# [SOLVED] Best Linux Distribution for Beginner?



## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

Hey guys,

I had very little Unix back in college, but I deal alot with Unix here at work as far as having to write TCL statements for reports etc..

All in all I would say I am not very comfortable with Unix or Linux, and am looking to install a version on my 2nd HD.

Open to suggestions.

Thanks guys.


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## JustDesi (Aug 10, 2004)

MANDRAKE 10.. but i'm sure everyone has there own experiences and opinions


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

Yeah I am sure, just getting some ideas. Thanks for the post :up:


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## tsunam (Sep 14, 2003)

fedora core 2, mandrake 10, linspire. If you just wnat it to work and you can do your TCL practice those are the quickest and easiest to install. of the three i'd recommend fedora (redhat project) or mandrake


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## GrumpyHermit (May 23, 2004)

Mandrake 10 or SuSE 9.1 Pro.


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

im pretty strong with TCL...ok so I think I will try Mandrake..

I found an official download for it, but do I have to do 4 cd's or will it fit on one?

Also is there any other software needed?


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## lynch (Aug 3, 2002)

The first 3 are all you need and there is plenty of software provided to get a nice system. The 4th CD I have'nt seen on any mirrors and it isnt really needed, anyway.
HTH
lynch


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## GrumpyHermit (May 23, 2004)

lynch said:


> The first 3 are all you need and there is plenty of software provided to get a nice system. The 4th CD I have'nt seen on any mirrors and it isnt really needed, anyway.
> HTH
> lynch


Isn't the fourth CD a "live" testing cd?


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

I downloaded all 4 last night. I will install on my spare HD tonight....anything I should know about?

My C: drive has Windows XP, but I have a D: which I want to format and install Linux on....am I going to run into issues like this?


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## saikee (Jun 11, 2004)

KHollman

Which ever way you are going to turn you will have to let a Linux bootloader into the Master Boot Record (MBR) of the bootable hard drive and that is the one with XP. You might as well get used to this idea and make sure that the MBR can be recovered.

The reason that the MBR will be partially overwritten by a Linux is because many distros have a two-stage installation. They want a reboot to finish and hence need access to the MBR.

Therefore I concentrate my advice on how to get the MBR back should you want to do it.

The standard method is to load the XP installation CD, wait for a while, choose recovery console, feed in the administrator password to get to a command prompt, type fixmbr, type exit and the system will reboot back to Windows. For that you lose the access to the Linux temporarily.

A quick way is to find an old bootable DOS floppy with fdisk.exe command in it, boot it up and type fdisk /mbr to achieve the same thing.

Being not very comfortable, as you put it , at any one stage you will lose access to Linux or Windows. The above will get you back the Windows. To get back a Linux it depends on which bootloader of the Linux uses. However a Live CD may be the best way forward and some detail is given in this thread.

Before I leave you in peace you may like to know a Linux seldom occupies more than 5Gb. Hence I have created 28 partitions in my 200Gb disk and loaded 15 distros so far. You may consider to load several Linux to choose the best one for yourself.


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

Well,

My XP is actually an ME upgrade.


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## GrumpyHermit (May 23, 2004)

saikee said:


> Before I leave you in peace you may like to know a Linux seldom occupies more than 5Gb. Hence I have created 28 partitions in my 200Gb disk and loaded 15 distros so far. You may consider to load several Linux to choose the best one for yourself.


Saikee, I find this intriguing; if it's not a violation of your privacy, _why_ do you have so many Linux distros on your computer? What does your bootscreen look like, do they all show up?


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## saikee (Jun 11, 2004)

GrumpHermit,

I am only a 2-month old beginner in Linux trying to learn the system. I just find it easier to learn by seeing the things they all have in common. The two bootloaders Lilo and Grub are good examples. I don't seem to run into any resistance to make Linux booting each other or Windows. I have even placed the bootloader in the extended partition and it still boots.

Most bootloader cannot accommodate all the 15 choices and runs into a second screen, which shows up as I scroll down the page. One Lilo from Knoppix actually has 3 columns to show the boot choices. Because I chainload each bootloader and have its screen display therefore each boot choice is another screen of potentially 15 choices. Basically I have 15 screens from 15 bootloaders.

