Redhat, Mandrak, Microsoft ?

[Undying Wizard NHD]

ok I wanna take linux for a test-run and see what I think- Im good with computers not completly lost, but dont know to much about linux but know alittle,,



whats better Mandrak or Redhat ? Ive read redhat is the better of the two but thought Id ask-------




and does either of this OS's have any win32 support ?
or any win32 emulator's tht work good ?

whats the newist redhat ? 9.0 ?
whats the newist mandrak ? 9.1 ?


thnx all

[DrOzz]

well both are pretty well equally good for starting off...mandrake 9.1 is the latest as is redhat 9...but on the other hand mandrake 9 and 9.1 use an unstable kernel, although they come equipped with a couple good programs that redhat does not for example k3b burning software and xine media player...
i personally use redhat8, and i've installed k3b and xine on my machine without any problems...the other thing is redhat doesn't come with mp3 support, but you just download the plugin for the xmms media player (identical to winamp) and you'll be playing mp3s in no time...but again mandrake comes with this already...so as good as it all sounds for mandrake i won't use it cause i find when installing stuff you get errors and it exits outta the install...i am not sure if this is because of the unstable kernel packed with MDK9.1 but thats what keeps me away from it...and the other thing is, it is very easy to get mp3 support, and them programs you need for redhat if need be....

and linux doesn't really support linux perse...but has everything you need just like microsoft does...like instead of using outlook for email, you can use kmail, and instead of microsoft office you can you openoffice..and i will mention that openoffice can open your MS docuements...so there is always alternatives....and as of alot of games and things that just dont' run in linux...you can get Wine which is a program for download that allows you to run microsoft based games/programs..www.winehq.com if you wish to look into it...for example i absolutely love the game counter-strike, but its only able to be played on windows...but i download wine and run counter-strike through wine and within seconds i am enjoying my favorite game under Linux...anyways, if you wish to ask anymore questions, feel free to do so....

[cpugeniusmv]

i personally have only dealt with mandrake (various versions) and i must say that the best thing to do right now would be to get the one with the smoothest installation and that has the support for most of your hardware. i recently installed the latest version of mandrake, and i was extremely surprised...everything worked!!! (except the sound, something weird with the volume control...but it was easily fixed)

but i haven't dealt with redhat any, it may be better, it may be worse. the only thing to do is try them both.

[Undying Wizard NHD]

cool thnx for replys


yeah guess I'll try them both couldent hurt


unstable kernel on mandrak-- cant you change kernel in linux ? or am I wrong

[nasrules]

You could also try Knoppix, which doesn't need installing and just runs from a CD.

[DrOzz]

yes you can "change" the linux kernel, but recompiling a kernel is not a walk in the park for someone new to the GNU/Linux enviroment...you would be actually downgrading the kernel for mdk9.1 cause it uses 2.4.21-0.13mdk or something like that and the latest stable version is 2.4.20....but i mean its like anything else, you read and practice and you'll eventually get it..

[Aaron73153]

A newer version of the Linux kernal is due out sometime soon, in early June I think. With Mandrake, I haven't found as many stability problems as with XP. I don't think Redhat is any better. They both have easy installs and they both come with KDE and GNOME desktops. I like mandrake because of their extra tools for managing hardware. I also have heard good things about SUSE Linux. Whatever you decide onece you find a Linux build that works for you keep it becuase they just seem to act differently with different hardware setups.

[Undying Wizard NHD]

getin ready to install redhat on one drive and mandrak on another and see wht happens-



what Partition should I use fat32 or ntfs - or is there some other type used for linux ?

also if I was to use partition magic can I have windows and linux on 1 drive>?

[Aaron73153]

There is another partition used for linux called ex2/3. Is is also reccomended you create a Linux Swap partition to improve performance. If you can use a utiity like PartitionMagic to partition the drive. And if you want to access Windows files from Linux, use Fat32 for your windows drives, becuase reading from NTFS is still sketchy in Linux and writing to NTFS is non-existant at this point.

[Munchables]

Okay the best thing for a test run is a linux that will run under a win partition so you don't have to format anything. I sugest Phat linux, but it was REALLY hard to get. go to www.linux.org click on distrobutions and under one of the serch options should be somthing that says will run under a win partion.

RH 9.1 is pimp as fuck and it might be easer to install the XP, well defintly easer than a pireted XP, i hate fucking with sererial codes and shit.

peace out

[Undying Wizard NHD]

yeah I tryed Phat linux a week ago and cant get my ethernet card by 3com to work- when the new hardware thing comes up the screen goes blank and nothing happens-- it doesent freez my pc tho ctrl,alt,delete still works and reboots my machine

[DrOzz]

if your starting out, just download redhat or mandrake...even debian or suse i hear are not bad either...personally never used them before...don't bother downloading that garbage shit like phatlinux or whatever the jesus it is called...just get a basic popular distro like mentioned above....i don't even know what hardware your using, but i guaruntee if you use mdk9.1 or rh9, it'll pick up all your hardware, if not, then post what isn't picked up, and we'll help ya find what is needed to get it working...

[NDGAARONDI]

Well Knoppix is good for people new to *nix OS IMO. I have Knoppix, latest versions of Mandrake, RedHat and SuSE.....some ppl forgot this ol' lizard eh?