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| Thread ID: 83991 | 2007-10-20 18:00:00 | Most usable Linux distros for the beginner (IMHO) | Myth (110) | PC World Chat |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 603402 | 2007-10-20 18:00:00 | AS you may or may not know, for the last couple of weeks I have been attempting to set up Linux on my laptop. I just figured I would post back with my experiences and opinion on most useable (for a beginner) distro. Now some of you may say "but we all know you've been using Linux for a few years now, as your main OS". True, but I have become accustomed to one distro (Gentoo with Fluxbox, KDE), and so am new to how the others do their thing. (And believe me, they all do it differently) Distros I tried were: Ubuntu 7.10 (Gnome) Kubuntu 7.10 (KDE) Gentoo 2007.1 (KDE, Fluxbox) PCLinuxOS 2007 (default - KDE) Fedora 7 (KDE) OpenSuse 10.3 (KDE) Mepis 6.5 (KDE) The test was to have an ethernet AND wireless set up and easily switchable between both. As I found out early on, my wireless device (BCM43xx) had a module in the kernel that either went or didnt. If it didn't, I attempted to use ndiswrapper By far the easiest one to set up (and the only one that I was easily able to switch between devices) was Ubuntu 7.10. Within an hour I had both devices set up and running properly (wireless via ndiswrapper). This was followed by PCLinuxOS (got wireless via ndiswrapper, but for some reason I couldn't get ethernet up after that). Unfortunately, Opensuse wouldn't install (after trying for a few hours, it got turfed). A lot of the distros, I got wireless running, but it wouldn't connect to my router (using WEP) Footnote: A majority of distros I did try were using KDE. I think that Gnome does make a big difference and makes it easier, especially setting up troublesome hardware (like the Broadcom wireless device) The above is just my humble opinion - hopefully it may help someone |
Myth (110) | ||
| 603403 | 2007-10-20 21:28:00 | What about Debian? *sobs quietly in the corner after noticing it didn't make your list* Only ones off that list I'd even think about touching are Gentoo and Fedora 7 (and even then I doubt Fedora would last long). Have also been meaning to give Slackware a try for years, but never got round to it. |
Erayd (23) | ||
| 603404 | 2007-10-20 21:44:00 | How were you switching between devices? | vinref (6194) | ||
| 603405 | 2007-10-20 23:39:00 | What about Debian? *sobs quietly in the corner after noticing it didn't make your list* Only ones off that list I'd even think about touching are Gentoo and Fedora 7 (and even then I doubt Fedora would last long). Have also been meaning to give Slackware a try for years, but never got round to it.Clean forgot about Debian sorry How were you switching between devices?As a new user would, whatever GUI apps were available I realise I could have used ifconfig and iwconfig, but if one is to recommend a Linux distro to a new user, then a new user is unlikely to want to know about the command line |
Myth (110) | ||
| 603406 | 2007-10-20 23:55:00 | Have you tried kwlan? It's miles better than many of the other GUI apps for wireless switching in my opinion. | Erayd (23) | ||
| 603407 | 2007-10-21 04:21:00 | I just recently decided to learn linux on my laptop, and after some searching eventually decided on Sabayon (based on gentoo) so far it has been really easy for me to learn, and as a bonus came with both compiz and beryl pre-configured so I can play around to my hearts content with cubes and wobbly windows :p And on the wireless front a quick search of the sabayon forums got my ipw3945bg working beautifully |
lagbort (5041) | ||
| 603408 | 2007-10-21 05:28:00 | I just recently decided to learn linux on my laptop, and after some searching eventually decided on Sabayon (based on gentoo) so far it has been really easy for me to learn, and as a bonus came with both compiz and beryl pre-configured so I can play around to my hearts content with cubes and wobbly windows :p And on the wireless front a quick search of the sabayon forums got my ipw3945bg working beautifullyYeah I've been meaning to check out Sabayon. Currently I have found the reason Opensuse won't install, and am doing an install now. I have always wanted to play with this distro (since way back when I was first using FC3), just always seemed to have problems with it (more than likely PEBKAC :p) |
Myth (110) | ||
| 603409 | 2007-10-21 19:02:00 | OpenSUSE 10.3 == nice :thumbs: Using the Gnome version, network and wireless setup was reasonably easy (via ndiswrapper and online documentation). Though installation proved to be a test in itself |
Myth (110) | ||
| 603410 | 2007-10-21 23:18:00 | For a real beginner you can't go past Puppy www.puppylinux.org Live cd works out of the "box" just download the .iso burn your disk and off you go. |
JackStraw (6573) | ||
| 603411 | 2007-10-22 00:10:00 | So many distros...:eek: | beeswax34 (63) | ||
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