Linux recomendation?

[winston64]

Hello,
I've been looking at some cool linuxes and I don't know which one to get... this would be my first time with linux so I want something "user friendly". The 3 that have caught my attention are Gentoo, Ubuntu, and Kubuntu. Any suggestions? Why?

[masterofpuppets]

Gentoo isn't exactly userfriendly. Although, if you follow the handbook, it can be quite easy to be honest. Try it out if you want a very rewarding, if time consuming experience. When I do Gentoo installs, I use my LinuxFormat cover DVD which has the latest snapshot and the stage1 tarball. But for firsttime Gentoo'ers, do a stage3 install instead, it won't be as optimized at all, but you can get a system up and running in less than an hour! As for other distros, Debian is very good. It's versions are quite complicated at first though. You have three distros, stable, unstable and testing, then you have versions which are Woody, Sid and Sarge respectively (although Sarge will soon go into the stable distro). Unstable isn't recommended for new users, since things sometimes break upstream, such as missing dependencies which you will have to fix manually. And stable is really only useful for people with mission-critical servers which require 100% stability. Testing is overall the best. It's usually not the most uptodate and usually lags behind unstable by a few months for most packages, but it's still much more ahead than stable. Ubuntu is basicly Debian unstable, with fixed dependencies and 1 disk, instead of the usual 14 disks which Debian has. The installer is almost identical too. Personally, I would go for the REAL Debian unstable than Ubuntu, since you don't have to download the whole 600MB image to install it, just get the 50MB netinstaller and download your packages of choice.

Anyway, overall, I'd say if you want a Linux setup very quickly, go for the latest Ubuntu release (5.04), if you want Ubuntu with a wider range of packages, but with a netinstaller, go for Debian Unstable. If you want Debian, but don't want to risk broken dependencies, get Testing. If you want a very involved learning experience, get Gentoo. There is Fedora Core and SuSE too, but I haven't used them much to comment on them. Oh, and there's Slackware, which is quite hard to use unless you already know howto use a Unix style system.

[KoolDrew]

Ubuntu is very "user-friendly" and based off Debian. Highly recommended.

[FatRakoon]

All I ever hear is bloody ubuntu these days... Everyone seems to think that the newest mustbe the best!

The only reasonitspopular is because its small and therefore it downloads quicker perhaps?

I personally found ubuntu a pile, but then obviously, thats just me.

If you want a user friendlydistro as a first time go at Linux, then there is plenty distros that give you more for your "no money" than ubuntu.

Try SuSE, Mandrake ( Now Mandriva cosits a Mandrake & conectiva hybrid ), and Fedora.

These are all RedHat based, so its easy to install & uninstall stuff and they have plenty of apps in them to get you going.

SuSE wasa little bit special for me in my last play because it was able to setup everything absolutely 100% correctly, which is somehting that no other distro did for me... Itsetup my Windows partitions for me, this is not new of course, but it also setup all the PCs on my network too, even the wifes PC and thats setup through wireless to my main PC downstairs, which is, in turn connected to the Server via Ethernet, and yet it was still able to fully get talking to all my PCs withotu me having to do a thing!!! - I am usually there for hours getting Linux setup to talk to them all, but SuSE just did it for me....

Ubuntu is very good in spite of me moaning, thats a Debian based distro and is very quick and easy to install, but you can do bugger all with the basic installation withotu adding your own apps to it.
Ubuntu didnt even setup my Windows partitions, I had to do that myself and I am a bone idle git so I dont like it if it wont do the basics.

Gentoo - dont go there.
If you dont mind getting your hands dirty however, and oyu have patience, and the common sense to read the man pages, then you will be rewarded greatly... More so than any other distro I think.

Knoppix is another one to have a look at... Again, another Debian based distro but it comes ona Live CD and that means that you dont have to repartition anything to get it playing, it boots from the CD and you are up and running in a few seconds, and if you like it, then you can just install it to HD. Its very sweet like that.

There are a billion different versions of Linux ( No, I have not counted ) and they can all offer somethign or nothing, and to be totally honest mate, no one can tell you which is better than which... You have to find that out for yourself, btu we have given you somethign to chew on... Get downloading and have fun.

[masterofpuppets]

Ubuntu is technically, a very good distribution. It uses a recent kernel, with some Debian patches (which are very good), and it uses X.org (1000 times better than xfree86 in 2D mode, not in 3D mode, where xfree86 performs better mind you). If you say it's crap because it uses the Gnome desktop, get KDE or XFCE from the Debian repositories! Nobody is stopping you! Personally I hate Red Hat-like distributions, or anything which uses the RPM system because, it doesn't automaticly include dependencies, just warns you at the most. Some package management apps do the dependencies for you, but rpm from the command line won't even warn you by default. Portage (think, BSD pkg system) and Deb always include dependencies by default. And don't say "Gentoo, don't go there". I have seen complete idiots manage to setup Gentoo by following the amazingly well written handbook. Go grab a stage3 installation disk and a cup of coffee, open up the handbook, and in a few hours you'll have quite a bit about Linux and if your computer is fast enough, you might have a desktop working (KDE is an overnight job, even on my machine, and Gnome takes a couple of hours). It maybe be time consuming, and make you a ricer, but it'll be far superior to any binary distribution and there is always a feeling of self-pride after doing your first Gentoo installation.

[TheModWiki.org]

to start off, mess around with Suse or RedHat.... typically Mandrake is THE NEW Linux User Distro, but i dont seem to like it too much. Suse has an excellent control panel called YaST which can solve many of the problems you might face ... after you get the hang of that, then move to gentoo in a few months.... The reason i love gentoo so much is "emerge" .. you just type emerge and the packages name and it downloads , compiles and installs it automatically

[colo]

SuSe, Fedora Core, and virtually ALL RPM-based distributions are a ridiculous pile of :banana::banana::banana::banana: compared to apt-powered debian-derivates or Gentoo's portage system.

If you just want to have a nifty and friendly desktop GNU/Linux-gistribution, get youself Ubuntu or kubuntu. If you actually want to LEARN something about the inner works of GNU/Linux, try Slackware or Debian Sarge.

Stay away from crap like SuSe, Mandriva, Fedora Core and the like. Yeah, there's yum, but it just isn't a full-blown apt-replacement. Not at all.

[winston64]

Whats the difference between kubuntu and ubuntu then?

btw thanks for all the help

[kiwi]

Whats the difference between kubuntu and ubuntu then?

btw thanks for all the help



Kubuntu uses the solid base of Ubuntu plus the latest KDE. We are part of the Ubuntu community and use their infrastructure and support. Our mission is to be the best KDE distribution available.


http://www.kubuntu.org/

You can also check http://distrowatch.com/

[bobbobson]

Well, since your looking to goto linux im assuming that your a technical kinda person. I reccomend Gentoo. People say that gentoo is "difficult" to use. Hell, by the time you install it you will have a VERY good understanding on what linux is all about and how to use it! Not to mention that portage rocks!!! ;).


- Michael

[bacon]

imo if you want to learn linux and not just play with fancy shells, i think you should go for slackware and customzise it exactly how you wnat it

its tricky at first as everything is pretty much doen command line and text files but its worth it, and no where near as challenging as gentoo or debian

[masterofpuppets]

Debian is not challenging, contrary to the popular belief. The new installer is EAAAAASY! Ubuntu uses it too, and that's a damn newb distro. Gentoo is not challenging, as long as your are a competant and non-idiotic person, and if you follow the handbook correctly.

[BB mods's]

www.linuxiso.org I use slack but it's not a first time user OS.Fedora core 2 is still RH but it work's ok,Id say Pnut linux or Knopix for u :)