Best Linux Distro?

[CrazyDesi]

I mean where would all the people that code for a living go?

What are you talking about?

There is absolutly no rule that says you cannot program for a living on linux. Most people just choose to develop for free on it, kinda like us GP32 developers make games & apps for the GP32 for free.

There is only one thing that forces your apps to be free and that is if you choose to use other peoples source code or toolkits that are released under certain licences.

There are plenty of commercial apps and games for linux, look at Qt, Krylix, Unreal Tournament 2004, Quake 3, The SIMS, and many more commercial games and apps.

Its a very common misconception that you cant develop commercial apps or games for linux.

I got it running but theres a problem with my laptop display. It was detected in Mandrake 8.1 but when I upgrade any higher it doesn't detect it. Which is kinda weird.

Not detecting your display? You mean the monitor itself? (well 'lcd screen' on a latop) Or the actual video card? It shouldnt have a problem detecting your monitor, but if it does, just set the information manually, monitors are universally supported hardware, they dont need drivers (unless its a special monitor like EvilDragons) the OS just needs the sync rates and some supported video modes.

If you mean you videocard, well choose a generic vesa driver and install the proper driver after installation, not to difficult.

Sorry, I stand corrected.

As for the video card. It detects it 100 percent, but the display is never detected. I have a Dell Laptop(which is actually certified by Red Hat and a bunch of other companies as being compatible), but the only linux that worked is Mandrake 8.1. I don't believe Dell has the information for setting up the monitor and I copied the stuff from 8.1 to the new version but it still didn't work for some strange reason.

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

From experiance, I know that when installing a new version of XFree86 (or updating an existing version), or just using the XFree86 configure app, it likes to set my screen to 24bit mode, when my card only supports 16 & 32 bit mode. This causes X to crash each time it boots up. (it will try and start X like 4 or 5 times, but all it does is cause the screen to flash)

Since damn near everything in linux is in plain text files, you can easily open up the /etc/X11/XF86Config file and change your video mode to 16 or 32 bit without much hassle. Get to a bash shell and type nano -w /etc/X11/XF86Config (make sure you are super user though or you wont be able to save changes)

Sometimes when updating XFree86 or your kernel or OS, the video drivers you have installed need to be updated as well, they may have been customized specifically for that setup, so you will need to reinstall them, or alternatly just select a generic vesa driver or similar for now.

Check that config file and make sure that everything is set up properly. It could have simply detected some value improperly (like me with my 24bit mode), something simple that you can change and it will boot up without problems.

I havent ever tried Mandrake. So I couldnt tell you if its an issue specific to their installer, but there are huge forums with thousands of people there that can help you install, and setup your mandrake installation if you have troubles.

 

[thebluenewt]

"Here's a cheap trick to play on an audience - especially one drawn from the business community. Ask them how many use Microsoft software. Virtually every hand in the room will go up. How many use Apple Macs? One or two - at most. How many use Linux? If the audience is drawn from corporate suits, no hands will show. Now comes the punchline: who uses Google? A forest of hands appears. 'Ah,' you say, 'that's very interesting, because it means you're all Linux users.' Stunned looks all round."

The computing engine that powers Google is the largest cluster of Linux servers in the history of the world.

I'll bet that gets a big laugh.

 

[declaration]

Btw, for those who havnt tried linux before (like me ), I just tried Knoppix (link) and it's an excellent way to try it out. Really want a linux partition now. Managed to download the German version first though, so make sure you save the version with "en" in the download name if you want to English version and "de" if you want the German. B)

I think if you type in "knoppix lang=en" at the knoppix boot screen it loads the english version when you have the German version.

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

"Here's a cheap trick to play on an audience - especially one drawn from the business community. Ask them how many use Microsoft software. Virtually every hand in the room will go up. How many use Apple Macs? One or two - at most. How many use Linux? If the audience is drawn from corporate suits, no hands will show. Now comes the punchline: who uses Google? A forest of hands appears. 'Ah,' you say, 'that's very interesting, because it means you're all Linux users.' Stunned looks all round."

The computing engine that powers Google is the largest cluster of Linux servers in the history of the world.

I'll bet that gets a big laugh.

Its without a doubt true, though. You may laugh, but if you use google, you use linux.

Some of the biggest and most respected companies have moved over to linux, and more move ever daily. Not enough to make a huge dent in the world of windows (yet), but its gaining momentum everyday. If you look at the #'s. the ratio of linux users increases dramatically every year. Albiet most of those users still hold onto windows for a few things, but the number that do, is dwindling.

And windows didnt get to be #1 by being the best (although there were no real contenders), it got to be #1 because all new computers came with it standard. You start seeing this more often on the linux front, and you will see some major competition.

It wasnt really a viable option for home desktop computers to come with linux standard a few years ago, lack of hardware support was a big issue, but it has come so far now that that is no longer a real issue.

Linux isnt there yet, there are still some major annoyances for anyone who doesnt know what they are doing (linux can be very fragile), but that too, changes with each new release.

 

[thebluenewt]

Heh, I was only kidding

I'm well aware that linux is used for loads of servers, it's very stable.

 

[Phil]

i found a distro of mandrake 9.2, i think my brother brought it home, i'm going to crack it on today.

 

[Enslaved]

Hey guys. My brothers girlfriend is giving him her old PC and its very slow with windows. I am going to put a Linux distro onto it. The PC is a AMD K6 with probably 64mb of RAM, I'm not sure about anything in it really

But what I wan't to know is what distro I should use. The only experience I have with Linux is installing it on my computer illiterate friend's X-Box. What should I use to wipe the drive clean? And then what distro should I install? I wan't one that has the basic KDE or XFce and the linux kernal and thats it.

I plan on ordering whatever distro from a vendor on the internet since my connection is 56k.

Thank you in advance!