Which Linux for me (you must get this a lot!)

jakspyder

jakspyder

jakspyder

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hey sorry for asking this as im sure you will get it every 15 mins but atm im runnign vista as i play lots of games and stuff

anyways next year im hoping to go to uni in edinburgh doing computer science and when i went to the open day one of the dudes there said almost everything is linux based, with a wee bit on macs and windows pc's. so i was tihnking it would be nice to get a linux installed in a dual boot and familiarise myself with it and get used to it etc.

would be best if i could use the same distro they do but iv no idea what one they said it was! so just whatever you think is best to get started on (bare in mind iv had no linux experience before!)

anyways hope you can help!

thanks for your time!

~jack~
 
Start on Ubuntu; it gives you room to customize a little, and play around with the Terminal (which I assume is pretty important to anyone doing a CompSci degree), but also should work more or less out of the box on most hardware, so you can get used to the actual OS without worrying about compatibility.

I would then move on to Arch, which is a distro which you have to completely build and customize yourself-apparently isn't too hard to do, although I've never had the patience (or need) to do it myself. I would expect it to teach you a LOT about the inner workings of Linux though, which would be ideal for you.
 
*jumps in*

I say jsut get gentoo and play like mad! (its very similar to arch, well arch is based a lot on it, but gentoo is more established and teches you a bit more about how its all set up/works)
 
manic111 said:
Start on Ubuntu; it gives you room to customize a little, and play around with the Terminal (which I assume is pretty important to anyone doing a CompSci degree), but also should work more or less out of the box on most hardware, so you can get used to the actual OS without worrying about compatibility.

I would then move on to Arch, which is a distro which you have to completely build and customize yourself-apparently isn't too hard to do, although I've never had the patience (or need) to do it myself. I would expect it to teach you a LOT about the inner workings of Linux though, which would be ideal for you.
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+1

Ubuntu pretty much "Just works". You may ask why bother then? My answer would mirror manic said. It's a good way to get familiar with the GUI, basic terminal commands and setting things up like samba and stuff. Its other main advantage is you can do a wubi install first, which installs ubuntu inside windows in the same way office does. Then you can do a proper install when your confident about the basics and it will save u fudging GRUB the first few goes.

I would then move on to ARch, I just did and it has taught me a lot about where these mystical config files do.

I would then try Gentoo after a good few months. Gentoo is good, I haven't tried it yet but it seems to me to be a step above Arch interms of getting your hands dirty in the terminal to get it installed. Performance wise I cant infisiage much difference tbh.

going back to arch, IMO Arch seems to conform to the root/user account standard where as ubuntu seems to have employed some hybrid su system.
(AM I talking rubbish linux gods?)

opensuse 11 maybe worth a punt alongside ubuntu but deffo ARCH/Gentoo after you familiar with the linux way and windows thinking is banished from your memory. Yeh, thats a good way to summarise the need for ubuntu first, to clear your head of the "in windows it works like this" mentality. Ubuntu was my cleanzer lol.

Hope I haven't rambled to much.

In the end we cant tell you which is the best linux distro for you. You maybe forced onto a distro that the uni uses as that would be easier to learn. I started playing with linux 3 years ago, with Suse then, but it didnt really click, I tried ubuntu and it just clicked in my head. You may in time think Fedora, Debain, Mandriva, PCLOS, Mepis is the best!!! But try ubuntu/opensuse first :p
 
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I have to agree with the Ubuntu suggestions made so far. From a starting point it's very user friendly, but the beauty of it is that it can be as complicated as you want it to be.
 
Depending on how the Uni is set up you either want Ubuntu of Fedora.

It won't make a huge difference but if they distribute applications via rpm, and not deb, it would save you some minor hassle by being on Fedora.
 
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Ubuntu to start with. Install it, learn it, play with it, have fun with it, etc... Get your head around the file system, the concept of "everything being a file", managing partitioning and mount points and devices, using everyday commands in a shell, various log files such as dmesg, etc...

Using Ubuntu for this is, in my opinion, ideal because the uUbuntu community is massive and (generally) eager to help out people with problems rather than flaming them for not having read the manual before posting a question.

