Beginners Linux?

[Mychael101]

What is the best free distro for a total linux newbie? I was hoping to download and install it tonite and see if its so great after all. Thanks for the tips! I was thinking either Mandrake or Red Hat. I want this to be as easy an install as possible and user friendly too.

[Blue88Coupe]

redhat. 7.3

[MoonDog]

Red Hat is going to start charging if they haven't already. I would go with either Debian or Mandrake.

[AbecX]

Originally posted by MoonDog
Red Hat is going to start charging if they haven't already. I would go with either Debian or Mandrake.
No they arent, why does everyone keep saying that... They are going to support 'Red Hat Enterprise', the linux distro 'Red Hat' will no longer be funded by them, instead Fedora is taking over the project and parts of RH Enterprise will be pulling from Fedora core so you can bet that RH will have some say about the distrobution. Fedora and Red Hat are the same thing, it just say Fedora were it used to say Red Hat.

[Mychael101]

So is RedHat 7.3 is the way to go then?

[Hunt4m3x]

Originally posted by AbecX
No they arent, why does everyone keep saying that... They are going to support 'Red Hat Enterprise', the linux distro 'Red Hat' will no longer be funded by them, instead Fedora is taking over the project and parts of RH Enterprise will be pulling from Fedora core so you can bet that RH will have some say about the distrobution. Fedora and Red Hat are the same thing, it just say Fedora were it used to say Red Hat.

Ouch, Someone got owned.

[trey85stang]

Originally posted by Mychael101
So is RedHat 7.3 is the way to go then?

Im taking a liking to Mandrake 9.2, never used RH7.3 but I used 9 for a month or two then started using mandrake. I like mandrake better.

I eventually want to start useing slackware, but I have not got the guts to start using it yet :)

[evilmonk]

Originally posted by Mychael101
So is RedHat 7.3 is the way to go then?

i believe the erratas/patches for 7.3 will end shortly as well as 9. if you're a newbie it may not matter to you for your purpose of learning linux. they're pretty much all the same if you're a newbie. it won't really matter to you if you're using linux, system v, bsd, etc...get one, install the cd, learn commands, piping, grep, metacharacters, wild cards, scripting, run levels, user, groups, init, inittab, file permissions, suid, sudo, sym/hard links, libraries, gnu freeware, etc.. the list goes on and on. most of the things you will first learn will be independent of whatever "unix" you are using. an sh script on one linux box will work the same on another linux box. the concepts/locations of run levels will be different between bsd and solaris but the overall gist will be the same. learn some of the basics first, then you'll have a better idea of what o/s will suit your needs. don't get hung up on which distro you should use. i'm particular to solaris, though. hardware built for the o/s and o/s built for the hardware = not too shabby.

[vic torius]

I 2nd evilmonk.

I started off long ago on RH 4.2. Not so pretty to get running back then. Since then I have tried linux on alphas, slackware, free bsd, debian, mandrake, newer RH, solaris, AIX, and Gentoo. They all are at the core pretty similar.

Learn the commands, syntax, configuration, file structure, etc then worry about what suits you.

This is coming from a Windows Server Admin :)

[NeoRaZor]

Mandrake 9.2 is the best by far for n00bs and myself!

Execpt that the friggin OS keeps locking up! But other than that it's greatness!

F Micro$haft!

[trey85stang]

Originally posted by NeoRaZor
Execpt that the friggin OS keeps locking up! But other than that it's greatness!

I have not had any problems with lockups with 9.2 :confused:, but that must suck.

[NeoRaZor]

Hell ya! RH9.0 on the same box never had a problem other than it was way to slow... I'm may just reformat and reinstall...

This is my media PC so I hate it when the TV is running and locks up.

[Mychael101]

Well I finally got Mandrake 9.2 loaded on that other machine and the install wasn't too bad. But now that its on the machine I am totally lost. I was wanting to know if there is already a internet browser that can connect thru dial-up or if I can possbily find an aol cd around here and see if I can use my aol broadband connection on it.

[AbecX]

Originally posted by NeoRaZor
Hell ya! RH9.0 on the same box never had a problem other than it was way to slow... I'm may just reformat and reinstall..
Redhat is bloated, I'd install something like slackware if you are looking for speed.

[NeoRaZor]

I think I have the Mandrake issue narrowed down to the video card and it's drivers.

The reason I say this is it locks up very quickly when I'm watching TV but it will lockup when it's be on for an hour or two.

I have an older ATI Radeon card install (7200 I believe) and there are no new drivers on the ATI site for it. What I've done to test this add a second hard drive and install Win XP on it, seconds after boot up the PC freezes and then reboots. After the reboot XP then tells me the drivers for the card are either not correct or have been coroupted. This leads me to believe that the same is true for the Linux drivers as both OS's are doing the same thing. (That or it's the shitty FIC Mobo though it's strange that this never happened with RH 9.0 but then I didn't have the TV card in it either.)

The TV card I use is a Hauppauge and is compatable with Linux.

[Mychael101]

Hey quit hijacking my thread and help my ass out! How do I get this damn linux box to connect to the internet?:confused:

[Y2KSilverGT]

You're going to have a hard time getting AOL on linux. You need an account like Internet America - just get a user name and password and a phone number to dial up. Have you ever used dial-up networking in windows? This is how you do it in Linux.

If you have broadband and your provider gives you a fixed ip address - substitute the phone number with the IP address.

Good Luck.

[Sami]

Originally posted by Mychael101
Hey quit hijacking my thread and help my ass out! How do I get this damn linux box to connect to the internet?:confused:
Connect your cable/dsl modem to your network card. Most likely your service uses dynamic addresses so all you need to do it click on the automatic settings when you open the settings to your network card.