Download Linux?

[C.Ingram]

Of the three I mentioned, they are among the most friendly. All 3 use packages and should be cake to install. I have had serious problems with Mandrake packages in the past. Fedora has some problems, but is so widely used with so much related material (Fedora, RedHat, RH clones, etc...) you will get a lot of help with it. I know several people who tried SuSE and have used other distros in the past and love it.

SuSE makes the things that should be simple, simple.

Slackware is nice, but has always been a "power users" distro. Aparently it has become easier to install and use, but I haven't used it in so long I can't really speak for its current state.

 

[horndude]

they are all reliable, Suse's free downloadable version is lacking most of what a "kitchen sink" type distro like slackware has software wise, as is when first installed.Its hardware detection routines are a little more sophisticated, but Suse is based on another distro, so you'll be more than likely downloading debian packages from time to time, and if you want to compile from scratch or do any software development your gonna need gcc and all the libraries, cause Suse comes with 2 desktop environments and not much else.Its plenty to work with, but hardly complete.Fine for a newbie, but beware, those setup gui's arent a reliable safety net, often times your going to have to do some commandline work to get things the way you want.

http://www.linux.org
http://www.tldp.org

check those out

I recommend slackware:Its simple,it works, and there's no BS.It has the largest following AND support network.Software is readily available and free, Its major drawback is that it requires just a little knowledge to install and most people refuse to read tutorials and directions........its not a point and click install.It comes with everything, 4 disks, last 2 are extras and source code for the whole thing.You get about 7 browsers, cdr and dvd software, software development tools, 5 or 6 desktop environments/window managers, 6 or 7 mp3/music players, 3 or 4 video players etc etc etc, if you cant find what you need what your missing wont be much.

If you want all point and click with less setup hassles, get Mandrake.

Redhat's Fedora project although cutting edge is not for beginners.

Debian is good, but its updates are slow and development seems to have kinda stalled lately.

stay with one of the originals, your more likely to get help when you have a problem.

 

[m3trj]

Well I am pretty new to Linux, and I have to say Slackware is actually not that hard to install. I like it a lot.

 

[fitzjj]

i'm running suse 9.2 and rate it highly. Yast, suse's program to configure everything, is nice and straightforward and makes it really easy to update and add more software as you want.

Downsides, it comes on DVD and is 3.2Gig, which may be a problem for some with a slow internet connection (i was lucky, it only took 10mins at uni ) - alternatively you can download a CD ISO which you can use to get the install started and the rest is via ftp.

I found that the DVD didnt have a lot of the software that i wanted on it and so had to install a lot by ftp anyway. If you are going to be making changes regularly it might be worth mirroring on your own network (it's about a 7Gig download)

Other than that i have had no problems - it took me about an hour to get apache2, ftp, and samba all working correctly and i had never played with samba before