Would like to try Linux

MechR · Post by **MechR** » September 12th, 2004, 5:53 pm

Mepis... is... God.
I am typing this... in Mozilla 1.7.2... in Linux. :omg:

$\:D/$

Internet didn't work with the live CD, and I didn't think to check again until now

That said, the reason I fired Moz up again was to test its image-copying functionality. Sadly, it seems that Linux is indeed missing a universal image-copy-capable clipboard

Having to save an image to disk in Moz and then dig it back up in an image editor is a longass detour, especially since I'm used to constantly copy-pasting images when using Windows

On a related note, screenshotting requires opening a dedicated program (it seemingly can't be done with the keyboard button), and again, you have to save the screenshot rather than copying to clipboard

Still, discovering that the internet works is a heck of a consolation prize

nilson · Post by **nilson** » September 12th, 2004, 9:04 pm

I heart Gentoo.

jedbro · Post by **jedbro** » September 12th, 2004, 9:42 pm

Another vote for Suse, I've tried Fedora (was my last OS) and Mandrake. And There is no compatison with Suse, almost flawless.

Although, yes, they do say that debian is awesome, but I don't think it's quite ready for me yet.

babba · Post by **babba** » September 12th, 2004, 9:54 pm

jedbro you have to try gentoo for once.
If you ever do that,open a thread and we ll help you.
You have some big hits for your extensions in gentoo forums.

jedbro · Post by **jedbro** » September 12th, 2004, 10:23 pm

babba wrote:jedbro you have to try gentoo for once.
If you ever do that,open a thread and we ll help you.
You have some big hits for your extensions in gentoo forums.

Hm.. Ok, I will.
Is it really as good as Suse? Does it automatically mount usb memory sticks and the works?
Will it autodetect my wireless card?

That may be very trivial, but that's why I've found Suse so nice, it just works with very little hassle if at all.

-Jed

babba · Post by **babba** » September 12th, 2004, 10:52 pm

Sorry i dont want to compare it with SuSe or another distrobution.Its just different!
SuSe or fedora for example its a binary (precompiled packages) distrobution unlike gentoo that is a source (packages compiling from your machine) distrobution.
There is no installer yet and IMHO there is no need for one,but its only a typical routine of continued commands excellent documented in the installation handbook.Plus you will see by yourself the power of the famous gentoo forums.
I m trying to find in my mind a short gentoo description,because gentoo its not only the portage(package managment) its not only the rich documentation about every little issue in the linux world,its not only the personalization of your system,its not only the knowledge that gives you,is something more.
Finally gentoo as i understand with my poor mind is all about choises.

Radiowriter · Post by **Radiowriter** » September 13th, 2004, 10:25 am

Judging by what I've read, Gentoo users seem to love the distro. However, it seems to be for experienced users only. When people start talking about recompiling kernels and installing from the command line, I start to lose interest. If you want user-friendly with plenty of bells and whistles, I highly recommend spending the $90 and getting SuSE 9.1 Professional. Mandrake is also user-friendly, but 10.0 wasn't as happy on my old machine as 9.2 was. Be sure to take your hardware into account when choosing a distro. The 2.6 kernel seems to work better on higher performance processors.

babba · Post by **babba** » September 13th, 2004, 12:29 pm

Radiowriter wrote: However, it seems to be for experienced users only.

Well i think its a wrong impression,actually the installation its not that hard as it looks like,believe me.

When people start talking about recompiling kernels and installing from the command line, I start to lose interest.

I m sure if you do it once you will see the obvious advantages of compiling the sources by yourself.
For example i have already converted my filesystems to new reiser4.I dont have to wait from my distro developers to decide *when and if* they will support it.I dont have to,sources is out there.Running "make menuconfig" and copy the bzimage to the boot partition its not the hardest task in computers world.

If you want user-friendly with plenty of bells and whistles, I highly recommend spending the $90 and getting SuSE 9.1 Professional.

Well i agree about your choice.SuSe its just perfect for almost everybody.And i m pretty convienced that Novel will offer us in the near future some very pleasant surprises.

Be sure to take your hardware into account when choosing a distro. The 2.6 kernel seems to work better on higher performance processors

The companies will start to provide drivers for their hardware as soon they see that there is a serious linux market.I see for example this season,more and more people buying nvidia cards just because Ati doesnt provide any serious linux driver instead of nvidia.

lumoz · Post by **lumoz** » September 13th, 2004, 12:30 pm

Another vote for Suse for that purpose. Gentoo might have its uses but definitely not for trying Linux out. I'd also advise against smaller distros since they usually have much worse hardware detection and installation support. Try the free Suse live CD first to find out if it runs on your hardware.

