Completely free versions of Linux

[scouselad]

Can anyone recommend a completely free (HD-install, i.e. not live-cd) Linux distro which I can install alongside WinXP Pro? Main criteria are: fast startup, good hardware support, suited to experience Windows users, good user base.

I know you guys probably get fed up of answering these questions, but I'm not just asking "what's the best Linux distro?" I'm asking what would be good for me, based on the criteria above.

Thanks in advance,
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[Swordfish]

Redhat, Fedora, Mandrake, Suse....all are good.

http://www.linuxiso.org/

can you post your system specs? ram,cpu...etc.

[scouselad]

Originally posted by Swordfish
<snip>
can you post your system specs? ram,cpu...etc.

It's a pretty new notebook, less than a year old.
Pentium-M 1.5GHz, 512MB RAM, Radeon M10 64MB graphics, 15" screen, 60Gb HD (currently with two partitions, one with Windows and one with data, both NTFS).

Anything else?

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[Johnny Fist]

I would recommend Fedora. You're going to have problems getting any distro to work with an NTFS file system. There are some distros and RPM packages that give Linux the ability to read NTFS, but most won't be able to write to it. You might want to consider creating a fat32 partition for sharing files between XP and Linux.

[MJCfromCT]

I'd recommend Fedora, getting Apache, MySQL working has been *relatively* smooth sailing so far for me on it.

[cdroman]

http://www.ubuntulinux.org/download/ is a very good debian based distro that I'm using right now. It installs Firefox and Thunderbird as default. And if you are on dial-up you can order the cd for free.:t

[scouselad]

Thanks guys,
any more?

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[Midknyte]

http://www.distrowatch.com/

You'll be able to find a bunch of different distros there.

[AllGamer]

i don't get it

isn't all Linux FREE ?

they are all open source after all

you just choose the flavour you like best :p

[cdroman]

Most distros are free, but some like RH are not.

[AllGamer]

last i check Red Hat is still free

if you are talking about technical support, then that is whole difference game altogether

[scouselad]

Sorry for the confusion about "free" Linux. I meant a distro, like ubuntu (thanks cdroman!), that is released as free by the developers, perhaps only charging for the cost of the CD and the packaging, unlike (for example) Mandrake, who include lots of commercial software and charge for it. (It's not that I have a problem with charging for commercial software - far from it - it's just that on a student budget my money doesn't stretch to alternative OSs!)

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[cdroman]

Originally posted by AllGamer
last i check Red Hat is still free

if you are talking about technical support, then that is whole difference game altogether

Fedora their side project is free but RH isn't as far as I know.

[mobo57]

You can download Suse 9.2 Pro for free here:
http://www.sysopt.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=1236361#post1236361
The DVD version is 3.2 gig and you can also download the manual/documentation. Works great dual booted with my XP pro system.

[scouselad]

Yet again, thanks everyone!
I think I'll go for Ubuntu for the moment, mostly because of its completely free nature, i.e. free technical support, free CDs to save downloading 700MB at a time, and a very well-designed website! (IMHO)

Thanks again,
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[cdroman]

scouselad
You should like Ubuntu; it is one of the only distros that gets all my hardware right first time I install it. It is very well done by it's developers. Good luck:t