which linux?
Nomen Nescio
rely on MS anymore.Which linux should I get?My machine is
celeron,512MB ram, including video ram.I've tried *buntu and
solaris.I'm thinking of getting DSL or knoppix. Does any1 has
a better suggestion?
Dan C
Slackware.
--
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me".
The Usenet Improvement Project: http://improve-usenet.org
Vahis
Solaris is not Linux.
Distos are like beer: To really know them you need to taste 'em all :)
--
Vahis
http://waxborg.servepics.com
Congressman Wilson has an expression:
"You can teach them to type, but you can't teach them to grow tits."
andrew
> On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 04:20:05 +0200, Nomen Nescio wrote:
>
>> I'm considering switching to linux because I don't want to rely on MS
>> anymore.Which linux should I get?My machine is celeron,512MB ram,
>> including video ram.I've tried *buntu and solaris.I'm thinking of getting
>> DSL or knoppix. Does any1 has a better suggestion?
>
> Slackware.
Another vote for Slackware. An amazingly robust distro with a long
history.
Andrew
ray
Sure - I've got lots of them. FWIW - I run Ubuntu on several home
computers and the ones I admin for the local library. What didn't you like
about it? I also run Gentoo on my mini-itx and Debian controls my
'experimental' box where I have half a dozen or more different distros
running under virtualbox.
andrew
> 1993
> August
> Version 1.0 of Slackware released by Patrick Volkerding. It is based on
> the SLS distribution.
> Ian Murdock creates the Debian distribution.
Fascinating, I did not realise that these two were so close. According
to a Debian wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian#History
Debian 'officially' comes in at 16 August 1993. While the same wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slackware#History
gives Slackware 16 July 1993. Which makes Slackware the senior partner
by a single month :-).
Andrew
Man-wai Chang ToDie (33.6k)
Before you actually install anything to your hard disk,
download a Linux LiveCD to see if it tastes good. Many
distributions offer LiveCD: Knoppix, Ubuntu, Fedora, ....
--
@~@ Might, Courage, Vision, SINCERITY.
/ v \ Simplicity is Beauty! May the Force and Farce be with you!
/( _ )\ (Xubuntu 8.04.1) Linux 2.6.26.2
^ ^ 12:32:01 up 18 days 20:44 3 users load average: 1.00 1.01 1.00
? ? (CSSA):
http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_pubsvc/page_socsecu/sub_addressesa/
J.O. Aho
As mentioned earlier, Solaris ain't Linux, it's a Unix from Sun.
It's difficult to recommend a Linux distribution, specially when you are not
telling for what you are using it for or what you like. There is no best
Linux, everything depends on what you need and what you like, I do recommend
you get hold of as many different LiveCD versions of the distributions, this
way you can try and feel which feels right for you, then you will get the
distribution that feels right for you and not a distribution whcih you may not
like but Dan C, sk8r-365 or ray loves it.
For looking for different distributions take a look at www.distrowatch.com and
read the descriptions and what packages they include and get a feel of which
may be worth trying.
--
//Aho
Davorin Vlahovic
Slackware or derivative SoHo Linux. You could also download puppy linux
(especially MacPup :) ) but I recommend to use it only as live cd
because it runs everything as root :(
Debian Lenny got a nice speedup.
--
/dev/null
Mark Madsen
How fast is that Celeron? If it's about 1GHz, you will want a slightly
lightweight distro. Most of the mainstream distros will be a bit
sluggish with limited RAM and processor speed. The exceptions are Debian
and Slackware, which can be tuned quite easily (Xfce instead of KDE sort
of thing).
If you want a prepackaged smaller distro, you might look at Zenwalk
(based on Slackware but designed to be lighter and easier to handle) or
my current favourites, which are AntiX and SliTaz. (Not just for the
weird capitalisation either.) Both of these are installable liveCDs.
AntiX is a mini-Mepis, which gives you the full convenience of Debian
(and can be turned into it). It runs well on almost any hardware from
this century. It's about a 300 or 400 MB download.
SliTaz is a custom distro, the liveCD download is about 25 MB (not a typo)
but it has a full GUI and package management. I have had it installed
and running with Firefox (including Flash) and Skype (etc) on a 500MHz
PIII with 128 MB and an 8 GB disk, it ran well. If that had been my only
machine I could manage to do all my routine everyday email and surfing
with no problem.
