Which Linux to use?

[Entity_Razer]

Well I need serius advice here.

I'm looking into a serius second os to use like I use my windows.

My current Fedora core 3, and experimental Gentoo installs just plainout suck stabilitywise and compatibility wise because I experiment a lot with it.

Now I'm looking for a second OS.

I was considering either a gentoo install but thats a lot of work to install (Level1 install) and it's also a lot harder to maintain I think. Patches etc.

Secondly I was thinking about Suse because I think it is a lot more stable/compatible with it all because it's used a lot and is commercial. So this "warranties" a good team behind it and with a good decent upgrade system etc.
Also I am looking for a OS that is supported by almost any commercial software distributor. I know 3DsMAX isn't supported beyond Windows which is a real shame but none the less I'm looking for a serius OS.


What would you guy's suggest? I'm looking for a very serius OS which is easy to use, very stable, fast, easy to use and good looking on the GUI :)


Thanks for the advice :)

[masterofpuppets]

No, Gentoo is EASY to maintain. Patches are applied automaticly. Whoever told you that Gentoo was fully manual doesn't know what they are on about. Gentoo is incredibly easy to maintain. SuSE is pathetic, as are all commercial distributions. Fedora is a joke. Gentoo and Slackware, maybe Debian, are the only at least half-decent distributions around.

[Entity_Razer]

Yhea ok so gentoo is easy to maintain, now tell me this, how many big industrie/software producing companies bring out Gentoo compatible software?

I mean, I like opensource as much as the next guy, but what it all gets down to is how well does the OS support the program and vice versa. I don't know honestly if gentoo is supported by a lot of industrial programs. I was thinking more in the line of SuSe because it IS commercial and I would expect a very easy installation (so NOTHING like the gentoo build :p: I struggled my way through that one and even then it didn't turn out well. ) and very good driver/program support.

Any thought on this MoP?
I knew you are a linux Die Hard and so you probably run a L1 Gentoo install but I'm no diehard and I was barely able to install gentoo L3 (live CD) :)
So..... Consider me a noob at gentoo :)

I'm trying out Ubuntu this afternoon or tomorrow in the day somewhere but I don't think thats a superOS neither, don't know why. The overeasying will downgrade it's functionality and compatibility I think + I want to use it for a lot more then "just" work :)


EDIT:

MoP care to drop me a PM with your mail addy? :p:

Up untill this point I've been using 2 HDD's ,one for my windows('s) and one for my Linux because I never got around to installing a boot loader. Now I formatted a while ago and I forgot I should've installed linux of some sort also with a bootloader and god knows what else at once, but I didn't. Now I'm wondering how do I make my Dualboot work when I'm done installing linux?

Because I've been reading a lot about the 1024 cluster limit and such and I've got a A7n8X-X (AXP generation computer) so I don't know if this 1024limit still applies. I don't think so but I just don't know :)


So would you mind helping me out?

Thanks

[[XC] moddolicous]

I'm downloading gentoo right now, and will hopefully have it up by tonight. My other windows install gave out for the last time, so my cruncher is going from 2079 on windows to 1800 on linux. Hopefully it will balance out.

[Ugly n Grey]

I like SuSE myself, the a64 support is excellent....it's easy to deal with and is put up by one of my favourite companies. It flies with databases.

[masterofpuppets]

Trust UnG to recommend a commercial product :rolleyes: SuSE is terrible imo. Terrible hotplug support, no hald, etc. Keep away from it. I tried a livecd and it wouldn't even recognise my USB mouse, I had to insmod the USB HID module manually. Lame.

[[XC] moddolicous]

Ok, I got the big universal CD and the minimal one. Which one should I boot from?

[Ugly n Grey]

I'm not interested in features like hot plug support for my mouse. I'm interested in stable no nonsense operation. Pick your poison based on your needs.

Gent is fine for some things, worked well for an HTPC, makes a less than perfect dekstop, though if you are a bit of a power user Gent allows you to compile options and apps on the fly so you can end up with a nice stripped down version running. Using A64 compiled apps under SuSE is faster for mysql and SLL than under Gent if you run those.

Hey MoP, commercial doesn't mean bad ya know. Lame attitude to bash other peoples choices that aren't yours. Thumbs down for the bashing.

Ugly

[Entity_Razer]

I installed Ubuntu at the MO to prepare my multiboot and to get familiar with linux again :p forgot a bunch of stuff, to used to windows :)

I'll try a L3 gentoo somewhere next week :)

weird though, I installed firefox 1.06 and it shows nowhere? :s

[masterofpuppets]

Goto a terminal emulator (gnome-terminal or xterm probably) and type Firefox. It should work. You can create a shortcut in the gnome panel. UnG, commercial products aren't bad, but SuSE has TERRIBLE hotplug support, it's a fact, all of the new distros should be using hald already.

[Entity_Razer]

I am looking for ease of use first, then stability, then compatibility and only later am I looking for experimenting :)

So some will fill my needs :)

But ubuntu is nice for what it is. installs COMPLETLY in 20 minuts :)

now I only need to find out how to install those stincky ATI drivers :)

[[XC] moddolicous]

Ok, I just printed out all the pages on how to set-up linux, and will hopefully have it up soon.

[Korpse]

Linux=more d2ol production over MoP called "WinBlows"?

[Ugly n Grey]

I always practice with a new release on vmware... it's easy to start from scratch that way

[[XC] moddolicous]

Should I use LILO or GRUB? It looks like GRUB is really hard to install, but hopefully I can get it. Which do u prefer and Y?

[total_assault]

I guess I'll just post my question in this thread, MOP I guess you know, In linux what do you use to play mp3/mpg/wmv with divx codec, I can never get it to work for me.

[Ugly n Grey]

I use either LILO or GRUB, forced to pick I use GRUB just because of familiarity...flip a coin :)

[masterofpuppets]

total_assault: I assume you are using either GNOME or KDE, most newbs do. Err, I use amarok or xmms. amarok is KDE only, and doesn't come with it by default, you will have to install it. moddolicous: Use GRUB. Even an idiot could install it, is it really hard to open a GRUB shell and type 3 lines!?

[total_assault]

total_assault: I assume you are using either GNOME or KDE, most newbs do. Err, I use amarok or xmms. amarok is KDE only, and doesn't come with it by default, you will have to install it. moddolicous: Use GRUB. Even an idiot could install it, is it really hard to open a GRUB shell and type 3 lines!?

Thanks for the answer for my question I just didn't know What to use. I usually use terminal/ssh for my servers, but why for your desktop or laptop when you can relax and use a gui instead of thinking of the commands to use. Ya the grub thing is no probelm you just have to hit a key and then you add the lines.

[total_assault]

total_assault: I assume you are using either GNOME or KDE, most newbs do. Err, I use amarok or xmms. amarok is KDE only, and doesn't come with it by default, you will have to install it. moddolicous: Use GRUB. Even an idiot could install it, is it really hard to open a GRUB shell and type 3 lines!?


I looked at the players you recommend both of them are just mp3 players it looks like, I wanted a video player that can play videos encoded with divx

[masterofpuppets]

Try mplayer for videos. It's activated from command line but there is a GTK front end called gmplayer. Also, to play Windows Media and DivX, you need the codecs. I use Gentoo, which means I can specify to install them with USE flags, but I don't know how you would install it on your system.