Chainloading requires almost no work from me to set it up. Linux by itself will do it automatically. The trick involved is just to make sure each Linux has its bootloader inside its partition for an installing distro to pick up the information. To instruct a Linux, say at partition hda20, to place its bootloader inside the partition is a one-line command.

For Lilo ---> lilo -b /dev/hda20

For Grub ---> grub-install /dev/hda20

That is all to it.

Another reason for loading as many distros I can lay my hand on is to see what each can offer. Not every distro can kickstart all my hardware. With enough of them inside all my hardware work and I don't have to pull hair out if one fails to give sound for example.

The cost of hard disk storage is about 2.5Gb/£ in Uk or 1.6Gb/$ in the States so really it is £2 or $3.5 investment to store a Linux which is free from downloading. I can't understand why one only want to stick with only one or two.


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

Well....I am not sure I understand how to install linux...so I just saved the 4 CD's to my HD...so if I ever figure it out I will burn the CD's.

I also understand I am not suppose to write the ISO to the cd as data, but as an image?


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## tsunam (Sep 14, 2003)

yep, take the iso and in nero or whatever progam you have and you want to click open, and then you should select the iso option from the possible formats. you should have LOTS of files appear and directories, if it doesn't you need to retry .


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## Whiteskin (Nov 16, 2002)

saikee said:


> Before I leave you in peace you may like to know a Linux seldom occupies more than 5Gb. Hence I have created 28 partitions in my 200Gb disk and loaded 15 distros so far. You may consider to load several Linux to choose the best one for yourself.


I'm a little iffy on that. If your smart with what you do, then yes. However it's trivial to surpass a 5gb limit.


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## Whiteskin (Nov 16, 2002)

A big thing to remember with linux is that there is no one system that is best. Really, for a beginner (absolute) I'd say a live cd (Peanut linux, Knoppix, etc.). A new windows background user who wants linux on his/her drive should probably go with Mandrake, Linspire, etc. Someone who wants the power of linux with an easy install should head to SuSe. Someone who needs to be close to the metal: Gentoo. Someone who wants amazing package management on a linux distro: Debian based. 

Again. It's what you want. 

I enjoy the speed increases that I get out of gentoo, however I do have some beefs with portage. I love debian, however source management is a mess on it.


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## saikee (Jun 11, 2004)

I may be going nutty by having 15 Linux systems booting each other and Windows, but it is a amazing new world to me to explore.

So far with the chroot command I can bring up 4 Linux systems ( boot up Linux A, from it chroot to Linux B, from B to C and from C to D) and go into each one's desktop.


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## tsunam (Sep 14, 2003)

Whiteskin said:


> Someone who wants amazing package management on a linux distro: Debian based.


NANI?!?!?!?!

Package management....that's what portage is....is package management..and upgrades with dependencies.


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## shadowcat (Oct 19, 2003)

tsunam said:


> Package management....that's what portage is....is package management..and upgrades with dependencies.


Agreed. I'm partial to both Gentoo and Debian, but I'm leaning more towards Gentoo.


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## Whiteskin (Nov 16, 2002)

I don't know. Personally, to me portage is SOURCE managment. Packages in my mind, are binaries, prebuilt-plug-em-in and they work things. Portage is more source. Dependancy resolving source management, but source managment nonetheless.


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## I Fix 4 U (Jul 19, 2004)

Hi buds, so here all yall are hangin out in the unix thread. lol ok well u3 umm i'm gonna have to say the best unix distro for beginners is any installable livecd. MEPIS was great because all i did was boot it and play around and it had a really nice graphical install. It came with qtparted so that made partitioning easy and if i wanted i could select a harddrive and do an automated partitioning.


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

I decided on a Live CD of SUSE 9.1. It is downloading now. What does everyone think about this?

Should I do Knoppix instead?


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## saikee (Jun 11, 2004)

I am greedy. I have them both, among the 16.

In UK the hard disk storage cost 2.5Gb/£ and in the USA it is about 1.6Gb/$. A 5Gb will store one Linux from the majority of the distros so we are really talking about an investment of £2 or US$3.5 to store every Linux.