John Hasler
> BTW, not knowing exactly how much system RAM vs. video you have, if you
> go Debian, and this applies to most distributions...
Including Ubuntu. You don't have use Gnome just because it is installed by
default.
> ...strongly consider XFCE4 as the desktop
> environment. http://www.xfce.org/
That's a good place to go to learn about it but if you decide to try it you
can and should install it from your distribution's repository rather than
from the XFCE home page. Same goes for other software.
--
John Hasler
jo...@dhh.gt.org
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA
Vahis
This was my oneliners with the switch -v
vol30w60
My advice would be to set aside some time to try several distributions.
I've been very happy with Ubuntu, but I also experimented with Debian,
DSL, Red Hat, some BSD variants, maybe a couple others... I will admit
that most of them did not work very well. Some had critical problems
that I was not able to resolve. If you happen to run into a major
problem, my suggestion is... STOP. Don't waste hours or days trying to
get something to work, just switch to a different distribution. Most
likely you will hit on a distribution that works for you without causing
any headaches. Learning to fix problems and tweak your configuration are
important skills, but that takes time. If you are not very familiar with
Linux, you probably just want to get up and running with the least
amount of hassle. Once you have a system that works, you can then
explore Linux at your own pace.
Ben Collver
> My advice would be to set aside some time to try several distributions.
That is good advice. I second the experience that most of them do not
work very well. GUI configuration tools seem to be a Linux achiles'
heel. Somehow I always manage to break them to the point that they
must be fixed from the command line. For personal use I have had the
best luck using Slackware plus tips and tricks from the Gentoo wiki.
Ben
zmdmw52
If it's possible for you to upgrade the Memory (to 1 GB) & CPU (to a
Pent 4 +), the latest openSUSE 11.0 is a good overall distro to learn
on & work with.
> because I don't want to rely on MS anymore.
A virus/malware problem ?
Jim
For ease of use few compare to PCLinuxOS. Their motto is "Radically
Simple". For a report visit http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/
opensource/?p=246
Actually comes in two variants. First being PCLinuxOS 2007. A full
complete distro for most people. Being over a year old now means your
first update of the OS will take awhile.
Second version is MiniMe 2008. A stripped down version of PCLinuxOS 2007
but with more updates already applied. Best for more experienced users
who understand how to get what they want from the respositories. End run
being a customized installation devoid of the stuff you'd never use
anyway.
Both are available as live-cd's so you can easily evaluate them first.
Eric
Since no one has mentioned it, let me recommend Mandriva
Snowbat
Seconded. I have Mandriva 2008.1 installed on an old PII 266 MHz with
128 MB RAM and KDE 3.5.9. It's very far from a speed demon but it *is*
usable. Mandriva's packages built for i586 probably help a lot here,
along with the i686 laptop kernel.
--
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
J.O. Aho
i586 isn't recommended at leas by Bryan J. Smith and Alan Cox, unless you have
an original intel Pnetium (I) or Pentium MMX.
Traditionally the i586 binaries made with gcc haven't had any advantage over
i386 (may have changed in the recent versions of gcc).
--
//Aho
Mark Madsen
> On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 04:20:05 +0200, Nomen Nescio wrote:
>
>> I'm considering switching to linux because I don't want to rely on MS
>> anymore.Which linux should I get?My machine is celeron,512MB ram,
>> including video ram.I've tried *buntu and solaris.I'm thinking of
>> getting DSL or knoppix. Does any1 has a better suggestion?
>
> For ease of use few compare to PCLinuxOS. Their motto is "Radically
> Simple".
Mottoes aren't of much use in choosing a functional distro.
PCLOS is a clone of Mandriva 2007.0 with darker artwork. Since the end
of 2006, Mandriva have produced several releases that are far more up to
date.
Others have recommended Mandriva itself, which may also be a good choice.
borep...@gmail.com
Peaceful Bill
I'm running an installed Mandriva "Spring 2008" (2008.1?) on an Athlon
X2 2.1gh w/ 1gb and a GeForce 7950GT /512mb video card. Runs great.
