Which OS?
- Thread starter .Kencs
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This would have been better in the Linux section mate. Mandriva's OK but not my cup of tea. Personally I'd say grab the new PCLinuxOS 2010 which is/was based on Mandriva with extras. It is to Mandriva as Mint is to Ubuntu (kinda). It's fast, it works well and it has codecs etc installed OOTB. Fedora 13 is worth a look too, though that's aimed more at those with more experience. Or maybe OpenSUSE.
There are literally thousands to choose from. Have a read over at DistroWatch and see what takes your fancy. You can see a list of distros (ranked by current popularity) on the right. Click their names to see screenshots, links to reviews etc. Have fun.
There are literally thousands to choose from. Have a read over at DistroWatch and see what takes your fancy. You can see a list of distros (ranked by current popularity) on the right. Click their names to see screenshots, links to reviews etc. Have fun.
Soldato
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Try Puppy if you want something different. It's small and loads everything into RAM I believe so it's lightning fast although it's not got the polish of something like Ubuntu. Check out the user built versions on the Puppy site too, some of those are very good.
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What's the point in trying all these different distros? 
They're all fundamentally the same, you won't get a job for experience in installing every distro. Instead of thinking the grass is greener with some other distro, learn whatever you've got installed now inside out, try and learn the minutiae of Linux in detail. That will get you a job, and also develop your knowledge of computing. Trying every distro under the Sun is just a waste of time IMO.
Not having a go, just does my head coming into the Linux forum and it being populated with just page after page of "What distro?".
They're all fundamentally the same, you won't get a job for experience in installing every distro. Instead of thinking the grass is greener with some other distro, learn whatever you've got installed now inside out, try and learn the minutiae of Linux in detail. That will get you a job, and also develop your knowledge of computing. Trying every distro under the Sun is just a waste of time IMO.
Not having a go, just does my head coming into the Linux forum and it being populated with just page after page of "What distro?".
The OP hasn't mentioned work? He's playing around as far as I could ascertain and all power to him. I'm sorry but while you're essentially correct, you're also being a little too blasé imho.What's the point in trying all these different distros?
They're all fundamentally the same, you won't get a job for experience in installing every distro. Instead of thinking the grass is greener with some other distro, learn whatever you've got installed now inside out, try and learn the minutiae of Linux in detail. That will get you a job, and also develop your knowledge of computing. Trying every distro under the Sun is just a waste of time IMO.
Not having a go, just does my head coming into the Linux forum and it being populated with just page after page of "What distro?".
I started out in *nix with a small "textbook" with a Red Hat 8 CD attached. After weeks of frustration I threw it in the bin and that was that, until my sustained interest led me to try PCLinuxOS, which I DID get along with. Plenty of noobs would baulk and never return if they started out on Gentoo or Debian. Where's my facebookz and flash? MP3s and DVDs don't work... etc.
Horses for courses, and a little experimentation keeps you fresh and piques the interest. No harm in that.
Once he's found something he likes, THAT, I suspect, is when the real "stick and learn" phase will come. That's how it happened for me anyway, with Fedora Core (as it was) 6, 7, 8, and onwards until I finally switched to Debian based distros, taking my knowledge with me. All I mean is, with all respect to ya, fair play if you see a lot of "omg what distro?" threads from noobs. You're experienced, you're bound to see it a lot. Look at it from his point of view. No point scaring the poor sod back to Windows. Variety is the spice of life!
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You're right in most respects. It's largely just frustration at the fact that this entire forum is largely "what distro?" threads that could be answered with a single link, and threads regarding problems that could easily be fixed with a single Google search.
I guess the thing to do would be to have a thread in which all "What distro" talk was kept, and indeed a "I'm new, help" thread within which posts from Linux 'noobs' could be forked off into new threads if they were sufficient enough in scope. But all this is impossible without a moderator who actually takes an interest in this particular sub-forum, which we haven't had since Mpemba/Shack.
I know I come in here and generally click straight back out after being put off by the number of "What distro" and "I'm a n00b" threads. That's not being unhelpful, it's the thread creator being lazy. I generally won't make a new thread in here unless I've spent a good few hours searching Google and all the popular Linux forums for related problems, trying anything that's recommended. If someone has a problem that's genuinely puzzling or complex, I'm interested in helping them out as it'll no doubt improve my own knowledge. Worse still, the number of threads that do actually require more than a good Google search get forgotten and bumped down to the second page because of all the chaff.
I dunno; **** it I suppose
I guess the thing to do would be to have a thread in which all "What distro" talk was kept, and indeed a "I'm new, help" thread within which posts from Linux 'noobs' could be forked off into new threads if they were sufficient enough in scope. But all this is impossible without a moderator who actually takes an interest in this particular sub-forum, which we haven't had since Mpemba/Shack.
