What's The Best Linux Distro To Use?

[Orion4874]

I have a couple older desktops that I'm not using so I want to install Linux on one of them. In preparation for my eventual Pandora arrival I want to get used to this OS. So what's the most newb friendly version, Ubuntu, RedHat, Fedora? There's literally hundreds to choose from but these are some of the most popular. Obviously, there's a lot of Linux users around here so give me some tips guys!

 

[Nova]

I have a couple older desktops that I'm not using so I want to install Linux on one of them. In preparation for my eventual Pandora arrival I want to get used to this OS. So what's the most newb friendly version, Ubuntu, RedHat, Fedora? There's literally hundreds to choose from but these are some of the most popular. Obviously, there's a lot of Linux users around here so give me some tips guys!

The most user friendly distro is Ubuntu by far. Just make sure all your drivers are compatible first.

 

[SomeGuy99]

I have a couple older desktops that I'm not using so I want to install Linux on one of them. In preparation for my eventual Pandora arrival I want to get used to this OS. So what's the most newb friendly version, Ubuntu, RedHat, Fedora? There's literally hundreds to choose from but these are some of the most popular. Obviously, there's a lot of Linux users around here so give me some tips guys!

The most user friendly distro is Ubuntu by far. Just make sure all your drivers are compatible first.

I recommend Mint. It's Ubuntu, but with more drivers and codecs.

 

[Dunny]

I was in exactly the same situation a couple of months ago - imminent arrival of my Pandora, and knew pretty much nothing about the OS. So I googled the best distro for learning and to my surprise (I was considering Ubuntu or Mint) I was advised by a great many people to get the new Slackware 13.1 64bit distro.

Hard to learn? No, not really. It does require you to learn it though - pretty much nothing is done for you, and that's how it should be!

D.

 

[Orion4874]

I have a couple older desktops that I'm not using so I want to install Linux on one of them. In preparation for my eventual Pandora arrival I want to get used to this OS. So what's the most newb friendly version, Ubuntu, RedHat, Fedora? There's literally hundreds to choose from but these are some of the most popular. Obviously, there's a lot of Linux users around here so give me some tips guys!

The most user friendly distro is Ubuntu by far. Just make sure all your drivers are compatible first.

Well, I'm going to completely wipe my hard drive and start clean. What should I watch out for? Incompatabilities with the mb or vid card?

 

[lulzfish]

I have a couple older desktops that I'm not using so I want to install Linux on one of them. In preparation for my eventual Pandora arrival I want to get used to this OS. So what's the most newb friendly version, Ubuntu, RedHat, Fedora? There's literally hundreds to choose from but these are some of the most popular. Obviously, there's a lot of Linux users around here so give me some tips guys!

The most user friendly distro is Ubuntu by far. Just make sure all your drivers are compatible first.

Well, I'm going to completely wipe my hard drive and start clean. What should I watch out for? Incompatabilities with the mb or vid card?

The usual troublemakers for drivers are:
* Wireless cards
* Graphics cards
* Any weird stuff like TV Tuners or USB sound cards

As far as I know, the motherboard should always work with software video, and usually sound and ethernet, and you can download everything else from there.

 

[Orion4874]

OK, I've decided on Mint but after visiting their site it seems there's some choices. Along with the standard version there's also versions with different desktops: xfce, lxde, kde, and Fluxbox. Which do you think would best prepare me? I may be wrong but doesn't the Pandora use xfce?

 

[dgame]

Yes, the Pandora uses xfce4.

 

[Nova]

No Gnome? Well then i guess the most user friendly after that is KDE. I used Kubuntu for a bit, which uses KDE, and I always found it quite pleasant.

 

[Orion4874]

No Gnome? Well then i guess the most user friendly after that is KDE. I used Kubuntu for a bit, which uses KDE, and I always found it quite pleasant.

Oops, sorry, I should have added that standard is Gnome. So I'm thinking standard or xfce since that's what the Pandora uses...... Hmmmm!

 

[SomeGuy99]

No Gnome? Well then i guess the most user friendly after that is KDE. I used Kubuntu for a bit, which uses KDE, and I always found it quite pleasant.

Oops, sorry, I should have added that standard is Gnome. So I'm thinking standard or xfce since that's what the Pandora uses...... Hmmmm!

