need distro for newbie
in [General Linux]
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From: Nasser M. Abbasi on 31 May 2010 14:40 On 05/31/2010 07:17 AM, BenT wrote: > Hi all, > > I've been running Kubuntu for several years and had very good luck with > it. I built my sweetie a new box with premium components (3.2 ghz quad core > AMD) and installed Kubuntu 10.04. Big mistake. > There seems to be another main difference between the different distributions to consider: some uses .rpm (with yum as the package manager) and some uses .deb like debian, and the package manager is called apt. I am not sure which is considered 'better' or 'easier' than the other, and do not want to get into this packaging war here, but I assume both will do pretty much the same thing? one just uses different packaging format and protocol than the other? So, for an end user, should one worry about this difference? --Nasser
From: General Schvantzkoph on 31 May 2010 15:23 On Mon, 31 May 2010 18:11:50 +0000, J G Miller wrote: > On Mon, 31 May 2010 17:59:06 +0000, Dan C wrote: > >> Slackware. > > Perhaps Frugalware would be a little easier for a neophyte? > > <http://frugalware.ORG/> Using an obscure distro is a really bad idea for a newbie. The choice should be based on the following criteria, 1) If you have someone who is prepared to help you (which is the case in this situation), you should use the whatever distro they prefer. In this case the OP likes Kubuntu, however that seems not to be working on this particular system. If I were the OP I would switch to the Gnome interface to see if that solves the problem, that's the least amount of work and if it does the job he's done. 2) Use a mainstream distro, not some obscure hobby distro. The mainstream distros have large user communities and significant development resources. 3) Use the default primary desktop for that distro, (Gnome for Redhat and Ubuntu, KDE for SuSE). The primary desktop gets the lion's share of the development resources so it's likely to have fewer problems. That doesn't mean that the alternative isn't fine for an experienced user who can work around the issues, but the first choice should be the distro's default desktop. 4) Pick the most stable distro that will work on your hardware. This is tricky because there isn't one right answer here. My summary of the current state of things is, CentOS 5.5 With the EPEL and Fusion repositories added you can set up a fine desktop system for a new user. It takes more work to set up then the main desktop systems, but once it's configured it won't break so it's a really good choice when you are setting up a system for someone who you have to support and who isn't interested in administering a system themselves. However CentOS has lousy support for new hardware so it's only appropriate for older systems. If there is any new hardware it might not work. I just had to switch my sister from CentOS to Fedora 13 because she bought a new HP All in One that required the very latest version of HPLIP to get the scanner to work which is only available in F13, even F12 wouldn't handle it. Fedora 13 A very solid release right out the chute, usually a Fedora release takes a few months to get this good but F13 was solid even as a beta. Fedora is great on newer hardware however F13 has an issue with older Nvidia cards. F13 uses Xorg 1.8 which is not supported by Nvidia's legacy drivers yet. The mainline Nvidia binary driver works with Xorg 1.8 so as long as the graphics card is recent there won't be an issue with F13, but for older cards F13 should be avoided until Nvidia updates their legacy drivers unless you can live with the Nouveau driver. Fedora 12 Works really well and it uses Xorg 1.7 so the legacy Nvidia drivers work. However if the OPs sound card needs the very latest kernel to work then F12 might not be the answer. I'm not in a position to comment about Ubuntu, but since the OP is having problems with that distro it's not relevant to this discussion.
From: Dan C on 31 May 2010 15:24 On Mon, 31 May 2010 18:11:50 +0000, J G Miller wrote: > On Mon, 31 May 2010 17:59:06 +0000, Dan C wrote: > >> Slackware. > > Perhaps Frugalware would be a little easier for a neophyte? Dunno. Might be. Never heard of it. -- "Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". "Bother!" said Pooh, as he declared his horse a Senator. Usenet Improvement Project: http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/ Thanks, Obama: http://brandybuck.site40.net/pics/politica/thanks.jpg
From: General Schvantzkoph on 31 May 2010 15:30 On Mon, 31 May 2010 11:40:49 -0700, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote: > On 05/31/2010 07:17 AM, BenT wrote: >> Hi all, >> >> I've been running Kubuntu for several years and had very good luck with >> it. I built my sweetie a new box with premium components (3.2 ghz quad >> core AMD) and installed Kubuntu 10.04. Big mistake. >> >> > There seems to be another main difference between the different > distributions to consider: some uses .rpm (with yum as the package > manager) and some uses .deb like debian, and the package manager is > called apt. > > I am not sure which is considered 'better' or 'easier' than the other, > and do not want to get into this packaging war here, but I assume both > will do pretty much the same thing? one just uses different packaging > format and protocol than the other? So, for an end user, should one > worry about this difference? > > --Nasser Before yum, rpm distros were harder to maintain then deb distros, but yum fixed that. Also Redhat is using PackageKit now which automatically finds codecs on demand. That was an area where Ubuntu had an advantage in the past, but they are equivalent now.
From: notbob on 31 May 2010 15:33
On 2010-05-31, BenT <noreply(a)address.com> wrote: > Thanks for the fast response. It's been quite a few years since I ran > Debian. > > I'm downloading Debian 5 stable as I write...... Ubuntu IS Debian, at least Debian For Dummies. If you can't get Ubuntu working, what makes you think you will have better luck with Debian? OTOH, maybe you will. I can't get Ubuntu to work, either. Maybe I'm not dumb enough. ;) nb |