System is probably heavy overkill for its lightweight use but it is a
great example of a transition machine for those running some kind of MS
Windows O/S. That said, I am looking at a couple of other distros just
to see what is out there.
Arthur Engh
> SliTaz is a custom distro, the liveCD download is about 25 MB (not a typo)
> but it has a full GUI and package management. I have had it installed
> and running with Firefox (including Flash) and Skype (etc) on a 500MHz
> PIII with 128 MB and an 8 GB disk, it ran well. If that had been my only
> machine I could manage to do all my routine everyday email and surfing
> with no problem.
I have Ubuntu 8.04 on one partition and SliTaz cooking on the other on a 2.8GHz PC. Haven't used Ubuntu in weeks because of the lightning speed of SliTaz. Sometimes I go to Ubuntu for a change of scenery, get tired of waiting for something to happen when I press a key and instantly go back to Slitaz again. Doesn't matter how old or new pc you have, give it a try. You'll be amazed by the speed.
Artie
Mark Madsen
Thanks for backing me up on the SliTaz front. It's improving rapidly at
the moment so it's worth checking back regularly. The package collection
is expanding steadily as well.
Oh, Artie, BTW: your line length is b0rken.
computer geek
Knoppix is for servers and networked pc's
Dsl would be ok on your computer too because it is made for older computers.
if your computer has less than 10gb or 2gb I would choose dsl.
"Nomen Nescio" <nob...@dizum.com> wrote in message
news:787cf9f746473bcc...@dizum.com...
Vahis
Top posting is bad, first of all.
A top posting person's advice is hard to be taken seriously.
> I would try any xcfe, kde or fluxbox desktop os on a computer like yours.
> Knoppix is for servers
Can you elaborate? Why would Knoppix be for servers?
and networked pc's
Aren't practically all PC:s networked?
Specially *nix is coming from networked multiuser multitasking world.
> Dsl would be ok on your computer too because it is made for older computers.
How is DSL made for older computers?
> if your computer has less than 10gb or 2gb I would choose dsl.
You recommend kde (KDE) in your first sentence. That is something to
consider skipping if a low end machine is in question.
Any distro can be installed in a lot less than 10 GB disk space if
that's what you meant. What gb stands for is hard to tell (grambits?).
They also run fine in 512 MB of RAM.
Even with KDE if you don't expect too much.
>
> "Nomen Nescio" <nob...@dizum.com> wrote in message
> news:787cf9f746473bcc...@dizum.com...
>> I'm considering switching to linux because I don't want to
>> rely on MS anymore.Which linux should I get?My machine is
>> celeron,512MB ram, including video ram.I've tried *buntu and
>> solaris.I'm thinking of getting DSL or knoppix. Does any1 has
>> a better suggestion?
>>
>
>
--
Artie
Your welcome. :-) I was sending from Sylpheed. It says it's wrapping
at 72 characters but not sure about the proper configs. This is from
Google.
Artie
santo
> computer geek wrote:
>
> Top posting is bad, first of all.
> A top posting person's advice is hard to be taken seriously.
...he not only is top posting everywhere he writes,, he is also very busy
with similar "suggestions" in other posting...
I am a "newbie" and not a computer literate, but his contribution sounds a
lot of nonsense to me , here or in the other postings...
santo
Mark Madsen
>> Oh, Artie, BTW: your line length is b0rken.
>
> Your welcome. I was sending from Sylpheed. It says it's wrapping at 72
> characters but not sure about the proper configs. This is from Google.
This message was good. The last one was not wrapped at all, it showed up
here as a single looooooong line :-)
Mike Fontenot
I've got a new Dell Inspiron 530, and I've just recently tried to boot
from a bunch of different livdCD distributions. The only one that has
succeeded in booting on my machine is Mandriva. (As best I recall, the
other ones that I tried are DSL, Knoppix, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, and Debian.)
Mike Fontenot
SINNER
Who are you talking to?
Most likely issues is acpi related, in each distro research the cheatcode
to disable that on the LiveCD.
--
David
Ivan Marsh
Dell supports Linux. I'm sure they'd be happy to help if you gave them a
call.
--
I told you this was going to happen.
