What's the best version of Linux OS?

[Elie]

Hi Guys,

I'm going to install Linux on a 30 GB hard drive, and I'm wondering with so many of them now available which is the easiest and most compatible version out there.

Thanks in advance!

Regards,
Elie the

[Sasq]

Elie, that question can cause more arguments then religon

if your wanting something quick and easy to install. and just to play with, go with an RPM based package like Fudora (Red Hat)

If your brave/crazy/feel like going into the deep end first, go for gentoo

if you want to just play and take a peak try a knoppix boot cd.

[bsdgeek]

Gentoo will make you go crazy, it's definitely not for the beginner and it even had me going in circles the first time through. The documentation is a bit lacking here and there.

For the easiest, go Mandrake.

For a good balance of learning with ease, try FreeBSD (Ok, I know you said best Linux). The documentation there is excellent and as a result it's simple to pick up.

[Sasq]

bah BSD out, out heathen out damn spot

[Elie]

Thanks guys, but what about... SuSE ??

http://www.wormwang.net/mirrors/SuSE/9/

It apperantly detects everything on your computer and has a full compliment of software.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Elie

[Sasq]

To be honest not played with it, and have heard conflicting reports about it.

Personally I'm stuck in a RedHat world - seems to be the national standard here.

I'd really think about Fedora/mandrake (thanks bsd for reminding me) to be honest they may not be the *best* distro, but they have a lot of support and most how to's have a RH and/or Mandrake section.

[Elie]

OK I'll check Fedora/mandrake out, is there a recommended download site for it?

Thanks a million

Cheers,
Elie

[Sasq]

curse me and my bad sunday spelling

http://fedora.redhat.com/download/ here, mandrake erm dunno

[RC Agent]

Take your pick.

http://www.linuxiso.org

[Elie]

Excellent, downloading now!

Thanks alot Sasq! and RC Agent



Cheers,
Elie

[TnT]

I use Gentoo, and contrary to what bsdgeek says, I think the documentation is excellent. I just followed their guides step-by-step and everything went smoothly. Also every single problem I've had with Linux in general I found the answer in Gentoo's forums. The Tips, Tricks & Documentation forum I'd recommend to any linux user as there is a lot of great stuff in it.

My friend swears by SuSE. But after using Mandrake for about a month I got fed up with RPMs. Everytime I got an RPM I had dependency problems and had to go tracking down the correct packages. Also the RPMs would sometimes not have the correct features compiled in, so I'd have to grab the source and compile it myself. Both those problems are solved by Gentoo's Portage.

Another good site is http://www.distrowatch.org

[Sasq]

with RH and Mandrake I think, there is a loverly little program called up2date which will fetch, install and fetch the deps as well.

I agree with BSD gentoo is not realy for the newbi to nix, unless they have really close and I mean next door neighbour type access to someone who knows nix.

[RC Agent]

For Fedora, I use yum for updates.

[spadnos]

I recently tried Mepis, and it's excellent.

I booted the liveCD on my laptop, and got a fully functional dexktop, in the native 1400x1050 resolution, with all the expected programs available (OpenOffice, Mozilla, misc games, misc sysadmin tools, development tools, etc.) There are 3 extra buttons on the desktop - Mepis Control Center, Mepis Information Center, and Mepis Installation Center. Just click, and install

The install had one problem on my laptop - the CPU fan would get shut off, and never get turned back on. Once I installed it (with judicious use of an upside-down air can ), it worked fine booting from hard disk.

Incidentally, sound was fully functional, as was windows networking and pretty much everything else you'd hope for. (I mounted a music share from a Windows 2000 machine, and was playing mp3 files with xmms within 2 minutes.)

The distribution is based on Debian.

Good luck.

- Steve

[SpiralDragon]

heh..... if LLC heres me say this there will be no end of him laughing at me..... i just sudenly got intersted in DLing these ISO files and expermenting with linux..