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ZerG~LegenD
Sweden1179 Posts
I need a new OS for my laptop, but I don't know which one to choose. Must be a free distro. I'm mostly gonna surf the web and do java programming. I'd prefer to be able to play bw, wc3 and cs through some kind of virtual box (these are different in different distros, aren't they?). I want it to boot up as quickly as possible and I don't care much about the desktop graphics. Can someone recommend me a distro? Thanks.  | ||
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jobiasRKD
United States38 Posts
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meathook
1289 Posts
You should read a bit about the top distros: http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major and pick the one you find most interestin. Edit: Yeah yeah.. not all. | ||
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haduken
Australia8267 Posts
The best thing about Ubuntu are it's package manager (Well, Debian's manager really) and community support. | ||
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foeffa
Belgium2115 Posts
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The Raurosaur
198 Posts
On July 28 2009 22:47 meathook wrote: All distros are free. Not all. Redhat and SUSE, for instance, cost money. | ||
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MK
United States496 Posts
All distros are free. lol ? And yeah, if you never used Linux, go ubuntu. | ||
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cujo2k
Canada1044 Posts
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EsX_Raptor
United States2802 Posts
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meathook
1289 Posts
On July 28 2009 23:11 The Raurosaur wrote: Not all. Redhat and SUSE, for instance, cost money. Oh.. right. RHEL and SLE does cost money. However, both Redhat and SUSE offer free distros and most other distros are free. | ||
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HeaDStrong
Scotland785 Posts
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StorrZerg
United States13919 Posts
I'd suggest ubuntu though over anything else | ||
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samachking
Bahrain4949 Posts
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rredtooth
5464 Posts
you're better off using cedega but even that can't handle iccup second, ubuntu is a great choice but i suggest linux mint for the absolute beginner its like ubuntu but with more features and is easier to use they use the same updates as ubuntu and you can sneak questions into the amazing userbase ubuntu has because they are very similar distros crunchbang is a very fast distro (using lxde instad of gnome) but could take a while to get used to if you use it as your first distribution because it doesn't take too long to make a livecd (or a live usb if you don't like wasting CDs), just poke your head around as many distributions as possible and try to settle on one you definitely want to try out each of the major desktop environments which are: Gnome (ubuntu, mint default) KDE (mandriva default) Xfce (xubuntu, zenwalk, vector default) LXDE (crunchbang default) for choosing a linux distribution, www.distrowatch.com will be your best friend the panel on the right shows you how popular each distribution is as for now, i'd highly suggest trying out a bunch (use unetbootin to make live USBs) but i think you'll find Mint to suit your needs the best | ||
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Hamster1800
United States175 Posts
One thing I would definitely say is that you should ditch GNOME (Ubuntu's default window manager) and install KDE. GNOME is extremely outdated and KDE will probably make you much happier (this is assuming you are an average user, I personally prefer minimalistic window managers and am using fluxbox). The easiest way to do that is to get Kubuntu rather than straigth Ubuntu. Everything else is the same, as far as I know, but some people say there are a few differences. I'm not sure of any linux based VMs that are sure to be able to run bw, wc3, and cs, but wine is a compatibility layer which allows windows programs to be run almost-natively in linux, meaning that there is very little slowdown for most programs. I know that bw works fine in it, but I can't say anything about wc3 or cs. | ||
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Shad0w59
United Kingdom43 Posts
I tried a few and got terribly confused as it seems that most other distros assume a lot of knowledge of Linux. I would disagree with Hamster1800 though, I found the default GNOME shell easier to use than KDE. Go with Ubuntu with all the defaults and you can worry about tweaking later. | ||
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ZerG~LegenD
Sweden1179 Posts
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kemoryan
Spain1506 Posts
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King K. Rool
Canada4408 Posts
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miseiler
United States1389 Posts