Mike Fontenot
>
> What hardware is the Dell using?
The Inspiron 530 can be ordered with various hardware options. Mine has
two Intel "Core 2" cpu's, 4GB RAM, 500GB disk (and I added another 500GB
Seagate disk to use for linux). I also added a Radion 2400 graphics
card, and I've got a PCI parallel-port card on the way.
> Is that a desktop or laptop machine?
Desktop, full width.
> Did you know Debian is the base system *buntu is built upon?
Yeah, I was originally hoping to buy a dual-boot system from them, but
they don't do that...in fact, they told me that they don't recommend
that their computers be dual-booted. The fact that they sell a linux
system is what convinced me to buy the Dell, but I've been surprised to
read about other people's problems with linux on their Dell machines.
When I complained to Dell that Ubuntu wouldn't boot on my system, they
said that their linux machine "had some hardware differences from my
Vista machine", but they wouldn't (or couldn't) be more specific. I've
heard that they DID need to make some changes (maybe just setup)...one
recommedation I've heard is to change the "SATA mode" in setup from
"IDE" to "RAID"...that didn't work for me, and my graphics driver seemed
to get corrupted right after I tried that (maybe coincidental, I don't
know). I've also heard that at least one problem is a race condition
between (I think) USB and SATA identification...hopefully that will get
fixed by the appropriate linux developers soon.
> Have you tried any boot options the introduction screen offers?
So far. I haven't been able to get that to work, but I'm still hopeful.
BTW, the Mandriva liveCD has also failed to boot two times (out of about
a dozen tries). So it's not entirely free of problems (maybe the same
problem(?)) either, but the others I've tried have NEVER booted
successfully for me.
Thanks to everyone for all the tips.
Mike Fontenot
Mike Fontenot
>
> Did you know Debian is the base system *buntu is built upon?
>
Sorry...in my previous response, I mis-read your question above...I
thought you were asking if I knew that Dell sells a PC with Ubuntu
installed, and I was answering that question.
I HAVE been told that the DSL, Knoppix, Ubuntu, and Debian liveCD's that
wouldn't boot on my machine shouldn't be considered as "independent"
distributions. Maybe the problem (or problems) is common to them all.
Mike Fontenot
Jim
Although it won't do you any good for this round, in the future consider
building your system. Not having proprietary components to deal with
makes doing so such a pleasure.
Learned years ago that drivers written for say Dell are often only
available via Dell. And if they don't want to play nicely - tough luck.
Much prefer being able to deal direct with the hardware manufacturers.
Mike Fontenot
>
> Although it won't do you any good for this round, in the future consider
> building your system. Not having proprietary components to deal with
> makes doing so such a pleasure.
>
> Learned years ago that drivers written for say Dell are often only
> available via Dell. And if they don't want to play nicely - tough luck.
> Much prefer being able to deal direct with the hardware manufacturers.
Yeah, I'm wishing now that I had gone that route. I DID consider doing
that, but I decided then that I didn't want to spend the time it would
have taken to educate myself enough to do a good job of it. But I now
think it would have probably been worth it.
Mike Fontenot
Mike Fontenot
> Quick note: put in a LiveCD disc - be certain it's the right format for
> booting, that is that it *is* a CD/DVD burned NOT as a DATA disc but an
> iso burnt for a bootable OS;
I'm pretty sure that (at least some of) the CD's/DVD's are OK, because
they came from many different sources...I bought two of them (from two
different places), two others came with a linux book, and I burned four
others myself.
> power down system, disconnect all writable
> HD and boot Live CD/DVD. A liveCD doesn't require an hard disk in place
> to run for it operates through RAM. Doing this will rule out the
> SATA/IDE bug.
So can I just unplug the data cable from each of the hard drives (at the
drive end), and leave the power connectors in place? It seems like that
would be the easiest, and least likely to accidentally break anything.
Mike Fontenot
Mark Madsen
> sk8r-365 wrote:
>> power down system, disconnect all writable HD and boot Live CD/DVD. A
>> liveCD doesn't require an hard disk in place to run for it operates
>> through RAM. Doing this will rule out the SATA/IDE bug.
>
> So can I just unplug the data cable from each of the hard drives (at the
> drive end), and leave the power connectors in place? It seems like that
> would be the easiest, and least likely to accidentally break anything.
