Another 'Help Me!' Linux Thread

[old.tRoG]

In a strange anti-Microsoft mood, I have decided to install Linux on an old banger of laptop that happens to be lying around.

However, I am in a state of confusion as to which distro to use . I'm gonna be developing (Or, rather, trying to develop) websites on this thing, and I want something that's pretty easy to use, as, sadly, I'm used to the prettiness of Windows. It'll be used for a fair bit of int0rweb forum crawling, too.

So far, I've been thinking about either Red Hat or Mandrake, but I might be leaning in the completely wrong direction.

Basicly... Help me!

 

[Testin da Cable]

if you need to have a lot of thinking done for you, then I'd say Dead...errr...RedHat, linuxMandrake (which is more or less RedHat) or Suse. If your lappy really is an old banger then you may want to consider not installing every little thing, as the more friendly distros tend to bloat up pretty fast.
if you talk the talk as well as walking the walk then you may want to consider Slackware or Debian. they're both pretty nifty. there are many other distros, but that would be decending into the reeking pits of hell...for some. if I (or others) can help you more feel free to ask/pm or whatever.

 

[old.tRoG]

Oh, my saviour!

And yes, the laptop is pretty shoddy. I can't remember the exact specs right now (As I don't have it with me), but it's around a 500mhz p2, 64mb ram, 7gb hd.

Oh, and it weighs a ton. *nurses the bruise marks on his lap*

 

[Testin da Cable]

oh, that'll run your average unix just fine. depending on your vidcard you may actually get to turn on some eyecandy too. remember, kde3 is a massive cpu&ram killer, especially with all the bells&whistles turned on. I'd personally advise a more toned down windowmanager, but we'll talk about that once you've had some more playtime with linux.

 

[old.tRoG]

Sexy, tdc -If that's toned down, I want to see the complicated stuff. Anything will look better than my icon infested windows desktop.

Also, should I download, or buy? (The idea of some nice helpful manuals is appealing )

 

[Sibanac]

i run suse 8.2 on an p2 266Mhz with 32mb ram, not the fastest thing in the world but it will run

 

[Testin da Cable]

that's true there are other unix desktops/windowmanagers lurking about in the odt/ directory for you to look at as well if you like. I tend to alternate between ion, blackbox and kde for some odd reason, but there are others in there too iirc.

at first you want to dl, because that way you can give some different linuxen a shot before possibly going for one you like. manuals are well and good, but there's more unix help online than there ever was in a manual plus that analog manuals tend to get dated. it _is_ a good idea to buy though. purchasing a unix distro furthers development and allows hard working coders to buy themselves a beer every now and then. that's nice

 

[old.tRoG]

Which one would you reccomend, out of SuSE, Red Hat, and Mandrake?

[EDIT: tdc, you sly old dog ]

 

[Testin da Cable]

suse and redhat I've both used, and they both have good points. if you want lots of stuff go suse, if you want less stuff go RH.
I'd say dl the RH install isos, burn them onto some cdroms and see if it will work. if it doesn't...well, don't be too shocked. read a bit on the internet and try again. odds are someone else has already solved your problem.

 

[bids]

I'd recommend Mandrake, as the installation is pretty good, and it is very good at auto-detecting hardware (Video/USB, etc), which can be a bitch with Redhat. If you get the three ISO's, there's a huge amount of freeby software to be had too.

 

[Will]

My flatmate has run SuSe 8.1 for around 5 months, and finds it very easy (even though he was once hardcore), and the install was almost automagical (the two network cards acting as a baby router were the only reason he had to touch a text file). I think he'd recommend it.

 

[old.tRoG]

I'll try SuSE first, as soon as I figure out which file to download

Gawd, I am a newbie.

 

[Sibanac]

Suse doesnt give iso files, they do offer a ftp intall :
download this iso and burn it
http://www.linuxiso.org/download.php/499/boot.iso
then reboot the pc with the cd from there it will do an ftp install (download needed files from the net and install them)

you could also download the whole directory to a Harddrive (fat not ntfs) and install it from there


or buy the cd's, that might not be a bad idee for a 'newb' (sorry coudnt think of a better word)
since they come with about 5kg of good linux books explaining linux basic and the diffrent apps

 

[old.tRoG]

Originally posted by Sibanac
'newb'

Oh, I think that describes me pretty accurately

 

[Testin da Cable]

how have you managed then? got it installed yet or what?

 

[(Shovel)]

I do recommend SuSE, but installing it free can be a pain.

Bascially, you have to do an FTP install... which for me didn't work.... Do try though. Get the address for the Mirror.Ac.Uk mirror (uber quick UK mirror on the academic network) as that will get you the best speed you can. On 10MBit at Uni, I only got 30K download from ftp.suse.com.

One thing that might be of use to you is the "Trial" downloads that SuSE and others offer. It comes in the form of a bootable CD and lets you give KDE3 a run out before you commit to gutting your system.

 

[Sibanac]

Originally posted by (Shovel)
I do recommend SuSE, but installing it free can be a pain.

not if you work for a SuSE partner(siemens) , got the iso's here on mirror

 

[nylex23]

Originally posted by Testin da Cable
I'd personally advise a more toned down windowmanager

What is that called anyway? Looks quite cool.

Isn't SuSe quite cheap to buy? Something like £30 or so, I think. If he wanted to use Red Hat, RH Bible is quite a good book.. is quite big and walks you through installing, getting to grips with it, setting up servers, etc. Oh and it comes with a copy of the distribution too.

 

[Testin da Cable]

odds are it's blackbox

 

[Sibanac]

Originally posted by nylex23
What is that called anyway? Looks quite cool.

Isn't SuSe quite cheap to buy? Something like £30 or so, I think. If he wanted to use Red Hat, RH Bible is quite a good book.. is quite big and walks you through installing, getting to grips with it, setting up servers, etc. Oh and it comes with a copy of the distribution too.

yeah its pretty cheap and the SuSE books are excelent becuase they have short manuals for alot of programs in them (eg. lets you know the xmms is winamp ect)

windmaker desktop

/edit nerf typos

 

[Will]

Originally posted by Testin da Cable
odds are it's blackbox

Don't forget its almost identical twin.

I shouldn't really comment, since I just use a console, but that is the one I would use if I did.

 

[old.tRoG]

Still haven't had a chance to install anything -
Been too busy using the laptop for work stuff.

Is there some sort of prog for Linux that can let me open Windows files? .docs, and the like.

 

[(Shovel)]

Open Office.org. It's an office suite for Windows and Nix that will open all kinds of exciting file formats

I belive it comes with SuSE - probably Red Hat too. Failing that, you can just go and download from: http://www.openoffice.org

 

[nylex23]

Open Office does come with Red Hat .

 

[old.tRoG]

Installed suse (A while back, actually. Just haven't got round to telling you ), and I quite liked it

Attempting to squeeze and old box out of somewhere so I can play around with slackware and the like, as the laptop is determined to stay with windows. (Need to fiddle around with work lans and stuff, just wanna be sure on the compatability thing ).

 

[Testin da Cable]

have you stopped winging and made it work yet?