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## I Fix 4 U (Jul 19, 2004)

lol i just bought a big harddrive and dont worry about space anymore, as u will read in my new post inside my help thread (yah thanks for coming back to it as i was getting restless about the win98 deal).


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

Ok..I downloaded Knoppix and now when I boot I get "Starting Caldera [DR-DOS]

It runs down the page and gets to an

A:>

Exactly what am I suppose to do here? It's a Live CD supposedly.


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## saikee (Jun 11, 2004)

Calder Dr-DOS isn't Linux. It is at best part of Loadin, a bootloader written in DOS that can boot kernel. Loadlin is used by some very small distros. 

What version have you down loaded? The current version is 3.4. You should have around 700Mb in the CD.


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

This was suppose to be knoppix, version...not sure, it came from here:

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/index-en.html

The cd was 545mb


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## I Fix 4 U (Jul 19, 2004)

well i have 3.4 and it boots from isolinux.


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

gotta link for a download possibly?


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## twotugs (May 14, 2003)

http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=44


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## saikee (Jun 11, 2004)

holloman,

If you check with the site suggested by twotugs it seem your Knoppix is a bit small.

You have to download the iso image and burn it as an iso image to a CD.


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## lynch (Aug 3, 2002)

It should be 706118 kb. You can go to  tux .org and get 3.4 . Be sure its KNOPPIX_V3.4-2004-05-17-EN.iso.
HTH
lynch


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## I Fix 4 U (Jul 19, 2004)

yah. someone i know even has a knoppix3.5 dvd from linuxtag aint that nice.


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

yea I Burnt the last CD as an ISO image using cdburnerxp, worked fine except IT WASN'T KNOPPIX!! 

Thanks Guys.


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

twotugs said:


> http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=44


I am downloading this now...downloads very slow compared to place I d/l Caldera from.

Thanks :up:


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## I Fix 4 U (Jul 19, 2004)

lol


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## lynch (Aug 3, 2002)

That DVD is hard to come by; it was handed out at a European Linux conference and no one's putting it up on the mirrors. 
lynch


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

**update*** went home for lunch at 1:00, had been downloading since 7:30 and still had 3 hrs to go.....and I have got a very fast cable connection most of the time.


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## I Fix 4 U (Jul 19, 2004)

i wish i had that dvd, i'd make an iso and then torrent it.


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

Ok this sucks...just downloaded Suse 9.1 at work. I get home and try to boot from it....same crap!! starting Caldera [DR-DOS] amd it runs thru all this device stuff I have and dont have and gets to the A:>

What gives?


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## I Fix 4 U (Jul 19, 2004)

check your bootpriorities and stuff like that and see if there is a boot floppy in your floopy drive or cd drive take out all unecessary media cards, floppys, and other cds from their slots/drives and then boot with the cd you want and make sure its device is top priority.


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

It's on a laptop and it is top priority. The one I just d/l from the link above did the same Shizzy. Am I missing something here? I burned it at ISO level 1 on cdburnerxp and selected to make it a bootable disk. I would think that's correct? Seeing as I want to boot from it.

So now I have 2 knoppix cd's and one Suse 9.1 that do the same thing...NOTHING =\


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## shadowcat (Oct 19, 2003)

When I burn a distro, I burn it at the slowest rate possible because I've had a couple of distros became unbootable when I burned it at 48X.

As for not booting at all, that happened to me before using Knoppix 3.2 and a Dell 5150. I hear the CD spinning all I got was a black screen. I haven't tried Knoppix 3.4 on it (the computer belongs to someone else), but Knoppix 3.4 does work on an HP nc6000 laptop.


