Best FLavor of Linux? [Archive] - HP Deals, Computer Coupons And Bargains

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Webhead211

07-19-2002, 10:10 AM

i'm planning on setting up a linux box, but i admittedly don't have an abundance of experience with linux, so i just wanted to ask what you guys think is the best/most user friendly flavor of linux right now.

webhead211
"you know what i really want in a girl? me." -bloodhoung gang

Raider007

07-19-2002, 10:53 AM

i currently am using Mandrake 8.2
it was easy to setup.

my only problem was with the dual boot of win2k and Linux...but after alittle tweeking i got it solved. works great for me :D

Ladogaboy

07-19-2002, 12:52 PM

Yeah, I like Mandrake too... you can get the 3 cd iso's for free online... and they give you a lot of options as to what you want to set the OS up to do...

coleslaw

07-19-2002, 01:27 PM

Agreed, Mandrake is definitely the most "user-friendly" distro.

I'm a Debian guy myself. :)

caribiner23

07-19-2002, 01:53 PM

I used an older version of Mandrake (7.0) on a 486 box a few weeks ago, and it worked fine. I know the OS and the installer has improved, so I would recommend it.

coleslaw

07-19-2002, 02:03 PM

Originally posted by caribiner23
I used an older version of Mandrake (7.0) on a 486 box a few weeks ago, and it worked fine.My god, I hope that you stripped your installation down as much as possible. I tried running a full installation of Mandrake 8.x on a K6-II 350 and it was slow as molasses! :(

Ladogaboy

07-19-2002, 02:09 PM

07-21-2002, 12:09 AM

I was a Mandrake fan until 8.2 came out - didn't work well at all for me. Red Hat is my flavor of choice.

-OC

ps - I have 13 Linux books, and I feel like I need more. Just thought I'd share.

jase71

07-21-2002, 06:10 AM

I've had good luck with Mandrake 8.2, though I had good luck with Suse for the 7.x versions as well. I haven't tried Suse 8.0 because Mandrake has worked so well for me...

The only distro that I've used that ever gave me problems was RedHat... though to be fair, that was a while ago, and was one of my first attempts at Linux, so the problem might have been me. :P

But if you want user-friendly, with a pretty good selection of online help, mandrake is probably the way to go...

07-21-2002, 09:48 AM

Originally posted by jase71
I've had good luck with Mandrake 8.2, though I had good luck with Suse for the 7.x versions as well. I haven't tried Suse 8.0 because Mandrake has worked so well for me...

The only distro that I've used that ever gave me problems was RedHat... though to be fair, that was a while ago, and was one of my first attempts at Linux, so the problem might have been me. :P

But if you want user-friendly, with a pretty good selection of online help, mandrake is probably the way to go... I still like Mandrake - up to 8.1 anyway. And I agreee about older RH distros. The new ones very nice though.

-OC

Aristo

07-21-2002, 10:16 AM

Mandrake 8.2 for me. Well.... it was a requirement for school project. No problem with my AMD Athlon XP1600 box.

jase71

07-21-2002, 11:26 AM

What kind of problems did you have with 8.2, OC?

Not that I'm capable of fixing them, but just because I'm curious... 'cause it's been flawless for me.

Runs slick on my Soyo Dragon+, AthlonXP, Radeon 7000, with a couple of Seagate Barracuda IV drives set up as IDE raid 0.

ribitch

07-21-2002, 11:32 AM

i prefer caldera and redhat. Mandrake is good for beginers, so as a beginner, start with mandrake then explore other options. Mandrake has made great progress in making the install real user friendly.

when you get used to linux, try other variants to see and learn allot of what mandrake is hiding from you.

jase71

07-21-2002, 12:56 PM

Originally posted by ribitch
Mandrake is good for beginers, so as a beginner, start with mandrake then explore other options.

Kinda like OSX is good for Unix beginners? Start with it, and then explore other options? :P

Ladogaboy

07-21-2002, 01:15 PM

Originally posted by jase71

Kinda like OSX is good for Unix beginners? Start with it, and then explore other options? :P

See what Steve Jobs is hiding from you? ;)

caribiner23

07-21-2002, 06:48 PM

Originally posted by coleslaw
My god, I hope that you stripped your installation down as much as possible. I tried running a full installation of Mandrake 8.x on a K6-II 350 and it was slow as molasses! :(

Actually, it's not that stripped down. The video resolution is pretty light (only a 1 MB video board is in the thing) and it's slow, but it works. Not a bad conversation piece. :-)

I managed to get 128 MB of memory in the unit, so I'm sure that helped.

Webhead211

07-22-2002, 09:39 AM

thanks everyone.. i'll try mandrake and go from there... and i don't think i want to know what steve jobs is hiding, or more importantly where he's hiding it :hehehmm:

07-22-2002, 10:45 AM

Mandrake 8.2 just wouldn't configure itself correctly during installation. I tried the install a few times on two different boxes and it just wouldn't "take". I found this very surprising, because I had had great success with Mandrake going back to v7.2. RH 7.2 and 7.3 installed on both boxes with no diffuculty.

I'm a little surprised about the K62-350 problem. I've run RH 7.2 and 7.3 on an old PPro180 (I just us it as a file server) and it works just fine, not slow at all.

-OC