Some questions...

[Curse]

I'll setup linux for the first time to my computer :toast:
So i'll have some questions:

1)Linux has lost of versions, i do not not which is how, but is there a popular one??

2)Does all the latest versions of linux supports AMD Athlon 64s??

3)So after setup, what a bout the drivers?Are there a driver pages for linux or do i have to search from google or so?

4)And where do i download it?? :D

[masterofpuppets]

1) You sound like a noob. So, go with Mandrake or maybe SuSE. Bootable distributions such as Knoppix are quite good too. I learnt how to use Linux with an early SuSE version. But now I'm into more advanced stuff like Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, and BSD based Unix OS's. But I wont go into BSD right now as its irrelevent to your question.

2) You can compile Linux for AMD64, although, alot of distributions such as SuSE have a precompiled version for AMD64, so you dont have to compile everything to be optimised for A64. Thats why there are Distributions such as Gentoo which you compile yourself, meaning that everything is optimised for your architecture. I just use i386 versions myself, or i686 if I can. But the performance difference should be quite considerable when running a AMD64 version. So I would get something compiled for AMD64.

3) Most drivers are a part of the Linux kernel, if you need a new driver, you can compile with the appropriate module to enable a driver. But, for stuff like ATi 3D drivers, you need a distro which has XFree86 as an X server, not Xorg. Since ATi only make Xfree86 drivers at this time. There is a long guide to setting up ATi cards for 3D here (http://www.rage3d.com/content/articles/atilinuxhowto/). If you have a device which doesnt have a module in the kernel, you can always install a kernel patch from Kernel.Org (http://www.kernel.org/). But, it would be more advisable to goto the site of your Linux distro and download updates there since the kernel from there will be suited to your distro and will include all of the extras which your distro has. A kernel from Kernel.org will be the basic kernel and will not have any special features which most distros have.

4) The site of your distro should have a list of FTP and HTTP mirrors to download the ISO images of your chosen distribution.

Here is the sites of the distros I recommend to you:
Knoppix Linux Live-On-CD (http://www.knoppix.org)
SuSE-Novell Linux (http://www.suse.com)
Mandrake Linux (http://www.mandrake.com)

Oh, and check out my guide to Linux distros :)

[Occidere]

All I can say is if you want a challenge try out debian for your first distro, I don't know how it compares to others but I've been pokeing at it for a week for 10-15 minutes at a time with little results and today I spent hours and made alot of progress but I still can't do a damned thing :stick:

I found www.linux.org has a nicely arranged set of distro's and some somewhat usefull information for beginners. My advice is stick with it and find chat rooms that are willing to help you out, just learning one command can open up alot more that you can do


edit: search read attempt search read attempt rinse repeat

[sjohnson]

I've been trialling SimplyMepis for about a week. The integration and "feel" is so easy that I'm sticking with it. The plugins and "normal" applications are there so I don't *need* to (say) make Mozilla play nice with java or xmms play nice with mp3's. K3B is there and burns CD's without a hiccup.

Comes as a live CD with installation to HD built-in. Better than Knoppix for the CD/HD integration.

Based on debian but without the bootstrap headaches. http://www.mepis.org