You can install XFCE later by the way. When you log in, you can choose a desktop environment.

I actually did this with the latest version of Mint, so I'm not just guessing that it works.

 

[Orion4874]

No Gnome? Well then i guess the most user friendly after that is KDE. I used Kubuntu for a bit, which uses KDE, and I always found it quite pleasant.

Oops, sorry, I should have added that standard is Gnome. So I'm thinking standard or xfce since that's what the Pandora uses...... Hmmmm!

You can install XFCE later by the way. When you log in, you can choose a desktop environment.

I actually did this with the latest version of Mint, so I'm not just guessing that it works.

Sounds good to me, standard it is! Thank you to everybody for the advice, I really appreciate it!!!

 

[dnlgreenwood]

Arch Linux works great for me. Ubuntu was terrible. The only thing I had trouble with was the wlan drivers. In that case, I just used the STA drivers provided by Broadcom. Its hard to say wich is the best one, but I recommend ARch over everything else I've tried. (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu eee, Mandrake Linux, Puppy Linux, DSL, TCL)




I have a dualboot configuration with Windows 7 Ultimate and Arch Linux by the way... no real problems with that either. I have Arch a 4GB swap partition and a 20GB data partition. I hope thats enough. My RAM is 1GB, but I might upgrade to 2GB, and I read that the swap partition should be twice as much as your RAM, or at least the size of your RAM so suspending to RAM works.




edit: wow I need to learn to read post dates. they are so small to read...

 

[sam fisher]

IMO Windows 7 is going to be superior as a Desktop machine when compared to any form of Linux distribution. When it comes to servers it is a different matter however.

 

[Alex.]

IMO Windows 7 is going to be superior as a Desktop machine when compared to any form of Linux distribution. When it comes to servers it is a different matter however.

Depends on your needs of course. I've been running Debian for over a year and don't miss Windows one bit. Centralized software repositories and multiple desktop workspaces should be enough to win anybody over IMO, and those are only two of the many niceties it has to offer.

 

[sebt3]

IMO Windows 7 is going to be superior as a Desktop machine when compared to any form of Linux distribution. When it comes to servers it is a different matter however.

Depends on your needs of course. I've been running Debian for over a year and don't miss Windows one bit. Centralized software repositories and multiple desktop workspaces should be enough to win anybody over IMO, and those are only two of the many niceties it has to offer.

I'm using debian as my main OS for the last 11 years (already ???). But I'm currently thinking to switch my wife PC back to windows....
Everyone is different

 

[Dunny]

I'm using Win7 mostly because the font rendering in linux looks like shit - it defaults to some crappy replacements which look like crap, even though I've applied all the "fixes" I can find. It's odd, but it really, really bugs me to the point that I find the desktop unpleasant to use.

D.

 

[Sphinxter]

I'm using Win7 mostly because the font rendering in linux looks like shit - it defaults to some crappy replacements which look like crap, even though I've applied all the "fixes" I can find. It's odd, but it really, really bugs me to the point that I find the desktop unpleasant to use.

D.

Such a sad story, my heart goes out to you and your linux impotence. Had you stuck with it at some point you may have even come to realize there's nothing magical happening in that other os or anything stopping you from using any TrueType fonts you like with the abillity to fully control how they're rendered.

Just to be on topic, from a newb standpoint there's much to like in ubuntu.

 

[Alex.]

I'm using Win7 mostly because the font rendering in linux looks like shit - it defaults to some crappy replacements which look like crap, even though I've applied all the "fixes" I can find. It's odd, but it really, really bugs me to the point that I find the desktop unpleasant to use.

D.

Well here is what I see, looks fine to me but maybe each distro ships with different default fonts. I actually heard a lot of complains about this before I tried Linux, and was pleasantly surprised when I finally did.

 

[lulzfish]

I'm using Win7 mostly because the font rendering in linux looks like shit - it defaults to some crappy replacements which look like crap, even though I've applied all the "fixes" I can find. It's odd, but it really, really bugs me to the point that I find the desktop unpleasant to use.

D.

Here's some pretty standard fonts in GTK+ (Firefox) and Qt (MMLS) as seen in KDE 4.4:

Spoiler

Looks fine to me.

There is something very unsettling about Alex's fonts, because Alex is not using KDE, the fool.