Recommend A Linux OS

tylerdurden94

I am currently using Vista and i would like to change it to a Linux OS and i was wondering if people could give me a few options/opinions on what would be the best for me.

Ubuntu of Fedora etc etc etc. I tried to install Linux and few years back and i could never get the install to go properly so i want something that is easy enough to use to get use to.

I use my computer for everyday stuff internet/msn/music/tv/downloading will i still be able to use the likes of VLC and Free Download Manager for the likes of my rapidshare files??

All help much appreciated!

Seanot

tylerdurden94 wrote: »

I am currently using Vista and i would like to change it to a Linux OS and i was wondering if people could give me a few options/opinions on what would be the best for me.

Ubuntu of Fedora etc etc etc. I tried to install Linux and few years back and i could never get the install to go properly so i want something that is easy enough to use to get use to.

I use my computer for everyday stuff internet/msn/music/tv/downloading will i still be able to use the likes of VLC and Free Download Manager for the likes of my rapidshare files??

All help much appreciated!

Backtrack ...look it up

Orion

Ubuntu is probably the easiest to get used to. New version just released today.

www.ubuntu.com

velocirafter

I would definitely reccommend ubuntu, i've been using it for about 6 monts now after switching from XP.

i cant do pretty much everything that i could with windows and more, there have been some things that took a bit of time to set up(wireless/s-video) but it has nothing to do with my technical prowess that i sorted them, the ubuntu forums are a goldmine for advice and support.

I had a dual-boot with fedora a couple of years back and i didnt like it at all. It wasn't very user friendly and it was slow and clunky, largely due to the fact that its a testbed for Red-Hat enterprise linux.

VLC is open-source so it runs perfectly in linux

Orion

velocirafter wrote: »

some things that took a bit of time to set up(wireless/s-video) but it has

Intrepid - released today - apparantly has much better wireless and 3G support native. I'll be trying it out over the weekend.

tylerdurden94

Ubuntu it is then so! Downloading it now

Much appreciate the replies guys, Cheers!

Quick one, when im going to install the drivers etc etc i do it the same way as i would normally insert the disc or if there is specific drivers i need do i go to the ubuntu site or the manufacturers site?

(Linux Noob)

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Seanot wrote: »

Backtrack ...look it up

Hardly suitable as an everyday desktop distro:rolleyes:

tylerdurden94

Sean_K wrote: »

Hardly suitable as an everyday desktop distro:rolleyes:

Yeah i kinda guessed that when i looked it up.

An Fear Aniar

Yes, Ubuntu. It's especially designed to make it as easy as possible for Windows refugees. There are some other great distros out there - Linux Mint is a flavour of Ubuntu with great hardware detection - probably easier even than Ubuntu.

PCLinux OS is also highly praised, as is Fedora, for ease of use.





.

Shiny

I'm also thinking of dumping Vista and going cold turkey for Ubuntu.

Nehaxak

I would recommend Mandriva and OpenSUSE, both very good distributions.

Orion

I tried Suse and didn't like it at all. Never tried Mandriva.

Webmonkey

Macros42 wrote: »

I tried Suse and didn't like it at all. Never tried Mandriva.

+1 Suse not best really

oeb

Try wubi it's a handy installer for ubuntu.

Orion

LinuxMint is another option. It's based on Ubuntu and uses the same repos. I'm not mad on the interface but it does have the added advantage of having all media codecs preinstalled. Easy enough to do in Ubuntu (enable all repos then "sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras") but nice to have them just there.

An Fear Aniar

Macros42 wrote: »

I tried Suse and didn't like it at all.

+2 for that. Did not like Suse at all.


.

tylerdurden94

Well i finally got Ubuntu installed on my laptop just to try it out, ive been messing with it for a both an hour now so far so good.

Was a but tricky figuring out the install on it, now to get it done on my desktop, just backing up everything at the moment in case i fcuk up the install.

Anybody got any good pointers/tips with regards the install/media players?

