Help Which Linux Distro ?

[xane]

Being an old BSD dude, my experience of Linux from way back is limited, but I now need a modern distribution to play around with, the chosen machine is an ancient Celeron 1.7Ghz based laptop, I'm not looking for speed just a sandbox.

Any suggestions for a easy distro to choose ? I want to keep away from the geek friendly ones, if that was the case I'd just slip back into FreeBSD.

I throw myself to the mercy of knowledgeable Freddies to show me the way, don't recommend a website either, I've already been to distrowatch.com, I need some personal recommendations.

If a PC distro can give the same kind of packaging method a commercially used server based one has, then even better.

TIA

 

[TdC]

when I still did Linux, my distro of choice was Slackware, which was awesome in all respects (imo). the nerds at work like Gentoo, or Linux From Scratch (depending on who you talk to)

workies is making me play with Suse, which I don't like because it is poo (imo).

 

[TdC]

oh, btw, my webserver uses Debian, which I would very much like to say I like, but I don't like it because it seems too tweaked. I'm forced to use apt for everything, rather than compile myself, because that will break. Ofc, you could ask why I care about that, but it irks me.

 

[TdC]

also, (triple post madness) I not only like Slackware because it feels up Discordia in the dark alleys off Software Street; I am totally gay for Patrick Volkerding, just like I am gay for Theo de Raadt of OpenBSD fame. Those guys are seriously awesome badasses

</nerd>

 

[Nate]

What are you guys going on about?!

 

[xane]

Unfortunately, Slackware (or GenToo) is a typical example of what I don't want, far too techy, I need something closer to a commercial distro like Red Hat, but for a single-user PC, which is why using APT or similar is ok for me.

My days of compiling everything on FreeBSD are long gone, used to take days on a 400Mhz Celeron ! Ubergeeky but no Thanks.

 

[Zenith.UK]

My suggestion would be Ubuntu.
Ubuntu Home Page | Ubuntu

It's based on Debian and uses apt for program installation. If you don't like "the dark place" that is called console or terminal, there is a GUI which allows point and click installation of programs.

There is an extensive self-help community at Ubuntu Forums if you're stuck with a problem. Chances are that someone else has asked for help with the same problem and got a useful fix in response.

Ubuntu is straightforward to install and autodetects most ordinary hardware correctly. The devs have even got networkmanager working properly with wifi cards now. That's a step up from a couple of years ago when you had to hack a driver for your specific wifi card.
It's also got Compiz Fusion built in for desktop composition. What this means in practical terms is hardware accelerated 3D effects on the desktop. If you do Win-Tab in Vista and Win7, you get a rolodex of the windows. Ubuntu can go much further. An example can be seen here:

YouTube - Linux Ubuntu 9.0.4 & Compiz Effects

I've used it on and off over the last 3-4 years and watched it grow from a slightly clunky OS for tech geeks into a slick mainstream OS. My *ONLY* complaint is proper emulation of Steam games in Wine/Cedega. If the devs ever got Steam and most of it's games working properly (either natively or emulated) I'd almost certainly jump ship from Windows entirely.

 

[ford prefect]

I use Ubunto as well. It's reasonably straight forward to use, highly tweakable if thats your thing and it looks pretty. I use it on my MP3/media/backup/mesing around box. I've been messing around with it for a couple of years on and off now, and I really like it. Tis very stable too, never known it to fall over no matter what I have thrown at it.

Only thing I would say is that setting up a 4tb raid on it was a bit of a pain due to a broken wizard on the release before last, but there was a work around.

 

[TdC]

Unfortunately, Slackware (or GenToo) is a typical example of what I don't want, far too techy, I need something closer to a commercial distro like Red Hat, but for a single-user PC, which is why using APT or similar is ok for me.

My days of compiling everything on FreeBSD are long gone, used to take days on a 400Mhz Celeron ! Ubergeeky but no Thanks.

thing is, when you said older lappy, Slack was the first thing I thought of. Slack, plus a minimal window manager will be awesome and snappy. None of these eye-candy effects to take up precious cpu time

 

[TdC]

I use Ubunto as well. It's reasonably straight forward to use, highly tweakable if thats your thing and it looks pretty. I use it on my MP3/media/backup/mesing around box. I've been messing around with it for a couple of years on and off now, and I really like it. Tis very stable too, never known it to fall over no matter what I have thrown at it.

