What distro is best for a moderate linux user

[tecker]

Hey all. What would the best distro be for a moderate user of linux. Mandrake is beginnig to realy piss me off. I am interested in another linux distrobution or i just might not change. What are your thoughts on a distrbution.

[Aaron73153]

I'd stick with mandrake. I went from Mandrake to Redhat but went back becuase i didn't like it as much and my sound wouldn't work with redhat

[Wings_of_Azrael]

I'd say... Windows 2000. No, I'm kidding. Sort of.

I've tried Mandrake, RedHat, and that little Knoppix CD. RedHat was my favorite. Possibly because the Mandrake I tried was an older version that I just used for a short period of time a couple years ago. I've tried RedHat 8. It's good, for a Linux OS.

¡Viva la revolucion! :fire

[Munchables]

If you wanna get into linux then do this:

http://www.linux.org/dist/index.html

Then serch under catagory for Runs on ms Windows.

It is great, you can lean linux and you don't have to buy a new hd, however you need a cd-r cuz they are all free but they com in iso. or you can help the programers and buy it for $20.

The best one that runs under winbloz is Xteam linux, www.xteamlinux.com but the download link on there sight is down i some how got it from somewhere else but the version i got for some reason won't intall on a win partition. However I could set up a ftp server or somthing, pm me if you are interested.

Phat linux seems the best that i have gotten to work:
http://www.phatlinux.com/

There is also topologlinux:
http://topologi-linux.sf.net

and loop:
http://www.tux.org/pub/peopl...

Thoughs are all the real linuxes that will run under a win partition in a cd immage. To boot into linux all you do is restart off of the boot cd that you donwnload.

Ooo this looks good too, Security enhanced Devil linux can be used from cd, it looks like I can use my drive that windows is on, hmm 56x is kida slow for a os... it probably loads a lot of itself into ram, i hope.

I need win for somethings like wel K++ doesen't work perficitly using wine. There are some outher things but well yeah.

peace.

[Feather]

which version of mandrake? 9.0 is out you can DL iso from linus.org. my brother is using it and it seems a whole lot more stable than 8.1 and 8.2

[Aaron73153]

Yes Mandrake 9.0

It has alot of good features, like a good package manager and tools for configuring hardware.

[seance]

I sort of like Suse 8. It was easy to install and seems to be pretty solid all around. I'm far from a Linux expert (still dual-boot with winblowz) but it sure is a lot easier to use than the old Redhat version (4.something?) that gave me a lot of trouble a few years ago, or the ancient Slackware release I ran on my 486 a long time ago. I admit though, I know little about the newest Redhat or Mandrake releases, both of which people seem to love.

[FrozenShadow23]

This will probably piss some people off, but is Linux really THAT much better than Win XP? Aside from faulty user protection (from hacking and other exploits) I don't see a huge difference. I realize that Linux is much more customizable, but that can't be all that it has over Windoze. I am a webdesigner and I like the programming environment provided by windows, but have never tried Linux, but I'm thinking about it.

[phalkon30]

Hmm, well, techtv still recommends Mandrake, but they really like Red Hat 9 http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/linux/story/0,24330,3425151,00.html

[ssj4conejo]

I seriously Think Mandrake 9.1 is the best linux distro for any linux user, newbie or pro. Its very easy to use, the eyecandy is great !!! KDE 3.1 and Gnome 2.2 Kick Azz. Also mandrake is very stable.

[psychonaut]

Mandrake 9.0 was my first distro and I didn't like it either.. if their automatic configuration tools didn't work you were pretty well screwed, so I could neither print, nor get any sound, nor run a network between my 2 computers. I tried Knoppix and it automagically configured everything properly. It comes with a script which installs it to your hard drive (some knowledge of disk partitioning required). It's essentially a Debian system, except that it configures everything while a Debian install TV asks you obscure questions about your hardware.

Anyway, I've been happy with it ever since. And you can download a CD from www.knoppix.net and give it a try running the OS from your CD-drve without doing anything to your hard drive.

[phalkon30]

I have heard that knoppix isn't good for full installs, is there anything you dislike about it?

[psychonaut]

Knopper himself says so too - but then again he can configure his own sound card and printer and stuff like that, and I'm just a mere mortal.

The only problem I had with it is that it didn't recognize my partitions properly and I had to hand-edit /etc/fstab. And it makes you partition your drive with cfdisk, which is not a problem for me but would be for some. Also, you don't get to choose the initial packages. For example, you get KDE, not Gnome (which would be my choice anyway, but YMMV). But apt-get is a nice tool, superior to rpm, and it wasn't too much trouble to fill in the gaps in the default package selection.

With other distros (Mandrake and Slackware) the autoconfig tools didn't work for me and I and I had to spend hours and housr learning way more than I ever wanted to know about things like printer spooling and sound card drivers. That's why Knoppix was so impressive for me.