I have been doing a little research and i found out that itunes isnt compatiable with this so putting music on my iPod might be a bit difficult, but seen there is a program(?) wine that you can use to install windows based exe's on ubuntu. Have many of you's used it and if so got any feedback on it?

Much appreciate the help so far, cheers lads!

oeb

tylerdurden94 wrote: »

Well i finally got Ubuntu installed on my laptop just to try it out, ive been messing with it for a both an hour now so far so good.

Was a but tricky figuring out the install on it, now to get it done on my desktop, just backing up everything at the moment in case i fcuk up the install.

Anybody got any good pointers/tips with regards the install/media players?

I have been doing a little research and i found out that itunes isnt compatiable with this so putting music on my iPod might be a bit difficult, but seen there is a program(?) wine that you can use to install windows based exe's on ubuntu. Have many of you's used it and if so got any feedback on it?

Much appreciate the help so far, cheers lads!

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PortableDevices/iPod
http://www.ubuntux.org/how-to-use-an-ipod-with-ubuntu

An Fear Aniar

tylerdurden94 wrote: »

Well i finally got Ubuntu installed on my laptop just to try it out, ive been messing with it for a both an hour now so far so good.

Because it's a laptop I would advise you to check the loadcycle count. If it's going up too fast it will kill your hard drive prematurely. This is a bug in some laptops caused by power management settings in the BIOS.

It's easy to check. Just install:

sudo aptitude install smartmontools

then copy and paste this into the terminal

sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load_Cycle_Count

See more about it here.

http://ubuntudemon.wordpress.com/2007/10/28/laptop-hardrive-killer-bug-how-to-discover-whether-you-are-affected/

Keep an eye on it over the next few days. It was supposed to be fixed in this release but the fix didn't work for me. There is however, a fix you can apply yourself if you need to.


.

tylerdurden94

oeb wrote: »

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PortableDevices/iPod
http://www.ubuntux.org/how-to-use-an-ipod-with-ubuntu

Thanks they are a great source, but i have the newest 32gb iPod Touch and it hasnt been jailbroken yet.

An Fear Aniar wrote: »

Because it's a laptop I would advise you to check the loadcycle count. If it's going up too fast it will kill your hard drive prematurely. This is a bug in some laptops caused by power management settings in the BIOS.

It's easy to check. Just install:

sudo aptitude install smartmontools

then copy and paste this into the terminal

sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load_Cycle_Count

See more about it here.

http://ubuntudemon.wordpress.com/2007/10/28/laptop-hardrive-killer-bug-how-to-discover-whether-you-are-affected/

Keep an eye on it over the next few days. It was supposed to be fixed in this release but the fix didn't work for me. There is however, a fix you can apply yourself if you need to.


.

Thanks very much i will defo give that a shot. Im thinking about installing it to my desktop but i will give it a blast on my laptop for awhile to see how i am getting on with it. Just before i wrote this it crashed out on me again :mad:

An Fear Aniar

tylerdurden94 wrote: »

Just before i wrote this it crashed out on me again :mad:

It crashed? Oh noes!

What were you doing? It might be flash related...


.

Cantab.

XUbuntu here.

Big fan of the lightweight Xfce desktop.

Plus, I don't like Ubuntu's browny/orangey theme...

,8,1

Try Fedora Linux. It's a GNOME based system which has a bit more polish than Ubuntu. Version 10 final is expected to be released by the end of the month.

Sherifu

Another Mint user here, it's that bit nicer than ubuntu. It has it's own customized menu and update tools as well as having media codecs preinstalled as someone else mentioned.

samhail

after picking up a nice cheap 16gb pen drive i downloaded ubuntu and tried to install it from vista... threw some error about not having permissions to change the MBR ont he pen drive and i gave up... ah well

Sherifu

samhail wrote: »

after picking up a nice cheap 16gb pen drive i downloaded ubuntu and tried to install it from vista... threw some error about not having permissions to change the MBR ont he pen drive and i gave up... ah well

Ubuntu 8.10 includes a simple, working tool that puts a bootable Ubuntu system on a memory stick and lets you use persistent space on it to store settings and documents—in other words, keep a real Home folder there.

