Technology Sorry guys, but Any good Linux user out there?

[DrHopeless]

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Hi, my XP comp crashed just as school about to start. I was wondering if any of you guys uses linux and know which distribution is the best for a new user (very little experience with linux)?

 

[medhacker]

Try Suse or Lindows

Lindows is not free and am not sure if suse may still be found for free, maybe some older versions.

 

[bwells46]

Hi, my XP comp crashed just as school about to start. I was wondering if any of you guys uses linux and know which distribution is the best for a new user (very little experience with linux)?

I say dive right in with a trial by fire. Go with Debian.

Linux is teh 5h1zn1t!

 

[Twitch]

There are plenty of distro's out there for linux. I have both free versions and bundled cd releases. There is a reason distro's are free. They require more work to get everything up and running. The cd/dvd releases are slightly better off though are not free (legally). They still take some amount of tinkering. Everybody and their aunt seems to have a distro out. Really how much time are you willing to put into this to put everything together or are you looking for something that requires the least amount of tinkering. Then there is the whole wine issue for compatibility to your existing applications.

Lots of choices and no quick fix. Personally if school has started it may be easier to rebuild XP then start a new road trip to linux. If you have the time though...

 

[zaz]

If you want to keep it simple and also want a distro with a fair amount of support try out RedHat or its cousin Fedora Core 3. Most users I know haven't fully committed to using linux as a desktop environment, but instead change the master boot record to allow for dualbooting - you might consider this. Perhaps the simplest is to download a distro like Slax (http://slax.linux-live.org/) which you can run right off the cd. Slax may also help you recover some files from your crashed windows box.

 

[Sust]

Hi, my XP comp crashed just as school about to start. I was wondering if any of you guys uses linux and know which distribution is the best for a new user (very little experience with linux)?

Im a big fan of fedora core which is free to download.
fedora.redhat.com
Support can be found at www.fedoraforum.org
(for me at least)It works fine right off of the install and it does all of the basics such as web browsing, word document stuff, running your own web server, or FTP server. 🙂
However, I will warn that the initial install might be a little intimidating for the uninitiated. The basic gist of redhat fedora distributions is that there is the easy idiot mode, but if youre feeling frisky you can peek behind the icons you press and discover the hidden potential of linux.

If you're willing to pay, I think Suse is a very nice single-user flavor of linux that "just works" after you get used to the way things work.

 

[masterMood]

use ubuntu-linux, it's the linux that is spearheaded as the main linux distro. it does a major update every 6 months, and is very community-driven

the quote for ubuntu is "Linux for Human Beings"

it means that Linux can be for everyone not only the technical wizards that have practically become computers per se.

ubuntulinux.org

 

[Sessamoid]

Ubuntu and Kubuntu are good. Mandriva is also quite good, and what I've used for a while. Both very good new-user-oriented distros.

 

[DeLaughterDO]

Sorry to revive a 3 week long dead thread, but I just had to mention Mepis (http://www.mepis.org). It is based on Debian, and "just works" for a very large amount of hardware. In addition, it is packaged as a Live-CD you can use to test it without having to install it to your hard disc. It's free and it's compatible with all the thousands of Debian binaries available via apt (unlike K/Ubuntu, which is not Debian compatible and has it's own repositories).

I've used Mepis for about 6 months now, and I've really enjoyed it. Of course, now I want to tinker more, so I'm looking at FreeBSD 🙂 I'd use Gentoo or LFS, but I haven't been able to get my wireless configured correctly...

I'm just never happy - I was the same way when I was a Window$ user, too. I'd completely re-install or change OSes every 6-9 months.. just because I could (and it's practically necessary for windows to keep your machine from slowing to a snail's pace).

Sorry for the long entry. Just wanted to point out another good distro for beginners.

 

[cmz]

FreeBSD (this is UNIX.. unlike Linux... which is NOT UNIX) is or has been generally considered to be useful for the adept/high-end non-windows user. It seems to be getting more user-friendly, however, and I would highly recommend giving it a try. I haven't gone outside this realm for many years, but I remember options such as RedHat/SuSE/Mandrake all being viable alternatives.

 

[tinman831]

meh... just get a mac 😀