Depends on the drive: on PATA drives, the power connectors are a lot less
fragile than the data connectors, so I prefer to unplug those.
Mike Fontenot
>
> Unplug all drives but the boot
> device.
If I've got the BIOS set to boot off the CDROM before the boot hard
drive, can't I disconnect ALL hard drives, and just boot the LiveCD?
Or does the BIOS require that a boot hard drive always exist?
Mike Fontenot
Mike Fontenot
OK, I think I mis-interpreted your post...when you said "disconnect all
drives but the boot device", I now think by "boot device" you were
talking about the CDROM that I want to boot the LiveCD from...sorry for
the confusion.
Mike Fontenot
Mike Fontenot
>
> Before we get into digging around, have you tried that
> boot suggestion? If so, what resulted?
>
That problem has been temporarily preempted by a much more drastic
problem: when I boot vista the first time every day, the monitor has
lots of spurious video noise on it (even on the BIOS screen, before any
OS starts to boot). It then causes the PC to hang, recoverable only
with a prolonged push of the power button. (Actually, sometimes vista is
able to boot, but with the video noise remaining, but stable enough (and
legible enough) to allow me to do a restart without the power button).
By repeatedly powering back up, eventually it comes up perfectly, and I
can then use the system the rest of the day, including multiple
successive reboots of both vista and the Mandriva liveCD. The odd thing
is that the problem is always back the next day (on the first boot,
followed by several additional failed boots until the problem
miraculously goes away). And after that final shutdown every night, I
shut off power (at the surge protector). Dell has been trying to figure
out the cause, but they refuse to let me return the graphics card for a
refund (which is what I'd like to do, because the on-board video never
has the problem). After I've run a few more experiments, I'm going to
send the card back to the manufacturer (ATI, aka "Diamond")...they will
test and replace it if defective (won't give me a refund). I've got to
just hope the board is the culprit, and that it tests bad for them. If
it's some wierd interaction between the board and my PC, I think I'm
just going to have to eat the $80 I paid Dell for that card, and stick
with the on-board video.
Mike Fontenot
Mike Fontenot
> Sounds like something has to warm up first.
I've been thinking the same thing.
>
> 1) remove add-on video card and see if problem goes away next cold
> system start
Yeah, with the on-board video, there's never been any problem.
> 2) check BOIS for on board devices pertaining to video and set boot to
> video add-on card
Whenever I switch video (on-board vs PCI card), I've been following the
graphics card manual, which says to use vista's device manager, then
display adapter, then click on whichever driver shows up (the last one
used, either on-board or PCI card), and click "disable". As soon as I
do that, it goes to a low resolution (basic VGA, I guess, which all
video hardware must be required to handle, without their own driver
being used). Then I power down, add or remove the card, and boot
vista. At that point, the new video hardware is being used, but again
only in basic VGA driverless mode. I then enable the new driver that
shows up under display devices, reboot, and I'm back to high resolution.
I wondered if I could specify the video driver in the BIOS, but I
haven't seen where to do that...your response seems to indicate that it
should be there somewhere. Everything I've been told says that,
whenever the video card is plugged in, that's the video hardware that
will be used...to use on-board video, the video card can't be plugged
in...does the bios setting override that?
>
> 3) check proper seating of add-on card and cable connections
I didn't reseat the card as part of trouble shooting, but I did pull it
out when I thought I could just send it back to Dell for a refund. When
they wouldn't let me do that, I inserted it again, in order to try the
updated driver as instructed by ATI. The symptoms weren't exactly the
same as before, but the "video noise" was similar. Next step is to get
authorization from ATI to send it back for testing, and just hope that
the problem is reproduceable for them.
>
> 4) try a fail safe BIOS setting, esp. as it touches video settings
I don't know enough to know what you're talking about here.
>
> 5) don't rule out the monitor
Works fine with on-board viveo. It also works fine with the PCI card
when Mandriva (liveCD) is booted up. That seemed to suggest that the
problem was the vista driver, not hardware...that's one of the reasons
that I'm not too optimistic that ATI will see the problem. Actually, I'm
not sure that I ever booted it "cold" with Mandriva...maybe that's the
only reason the problem didn't show up with Mandriva...also, the fact
that the video noise is present immmediately after power up (under BIOS
control, before ANY OS is involved) seems to say that it can't be a
driver problem.
