Thinking of Linux

Discussion in 'Software' started by NeoNemesis, Mar 11, 2005.

  1. NeoNemesis

    NeoNemesis Moutharrhea

    I've always wanted to give linux a go. I want to download one of the live cd's ones before I install one to the hdd. But i'm not sure it will recognize my hardware. THe main thing that I need it to recognize is my wireless internet. So my question is, which linux distro has the best noobie support and could pick up my wireless internet like a snap?
     
  2. g1lgam3sh

    g1lgam3sh MajorGeek

    Knoppix is not bad, I have heard good things about Ubuntu.


    Not that hard to set up as it goes, disregard urban myths ;)
     
  3. gman4dx266

    gman4dx266 Private First Class

    Knoppix is good, ESPECIALLY for salvaging stuff on unbootable NT drives. [​IMG] The only problem with it is..well...your concern, wlan drivers. I have 2 motorola wlan cards, a pci and pcmcia (motorola makes good, cheap stuff, with excellent range)..i have installed fedora core 3 on 2 machines, each having a card, both broadcom base, with a godsend of a program called 'ndiswrapper' its free and kicks some MAJOR butt!. It basically just uses your windows drivers on linux, i didnt believe it when i read it, but they say seeing is believing and thats a prime example right here. Other than Wireless NIC drivers it should have just about everything else you should need (and sometimes more)....good luck with ya linux adventures!
     
  4. Strogg

    Strogg 5-Star Freakin' Geek

    i personally prefer the gentoo distro. it's simple, easy to use, and easily customizable.

    setup for gentoo, though, is a bit more difficult, but http://www.gentoo.org/ has a tutorial that guides you through the setup process. it shouldn't be hard even for the novice. setting up xorg the right way is probably the hardest part (for me, anyway) since it doesn't really like to do what it's told to do;) anyhow, LONG LIVE THE PORTAGE TREE!:D
     
  5. Robster12

    Robster12 The Horse Whisperer


    as far as urban myths... they are myths. That was then, this is now.

    My 2 cents is to try out MEPIS. Its got a lot of multimedia support built in already, no extra packages to fetch off the net like Ubuntu. Also, some people say that the hardware support in MEPIS rivals Knoppix. And that is something.

    Also... when you boot the live mepis, on the desktop, there is a big icon that reads: "Install Me".

    I mean, c'mon...

    You want easy, I say MEPIS. But, that just my way of seeing it, though.
     
  6. webyourbusiness

    webyourbusiness Private E-2

    SUSE has good wireless support I hear and you can find a SUSE live CD - although SUSE is NOT free - and I think you'll find that so will CentOS (http://www.centos.org) - which is another redhat enterprise clone.

    I'm playing with CentOS 4.0 - although for someone who doens't like to make lots of coasters from their CDs, I'd say go with 3.4 - and use the versaweb mirror - I've had problems with disk images downloaded from some of .edu mirrors - not sure if they were labelled incorrectly or not, but disk1 wasn't bootable from 3 other mirrors, much to my annoyance.

    hth

    GHL
     
  7. NeoNemesis

    NeoNemesis Moutharrhea

    as far as i know all Linux distro's are free except for the professional versions of some, thats what makes it open source.
     
  8. cherrywithns

    cherrywithns Private E-2

    Mepis is way cool. It will auto scan your system and will find all your hardware and will operate it from the get go. Mepis 3.3 has a live CD that you can use to boot to see if you like, then has an install from the CD. It can even partition your hard drive so you can dual boot. Mepis will only take about 3 gigs of space. Knoppix is also easy, but no install from the live cd.
     
  9. Adrynalyne

    Adrynalyne Guest

  10. ArchAngel

    ArchAngel Sergeant

    I've tried many of the distros. Mandrake, Redhat, Mepis, Knoppix, Suse, and Gentoo. I have settled on Gentoo, because I can make all my hardware work with it. I could never compile the kernel with the others. There are just too many ways to do it and most of them are wrong. But you don't know until you reboot. It is easier with Gentoo. Only problem I have with Gentoo is the emerge and USE settings.
     
  11. Robster12

    Robster12 The Horse Whisperer

    You know, really, you just gotta "pick a horse and ride it". If you don't like that particular distribution, use another, see what suits your fancy. But, its about actually trying them out. Different people, they like different things, you know. Different distros appeal to different people. It varies kind of widely.
     
  12. g1lgam3sh

    g1lgam3sh MajorGeek

    Indeed, I've been running Fedora Core 3 64 bit, I'm thinking of taking a look at the new Mandrake 64 bit as I've used and liked Mandrake before..

    Frankly most distros are reasonably easy to set up these days, and hey I love tinkering ;)
     
  13. Robster12

    Robster12 The Horse Whisperer

    right now I'm in the middle of a gentoo install on my "test box". I've never done it before. I was going to do a stage 1 install, but I couldn't see the stage1 tarball on the mirror, so I settled for a stage 2 install.

    No X on it, so I did set my USE flags to "something useful" I guess:

    USE="-gtk -gnome -kde -qt -dvd -alsa"

    (its a "barebones" system). Just having fun, here, not worrying too much about the optimization.
     
  14. g1lgam3sh

    g1lgam3sh MajorGeek

    It is fun innit (sic), after all it's not like I don't tinker with Windows ;)
     

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