Only thing I would say is that setting up a 4tb raid on it was a bit of a pain due to a broken wizard on the release before last, but there was a work around.

a work around called a terminal and command line?

 

[Zenith.UK]

thing is, when you said older lappy, Slack was the first thing I thought of. Slack, plus a minimal window manager will be awesome and snappy. None of these eye-candy effects to take up precious cpu time

The distro would select a lower setting for the visual effects if the CPU/RAM weren't up to speed. You can also increase or decrease the effects if you like, or even turn them off.

 

[TdC]

but what's the point of installing them if they're not going to be used?

revealing my age here, but a thousand years ago when I still did linux, my doc didn't even install a window manager by default

 

[MYstIC G]

Linux Mint, it's Ubuntu with all the missing codecs and shit already installed so you don't have to fuck about and generally the tweaks are all to make the user experience easier: What's new in Linux Mint 8 Helena - Linux Mint

 

[Killswitch]

If you want a desktop, I don't think you can beat Ubuntu (although Linux Mint is another nice, Debian-flavoured distro that doesn't get enough attention). If you want the latest, cutting-edge of everything and don't care too much about stability, Fedora Core is a good bet. If you need something stable that will run for days without maintainance and you only need limited access to a GUI, I'd use plain Debian or CentOS.

Crunchbang Linux is a good choice for older hardware as it uses a ligher Window Manager (OpenBox if I remember right) and is based closely on Ubuntu.

I use Gentoo pretty much everywhere, coz it's what I use at work right now, but it's not a quick fix. Distributed compiling helps a *lot* as does managing your binary packages properly.

Of course, the obvious answer is to install Ubuntu (1 hour) and VirtualBox (10 minutes) and then you can install and try EVERY Linux distro in the world, until you find the one you like

A few links;

CrunchBang Linux - A nimble Openbox Linux distro
Main Page - Linux Mint

 

[Killswitch]

Linux Mint, it's Ubuntu with all the missing codecs and shit already installed so you don't have to fuck about and generally the tweaks are all to make the user experience easier: What's new in Linux Mint 8 Helena - Linux Mint

Dammit Mystic...stealing my thunder! I've been waiting YEARS for a question on here I know something about!! Good call though!

 

[GReaper]

If you're after something lightweight for a Celeron instead of a full distribution with all the memory hogging applications, try Puppy Linux, Slitaz, or Tiny Core Linux.

You could just use Ubuntu with a smaller desktop environment, either manually installing Fluxbox, XFCE with Xubuntu, or one of the other desktop environments.

 

[Chilly]

...f you need something stable that will run for days without maintainance and you only need limited access to a GUI, I'd use plain Debian or CentOS....

days?! Try decades

 

[MYstIC G]

Dammit Mystic...stealing my thunder! I've been waiting YEARS for a question on here I know something about!! Good call though!

Sorry

 

[xane]

Many thanks for replies so far.

Looking at the distrowatch.com top ten gives me the following: FreeBSD, GenToo and Slackware are out - too techie, tempting, but not what I want. Ubuntu and Debian, although popular, aren't that attractive, Ubuntu is widely hyped which makes me wary, and if I wanted this thread I'd probably best to go with Mint. Fedora, CentOS and SUSE are good commercial distros, but I'm still not sure about their corporate associations with Red Hat and Microsoft/Novell.

Mandriva and PCLinuxOS seem more appropriate for my need, I've always been keen on Madrake in the past, plus I was a big fan of KDE (from my FreeBSD days) which is the preferable desktop, and they retain APT albeit with a graphical interface.

Anyone got any corrections of the above, or suggestions of some of the lesser known derivitives they've tried ?

 

[xane]

Puppy Linux

Now that one looks tempting anyway, thanks.

 

[Yaka]

what do mean by hyped? ubuntu is widely recommended mainly because the forums are very well moderated and very helpful when you run into a problem. and as zenith pointed out over the past 4 years its improved a heck of alot.



and prolly an os to keep tabs on for the future Frontpage - ReactOS Website

 

[MYstIC G]

ReactOS is unlikely to ever take off. People are far more likely to pirate windows than to use a misshapen clone.

 

[Yaka]

true its been in development for onks and is no where near a stable release, still gotta admire the devs working on it for getting this far