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

Both Knoppix versions I have and the Suse 9.1 are all doing the exact same thing:

Starting Caldera.......DR DOS

Runs through all my devices and ends up at 

A:>


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## I Fix 4 U (Jul 19, 2004)

I belive your current burning software is trying to create its own version of a bootable cd, thus making suse and knoppix have its own booting system. First try turning off (make a bootable cd) and then burn. speed doesnt matter unless ur getting burn errors. If problem persists try burn4free. (see below)

ok i found out ur problem. its ur cdburner software. you are selecting to make it bootable now as i dont know how to fix this i can tell you another cdburner that will do it right. it is called burn4free (free) and you select your speed and then click burn iso. select the iso and it will burn it. possible error may include it saying burn process complete and then when asking to close the windows it will say abort data burn but after burn process is complete exiting should be fine. just make sure ur cd burner isnt burning.


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

I have the option to not make it bootable...should I do that?


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

I am doing the burn4free route.

It is burning now, I went to "Burn ISO" , selected it, and said yes.

If this does not work, Linux is cheese! If it does iXneonXi we are best friends :up:

I doubt I will ever know as much about Linux as I do Windows.


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## I Fix 4 U (Jul 19, 2004)

how is it?


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

iXneonXi your a genius :up:

Thanks alot!


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## I Fix 4 U (Jul 19, 2004)

your welcome so hows knoppix?


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

pretty wicked, but can I get online with it?

I was trying to put in this site but it kept saying the name could not be found.


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## I Fix 4 U (Jul 19, 2004)

what kind of internet do u have?


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

I have Roadrunner via wireless network connection


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## I Fix 4 U (Jul 19, 2004)

how is it connected to your computer.


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

I have the cable (rg6) going into the roarunner cable modem, an ethernet cable from modem to wireless router then I have a wireless card in both my laptop and desktop.


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## I Fix 4 U (Jul 19, 2004)

you are acessing the internet from a wireless card in knoppix. i'm not sure if that is supported yet because i just use a regular wired interface but try posting a thread because you cant just add drivers to knoppix since its off a cd. when you boot up, see if it recognises your card (it would show up in all that mumblejumble while bootin) if so try one of the configuration programs with knoppix (found in the menu)


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## lynch (Aug 3, 2002)

KHolloman said:


> It's on a laptop and it is top priority. The one I just d/l from the link above did the same Shizzy. Am I missing something here? I burned it at ISO level 1 on cdburnerxp and selected to make it a bootable disk. I would think that's correct? Seeing as I want to boot from it.


When you burn the iso the resulting disk will be bootable. Your overiding the boot script that's on the iso when you select the "Make Bootable" option..
Dont keep selecting to make it bootable. That burning app is putting DrDos on there. Just burn the CD from the iso.
HTH
lynch


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## I Fix 4 U (Jul 19, 2004)

nonono he already fixed that. he is in knoppix i told him how to fix it (see below). now he is working on getting his internet working in knoppix (new thread)


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## lynch (Aug 3, 2002)

iXneonXi said:


> nonono he already fixed that. he is in knoppix i told him how to fix it (see below). now he is working on getting his internet working in knoppix (new thread)


If you would take notice, I _quoted_ his post about that. Which means I got to that post and clicked the Quote button to answer his question.
There is'nt any need for the "nonono" crap; nobody is trying to ride up your back. I can post whatever I want; you should'nt try to tell me what to post, especially in a thread you didnt start. 

if it was solved already, then somebody should contact a real mod to mark it SOLVED.
lynch


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## KHolloman (Jul 22, 2004)

Easy Lynch. I dont think iXneonXi meant anything bad about it.

I appreciate the advice :up:


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## saikee (Jun 11, 2004)

Lynch

I think iXneonXi helped to solve this one. I couldn't follow it myself but there are always different ways to achieve the same goal in a computer. I am sure they would understand your instruction better later on.


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## lynch (Aug 3, 2002)

saikee said:


> Lynch
> 
> I think iXneonXi helped to solve this one. I couldn't follow it myself but there are always different ways to achieve the same goal in a computer. I am sure they would understand your instruction better later on.


I think he did, too. Not the issue, though. I just took offense at his telling me what to post.
iXneonXi, if that was not your intent, then I aplologize. We all have bad days and I'm having one today. Nuff said. OK?
lynch


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## I Fix 4 U (Jul 19, 2004)

i forgive yall i wasnt telling u what to posti merely was saying i had it covered. its ok now . by the way all u have2 ask is a moderator to mark you thread solved here?


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