Old Persist · Post by **Old Persist** » September 13th, 2004, 1:46 pm

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Slackware. Of all the distro's it's the one I prefer most. Fedora Core is good too, but if you like tweaking things till they're just right then Linux From Scratch is the one. It's addictive. I'm hooked.

Jack · Post by **Jack** » September 13th, 2004, 1:51 pm

Persist wrote:Fedora Core is good too.

Fedora Core is good if you like to watch Linux crash while trying to install.

GNU/Ben · Post by **GNU/Ben** » September 13th, 2004, 2:25 pm

babba wrote:
Radiowriter wrote: However, it seems to be for experienced users only.

Well i think its a wrong impression,actually the installation its not that hard as it looks like,believe me.

IMHO, it's hard enough that I would recommend that users at least get their feet wet with something easier before trying Gentoo.

When people start talking about recompiling kernels and installing from the command line, I start to lose interest.
I m sure if you do it once you will see the obvious advantages of compiling the sources by yourself.
For example i have already converted my filesystems to new reiser4.I dont have to wait from my distro developers to decide *when and if* they will support it.I dont have to,sources is out there.Running "make menuconfig" and copy the bzimage to the boot partition its not the hardest task in computers world.

This can be done with any distro. Like any other distro, to get portage packages you still need some dev to package them for you. Of course, you can do ./configure && make && make install, but again, any distro can do that and it can be a PITA thanks to dependencies (checkinstall helps, but it's still not perfect).

PS: I'm not knocking Gentoo, it's an excellent distro.
PPS: Jack, stop trolling.

Jack · Post by **Jack** » September 13th, 2004, 6:02 pm

GNU/Ben wrote:PPS: Jack, stop trolling.

Not trolling. That's all I've seen Red Hat/Fedora Core ever do. When I bought Red Hat 9, either my screen would go blank in the GUI installer, or Anaconda would crash in the text installer. Same thing with Fedora Core 1. Then when Fedora Core 2 came out, I read all the fun people were having with it corrupting their Windows upon installation.

Like I said before, there are some nice Linux distributions out there if you must use Linux, such as SuSE and Xandros. Then there are some PoS Linux distributions, with Fedora Core topping the list.

MechR · Post by **MechR** » September 13th, 2004, 6:04 pm

Downloaded and installed Firefox the other day; I missed the UI-configurability. The Mozilla suite also has all sorts of weird little problems in Linux, like toolbar items shifting around when you touch them (including sometimes splitting the URL field down the middle), delayed responses to clicks in text boxes, and website text boxes eating into the left side of what you write.

Firefox has somewhat fewer of these, though the URL field still shifts around, and the toolbar customization menu drops down in a screwy way about half the time. At least text boxes seem to work

The thickness of the desktop taskbar compared to in Windows kinda bothers me

Auto-hiding it, OTOH, also feels weird with apps looking all top-heavy. Frustratingly enough, you can't seem to make the bar much smaller than Normal without the app icons going all tiny

I have it set to size 40 right now, which is the smallest size that allows stacking of minimized window entries into two rows (a useful thing, since there isn't much space for them on the bar). Unfortunately the little quicklaunch icons can't stack at that size, so the available space for minimized window entries is effectively the same, though overall the bar does get thinner than it is at Normal size.

The GIMP is neat

I used it to put together my first personalized wallpaper for this Linux install (There's a wallpaper of Sara Irene from Ragnarok that looks great except for the boring white background. I grabbed an abstract explosion-thingy with a black background, made its color more flamelike, and dropped her onto it 8)) On the other hand, its multi-window interface is kind of a pain since I'm used to working with my app windows maximized. I settled with putting two toolbox windows on the left side of the screen, as a kind of bastardized three-pane interface. Wish they could be grippy-drawers, but oh well

Kyliefan001 · Post by **Kyliefan001** » September 13th, 2004, 6:49 pm

I'm also thinking of going to SUSA 9.1 and have a few questions.

1. Does Linux support most of the major software ie Nero, Part Magic, Adobe PS etc?
2. Would I still need Virus Protection, Firewall and Spyware Protection?
3.Would I need to install the software I have on XP seperatly on Linux?
4. How do I get the 716MB SUSA 9.1 file on a 700MB CD-R?

Thanks.