Once you're confident at using Ubuntu then you can start looking at other distros. Depending upon how you got on with Ubuntu you could either try with one of the other distros that 'holds your hand' a lot, e.g. Fedora, OpenSuse, etc... or you could try and 'go it alone' with a distro such as Gentoo, Arch, etc... Only you cna decide if you're ready to go full-on or not.

I'd also recommend dropping into your local library or bookstore and reading some books about Linux, or reading some of the Linux magazines online. If you're committed to learning about Linux and Unix (which you seem to be from the sound of it) then you'll be fine.

Also, even if you don't go with Gentoo just yet, have a read of their documentation anyway - it's fantastic. I'd recommend reading it to understand how a lot of the common Linux functionality works.
 
yashiro said:
Depending on how the Uni is set up you either want Ubuntu of Fedora.

It won't make a huge difference but if they distribute applications via rpm, and not deb, it would save you some minor hassle by being on Fedora.
Click to expand...

Edinburgh use SL5 (Scientific Linux 5), which is based on Redhat Enterprise Linux 5. However a lot of people run Ubuntu on their own machines and of course you can always SSH in if you need access to a particular application.

It might be worth looking at virtual machines if you're just starting out, Virtualbox and VMWare Server are both freely available. Virtualisation does eat RAM for breakfast though so I wouldnt do it on <2GB :p
 
Install VMware and then install apps in the VMware environment. Also you can install apps to pendrives. Which you can boot in VMWare by adding your USB as a physical HDD.

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/

Also take a look at multiboot linux DVD's available.
 
I've had Fedora Core as a home OS in the past, wasn't a good distro for a beginner. Been on XP since then.

I work with RHEL and SLES all day, and recently installed Debian etch on a machine which is used to control all the others, It's been great so far, KDE went straight on as some existing scripts we have use dcop and konsole.

I'm seriously considering buying an EEE 901 and installing Debian lenny, then KDE 4, then Compiz Fusion.

I've used Ubuntu before, and can say it's where I should have started. Also consider Kubuntu (Ubuntu, but with KDE instead of Gnome).
 
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My uni uses Solaris on their machines, and open solaris now, I've never used it, I prefer the debian based ones - ubuntu and Mint :)
 
Septh said:
My uni uses Solaris on their machines, and open solaris now, I've never used it, I prefer the debian based ones - ubuntu and Mint :)
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OMG, someone uses Solaris as a desktop?

We have a Solaris based server, and we can't even figure out how to turn it on!
 
BigglesPiP said:
OMG, someone uses Solaris as a desktop?

We have a Solaris based server, and we can't even figure out how to turn it on!
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To be completely honest I never use the uni machines at all, we had to in our first year, but never have to now, just use my own laptop (running mint) if I need to do something at the uni.
We've also got a "Sun Lounge" which is a room filled with ~60 sun machines, well just monitors and keyboards and mice really (crazy sun keyboards with extra buttons, and mice with 3 buttons and no scroll wheel!) which connect to the departments massively powerful (but pig slow) unix servers.
We also use fedeora for networking practicals but nothing amazing, just network card setups really.
 
I have debian machines that are 8 years old; they are still up to date and working perfectly. No reinstall.
For the desktop I use kubuntu, I find it entirely pointless and a waste of time/resource to use a source based distro like gentoo, but I'm sure it's just me. I spend a large amount of my time building flash based filesystems and toolchains I don't want to have to worry about compiling my own xterm to do so :D

Otherwise in my experience .deb based distro are more stable. rpm based ones 'rot' like windows does and require a reinstall every couple of years; the .deb ones "just work". I tried the redhats, feds, suse and mandrake...

The good thing about *ubuntu is that they are not anal about licenses, like debian. So you /can/ install all the things that are not opensource but that we need anyway on a desktop, like flash plugins, binary graphic card drivers etc. Even download and roll in bits of windows to get wine working properly...
 
ok phew thats a lot of info, well i think ill go for ubuntu first just to familiarise myself with it and what not! ill read up about linux too and once im feeling good with it ill decide on where to go next! thanks very much guys for your help!!! much apreciated!
 
Gaming on linux is not perfect, dont expect to be able to play crysis on it. Thats why I dualboot vista. (And vista gets used as a games console)
 
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