I don't know what it is, but I've had a helluva time with Mandrake and Kubuntu on my BP6 box, so I'm going to play around with some other distro's. I'm downloading Slackware 11 and I have Santa Fe v3 burned (after sitting on my desktop for several weeks). Santa Fe looks interesting from what I read, so we'll see how that goes.
Goof stuff man, I've got Kubuntu now, I'm most probably going to ditch Windows totally sometime soon. Even WiFi drivers for my wireless card were installed and setup without any input from me!! Mandriva is nice but I much prefer Kubuntu.
I've found CentOS 4.3 to be nice. No frills, but being a retooled RedHat with a similar market in mind, I didn't expect something as lavish as SuSe or Mandrake. I think I can pull off a Slack install...I did some rudimentary installation with Mandrake 6.x years ago, so I'm pretty sure I can do it again.
Go for it man, if you don't try you'll never learn, I just got pissed off with Windows last Saturday, I installed Kubuntu, got it configured and I've not looked back to Windows yet!
Slackware is excellent and shouldn't disappoint. I would recommend some slack offspring like zenwalk and vector I used vector for about 6 months but finally gave it up for lack of software and a not so nice package manager. It has improved some since then and the first betas are out with the slack 11 base. Zenwalk gets great reviews and is focused on multimedia and other desktop things. Both are considerably faster than mandriva and kubuntu. Don't forget about the destop friendly freeBSD spawn. Take a look at desktopBSD and PC-BSD. If you want to play around with them, BSD only requires 1 primary partition (and that includes swap) so if you have an extra partition then you can experiment.
Good luck, B... hope you find an OS that suits you well. You'll certainly go through a few that wont be for you, but the bright side is experience.
I really enjoy Debian "Etch" on the desktop, it's been fantastic for me. But not everybody has the same needs, and choice is good. As for your Cent 4.3 installation Big B, we're actually at 4.4 now, so you might want to do a system upgrade: Code: [I]# Let's get root first.[/I] [B]su - root[/B] [I]# Now we will see if there are updates for the update tool:[/I] [B]yum -y update yum[/B] [I]# Since we're at the latest version of yum, let's do the whole system:[/I] [B]yum -y upgrade[/B] Also, you'll probably want to keep your CentOS system up to date, so it's a good idea to write an update script, drop it in your /etc/cron.daily/ and make it executable. Then the OS will run it for you every night when your daily cron is scheduled to run (an interval typically between the hours of 00:00 and 04:00). Here's a sample script for you, the one that runs on my CentOS servers (though it'd be identical on a Red Hat box, as they the same OS): Code: #!/bin/sh echo "~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~" echo "~~~ Checking for updates to yum ~~~" echo "~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~" /usr/bin/yum -y update yum echo "~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~" echo "~~~ Checking for system upgrades ~~~" echo "~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~" /usr/bin/yum -y upgrade ...mine's called /etc/cron.daily/yummy ...get it? Yummy? Oh forget it. One last thing I'd like to suggest is adding the RPMforge repository. Adding RPMforge to your existing repos will give you access to an additional 62,000+ packages. For RHEL4/CentOS4 on a 32-bit PC, you can setup RPMforge as a repo with just one command (copy & paste): Code: [B]rpm -Uhv http://dag.wieers.com/packages/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.3.4-1.el4.rf.i386.rpm[/B] For other architectures, see here. IMHO, CentOS (aka Red Hat Enterprise Linux) is primarily designed for stability, ease of management, and security. Along with the Red Hat enterprise mindset comes one big disadvantage: slow release cycles, which translates to stale packages. Having a release of Apache which is a few minor versions behind the development tree is no big thing; all the plugins work, you're still getting security patches, and the web client connecting has no idea. Also, on production / development workstations the version of KDE you're running is not a huge concern. But for a desktop machine, the latest stable version of KDE, Amarok, or the kernel can make a huge difference for gaming, multimedia, responsiveness, and the overall enjoyment you'll have with the system. For that reason I prefer to have a more developmental build of Linux on my desktops, and stick with more stable releases for servers (e.g. CentOS/RHEL 4.4, Debian "Sarge", etc).
Except for CentOS, I've not found a distro that's been happy on my Chaintech VNF3-250/Athlon64 3000+ box. (That was a little adventure.) I'm going to give Slack a whirl, and if that fails, I'll snag the CD ISO for CentOS 4.4. Or maybe try SantaFe. The only limit I have is the number of CD-R's
i'm actually using Debian Testing as a server, its running proftpd, ssh server, samba and possibly a game server if I have the time. Pretty good so far.
Once I figure out what hardware is causing some hang ups, I'll give Slack a whirl. SantaFe seems to be a live distro, but I must've missed that. I have to get my distro's on CD ISO's since I didn't care about having a DVD drive in this box. I'm pretty sure I've got a bad stick, they don't like playing with each other, or there's a bad RAM slot. C'est la vie.
I don't think Slackware would be a good choice for you, considering you are a new Linux user. Have a look at this review published today
Yeah, I'm coming to that conclusion too. I've got CentOS 4.4, and that's been one of the best distro's to play with as of late, although I may give SuSe another go...assuming the download didn't get borked (MD5sum=win)
Well, everything seems to be in shape hardware wise (crosses finger), so I'm slapping CentOS 4.4 on it. 4.3 was nice, no frills, but easy enough to setup. Of all the distro's I've installed, it's been the best one to drop in and go.
Novell just released openSUSE 10.1 "GoldMaster" which includes all patches up to this point. There shouldn't be any problems with the update manager this time around. If you want to sample the delights of a 3D desktop, openSUSE is definately for you.
Eh, a 3D desktop just doesn't grab me. I've never used it, but I'm just not intrested. I still may try SuSe again, but I've found CentOS to be pretty bulletproof as an OS in terms of setup and use.
Normally you don't have to reinstall every time there's a new OS version release with Linux (unless you want to, of course). That's what that update command does (see my last post in this thread). You can upgrade everything on the system without the need for a reboot except the kernel itself.
Ahh, yes, I'm understanding now! :doh: But, in any case, I hope the previously posted info will be useful to somebody.
