Best Free Linux

[fitzjj]

Not saying that most people here are talking absolute rubbish but i challenge those slating SuSE to justify why they are doing so. Have you guys actually used a recent distro of SuSE? and macdude have you used Yast recently? what do you find wrong with it? it is highly regarded by many as an extremely good setup tool and it allows for software updates and installs to be done with minimum effort. There is noting forcing you to use Yast, its just there if you want it!

Instead of the B/S here is some stuff that might be useful regarding some Linux distros:

RedHat and SuSE have been around for a long time and like most things have improved with age. Being some of the more major players they tend to be suitable for most purposes and are nice and user friendly even for the beginner, but are equally suitable for the advanced user. A newer player to the market is Fedora, this is a red hat sponsored project and is infact built on red hat distros hence the huge similarities - the goal of fedora is to provide an easy to use and install linux

Distros like Debian and Slackware tend to be more complex to install and use for the beginner, although this does mean the resulting system is likely to be a tad less cluttered and the learning experience is likely to be less platform dependant which is good. In distros like red hat you quite often end up using loads of red hat tools to configure things and as a result dont get yourself dirty with all the workings of a Linux system as you would with something like Slackware. Debian is regarded as a very stable platform hence why it is often used in servers, however part of the reason for its stability is probably partly due to its slowness to catch onto new ideas.

Then you have the likes of gentoo, which i have to say i have never used, when installing you compile everything so that it is optimized for the system you are installing to. How much of an improvement this is i dont know and whether you can choose to install parts without compiling i dont know either otherwise the instalation would probably take days!

Personally i'd recommend RedHat, Fedora or Suse. They are nice to use and well supported. Use the links jakec gave.

 

[sheky]

Ubuntu baby! I prefer GNOME and it's a very nice transition from Windows or OSX. Depositories make life easier. Plus major updates every 6 months (like, xp --> vista). Simple clean install. Try it out!

 

[The General]

Not saying that most people here are talking absolute rubbish but i challenge those slating SuSE to justify why they are doing so. Have you guys actually used a recent distro of SuSE? and macdude have you used Yast recently? what do you find wrong with it? it is highly regarded by many as an extremely good setup tool and it allows for software updates and installs to be done with minimum effort. There is noting forcing you to use Yast, its just there if you want it!

Instead of the B/S here is some stuff that might be useful regarding some Linux distros:

RedHat and SuSE have been around for a long time and like most things have improved with age. Being some of the more major players they tend to be suitable for most purposes and are nice and user friendly even for the beginner, but are equally suitable for the advanced user. A newer player to the market is Fedora, this is a red hat sponsored project and is infact built on red hat distros hence the huge similarities - the goal of fedora is to provide an easy to use and install linux

Distros like Debian and Slackware tend to be more complex to install and use for the beginner, although this does mean the resulting system is likely to be a tad less cluttered and the learning experience is likely to be less platform dependant which is good. In distros like red hat you quite often end up using loads of red hat tools to configure things and as a result dont get yourself dirty with all the workings of a Linux system as you would with something like Slackware. Debian is regarded as a very stable platform hence why it is often used in servers, however part of the reason for its stability is probably partly due to its slowness to catch onto new ideas.

Then you have the likes of gentoo, which i have to say i have never used, when installing you compile everything so that it is optimized for the system you are installing to. How much of an improvement this is i dont know and whether you can choose to install parts without compiling i dont know either otherwise the instalation would probably take days!

