14 replies to this topic

[FirefoxRocks]

I want to try Linux.
For those people who have it, what do you recommend? WHat distribution?

Is it a graphical interface or something like MS-DOS? I want something that is graphical. How many GB is required for Linux? I have an older hard disk with 5 GB, only 3 GB available for partitioning.

Floppy Linux versions will not boot correctly.
The computer does NOT have Internet access, CD-R reading and only 64 MB of memory.

What is recommended?

[xboxrulz]

I recommend using Puppy Linux, it's only 50MB in size. Yet, it's not so easy to use as other Linux distribution as SuSE Linux (usual Linux distribution requires at least 128 MB RAM to run and w/ the recommended space of 20 GB (for software and etc.)

Puppy Linux can allow u to have GUI or CLI.

[Hamtaro]

I can't say very much about other distributions, but I use Fedora Core 4 (which now, they have Fedora Core 5). It's a GUI (or you can choose to have it as a command-line version if you don't pick X Window System during installation). If you limit what you choose to install, it could fit on the 3 GB that you have. However, it seems like your best bet would be a smaller version, like Puppy Linux, which xboxrulz suggested (I have no experience with it, though). Fedora Core isn't too hard to use, either. It installs with a GUI as well. (One note, though, is that FC4 uses 4 installation CDs, which would take a while to download). Oh, and I'm also using it on a minimal HD (6 GB total space).

[fffanatics]

Personally i use Suse Linux but because of your size issue, i would recommend downloading Knoppix Linux since it actually just is a live cd. All of the stuff runs off the cd and thus you can use your harddrive for files and such. It is a great utility to use if you just want to try linux and dont want to lose anything. Good luck. If you have linux questions feel free to ask me ive been using it for a while.

[Inspiron]

You can try Ubuntu Linux. It's the easiest Linux distribution I've used that has a nice GUI interface. I've installed Ubuntu on VMware and the total harddisk space required seem to be nearing 2GB. The memory I've set on VMWare was 192MB and it worked alright. It's slow sometime when you are opening multiple files simultaneously. If you are using it for simple home applications or web surfing, it should be alright. Otherwise I don't think you will look into this as 192MB don't seem to be enough for amateur users.

Puppy Linux seem to be your best choice. Another alternative to this is Damn Small Linux (DSL) which is about 50MB as well. It runs off a CD that doesn't require you to install into your system. There's also an option for you to install the CD into your system so you won't have to boot from it. It's working pretty fast and boots up about 1 minute on the LiveCD. It's the fastest bootup Linux that I've tried. Interface wise isn't as good as Ubuntu however still pretty reasonable. I've tried some applications on DSL and found some had memory leak as I was running on VMware. That is one bad point as there isn't really an official developer for DSL.

[xboxrulz]

I find Ubuntu very annoying. Actually any distribution that is Debian based is annoying. It's very restrictive when you compare it with SuSE or Fedora Core.

[electron]

I dont know whether you guys are aware of this or not.
Recently a new OS copying Vista has come into play.

Its name - PCLinux OS
Here are some sceenys :
http://linux.softpedia.com/progScreenshots...shot-11665.html

Hope you like it coz you got to as it is a copy of Vista

[Bradley]

I've tried Fedora core, Ubuntu, Kubuntu (just a diffrent GUI to ubutnu), Slackware and slax. I like the KDE graphical enviroment. This comes standard with Kubuntu and slackware. Ive used Ubuntu (using the Gnome GUI, this is the one that comes with Ubuntu) on a computer with 64mb ram. Worked pretty good. Most computers have more than that now-a-days, so it wont be a problem. Most distro's are about 2-5 CD's. Ubuntu is just 1, and they'll ship it to you for free if you dont have time to download (it takes a while for these disc's to arrive, about 6 weeks for me). I installed ubuntu which comes with the Gnome GUI and I installed KDE along side that. When you boot, you have the option of choosing which one you want to load for your current session. Everything is opinion here, pick a distro that fits your needs and gets the jobs done that you want

[Moolkye]

You know what? I like Ubuntu. I think it has to be the nicest by far. I used to really like Mandrake, until it went commercial. And Fedora, well that has been disbanded. there is a great site for all the current Linux Distros out there. I forget the name of the site, but if you do a google on it, it should come up.

The only thing with Linux though, is the fact that the programs hardly have installers. You usually have to compile the apps before you install, and that takes command line crap, and I hate it. If installing apps was ae easy as it is in windows or macs, then Linux would take off. I wonder why no one is trying to tackle this issue.

Heck I loved BeOS until it tanked. I thought that was the best alternative Operating system to Windows and Macs.

[dave_mcc]

IF you want an GUI installer for software, why not try autopackage. I came across it a while back, and it's pretty good, coz it uses 1 package for all systems, rather than DEB's, RPM's, TAR's et al.