which linux distro and 32 vs 64bit

[64dragon]

Now that i'm finally done with school and will have time to learn what i need i'm planning on installing linux. I've messed around with it before but nothing more than here and there and i dont think i've had a distro installed for more than a month. I've tried suse and kubuntu. Last time i had one installed i got stuck installing a temp monitor program because i couldn't get it to display temps for cpu but it would show my hard drives.

What distro would be better in the long haul for a beginner to learn on (suse, kubuntu, other?)? I know 0 programming. Next question, 32bit or 64? Is 64bit linux developed enough or is it lacking in anyways? How is crunching affected, is there a points difference between bit versions like there is with windows?

thanks

[sierra_bound]

Give Ubuntu 64-bit a try. It will generate more points per day than the 32-bit version. Ubuntu is easy to use. Some prefer Kubuntu because it uses the KDE graphical environment instead of GNOME. But you can install KDE on Ubuntu.

[don_xvi]

Second recommendation for ubuntu 64 bit. Lots of friendly support available. I've always had stability problems with Kubuntu of various vintages.

[SiGfever]

I have it on my third server and so far I like it. It crunches well and the numbers are impressive.

[stocius]

Ubuntu looks like the leading distro atm (at least for the average user, if you can find one on linux) even Dell is distributuing it on their servers. Works pretty well in my opinion with a great community base.

[64dragon]

thanks guys. downloaded kubuntu last night and ubuntu this morning both 64bit. i'll start with ubuntu and see what happens. i think one of my hard drives is dyin, it makes a bit of noise kinda chattery and stuff so i ordered a new one and it should be here tuesday. i can't wait cause i'm bored so i'm gona install it on the dyin drive and see what happens until i get the new one.

[Blauhung]

I'll second everyone elses thoughts on the matter. Right now it's the easiest to use and least command line oriented of the distro's

[64dragon]

woot i installed ubuntu around 1pm and i've been in it since. had a little trouble installing opera (browser) because it is in 32bit but i'm running the 64bit ubuntu. i found a how to online and had to use terminal and sudo and force architecture, this is where i had the issue, terminal replied saying it can't find the file. how do i tell it where the file is or start a terminal in a given folder? when i played around with suse i could just right click and there was an option to open terminal and it would start in that folder. i then found out there was a beta 64bit version of opera so i just installed that with no issues.

next 2 tasks are installing boinc and a temp monitor program

[stocius]

woot i installed ubuntu around 1pm and i've been in it since. had a little trouble installing opera (browser) because it is in 32bit but i'm running the 64bit ubuntu. i found a how to online and had to use terminal and sudo and force architecture, this is where i had the issue, terminal replied saying it can't find the file. how do i tell it where the file is or start a terminal in a given folder? when i played around with suse i could just right click and there was an option to open terminal and it would start in that folder. i then found out there was a beta 64bit version of opera so i just installed that with no issues.

next 2 tasks are installing boinc and a temp monitor program

Glad to hear you're pleased and up and running. Let me know if you run into problems or whatnot

[sierra_bound]

BOINC is included in Ubuntu. Go to Synaptic Package Manager. Do a search there using key word "BOINC" and you find the client and manager. Just install both. Does not require using the terminal. It may not be the latest BOINC version though.

[64dragon]

thank sierra, that saved me some time. in XP there was the boinc icon in the tray with the clock n stuff, how can i get that icon (and options when you right click it) in linux?

[sierra_bound]

I'm not sure how to create a tray icon. To create a desktop launcher, you need to go to /usr/share/pixmaps which is where you will find the BOINC icon. You then need to put /usr/bin/boincmgr in the command portion. I hope this makes sense. The advantage to this method is that when you close the BOINC Manager GUI, BOINC will still be running in the background.

[64dragon]

when you close the BOINC Manager GUI, BOINC will still be running in the background.

thats why i'd like the icon in the tray, i use that to exit and stop computing when i need to mainly before i shut down or restart my computer. how else can i exit and stop computing?

[don_xvi]

No need to stop BOINC before shutting down, it'll stop itself.

[64dragon]

yea i know but its just one less thing for the OS to deal with when attempting to shut down, probably less of an issue for linux than windows i guess. its not the only time i stop it but thats when i do it most

[brot]

Boinc is stopped automatically when you shutdown your pc, so no need to worry about that. I think the linux gui of boinc isnt even able to stop boinc, you would need to use the runlevel script for that ( /etc/init.d/boinc stop )

[64dragon]

i installed lm sensors and went thru all that yesturday but i'm having trouble installing a front end. i "installed" a few things thru synaptic but theres no icons in the app menu. how do i acess these programs?
one of the items i "installed" was gkrellm and i found that i can type that into terminal and it will launch but once it closes it doesn't save what i changed.
i found another program, screenlets and there's a widget? in there that is a sysmonitor, i'd like to edit what it displays and found the file but am unable to save it after i made changes. it says that i don't have permission to save it in that location. how can i sudo and save to where the file needs to be? or how can i edit the file, save it to desktop and move it to where it needs to be in usr/share/screenlets

[brot]

when you are in a console you can type "sudo" which will ask for your password. After that, you are the superuser, also called root. With that user you can edit those files.

The strict rights management is one reason why linux doesnt have much security problems, but its annoying sometimes, i know...