Mike Fontenot
Baron
Does the ATI video card have an on board power supply for the graphics
chip ? The reason I ask is that I recently had a client with similar
symptoms. The culprit turned out to be bad solder joints on the filter
capacitors and inductor. These bad joints can easily be seen with a
magnifying glass. Resoldering the six joints cured the problem.
--
Best Regards:
Baron.
Baron
> Baron mumbled:
>
>> Does the ATI video card have an on board power supply for the
>> graphics
>> chip ? The reason I ask is that I recently had a client with similar
>> symptoms. The culprit turned out to be bad solder joints on the
>> filter
>> capacitors and inductor. These bad joints can easily be seen with a
>> magnifying glass. Resoldering the six joints cured the problem.
>
> That is something I have been mulling over, too. Seems to resolve went
> he system is warmed up - then a cold solder joint could be making good
> contact.
>
This bad solder joint problem seems to have become a lot worse since
lead free became mandatory. I've had hard drives with intermittent
failures on the data cable connectors. Freeze spray sometimes helps to
weed the difficult ones out.
--
Best Regards:
Baron.
John Hasler
> All I can say is, "Hello!?, anybody home? As if lead isn't in the Earth
> already, duh".
But that's "natural" lead. "Natural" _anything_ is ok.
--
John Hasler
jo...@dhh.gt.org
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA
John Hasler
> But that's "natural" lead. "Natural" _anything_ is ok.
sk8r-365 wrote:
> Be careful where you're stepping, John. <g>
I live on a horse farm. I shovel natural, organic[1] stuff every day.
[1] Not legally "organic" according to USDA regulations, though.
Mike Fontenot
>
> Does the ATI video card have an on board
> power supply for the graphics
> chip ?
I asked ATI that question, and they said no.
Mike Fontenot
Mike Fontenot
>
> 5) don't rule out the monitor
I realized that my response to this question (that the monitor works
with the on-board video, but not with the video card) doesn't completely
rule out a monitor problem, because the on-board video uses the analog
monitor input, and the video card uses the digital input. The card has
both digital and analog output, but I didn't think to try the card's
analog output (and I've already sent ATI the card for testing, so I
can't try that now).
Mike Fontenot
Mike Fontenot
>
> So then, now that the ATI card is mailed, how are things going with
> Windows and Linux LiveCD booting?
I guess I have trouble wrapping my mind around more than one problem at
a time, but that's next on the agenda. I'm also trying to use the time
while I await ATI's test results to catch up on the routine stuff I
ignored during the new PC crisis (like paying bills, etc.).
I'm anxious to try to install Mandriva on one of my disk partitions,
from the Mandriva liveCD (but I want to wait until all the hardware
issues are resolved). The Mandriva liveCD almost always boots up OK
(without any options or work-arounds)...it's only failed twice out of
about a dozen boots...so I'm hoping that the disk-installed version does
as well. But I know I'll need to do something to get it to ALWAYS boot
up OK.
Mike Fontenot
Mike Fontenot
Mike Fontenot
>
> I'm also trying to use the time
> while I await ATI's test results to catch up on the routine stuff I
> ignored during the new PC crisis (like paying bills, etc.).
>
> I'm anxious to try to install Mandriva on one of my disk partitions,
> from the Mandriva liveCD (but I want to wait until all the hardware
> issues are resolved).
Here's an update:
The graphics card DID turn out to be defective (thank goodness...I would
have been out of ideas if that hadn't been the problem). ATI sent me a
new one, and it's been working fine.
After a few false starts (bad download or bad burn of Mandriva liveCD),
I was able to install the Mandriva LiveCD to a disk partition, and it's
working great. I think my problems may be over (famous last words(?)).
I've still got a lot of work to do to get everything set up to my
satisfaction, but I've really been impressed so far with how well
everything works "right out of the box".
Mike Fontenot
1PW
Way cool and congratulations!
--
1PW
@?6A62?FEH9:DE=6o2@=]4@> [r4o7t]