Installing Ubuntu but I have some questions

[Stephen Bungert]

Only tried linux twice before, once with suse 7 and once with redhat 8. I really didin't get on with either. Nothing worked to well, fonts were not smooth, couldn't find my scan, etc.

My brother has started using Linux more and more now for his work and said some of the latest distros are really much better than when I last tried linux.

He uses fedora core. He says it's great. I tempted to try suse as I prefered this to redhat. But now I here of a distro called ubuntu. I downloaded the disc image, one image. I looked at the opensuse site and the fedora site, 5 images and 4 images needed.

My first question is what am I missing out on with ubuntu's one disc? I'd like apache, php and pertl installed. I don't have a preference over gui (gnome or kde but I tend to prefer gnome as it is simpler. Apps in redhat 8 kde took ages to start, thing seem quicker in gnome but maybe kde is now also faster? Fedora and ubuntu use gnome. Do they come also with kde? If i want the best speed should I only install one (gnome or kde)? If I use ubuntu can I then install kde if I wish or does this require a new distro?

PS: Is Gnome used more in the US and kde in europe? SUSE is by a german co, I'm english now living in Deutschland with my wife and have switched to an german version of xp as I now feel my german is good enough to understand what I'm seeing. Maybe I should get SUSE for this reason? Can you switch easily the languages? Or is it like windows where your stuck with one language?

My last questions are about booting, I want windows xp undamaged. My internal drive is nearly full so I brought an usb external with 200GB (one of the reasons why I thought I may try linux agian is because of the extra space). How much should I give to linux, I thought 10GB would be enough? Can I now install linux on the usb drive (it says it is bootable) and still get access to windows? Should I try and shift some things like my pictures and my music to the usb drive and free-up space on the internal to use as swap space? I'm not really sure what the speed of the drive is like but I'm pretty certain I have usb 1.1 ports and not 2 so I dout i is as fast as the internal although it is 7200 rpm.

Thanks for any help, and for any other advice you give someone just starting again with Linux.

PPS. What is the best office suit to use. If I install kde and gnome should I not install their native offices and use OOo instead? Is it easy to install apps on these new disros? That was one of my major gripes with my previous linux ventures. Nothing could install, I don't want to build from source and dependencies caused trouble. I'm not planning on using Linux day-to-day, most of the apps I use for work are windows only and as I'm a web designer I figure it's better to use the machine that most of my works visitors will be using.

TA

[JayMan8081]

Well, Ubuntu only includes Gnome as the desktop environment. If you want KDE you'll want to look into Kubuntu. As far as missing out on anything, if you have broadband internet you can setup apt to use different repositories to get the software you need quite easily. If need be I can post my apt sources file for you. I use Ubuntu at work and I love it so far. I had one little issue with a recent update but I was able to get it resolved.

[Sepero]

1) Suse's fonts (and everything else) are a lot better now. If you have a relatively modern system (2001~2005), it should run just fine. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

2) You're not missing out with anything on Ubuntu's 1 CD. Anything(perl, php, etc.) that isn't there can be easily downloaded and installed from the internet.

3) Installing Gnome and KDE on the same system won't slow it down. It will only require more HD space. Because of the diversity of Linux applications, you will likely need to have the core of both of them installed anyway.

4) In my experience, Gnome tends to be less resource intense than KDE.

5) It is not recommended to try to run the Kdesktop on Ubuntu. There have been several bad reports on such attempts. (Suse and Kubuntu use KDE)

6) (opinion from an american) From what I can tell, KDE seems to be most popular in every country. Just guessing, I would say that KDE is about 25%-50% more popular than Gnome. (I'm a Gnome user.)

7) In my experience, I would say GNU/Linux has better multi-lingual support than any OS in existance. (Including Microstuff)

8) I would say 10GB is plenty enough room for any distro. Though, the install may ask you to create another partition for swap memory.

9) There are some distros made to be specifically booted from USB drive. Check out www.distrowatch.com for more info.

10) Best office suite: Open Office. It won hands down in a recent Linux vote. (You can download and use it on Microstuff too)

11) "Is it easy to install apps on these new disros?" If you plan to install from source code, NO. Fortunately, for you, modern distros precompile and prepackage just about every program you could ever need. If you plan to install from the prepackaged sources, then YES.
(In fact, this is one of the main reasons I quit using MS. I can install software in minutes without having to search all over the internet for "something that doesn't suck". What's even better, I can run "apt-get upgrade", and upgrade EVERY program on my WHOLE system!
On MS, I was always having to individually update: virus scanner, firewall, spyware scanner, Java, Flash, Adobe, Yahoo/AIM/ICQ Messenger, Getright, P2P client, mIRC, etc, etc. God that sucked! And the suckiest of all = "Oops, you waited too long to upgrade. All your old configurations are now erased.")

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[MainframeGuy]

I came from an almost EXACTLY identical place to you with VERY similar needs and concerns....

How can I communicate my experience? Well, let me just tell you that it began with me very cautioulsy placing Ubuntu onto a secondary machine where I had a free 20GB drive - so it was very much a separate play system..... and within a few short weeks it ended with EVERY machine I have running dual boot, right down to my laptop! That is how happily I have found the move to Ubuntu going for me. I have a FreeBSD server also and you'll want to consider Samba if you desire to share files over from XP.

To give a few ideas of things I have done - apart from reformat the laptop to split the HD in half making way for ubuntu - I recently ensured Ubuntu would also run dual head monitors for my main machine and I shall shortly Activate CUPs so that my one printer may be shared by all Ubuntu boxes.

Basically I have not found ANYTHING apart from games which i can do in M$ that I cannot do (and probably a lot better and easier) in Ubuntu...

I am only speaking from my experience. What else could I do?

Wanted to share as where I started was so close to your position....