Best Distro

[masinick]

For someone new to Linux.....

OpenSuse
Fedora
Mandriva
Ubuntu

They are free......try them all and decide

all are great distros...... once you have a few years experience.... my choice is Arch Linux. It's what I currently use on 99% of all my computers.
Arch Linux - Kernel 2.6.22.6-1 i686 optimized.......and it's FAST
Simplest way to describe it........ Gentoo without the compile time lol

Fancy meeting you here! ;-)

To be honest with you, the best distribution is the one that meets your needs.

WAY back in 2001 there were not many solutions easily tried out - someone suggested using VMWare and that is a good approach now, but back then, that would have chewed up most hardware.

Around 2003 the notion of Live CDs really began to accelerate. Again, like virtualization, VMWare and other alternatives, the technology existed but the hardware was too weak. These days, burning a CD or a DVD and trying out a system live without ever having to do anything else or write anything on your current system is definitely THE way to go. If you ALREADY have a virtualization solution, such as VMWare or any of the other alternatives, then go with that, but if you do not have such a thing in place, then learning how to set that up is just as complicated, perhaps more so, than just burning an image and trying out a system live.

Once you start EVALUATING many distributions or you want the flexibility of running more than one system, a virtual machine (which is what people call "virtualization" today, is a great option. But I think it can be complicated. A newbie would not know anything about such an approach, and that is why I suggest Live CDs. Virtual Machines are for LATER in the game when you have some idea what you are doing!

Today Ubuntu makes a great option for trying out the software. It is NOT, by ANY means the only choice, but it IS a good choice. Fedora, openSUSE, Mandriva, Linspire, Xandros are just a few of the other good choices. Pick one that suits your needs or just start trying them out until you are able to articulate what you are really looking for, then hone your request into "What is a suitable system for doing specifically ... and name the features you want most. Again, many systems could probably do the job, but sometimes a particular feature is well handled by certain systems. The more specific you can be, the more likely you will be able to find what you are really looking for, even if you yourself do not know what that is - YET. Figure it out and you are on your way.

[Schotty]

Fancy meeting you here! ;-)

WAY back in 2001 there were not many solutions easily tried out - someone suggested using VMWare and that is a good approach now, but back then, that would have chewed up most hardware.

Not true Thats back when I was paying for a copy of VMWare for work reasons. v3 and v4 workstation I legitimately own. I was running this on a p2 266 w/384mb ram. Mind you I could have had 2x that without much of a problem, except to hell with paying for my software AND a computer!

But truth be told, even now, tone down KDE or GNOME if running close to the line, pare down memory allotment. Granted if you had a real PC you would give no less than a gigabyte of ram to the system to get consistent smoothness, but in a VM, 128MB or 256MB is just fine. Just install VMWare tools. If you are going to run multiple vms, make sure you have a core for a pair of OSs, and plenty of RAM

I have been doing virtualization for years and all it took was some common sense. Back in 2000 I was using Win98 images with 32MB or 64MB of ram. Be smart too, and there are NO issues to deal with.

[NightSky]

Well, I have been struggling with Slackware for years and never tried anything else, it does depend on why u want to setup linux and what you want out of it now. I wanted to learn w/o any other immediate goals. Now that I want to setup a server on my old PIII600e, PC100 I wish I had experimented more like masinick suggests. How do those live distro cds work? Would also be great to know where to get that VM, install it and set it up Schotty.

[Schotty]

Would also be great to know where to get that VM, install it and set it up Schotty.

VMWare Player
VMWare Server

Player is rather simple and rudimentary - it only allows the usage, not the creation of VMs from either VMWare Server or Workstation (one of their paid products). Server, also free, does allow the creation of VMs.

The main difference I have seen with the two as far as using them, is that Player is better off with giving the best resources to the VM at the sacrifice of the host. Server load balances. So if you will be using, say, Windows XP as your host and wish to bounce back and forth to a Ubuntu or Red Hat VM, Server is ideal.

Player uses VMs, but they are referred to as Virtual Appliances. You can get more thru Player or going to their website : Linky Link Link

My reccomendation is if you have a reasonably powerful system, go with Server, you will get the most out of it. If you have a weaker system, stick with Player for now. Also for optimal performance, use a core per OS you wish to run smoothly on. For example if you wanted to run XP + Ubuntu + Fedora + Linspire all at once (and that is the key -- all at once), a Quad Core is ideal. A dual core is best for using the host plus a single VM; this is what I do. I spend too much money on other things to afford a pile of quad core Intels

RAM is all dependent on what you wish out of your desktop/laptop. With XP, a gig is best for normal usage, and 256MB for a linux is fine. I run at least 2GB on all my systems anyway, so I can allocate 512-1024MB to a vm without system lag. Although, the guest OS does matter. I use on my Single Core Athlon XP 3000+, Fedora 7 as the host, VMWare Server, and can run Windows 2000 (128Mb allocation), Ubuntu (256MB), and Linspire (256MB). It does lag a wee bit, but it is doable. My iMac can run all of them simultaneously MUCH better since I have a 2.4Ghz dual core.

For starters, I would go with Player and a Fedora 7 or Ubuntu 7.04 appliance. Start there. If you are running with 1GB or less of ram, allocate no more than 256MB to the appliance guest OS.

[NightSky]

I have a PIII 600e w/640mb 320 gb over 2 hard drives.. I would like to run slackware12 and win98 as guest, and store media files from xp and power book g4 ... eventually win98 will get phased out. I read thru intros at VMware and your site. My question is which gets installed 1st VMware or host OS?
I won't be running multiple os to start on this older machine. If it works out I would put vm on the core2duo box keep slackware12 as host, Xp as guest for graphic production only going online w/slackware, and keep Power Book seperate till I feel more comfortable. If that works out I could virtualize Powerbook too, If there are application advantages.

[Schotty]

I have a PIII 600e w/640mb 320 gb over 2 hard drives.. I would like to run slackware12 and win98 as guest, and store media files from xp and power book g4 ... eventually win98 will get phased out. I read thru intros at VMware and your site. My question is which gets installed 1st VMware or host OS?
I won't be running multiple os to start on this older machine. If it works out I would put vm on the core2duo box keep slackware12 as host, Xp as guest for graphic production only going online w/slackware, and keep Power Book seperate till I feel more comfortable. If that works out I could virtualize Powerbook too, If there are application advantages.

Host OS, then VMWare, then guest OS's.

[ssprem_j]

Fedora or Ubuntu