Linux and Just Linux Noob Help

[crtvlynx]

Hi guys,

I'm new to the board and i plan on coming a lot if i can get everything to work.


Best Linux Distro
My first question is what distro should a noob install that will be easy and they wont have to upgrade to a new distro once they become more advanced. Right now i have Red Hat 7 8.0 and PHLAK is any one of these OK?

Finding Distro (On CD)
Is there a site or person out there who will offer a CD version free or for a very low price (Price of the CD).

Hardware Compatibility
OK, I know one of the biggest things you MUST do before even installing Linux is check your hardware compatibility. I have ran PHLAK on my computer (Via cdrom of course) and it booted up just fine with a windows version of it running (Not sure what you call that "Non text based"?) so I'm guessing i should be OK. I still want to look but I don't know where to look at i don't know what i really need to know about my hardware. Right now i know i have:

AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+ w/ HyperTransport Technology
512MB DDR333 PC2700 Non-ECC Memory (One Stick)
2 Serial ATA 80Gig hard drives with 7200 RPM (Running Hardware Raid 0 And holds files/Programs)
1 80GIG IDE Drive with 8MB Cach (Has Windows on it)
ATI Radeon 9200 w/ 256MB AGP w/ TV Out
8X DVD -/+ R/RW Drive
Mid-Tower ATX Chassis w/ 300W PS & K8T800 MotherBoard

Keeping Windows (XP Pro)
JUST IN CASE is it possible to do a dual boot with WinXP, and is it easy?

Running Windows Programs In Linux
I know most of you might be going "HAHAHA" but i have heared this is possible with a programs called wine. Is wine free? Easy to Install? is there something better out there?

Actual Install (Partitioning)
OK i want to use the IDE drive (80 gig) while still keeping winxp on it. With windows I will probably be fine with 30GIG of space leaving 50GIG just for Linux. How would i go about partitioning it. Also the RAID drives are running NTFS and i read something that said Linux can read it but not write to it "Linux-Read".


That is all the questions i have for now I'm sure i will have more as time goes by lol!

[Icarus]

Off to .iso confused

With that rig, in order to fully use it's power, I'd go with Gentoo. Yes, building an OS from source isn't the easiest thing for a new user but you have a lot of hardware that just is not commonly supported (yet)

The Red Hat's you have will choak and die with the SATA drives.

Having an Athlon64 makes me really push for a Gentoo install, but to make things simpler you might want to try SuSE's 64bit version.

A good place to look for distros is http://distrowatch.com as it is full of reviews and links to almost every version of Linux available

[crtvlynx]

i tried running sues on the machine i have (one in this post) through vmware but i couldn't get the video to work (so i can have xwindows or something). will it work if i do a correct install (no vmware). also my home network has a dial up connection that is shared through windows internet connection sharing, will linux be able to pick this up and take advantage of it or utilize it

[Sgood1971]

I am not sure about your video working if you do the full install because I have not used VMWare and don't know how it might affect your video card drivers, but SuSE works with my 2 pc's that have ATI cards even though the drivers are kinda lame. As far as it working with ICS, that is not a problem at all and YaST will make it pretty simple to configure everything. To answer your original dual booting question, yes it is possible and easy to dual boot with XP. There are a lot of threads here that cover that in detail if you search but basically you just need to set yourself up a linux partition with partition magic or some other tool and let the installer figure out how to allocate it.

Yes Wine is free, but it can be tempermental. WineX is optimized for games, but requires a subscription. Crossover Office is also not free but optimized for Office.

And finally NTFS write is possible but not supported and can cause data loss.

[soulestream]

suse has a live eval version, give it a try.


soule

[infiniphunk]

If you're into games, I hear cedega (http://www.transgaming.com/) works wonders.
Personally I would advise against a new linux user attempting a gentoo install, I attempted it last week and it didn't exactly turn out right, even though I had a fairly seasoned linux user guiding me. It is quite overwhelming.
Test your system out with some of the different live CD's that are out there. I think Mandrake 10 supports AMD64, you should try and check it out as it is a great distro for a n00by.

[KarrottoP]

Suse has known problems with vmware, vmware actually have this in their documentation that came with the install...It has to do with svga issues. I started with Redhat (I would go 8 if RH is the way you want to go, SATA would be a pain) but then move to a less friendly distro like Debian to learn....Debian is great but it will make you learn stuff. I however don't have the time to play with things like I used to...but still want to play...so I am using Suse 9.1 pro via ftp install and am pretty happy with it. The Suse 9.1 home edition or whatever its called was nearly useless to me.

[Uranus]

Originally posted by infiniphunk
Personally I would advise against a new linux user attempting a gentoo install, I attempted it last week and it didn't exactly turn out right, even though I had a fairly seasoned linux user guiding me. It is quite overwhelming.

I don't agree - I started with Gentoo and the only trouble that it gave was that I got addicted to configuring everything, messing up and reinstalling... :D
Gentoo is _extremely_ well documented, and if you can follow instructions it's a breeze (though a long one) to install. Don't count on having everything working immediately though - they will in time.
Sam

[infiniphunk]

Uranus; glad your first gentoo install was a success! What stage did you attempt?

If you read crtvlynx's post at the top of this thread, he/she is asking "what distro should a noob install that would be easy..."-not what distro takes 6 hours to install and is generally known to give problems to new users. Gentoo is definitely an advanced linux distro, and even users who have experience with debian or SUSE can run into difficulties with gentoo.
If someone attempts a gentoo install and they know very little about linux AND still installs it succesfully, all the power to them. However, gentoo does have a reputation for being a long difficult install, which is why you generally want to advise a linux newcomer to go with an easier install. Its better to set up an installation that auto-configures hardware and has a nice default GUI; having a system that just works "out of the box" is much more encouraging to a new user than something that asks you to write your own grub config file and compile a kernel from scratch.

Just my 2 cents.
:)

by the way crtvlynx, Mandrake offers a version that supports your 64-bit CPU, and it has a rep for being remarkably easy to use, powerful and just "works out of the box" -why not try it?

[je_fro]

You're better off ordering a gentoo cd from:

http://store.gentoo.org/

[Hayl]

Originally posted by infiniphunk
Gentoo is definitely an advanced linux distro, and even users who have experience with debian or SUSE can run into difficulties with gentoo.
If someone attempts a gentoo install and they know very little about linux AND still installs it succesfully, all the power to them. However, gentoo does have a reputation for being a long difficult install, which is why you generally want to advise a linux newcomer to go with an easier install. Its better to set up an installation that auto-configures hardware and has a nice default GUI; having a system that just works "out of the box" is much more encouraging to a new user than something that asks you to write your own grub config file and compile a kernel from scratch.

I agree with some of this but I have to say that (imho) the reputation of Gentoo being a difficult install or distro to use is totally unfounded. Anyone can do a stage 1, 2, or 3 install of Gentoo as long as the follow the install document. The Gentoo install CD also can autodetect most network cards and other hardware on boot.

I do agree however, that the install process can seem too long - especially considering the fact that you won't even have an X Server after a stage3.

If the thought of Gentoo scares you, I have been reading a little about that new distro called Ubuntu and it looks quite cool. It is debian-based but more polished looking. You may want to look into it: http://www.ubuntulinux.org/.

Cheers.