Best Linux Distro

sco0ter

Ok....

After listening to a few arguments on this board about Windows XP/Vista I have decided to finally get Linux installed on my spare Laptop. I dont like passing comment on things I havent tried so Im going to install it on my oldest laptop

It is a
Pentium 900
384 of ram
10 GB HDD

Are there any good ones I can use on this. I had looked into linux a good few years back and had Mandrake but was just wondering if anybody who has more experience could let me know whats the best ones about just now. I will be using it for internet and day to day things so any that come with built in applications would be better. Its just so I can put it through its paces to see what its like and how much it has come forward.

Toxteth_OGrady

Try PCLinuxOS. It's a good entry level distro.

:cool:

TOG

wolfman

An easy one to setup and use is Ubuntu. Just had a recent release (Dapper) and has a nice app called AutoMatix which will install anything common that isn't/or can't be included in the distribution (ie certain codecs etc...)

Fedora Core 5 is another decent distro. I do like the Anaconda installer. It's certainly very polished, although not quite as easy to use as Ubuntu.

Once you get a little more into it, Gentoo or Debian may be worth a look. Or maybe in Unix, FreeBsd is excellent.

wiraone

Your preference really, in Linux GUI world, there are two main GUIs available to choose from, a GNOME or KDE and it seems that many distributions are leaning toward one and not the other. SUSE, Kbuntu and Mandrake (does it still exist) are leaning toward KDE camp, whilst Ubuntu and RedHat/Fedora are leaning toward GNOME camp. For me, I like GNOME more and I've Fedora and Ubuntu on my desktop/notebook. I like Ubuntu better but since I used to Redhat/Fedora, I'm stuck with it

Bob63

Another Ubuntu vote here.

One approach to evaluating which distribution best suits your needs is to try before you "buy" by downloading the live CD version of the distribution.

Another excellent approach is to install the free VMware Server and download a pre-installed virtual appliance. This is how I run Linux on my Windows laptop.
http://www.vmware.com/products/free_virtualization.html

twist3d

Ubuntu is great,

check out slax if your wanting one to run off your usb or cd instead of installing, good for learning as it doesnt remember what you have done so if messed up all you need is a reboot.

sco0ter

Thanks for all the replies... Going to try the Ubuntu to see what its like

computerwoman

:j suse linux is only £5 at ebuyer and yes I've got it had it awhile, its open souce so you can pass it round no keys, and its got the lot on it everything you need for a home office sound, let me knoe how it goes, T:j

redux

openSUSE Linux 10.1 is on magazines in the shops at the moment.

I got a copy - just taking the elastic bands off the CDs ...

computerwoman

:j I got mine 18 months ago I was looking for some books on linux, when up pops this shop on the net, if I bought 2 books for £25.00 which I did on linux I got suse linux professional 9.0 for free which I did it came with it own manuls which windows is lacking in, it explains how to put it on a machine and how to get everything up and working makes interesting bedtime reading, the books are an inch thick each besides the 2 books I bought, T I'm a book worm as well as a computer geek,

danmanchester

Any recommended reading/websites for newbies-to-linux?

I'm seriously considering changing to it one of the linux OS's as Windows is really beginning to annoy me just lately!