I use Arch now, but I'm certainly not afraid to say I used Ubuntu for a couple years first, and I'll recommend it along with everyone else here. | ||
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ghermination
United States2851 Posts
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xmShake
United States1100 Posts
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jimminy_kriket
Canada5529 Posts
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yh93kim
Korea (South)62 Posts
Unfortunately, I haven't found the perfect distro yet so I really can't recommend any... | ||
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coltrane
Chile988 Posts
Ubuntu comunity makes two major releases every year, in april and october, so 8.4 is from april 2008. I didnt manage to run a G3.5 modem in 9.4, they remove from the kernel the headers to make it work properly and i didnt wanted to lose time compiling a new kernel, so i rolledback. I have a dual boot with xp for playing sc and ubuntu for everithing else. It could be tricky to use sc in a virtualbox because the virtualmachine comunicates with ubuntu via network, so you may need to configure a lot of things to make it work correctly for multiplayer. Also you need to reserve some RAM to the virtual machine, and it cant be more than the half of your RAM, so if you have less than 2 gb i would recomend dual boot. THis is really easy: First of all you could start with an XP instalation disk, if your notebook has a SATA disk you may need to put your HD drivers on the instalation with nLite, is not hard, and nLite has a bug, some error message will appear whe you log in in XP, you can solve that manually removing some keys in the registry. Before anything you should search for the XP drivers, if it is a new laptop it could be hard. When instaling XP you should do it in a small partition, i usually give my XP partition 20GB, FAT32, because NTFS is not open source, then it doesnt work the best when you acces it from linux. You could let it in NTFS too, but if you do so i recomend not to copy anything on it while using linux, could be fine, but you could lose some things too. The rest of your HDD let it just like it is, without any partition table. Then reboot your computer and use the ubuntu instalation disk, you can download it HERE You will be asked for a few things, like language and keyboard distribution. After that comes the nice part: the partition table. You could let the instalation to decide everything, or you could save a lot of time in the future doing this: Your fisrt partition is windows, dont touch it. Make a partition for the linux system, as EXT3, i have used many sizes in the past, now i just put 20 gb for that. On MOUNT POINT put / Make a second partition for SWAP, from 700MB to your max RAM is ok, i usually make this one from about 1GB. You cant mount a swap memory partition Make a third partition for the home directories. I am not sure, but i think it has to be an EXT3, so i made mine of 20GB, you will need space here for the temp files while creating DVD. Mount it on /home Make a fourth partition with the rest of your HDD as FAT32, so you will be able to acces it from WINDOWS and LINUX. Mount it on /home/fat32 (or /home/whatever_you_want). Go to the next step. After that you will configure the GRUB, the loader that will let you start your computer with one or the other OS. Its done by itself. Pick an username and a password, remember it, you will use it to configure your machine and to install packages. If you have any doubt just ask, dont be affraid, if you make a mistake nothing will happen, you just have to start again. Look, this is my disk structure: ![[image loading]](http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/7746/partition.png) | ||
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coltrane
Chile988 Posts
On July 29 2009 02:10 ZerG~LegenD wrote: How is the window manager in kde? At work I use Redhat (Gnome I think) and whenever I open a folder it opens in a new window, which I really don't like so I've kinda stopped using the desktop system there. I do prefer using a graphic interface unless it sucks though. Thats just user configuration, is it nautilus? (in any window click help/about) In linux the software behavior is located in your home directory in a hidden file or directory, so you can change it without any restriction. If ever you crash some software after changing a configuration you can delete that directory or file and the program will regenerate it at its default settings, so just change anything you want. | ||
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R3condite
Korea (South)1541 Posts
On July 29 2009 03:10 miseiler wrote: Damn times have changed. Someone used to say "which distro?" and get a thousand different responses and ten thousand more flaming the first. I use Arch now, but I'm certainly not afraid to say I used Ubuntu for a couple years first, and I'll recommend it along with everyone else here. well u can still ask which is better, emacs or vim? | ||
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meathook
1289 Posts