Or follow something like this but you'll need to work from a linux os.

samhail

was that from the live CD ? i was lazy and tried it from windows
might spend an hour today getting it running.

Sherifu

Yep, from the live cd.

BaconZombie

Backtrack is a the best LIVE CD for PenTesting but it's not by design a desktop distro.

But it's built on SLAX, with a offshoot of Slackware.

But back to your question, try Gentoo, Slax, Slaxware or Archlinux.

Seanot wrote: »

Backtrack ...look it up

An Fear Aniar

BOFH_139 wrote: »

Backtrack is a the best LIVE CD for PenTesting but it's not by design a desktop distro.

But it's built on SLAX, with a offshoot of Slackware.

But back to your question, try Gentoo, Slax, Slaxware or Archlinux.

Slax is easy enough, but it boots from a USB. Those others you mentioned sre not for beginners. Read the OP:

i want something that is easy enough to use to get use to.

Gentoo, Slackware and Arch are very difficult for a beginner.



.

tylerdurden94

Well ive been running it for a couple of days now and i have to say i really really like it. Defo gonna take some time to get use to it, but thats what i like trying to figure out sh*t.

But in saying that there is one or two little things that i cant really use to yet but im sure in time i will (msn i prefer than pidgin), 1 or 2 small little gripes hopefully somebody can help me out, when i turn on the graphics card for best apperance (wobbly windows etc) it works grand but when i got to watch a TV episode it spaz's out and black lines and is real jumpy, kind of annoying to have to switch between the two. I just think my graphics card is a piece of DIRT (ati radeon hd 24000) anybody know of any issues that i might be missing tried looking into and installing different drivers and hotfixs, i think my system doesnt sound the same, example in vista i could have my volume on 4 and hear it no probs but when i listen to stuff in ubuntu i have to have it at about 30 to hear it ok (maybe im being weird about it)

I might have to do a dual boot with vista for the likes of putting music on my itunes and one or two other bits and bobs. Ive been looking into the XP bootable from a USB any suggestions have many of you tried??

Once again thanks for any help/tips realy really appreciated.

Orion

For iTunes - won't work. But if you just want it for managing your iPod you can use Amarok or Banshee. They're both in apt. IF you must have iTunes then rather than dual booting you can install it in a VM using VirtualBox.

For the video problem it could be driver related. This may not apply to Intrepid but it does apply to earlier versions. Easiest way to install drivers is to get Envy and use it to get the latest driver and install it for you.

tylerdurden94

Macros42 wrote: »

For iTunes - won't work. But if you just want it for managing your iPod you can use Amarok or Banshee. They're both in apt. IF you must have iTunes then rather than dual booting you can install it in a VM using VirtualBox.

For the video problem it could be driver related. This may not apply to Intrepid but it does apply to earlier versions. Easiest way to install drivers is to get Envy and use it to get the latest driver and install it for you.

Tried Amarok doesnt recoginise the iPod oh well! Virtual Box i was having a look at that also gonna do a little bit more research on that. I installed Envy the other day but im not sure if its working correctly because of the new version.

On thing i am happy about is that i got my sound issue sorted out

Much appreciate the help.

Sherifu

tylerdurden94 wrote: »

Tried Amarok doesnt recoginise the iPod oh well! Virtual Box i was having a look at that also gonna do a little bit more research on that. I installed Envy the other day but im not sure if its working correctly because of the new version.

On thing i am happy about is that i got my sound issue sorted out

Much appreciate the help.

Tried gtkpod?

Orion

good call. GTK worked for my Zen too. And that one is designed for the iPod.

http://www.gtkpod.org/about.html

tylerdurden94

Just tried it there no luck. It can be done thou with that or Amarok if your able to SSH into it, but the new version iPod Touch i have hasnt been jailbroken yet so have to wait for that.

Thank you once again.

tylerdurden94

Been using it for awhile now, have to say i like it alot starting to get use to it, but the one thing i cant handle is the jumpy/glitchy graphics when watching movies of tv shows.

As i do watch alot of stuff on my computer this is a major annoyance.