I know I come in here and generally click straight back out after being put off by the number of "What distro" and "I'm a n00b" threads. That's not being unhelpful, it's the thread creator being lazy. I generally won't make a new thread in here unless I've spent a good few hours searching Google and all the popular Linux forums for related problems, trying anything that's recommended. If someone has a problem that's genuinely puzzling or complex, I'm interested in helping them out as it'll no doubt improve my own knowledge. Worse still, the number of threads that do actually require more than a good Google search get forgotten and bumped down to the second page because of all the chaff.
I dunno; **** it I suppose
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freebsd or pcbsd latest with xfce. i have freebsd 7 and xfce in vm workstation.
Soldato
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Not to userfriendly is freebsd is it?
I use it on my server and it makes more sense to me but even I find it hard to install a working desktop.
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not realy anymore difficult than slackware or gentoo
it is just the package management changes, i like freebsd package management and pcbsd has done a next, next gui version as well, user friendly, but not idiot proof.
pcbsd software http://www.pbidir.com/ and there is more driver support for linux.
all you have to do is install xorg with ports,
/usr/local/ports/x11/xorg/ && make install clean
the configure /etc/X11/xorg.conf
install xfce with ports
then in a non root user, startx xfce
it is just the package management changes, i like freebsd package management and pcbsd has done a next, next gui version as well, user friendly, but not idiot proof.
pcbsd software http://www.pbidir.com/ and there is more driver support for linux.
all you have to do is install xorg with ports,
/usr/local/ports/x11/xorg/ && make install clean
the configure /etc/X11/xorg.conf
install xfce with ports
then in a non root user, startx xfce
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Soldato
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yeh i know how to use it but it's a little too much for someone who may not even know what terminal is.
Hows ati driver support for 2D in bsd?
Not installed a gui on my freebsd server
Hows ati driver support for 2D in bsd?
Not installed a gui on my freebsd server
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i know nvidia have has a release for freebsd, but ati only for i386 no 64bit i think. But dual screen support is not straight forward at different resolutions. Not like the windows driver support.
pcbsd is userfriendly and you don't even have to know what a terminal is, it is as user friendly as ubuntu, as it boots into kde or gnome. The only difference with freebsd to pcbsd is that freebsd you have to install xorg and the x environment that you want and configure it and start it.
pcbsd is userfriendly and you don't even have to know what a terminal is, it is as user friendly as ubuntu, as it boots into kde or gnome. The only difference with freebsd to pcbsd is that freebsd you have to install xorg and the x environment that you want and configure it and start it.
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Soldato
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Do you use oss for sound?
so it's something like this:
1) base install - then portsnap fetch extract
2) install nano
3) Xorg install.
4) sound??
5) Gnome
I'm used to install arch so it must be a similar method.
so it's something like this:
1) base install - then portsnap fetch extract
2) install nano
3) Xorg install.
4) sound??
5) Gnome
I'm used to install arch so it must be a similar method.
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in pcbsd sound worked out of the box, but not with my esi maya44, there was no 24bit freebsd drivers for my soundcards chipset so i had to use my onboard sound.
But i don't use it as a main OS because of the lack of ati dual screen support for different AR and res. I didn't try that hard but i just run in a VM now on windows 7, easier that way. If i had a laptop i would def go with freebsd 8.
But i don't use it as a main OS because of the lack of ati dual screen support for different AR and res. I didn't try that hard but i just run in a VM now on windows 7, easier that way. If i had a laptop i would def go with freebsd 8.
I'm a fan of Fedora, probably more because I'm familiar with its foibles than any other reason. I've also found a little app called easylife for fedora that automates installation of things like codecs, media players, nvidia drivers, flash etc, making the setup process a breeze. I have used/ tried Ubuntu, Suse and various others but to be honest the distro and GUI is not the main goal anyway. Getting to grips with the terminal is what is the most useful.
Even though I've been playing with linux for the best part of 10 years I still consider myself a noob. I can set up my home server now fairly quickly and get the network running, samba shares, torrent, ftp server, teamspeak server etc, so I know what I need but still get completely lost on some things, that's why google's my friend.
I do enjoy tinkering though
E-I
Even though I've been playing with linux for the best part of 10 years I still consider myself a noob. I can set up my home server now fairly quickly and get the network running, samba shares, torrent, ftp server, teamspeak server etc, so I know what I need but still get completely lost on some things, that's why google's my friend.
I do enjoy tinkering though
E-I
Yeah I love Fedora; it was my mainstay for years. I only moved to Debian based distros because I realised how much faster APT was. Not to mention the ~30,000 packages in the repos meant far less compiling from source.
Amen to that!
I do enjoy tinkering though
E-I
Amen to that!