not resource hungry, but many distributions use desktop environments like Gnome or KDE, which being very feature packed, will run as slow as/slower than windows XP. But the good thing is that you can switch to lighter environments to run your applications in, which could run faster than Windows 95. So basically a linux desktop can run as slow/fast as you want it to.

Switching to these may require some manual configuration, and if speed is important, you can consider a distribution like Vector Linux.
 

digen

Youngling
Well the question is really subjective.But from my experience a Ubuntu or a SuSE 10 would be the way to go.Starting out with GUI & then moving up the ladder to CLI.

I must say the installations I've done so far (on desktops as well as laptops ) Ubuntu detected hardware out of the box.Thats a boon for a newbie if you ask me.

Oh btw if you have problems with downloading then maybe you could order one for FREE ! Though it would take sometime perhaps a few days for the shipped CD to reach you.

*shipit.ubuntu.com/
 

mehulved

18 Till I Die............
Before ordering the cd's do check with your city's LUG's if they do have a set of distribution you want. For mumbai, the ILUG has put up a list of available cd's on its site, you can contact them and get. I have myself got 3 set of ubuntu cd's for x86, if anyone in mumbai wants it I can give it to them.
 

Satissh S

Youngling
Well,
=> He said he wanted to learn while using linux, so that rulz out xandros, Linspire and even mandriva to some extent.
=> Based on the community support available and the amount of repositories available, he can go in for either Fedora or Ubuntu or gentoo. (although SuSe does have some places such as usr-local-bin for apt repos, it isn't as exhaustive, in my humble opinion)
=> He mentionned that he's a newbie, so that probably rulz out gentoo and slackware.
=> Several windows based progs such as thunderbird and eclipse aren't available right aftr the install in ubuntu whereas they 're in FC4. So it's better if he installs Fedora 4 and follow this guide.
Fedora Core 4 Installation Notes

What say?? May'be FC is the best distro for newbies?
 

mehulved

18 Till I Die............
FC4 is great but I find hardware detection is far better in Ububtu and somewhat of the installation procedure is simpler IMO in Ubuntu. Also, for a complete newbie, apt and synaptic are a very easy way of managing softwares. But, if he he wants to go in for learning how linux works and stuff, I guess fedora and OpenSuse will do equally well. I find the online support equal for OpenSUSE as well as FC. But, I do find a lot of books on FC which aren't available for any other linux distros. Last week I went to search for books on Gentoo/ FreeBSD 6. None of them were available but there were books in plenty for FC. So, that would be one point in favour of FC.
 

eddie

El mooooo
imho you should go for Ubuntu or Kubuntu. It has a kind of thing going for itself. Everone wants to install it on their system...and for a good reason actually. It is much better then lots of its peers, especially when it comes to hardware detection and the sheer amount of packages available (Debian backend helps the matter). Then you have good docs available and a nice forum.

tech_your_future said:
Last week I went to search for books on Gentoo. None of them were available...
You looked in wrong place :)
*www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/index.xml
*www.gentoo.org/doc/en/index.xml
*gentoo-wiki.com/Main_Page
*forums.gentoo.org/

Everything you would ever want to know (and lots more) about Gentoo is in there. Gentoo is one of the best documented distros. In fact that is what makes it special! Why would anyone want to buy a book then? Bad prospect for publishers = No books ;)
 

mehulved

18 Till I Die............
I don't mean e-books. I can't sit and read for a long time on my computer. I need a smell of printed paper. So, I prefer books rather than e-books, though gentoo has quite a lagre online documentation, you cannot find any book on it availble in the market.
 

eddie

El mooooo
tech_your_future said:
I don't mean e-books. I can't sit and read for a long time on my computer. I need a smell of printed paper. So, I prefer books rather than e-books, though gentoo has quite a lagre online documentation, you cannot find any book on it availble in the market.
They are not ebooks. They are just the docs or relevant part from man pages and how to implement them. If you don't like reading on PC then you can take print outs. It will cost you more or less the same when compared to buying books.
 

mehulved

18 Till I Die............
Yeah well that has crossed my mind but my biggest problem is setting up my printer under all distros of linux. I have even consulted my LUG but still no solution. And if I go to print it outside it is gonna be too costly.
 
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