Hey all, I am planning on dual booting with Linux. Anyone have a favorite distro? If so, why? Thanks, Alec
what do you plan on using it for? if just music/internet then I'd say to go with Ubuntu, easy to install and use, don't need to compile your own kernel, etc. If you wish to do more with it though I would suggest trying our a BSD or Gentoo distro simply because they offer more power to the admin, you can compile your own kernels if you want, obviously for this you need to know more about programming, etc.
Main purpose is just general web and music. However, I might want to do some music recording eventually. I tried booting with the Ubuntu Live CD, but it just froze after I clicked Start and Install. I am downloading the non-live ISO and am gonna see if that works.
I use Arch Linux on my laptop. It follows the same philosophy as Slackware, as in doing all the configuration yourself, but they toss in a really awesome package manager that deals with dependencies as well. Slackware doesn't give you that, and let me tell you ... resolving dependencies manually is a fuckin' bitch. So my vote goes for Arch Linux, if you don't mind spending a day or two setting everything up. Like other people said, you can try Ubuntu if you don't want to do that. There's also Zen Walk and Fedora. Check DistroWatch for reviews and such. Oh, and avoid anything SuSE. They've signed a deal with Microsoft ...
My personal favorite is Knoppix. I'm not well taught in the way of linux, definitely couldn't write my own kernel but it's a starting point. What I like about knoppix is it will boot right off the cd using the ram as it normally would storing temporary program data. And it has no problem reading fat32 and ntfs. Gentoo otherwise.
Wow, I just tried installing Ubuntu to dual boot with the non-live CD. Well, turns out that the CD was badly burned and I forgot to use the handy CD check utility. It starts up fine, does everything fine, I even reduce the Win partition and create the others! As it is installing the base, all of the sudden, it says "Files are Corrupted" Oh FUCK is what I say. Restart, and after the little Windows boot loader, in place of Windows, is a J. Luckily, I was able to use the ubuntu disc and recovery mode get it to boot from the Windows partition. Phewww. Time to download the ISO on another computer, burn it there, and then boot from it and check the CD integrity. I'll tell you all how it goes.
Run the ISO through an MD5 summer before you burn it and make sure it matches the MD5 hash provided (no, not the drug), then burn at a very low speed, like 4x.
That's odd. You know, if you really want Ubuntu you can request free CDs from their web site. I've done it loads of times to give out to people.
Fedora 8 all the way. If you are a newb than use Ubuntu, but when you have the basics down, you are now able to drift away from the automatic detection and configuration of things as well as the easy-as-hell debian package management and use an OS that better fits your needs. Also, for people migrating from windows, there is way more than just one type of window manager. If you were using Windows, you want to try KDE or GNOME. I personally use XFCE because it takes less of a footprint. I am not concerned about it really, I have the resources, but it runs noticeably faster. Quad core with 4GB of RAM, 64 bit Fedora 8, that is how it is done. Also, if you have enough RAM, you can just install a virtual machine within Linux and run Windows just as if they were two separate machines. I have a used all of my hard drive for Fedora, but anytime I want to play games or anything I just boot up the virtual machine and have at it.
OpenBox + PyPanel ftw Screenshot I don't actually have a 10GB hard drive, it's 60GB. I just have the rest sectioned off to toy with other distros and OSes. All my personal files are on an external drive ...
This Ubuntu is to test and see if I like Linux. If I do, I have about 3 laptops and 2 desktops that would probably perform wonderfully using any number of distros. I have heard Linux makes old computers run great. Is that hyped, or really true?
It depends on the distro. Some run better on old machines than others. Ubuntu isn't really for really old machines, but if your PC can run XP, it can run Ubuntu. That said, if you want performance, try Xubuntu.
YOU HAVE JUST INSTIGATED A NERD WAR ALL WOMEN CHILDREN AND INNOCENTS HIT THE DECK I NEED SOMEONE PUSHING SOME NMAPs AND SOCATs STAT
For this PC, Ubuntu sounds perfect. I mainly want to take advantage of the GUI aspects of Linux. I tried to do it with XP and having to use 10 different programs, including things like Windows Blinds and that sort of thing, really got old.
Yeah, that kind of sucks. For Windows, I like Xoblite. Great replacement shell for Windows. Based off of BlackBox. Takes up a ton less space than explorer.exe and is much more customizable and easy to use. That said, Linux has some great Desktop Environments like KDE, gnome, xfce, etc. Ubuntu uses gnome, Kubuntu uses KDE, some distros let you choose from a few in one install.