I want to try Linux, any advice
- Thread starter chrisxuk
- Start date
As much as I love Red Hat... I would never recommend Fedora as a first distro for anyone that hasn't touched Linux!
I would probably say Linux Mint for the sole reason that you would get a little more compatibility with your hardware. It's based on Ubuntu anyway - Linux Mint.
Soldato
I'd say Ubuntu is your best bet as your only a n00b.
Oh, interesting idea. I guess he could install Open Solaris, then he can run virtualbox; run a linux distro in there to try it out. But if you're suggesting virtulisation, surely it'd be statistically more likely that the OP will have a Windows environment already, so if you're talking hosted hypervisor, probably best to look at the user's current set-up first.
Bit of a long winded way to try out a linux distro for the first time though - by installing Open Solaris then virtualising a linux distro within that.
If the end goal is to see what linux is all about, I'd go with playing about with a couple of them first, although I see nothing wrong with most of the suggestions made in this thread.
Soldato
Thanks
I wasn't meaning to be offensive, but if your wanting to try Linux with no experience then Ubuntu is definitely the best bet. The main difficulties people face when starting out with Linux are mainly due to "trying to get Linux to do everything windows does". In particular:
[A] Media playback - Adobe Flash (for YouTube etc) , standard video and audio codecs (MP3 / DivX etc) and DVD playback.
Gaming
[C] Wireless drivers
Trust me that something slightly more hard core like Debian will not your friends. For [A] Debian's policy on using only libre code means that they *won't* by default list repositories containing bits of software that you'll need for DVD playback for example. The kernel used by Debian (the latest version) isn't the latest so less Kernel drivers are available (thus wireless is often harder to get up and running) and last but not least it doesn't have the latest version of wine (a program that'll let you run certain Windows applications - thus helping with gaming).
OpenSolaris isn't a Linux distribution it's Unix. And to be totally honest the only really useful thing it has over Linux is native support for ZFS (lets you create HUGE pools of hard disk space).
D
Oh, interesting idea. I guess he could install Open Solaris, then he can run virtualbox; run a linux distro in there to try it out. But if you're suggesting virtulisation, surely it'd be statistically more likely that the OP will have a Windows environment already, so if you're talking hosted hypervisor, probably best to look at the user's current set-up first.
Bit of a long winded way to try out a linux distro for the first time though - by installing Open Solaris then virtualising a linux distro within that.
If the end goal is to see what linux is all about, I'd go with playing about with a couple of them first, although I see nothing wrong with most of the suggestions made in this thread.
Why bother installing VirtualBox though? If he's wanting to try out linux, then he could run a linux distro in a zone. save some cpu cycles, etc, etc.
Seriously though... @ OP. All of the suggestions are good (although, I've not tried Fedora).
EDIT: Just typed out a huge list of the major players pros/cons... but realised that someone has already done it. go to this linky to see.
If you want to try linux without the hassle of dual booting, etc, then take your virtualisation solution of choice (VirtualBox, VMware Server, VirtualPC, etc) and install a few distros and try them out. I highly recommend VirtualBox by Sun, as from my experience it's by far the best of the level 2 hypervisors.
Don't be afraid to google any problems that you may come up with and remember - Linux (technically GNU/Linux) is not Windows.
Also - good luck, I hope you get as much out of it as the rest of us on here
Holy ****, Batman... there is soooooooo much more to zfs than that!
Also - watch btrfs... the "not inspired by zfs at all in the slightest, honest gov..." fs for linux. Performance is rubbish at the moment, but hey - it's a brand spanking new filesystem for linux.
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Yo dawg; I hear you like unix, so I put a zone in your OS, so you could ...
Zfs does shed loads more than that (x)
As far as xSolarisx goes,You've also got zones, and Dtrace, among other things.
But this is going off topic, as less than subtly pointed out, the OP asked about Linux.
For reference OP, a list of linux alternatives for windows applications, (again assuming your background is windows) http://linuxappfinder.com/alternatives
Soldato
Ubuntu! Popular thus lots of support specific to the distro, and probably more people willing to help newbies than any other distro - in my experience anyway
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ubuntu or one of its dirivitives, like mint or kubuntu
Try out ubuntu, its basic and reasonably easy to get running. Don't go for the derivatives unless you know what you are doing. remember that you can simply add KDE/XFCE or other Desktop enviroments on top of ubuntu, so theres no need to choose at install.
If you want to really understand how linux works go for Arch or Gentoo. Both might seem really hard, but they provide excellent documentation. If you're willing to really learn I would recommend using one of those two, arch is easier but I'll let you read up on the differences. Afterwards you may want to go to ubuntu for simplicity or fedora, centos for stability etc.. But I think its good to at least read some good documentation.
Even if you dont end up installing or using arch read this. It will give you great insight on to how linux works and how to install it.
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners_Guide
If you want to really understand how linux works go for Arch or Gentoo. Both might seem really hard, but they provide excellent documentation. If you're willing to really learn I would recommend using one of those two, arch is easier but I'll let you read up on the differences. Afterwards you may want to go to ubuntu for simplicity or fedora, centos for stability etc.. But I think its good to at least read some good documentation.
Even if you dont end up installing or using arch read this. It will give you great insight on to how linux works and how to install it.
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners_Guide
Thanks for the replies
Downloaded the .iso of... Ubuntu earlier. Burnt it fine and booted the DVD. Showed the Ubuntu loading screen then my TV just went blank and showed a No Signal screen
Any idea whats gone wrong? And how to fix it
Downloaded the .iso of... Ubuntu earlier. Burnt it fine and booted the DVD. Showed the Ubuntu loading screen then my TV just went blank and showed a No Signal screen
Any idea whats gone wrong? And how to fix it
Thanks for the replies
Downloaded the .iso of... Ubuntu earlier. Burnt it fine and booted the DVD. Showed the Ubuntu loading screen then my TV just went blank and showed a No Signal screen
Any idea whats gone wrong? And how to fix it
Tried graphics safe mode? It loads a basic driver at a lower resolution I think. Pressing F4 on the live cd start screen should have other options for video.
Soldato
Thanks for the replies
Downloaded the .iso of... Ubuntu earlier. Burnt it fine and booted the DVD. Showed the Ubuntu loading screen then my TV just went blank and showed a No Signal screen
Any idea whats gone wrong? And how to fix it
Can we have some details - your spec, what monitor is it?
Cheers
D
Soldato
Hmm have you got the 19" you bought to hand? Never used Ubuntu with a TV as opposed to a monitor. Might be worth giving it a try.
Cheers
D
Cheers
D