Personally i'd recommend RedHat, Fedora or Suse. They are nice to use and well supported. Use the links jakec gave.

installation procedure for fedora - download 4 or 5 isos and burn them, keep in mind that this takes hours, probably like 6 or 7 hours, stick the cd's in and wait there for an hour or so, so you can change the cd's and hopefulyl eventually it works right


installtion of debian etch - download 100mb iso, burn to a business card cd or whatever you want, hit enter 20 times and leave



yeah debian is so hard to install

 

[fitzjj]

installation procedure for fedora - download 4 or 5 isos and burn them, keep in mind that this takes hours, probably like 6 or 7 hours, stick the cd's in and wait there for an hour or so, so you can change the cd's and hopefulyl eventually it works right

installtion of debian etch - download 100mb iso, burn to a business card cd or whatever you want, hit enter 20 times and leave

yeah debian is so hard to install

The idea of a linux distribution is that it comes with a collection of software packages. The reason fedora is several CD's big is that it is a far more comprehensive distro. As such you can select what applications you want to install and they are there on the cd making it nice and easy, whether you want to install the program now or at a later date. A smaller distro obviously doesnt come with so many applications and so means you'll probably find yourself having to source some programs yourself; obviously a tad harder especially if you are new to linux. I think most people would agree that checking a few boxes on an installer and having them install off the CD is much easier than searching the web for them, downloading them and then installing them yourself.

 

[macdude425]

OK, so you're saying that typing
sudo apt-get install kde

is harder and more frustrating than checking the KDE and X11 boxes during install, waiting for them to be installed, inserting the second CD that contains the libs, waiting, inserting the third CD that contains the artwork, waiting some more, then finally inserting the fourth CD so that it can install aRts, etc.?

I think not.

 

[The General]

its a net install, all the necessary packages plus extra software is downloaded and installed

you should know a little about debian and other distros before you advise someone to use fedora ...

you dont have to "source" your own programs, there is a package manager like susa and fedora have, lol just that our's doesnt suck

rpm = Reallyslow Package Manager





edit: you have to use the mouse to install fedora? whats the point of that?

 

[fitzjj]

OK, so you're saying that typing
sudo apt-get install kde

is harder and more frustrating than checking the KDE and X11 boxes during install, waiting for them to be installed, inserting the second CD that contains the libs, waiting, inserting the third CD that contains the artwork, waiting some more, then finally inserting the fourth CD so that it can install aRts, etc.?

Yes, and to do the above for every application not provided with the distro would take a lot longer than switching between several CD's which actually in most cases is irrelevant anyway since the distros likely come on a DVD and need no switching of disks. it is also a bit harder if you dont know what the packages do either, hence why i believe debian is a bit trickier to install and set up for a beginner than, say, SuSE is. Im not saying it is a ***** to set up, just it takes a little more knowledge, which is not always a bad thing

its a net install, all the necessary packages plus extra software is downloaded and installed

I'm well aware what a net install is. I have never used a distro that doesnt provide a net intstall option - it is nothing new to debian

you dont have to "source" your own programs, there is a package manager like susa and fedora have, lol just that our's doesnt suck

You still havent told me why all other package management tools suck. I'm well aware of apt and dpkg and like most people who have used them agree that they are very good at what they do. A lot of this is down the very well thought out and compiled packages provided for debian. I am in no way knocking debian its just i believe different distros suit different situations and i believe that a graphical setup tools that provides more than just package management is of benefit to a novice when installing an operating system.

Just because debian has a good package manager it doesnt mean that all other package managers suck. Perhaps if you'd tried some others then you'd realise this. All have their strong and weak points, however Yast and some of the other larger distros provide more than just package management, they provide set up tools, which do a lot more than just manage packages. Perhaps in future you'd like to justify what you say rather than making your posts irrelevant and useless.

Anyway i believe that jakec answered the question long ago, so i'll say no more on the subject unless someone wants to discuss things further.

 

[macdude425]

About the last topic: RPM/Yum don't work. RPM has TERRIBLE, and I mean TERRIBLE dependency management. And if Yum doesn't feel like working, it doesn't.

Compare this to apt (and portage, and even the Slackware packaging system) which works reliably, always takes care of missing dependencies, and even has TWO pretty frontends if you want them (KPackage and Synaptic).

 

[The General]

i'm done here.

you can use suse if you want, i dont care

i'm gunna go source some programs.

 

[Tyler1989]

the general, I know your joking, but your also purposfully misleading people! Please be serious Fedora has DVDs now just like any other Distro that exeeds 700mb so don't mislead people. There is nothing wrong with the "redhat package manager" anyways.