Need help picking linix OS

NanoLion3

Hi,
Need help picking out a linix OS and which is the best 1 to have.
I am a newbie:D but not afraid to try out a new learning curve,

and can i run the linix OS on an External HDD?

Thanks in Advance

Tom Dunne

NanoLion3 wrote: »

Hi,
Need help picking out a linix OS and which is the best 1 to have.
I am a newbie:D but not afraid to try out a new learning curve,

Define best.

Ubuntu is typically recommended for new users as it is fairly straight forward to install and start using.

And a side note, it's Linux, not linix.

NanoLion3 wrote: »

and can i run the linix OS on an External HDD?

Thanks in Advance

It depends on whether your computer can boot from an external HDD. Most made in the last year or two can.

ravydavygravy

Your best bet is to run it off a live CD - this is a CD with a working linux installation on it - it means you can try linux without having to install it on your machine. There are many different live CDs available, so you can try different linuxes and see which one suits you best...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LiveDistros#Linux-based

For a beginner, I'd recommend Fedora or Ubuntu:

Fedora: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD
Ubuntu: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

Dave

An Fear Aniar

Yeah, go for Ubuntu if you're new, you're more likely to get a working system faster. You can boot from external HDD although it's possible you might have to edit the GRUB boot manager (maybe).

Also, thoroughly recommend testing it out with a Live CD session first.


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BopNiblets

Linux Mint!
http://www.linuxmint.com

Release 7 "Gloria" has a preview version out, built on Ubuntu Jaunty.

KAGY

+1 for linux mint,
it's based on ubuntu so you can use all the same apps, but I had more things working better from the off using mint (Multimedia keyboard was set up which I was surprised at, only volume worked on an ubuntu install)

I prefer KDE as a desktop environment, there's a community version of Mint available with this.

NanoLion3

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Define best.

Ubuntu is typically recommended for new users as it is fairly straight forward to install and start using.

And a side note, it's Linux, not linix.



It depends on whether your computer can boot from an external HDD. Most made in the last year or two can.

Thanks for the post and will let you know in due time how i get on,;)

and thanks for the side note, am a bit wired on coffee:eek::D

ShawnRaven

Gotta say, i installed the latest ubuntu dualbooting with Vista over the weekend and i'm absolutely loving it. I've often had a lot of hardware related nightmares setting up Linux before, but it picked up everything on this laptop. And installing .deb's is so simple.

Ubuntu has switched gears in my eyes, from a side project tryout, to my primary OS.

Johnboy1951

NanoLion3 wrote: »

Hi,
Need help picking out a linix OS and which is the best 1 to have.
I am a newbie:D but not afraid to try out a new learning curve,

and can i run the linix OS on an External HDD?

Thanks in Advance

Suggest you try a few "live" before installing any. For a new user used to Windows the three I would suggest are

PCLinux
Mepis Linux
Mint Linux

What is best is what suits you.
My best is most likely different.

NanoLion3

ShawnRaven wrote: »

Gotta say, i installed the latest ubuntu dualbooting with Vista over the weekend and i'm absolutely loving it. I've often had a lot of hardware related nightmares setting up Linux before, but it picked up everything on this laptop. And installing .deb's is so simple.

Ubuntu has switched gears in my eyes, from a side project tryout, to my primary OS.

My processors are AMD Turion64 X2, will Ubuntu work with these processors?
How did Ubuntu work when dualbooting with Vista?

Thanks:)

ShawnRaven

NanoLion3 wrote: »

My processors are AMD Turion64 X2, will Ubuntu work with these processors?
How did Ubuntu work when dualbooting with Vista?

Thanks:)

One thing you will discover about Linux over time.
It LOVES older hardware. You'll always find a flavour of it out there to work for the oldest piece of equipment.

Ubuntu was fine, i shrunk down the Vista partition on my laptop by 20GB using the partition manager in the installer and then it installed grub and did the rest.

And now i just got up up and running dual booting with XP on the desktop.
Happy days indeed.

ethernet

NanoLion3 wrote: »

My processors are AMD Turion64 X2, will Ubuntu work with these processors?
How did Ubuntu work when dualbooting with Vista?

Thanks:)

Almost guaranteed! Very popular processor so shouldn't be any problems whatsoever.

If you have Windows installed, most Linux distros will recognise this, offer to make the Windows partition smaller to make space for installing Linux. It's usually OK to accept the default settings but just be sure to read through them in case. If you do resize the Windows partition, it's often recommended to defragment it beforehand in Windows.

Then, after installing, you can pick what OS to boot and set a default.

An Fear Aniar

It's not with the processors that people find compatibility problems. It's usually either wireless or graphics cards that can be troublesome.

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thirtythirty

Here's an online tool that helps you pick you distro:

http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/index.php?firsttime=true

I did it, chose Mint, and it's excellent. Had fedora core and never got my wireless internet working. Worked out of the box with Mint.

Orion

spottyelephant wrote: »

Here's an online tool that helps you pick you distro:

http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/index.php?firsttime=true

I did it, chose Mint, and it's excellent. Had fedora core and never got my wireless internet working. Worked out of the box with Mint.

That's a nice little site - it would be very helpful for newcomers.

TDOie

my sig says it all.:pac:

thirtythirty

Macros42 wrote: »

That's a nice little site - it would be very helpful for newcomers.

Sure is. I didn't even know Mint existed before i did it!

Johnboy1951

I took the test to see what it might throw up ...

To say the results were odd would be to understate things.

Ubuntu
Suse
Kububtu
Mandriva
Mint

So although I don't use or wish to use Gnome DE Ubuntu is #1.
Also it is noticeable that Ubuntu and derivatives occupy three of the 5 places.

Where are the rest of those 300+ distros? Surely about 50 or so might suit me?

I think there is something wrong with the results!

An Fear Aniar

I think the majority of distros use Gnome. There's two good user friendly distros, Sabayon and PCLinuxOS which ought to have come up.

Even with Ubuntu though, you can choose KDE, Xfce, Openbox or Fluxbox as desktop environments, so you're not limited to Gnome. There's also Elive, which is Debian with the Enlightenment desktop:

http://www.elivecd.org/


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gamer

DOES this ubuntu livecd version read fat32 and winxp ntfs hardrive formats. MY hd crashed i need a livecd to recover data/files from the hd.There was a loud clicking noise ,then boot error , cannot read drive 0 , when i reboot the laptop.I,M downloading it right now.I downloaded mint iso and ubuntu ,both are 714meg approx .WILL either of them fit on a cdr 700meg if i use IMGburn to burn the iso?

An Fear Aniar

gamer wrote: »

DOES this ubuntu livecd version read fat32 and winxp ntfs hardrive formats. MY hd crashed i need a livecd to recover data/files from the hd.There was a loud clicking noise ,then boot error , cannot read drive 0 , when i reboot the laptop.I,M downloading it right now.I downloaded mint iso and ubuntu ,both are 714meg approx .WILL either of them fit on a cdr 700meg if i use IMGburn to burn the iso?

Yes it does read both. Ubuntu should be around 697MB.

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