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How to choose which Linux?

Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2005 3:24 pm
by fractalvibes
I am going to have an old compaq 333 mhz pc to play with soon, wondering what 'flavor" of Linux might work on it. I know zero about the pros and cons and differences between the various varieties.

Any recommendations? Debian? SUSE? Red hat?

thanks,

fv

Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2005 4:56 pm
by timvw
choose the one your friends/local user group knows best.. will give you the quickest answers.. ;)

(personally i've choosen debian since 1998 till now)

Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2005 11:01 pm
by fractalvibes
The computer currentlu has Windows ME installed. What steps should be taken to install Linux? Wipe HD and start over?

fv

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 1:07 am
by John Cartwright
Depends on what you want.. as for me have a dual-boot machine.

Best of both worlds ;)

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 1:25 am
by Pyrite
I agree with timvw, that's a good idea. If you have a friend nearby who you can turn to for help, use what he/she uses. Linux is Linux though, the majority is the same except for installing programs, and where files are kept.

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 6:22 am
by timvw
all you need is enough time and courage to read all those manuals, howtos and sometimes rfcs...

but as time goes by you will probably discover/learn things that where a real pita i a windows environment. But there will be also things that are easier to accomplish in windows than in *nix. Just as a programming language, choose the right tool for the right job ;)

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 6:53 am
by Pyrite
Just curious, what things are easier to do in Linux than in Windows?

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 7:07 am
by timvw
something i did 15 minutes ago.

i have a text file (+300k lines) and i need to remove all those with ,"Picture", in it.

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grep -Ev &quote;,\&quote;Picture\&quote;,&quote; old.txt > new.txt
i know you can install cygwin or gnu-win32 things to do this, but it just doesn't feel natural (for example: screen doesn't work (well) in a win32 console)

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 7:40 am
by Pyrite
I use grep everyday in windows xp. please tell me something about Linux though (not some OSS software) that makes it easier to do something than in Windows (I currently can't think of a single one).

*I mean I'm not trying to preach and stuff, or start a debate, but you can't use grep as an example. You might say, oh but you had to install it on windows, but I could say, well technically you had to install it on Linux too. I've just found that actually using Linux as an OS takes more time to get stuff done than in Windows. Abeit, Linux is much prettier and fun to get stuff done with, just slower. It's not what one can do that the other can't. I'm just asking if you can give a real good example of something that is easy to do in Linux than it would be in Windows. :D

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 10:48 am
by andre_c
most linux distributions come with package managers...
for example on fedora i can do

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$ yum install apache2
and have apache installed automatically
or in debian do

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$ apt-get dist-upgrade
and have all my software upgraded to the latest available version

that's one of the reasons i like linux

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 11:29 am
by neophyte
My distro of choice is Linspire. But you have to pay a subscription fee for applications -- The good news if your a linux noob you won't have to do much at the commandline at all and they have the best driver support of any Linux distro *IMHO

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 11:48 am
by timvw
Pyrite wrote:I use grep everyday in windows xp. please tell me something about Linux though (not some OSS software) that makes it easier to do something than in Windows (I currently can't think of a single one).
imho it's all about the available tools and libraries. for example i like the documentation for glibc much more than the win32 docs you find on msdn.
Pyrite wrote: *I mean I'm not trying to preach and stuff, or start a debate, but you can't use grep as an example. You might say, oh but you had to install it on windows, but I could say, well technically you had to install it on Linux too.
But a lot of tools simply don't have a win32 port. So there is no way to instal them on a windows machine. (Btw, that is also (meaby even more) true for win32 applications that are not available for linux).
Pyrite wrote: I've just found that actually using Linux as an OS takes more time to get stuff done than in Windows. Abeit, Linux is much prettier and fun to get stuff done with, just slower.
It would be nice if you could give us an example of what takes less time to get it done in windows.
Pyrite wrote: It's not what one can do that the other can't. I'm just asking if you can give a real good example of something that is easy to do in Linux than it would be in Windows. :D
- I can easily choose on which display (even a remoteone) i want an application to be displayed (using the DISPLAY var). Afaik, windows only has "remote desktop connection" and "vnc".

- Try to find out what an installer did. Easily with a .deb package, a major pita to find out in a installer.exe (and yes, there are still programs that prefer to overwrite whateverlib.dll in your windows directory)

- Backup/restore/resize a filesystem. And you're not limited to ntfs/fat32

- (un)load kernel modules. without having to reboot.

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 1:21 pm
by Chris Corbyn
I have to admit, I love linux (the only flavour I have ever used is SuSE).

I couldn't libe w/out windows though.

I must get around to reinstalling linux on my machine... wiped my HDD a while back and have just lived with windows since. Besides, linux is like ermm £0.00 if you download it from their ftp.

EDIT| I really sure cure my fat-finger syndrome. I make so many typos

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 3:59 pm
by Pyrite
You know what, just forget it. I think all of you are missing my point. I was asking to name things that both Windows and Linux CAN do, but can easier be done on Linux. Not what one can do that the other can't.

andre_c probably hit on it closest though. Although I am sure that there is probably some type of package manager for Windows that could download and install software. Although for system updates, Windows-Update can be run automatically to download and install the latest updates.

A reverse example would be: both have a clearscreen command, but it is easier in Windows to type "cls" than to type the full "clear" in Linux.

And you can't say something like, on Windows you are restricted to fat32/ntfs. Well technically on Linux you are restricted to Linux filesystems though. Last I checked, you can't run Linux natively on NTFS anymore than I could run Windows on ReiserFS.

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 4:57 pm
by neophyte
Oh, in that case downloading and install applications is much easier on Linux. With apt-get you download and install in one proceedure as opposed to downloading, unzipping and then installing. Minor difference. But both install applications. Linux just does it better. I think timvw was trying to say that in Linux after you install an app. there are specific list of modules/libraries and where they were installed available to you. But in windows you have the "registry" a bottomless undescribeable mess where viruses and spyware can hide out and you'd never know it. So for running applications - Linux does it better.