So far, everything is running along smoothly. The install was quite easy, and I have not had to search for any drivers, everything was installed when install was done (it even installed my shitty soundcard, which took me 4 hours to find drivers for in WinXP). It has all the common codecs and plugins installed from the get-go and pretty complete distribution over all. Might want to give it a try if your Linux savvy is lacking, like me heh.. | ||
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Tyraz
New Zealand310 Posts
If you've got low hardware, then Xfce is pretty much becoming identical to gnome in terms of both look and functionality (based on GTK+ also)... which is kinda weird since gnome is 212mb, and xfce is 15mb... I don't really get it. However, do NOT make the mistake of choosing Gentoo. If you ever see a gentoo kid, walk away very quickly in the opposite direction. Basically you set flags for your own processor and get like a 2% performance increase for having to compile everything! This translates roughly to AT LEAST 12 hours straight to compile open office :| So if you want to actually get into it then i'd recommend: - If you want everything to kinda 'just work', and super easy installation: Debian (It runs on literally everything! And it will always work) - If you like an elegant linux with a community that takes clean code and modifications very personally: Arch Edit: The kid above me's distro is pretty hard core. OpenBox is a good (damn fast) window manager, although it has a very... distinctive style  | ||
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haduken
Australia8267 Posts
A) provide the apt/aptitude package manager. IMO the best package manager for Linux. B) provide repositories. C) Based on Debian code base which means that a future switch to Debian is easy. Debian on a fresh install do not provide that. Sure you can add your repositories but it is not something a newbie will find easy. I'm very tempted to write a newbie guide to Linux but in essence all Linux distros require learning and modification. If you are unwilling to do this then maybe Linux is not for you (for now). Stick with Windows or go buy a mac and be done with it. | ||
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spitball
Australia81 Posts
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meathook
1289 Posts
On August 09 2009 01:21 spitball wrote: Either go with Ubuntu (or something based on it) or Gentoo. Anybody who says Gentoo sucks is wrong. Also, Arch is really bad (I know because I use it). Good luck! Hey, care to stop being a complete douchebag for a second and explain your statements? "Arch is really bad (I know because I use it)" .. Derp derp derp. Either way, Gentoo is still a pretty awful choice for someone who is new to Linux because you have to compile all the packages locally, which would be a nightmare and imminent shitstorm for said newbie. | ||
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spitball
Australia81 Posts
On August 09 2009 12:35 meathook wrote: Lol.. someone called me "kid". Hey, care to stop being a complete douchebag for a second and explain your statements? "Arch is really bad (I know because I use it)" .. Derp derp derp. Either way, Gentoo is still a pretty awful choice for someone who is new to Linux because you have to compile all the packages locally, which would be a nightmare and imminent shitstorm for said newbie. Right, I'm the douchebag. Thanks. edit: forgot to mention you can get binary packages with Gentoo, but you're probably right about Ubuntu being a better option. That's why I included it. | ||
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meathook
1289 Posts
Oh, you forgot to add: you fail at reading comprehension too. Well, well.. now we know. edit: forgot to mention you can get binary packages with Gentoo, but you're probably right about Ubuntu being a better option. That's why I included it. I never said Ubuntu is a better option; I just said that Gentoo is a bad option.. oh, but you failed to understand that.. right on! | ||
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b3h47pte
United States1317 Posts
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spitball
Australia81 Posts
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meathook
1289 Posts
From: spitball [ Profile | Buddy ] Subject: stuff Date: 8/9/09 14:22 I'm so fucking sorry that I misread your post. In my original post I was half kidding anyway. Can't we just be friends? Hugs and kisses, spitball. Lol | ||
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Chuiu
3470 Posts
The only thing I don't like about Ubuntu is that it doesn't like you logging in as root, so its damn near impossible to get it to auto-login you as root. One of these days I'll figure it out, none of the solutions from an hour of googling worked. EDIT: Now I get to wait for someone to give me the obligitory "Use sudo its more secure and blah blah blah" speech. | ||
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rockon1215
United States612 Posts
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JeeJee
Canada5652 Posts
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