Which Linux is best for a second go.

[nitroman]

This has proberly been asked a alot, but I couldn't find a recent reply.

I tried Redhat once before but had problems with disk space and ended up reclaiming the Linux partition. I have recently purchased a larger hard drive and would like to install Linux again.

I use alot of audio programs and graphic programs, surfing and gaming (Home User).

I have a AMD450 with 160meg ram and 32meg Nvidia Vanta video and 20gig HD

I am a bit out of touch with new versions of Redhat, Mandrake, etc and their new features. So I have a few questions

Which package would you recommend for me?

Which files are neccessary to download?
(Last time I had a CD)

How do I make a bootable CD in windows?
(I know you can do it in Linux)

Have windows emulators like "wine" improved?

with thankx in advance.

[pbharris]

hello,
linux flavor is pretty widespread as are tastes. my personal favorite is debain, but i have been uisng linux for 5+ years. i also like redhat alot, and 7.1 was simply incredible at picking up all my hardware right away. i know mandrake has many fans too. i would go with redhat for yout config i guess.

some people think wine is is okay, perosnally i like vmware

[t048]

Mandrake. Mandrake was so easy for me to install. It required very little effort on my part to set it up; the install program took care of every thing. The only thing I had a bit of problem with was getting it to work with Windows on the first partition. It wanted to use the whole disk, so I had to "manually" partition the drives. There is a nice little program within the install program to help with that as well. Also, I have use of both my cdrom and cdrw and my windows partition as well as my root and home partitions.

[linux_guru]

I concur. Go with Mandrake. It's just that little bit more polished than RedHat. Components seem to be just a bit newer than what's in RH also.

VMware is the best emulator. It actually emulates a virtual PC inside your Linux desktop, in which you can install are real copy of Windoze. I have a W2K virtual machine inside my Mandrake 8. Works great.

[silvercord]

I too will throw a vote in for Mandrake. Just installed Mandrake 8.0 on a drive that already had 4 fat32 partitions for various windoze stuff...no problems. Installation is quick and painless and the OS runs extremely smooth.

[nitroman]

Thanks for your replies, I think I will go with Mandrake 8.0 .

Now for the long,long download.

I been told "Coffecup FTP" is good to use as it has resuming capabilities.

Thanks again.

[thekingofpain]

Yep Mandrake 8.0 gets my vote---even I could make it work!!!

[CMonster]

KoP - on your Mac?.. ..I'm anxious to hear from anyone who has the G3 port working.

[risc]

Linux has gotten the most attention out of any *nix flavor lately, and for good reason. Linux has exploded lately in the server department (thankfully). To answer your question, Linux Mandrake 8.0 is a nice distribution with a very simple and fluid installer and is excellent in that it has prebuilt some menus for you (KDE & Gnome). However, there is a whole other world out there full of unix. Sun now has Solaris 8 binaries available for free download, FreeBSD 4.3 is out (Nice simple install), along with NetBSD 1.6 (Available on 31 supported platforms) and OpenBSD 2.9 (Great for security). Linux is great, but its not alone. Give FreeBSD a try (www.freebsd.org).

[This message has been edited by risc (edited 06-27-2001).]

[nitroman]

I would love to try them all, but my connection is only 56k and my pockets are empty.

It's so hard if your a newbie, to know the difference between the different *nix flavours and to download the most appropriate packages.

How is Solaris 8 and FreeBSD different from Linux and or each other?
Faster?,Sleeker?, better suited to?

What about BEos? Has anyone tried it what's it like?

I have finished downloading the Mandrake install .iso and are currently downloaded the "ext" .iso
and I am looking forward to the installation.

After I get Mandrake installed, I would be very interested in trying some different flavours.

Thanks so much to everyone who has posted to here.

[gyoung]

I've been thinking of reformatting my drive soon and toying with the idea of taking a look at Linux.

Which one of these distributions is free? and easy to work with. I would like to expose myself to linux to see what everyone is talking about.

I have a 30GB disk divided out to:

C: Win98 OS (3GB) FAT32
D: Win2K OS (3GB) NTFS
G: Data (6GB) FAT32
H: Program Files (12GB) FAT32
I: MP3s (6GB) FAT32

I'm not going to nearly use all that Data disk so I was thinking of halving that and creating a Linux partition so I could play with it. Would this be hard to do? Having a triple boot system (Win98, Win2K, Linux)?

[gothic]

A lot of people are having the dilemma of either downloading Linux or buying it for X amount of money which happens to be X+1 more money than they want to spend.. =]
I just wanted to remind those people of the ever-so-wonderful CheapBytes.. =]
After I downloaded RedHat 4.x on my 28.8 those years ago, I learned of CheapBytes, and soon after picked up RH4.x for 2 dollars.
Basicly, you are paying for the cost of media, and shipping.
Check it out:
http://cart.cheapbytes.com/cgi-bin/cart/scan/mp=category/se=101?87IcoELv;;2

[Comtech]

Mandrake 8 is the absolute easiest to install, with RH7.1 next.
Now that the 1024 cylinder limitation is gone from the latest kernel (2.4.x), you can multi-boot linux from any partition.
Lilo will be set up automatically (unless you choose expert mode, and don't use it) in which case you'll have to edit the boot.ini of Win2k to multiboot linux, otherwise just let lilo do the choosing, as it will "pick up" all your Fat and Fat32, as well as NTFS bootable partitions, and add them to the boot menu.

[gyoung]

Will I have any problems since my HD is not on IDE1 or IDE2? I have the KT7-RAID motherboard and it is actually on the onboard Highpoint controller (IDE3).