ok linux users. here's your chance to educate a windows user.

[himura-dono]

looking for suggestions of what flavor of linux to play with. keep in mind, this isn't for anything heavy, just putting an old compaq to some use and give me a chance to play around with the "other" side.

i've heard slackware, redhat, mandrake, wine and a few others. i'm looking for something that's a little easy on the new user, but not necessarily a straight lindows kind of look. as long as it's not just a black screen and a command prompt (which a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time ago, is what i thought linux was). i have access to redhat and mandrake, but will try any suggestions as this is for fun and a learning experience.

=) be gentle with me, it's my first time.

[YuheiCarreau]

I thought Wine was a windows emulation program for Linux, not a distro itself.

[SunWuKong]

why don't you just get a Mac? MacOS is built on top of unix now.

[YuheiCarreau]

why don't you just get a Mac? MacOS is built on top of unix now.

Don't be ridiculous. Macs never get viruses, require little to no setup and maintenence, and they're so intuitively designed that a total novice can be up and running in minutes. HD is looking for a wall to hit his head against for a while, a run down old jalopy to spend every weekend fixing up... Obviously a Mac is the exact opposite of what he's looking for.

[himura-dono]

Don't be ridiculous. Macs never get viruses, require little to no setup and maintenence, and they're so intuitively designed that a total novice can be up and running in minutes. HD is looking for a wall to hit his head against for a while, a run down old jalopy to spend every weekend fixing up... Obviously a Mac is the exact opposite of what he's looking for.


you're half right, i do want something that a total n00b can't run, as that's where the fun is in learning something new. if i wanted a simple computer that wasn't compatible with 98% of what i want to do, then i would have payed out the ass for a mac and it's candy coated shell.

what's the only thing worse than a virus ridden pc?


a mac. *rimshot*

[himura-dono]

seriously, i've already got my fun computers that are meant for most of my work and play. this is a shitty old compaq that i'm probably just going to retire to linux for fun and probably folding. that's it. so, if the mac zealot is done, i'd like to get back to seriousness. linux, not unix, and entry level for now.

[SunWuKong]

Don't be ridiculous. Macs never get viruses, require little to no setup and maintenence, and they're so intuitively designed that a total novice can be up and running in minutes. HD is looking for a wall to hit his head against for a while, a run down old jalopy to spend every weekend fixing up... Obviously a Mac is the exact opposite of what he's looking for.


actually, most viruses and worms nowadays are written for Windows, so Linux machines would rarely be infected with them either.

[Craig]

What about Red Flag Linux, Chinese 2000 or Turbolinux ? Suse is also good.

[himura-dono]

craig, are any of those entry level, or are they, experience required?

[ren28]

RedHat. Lots of support. Many developers are moving to SuSE so you might want to try that too.

[himura-dono]

rofl, that's what i was just talking to ism about. i decided to go ahead and download a few distros next time i'm on campus and start with rh9, and play around till i get comfortable and try a new flavor. SuSE will probably be my second or third attempt.

thanks for the suggestion ren28, and thanks for the nudge in the right direction jose.

[golden_buns]

RedHat. Lots of support. Many developers are moving to SuSE so you might want to try that too.

I agree Red hat is more user friendly and better features than Mandrake. I used to have mandrake and I didn't like it that much.

[Craig]

craig, are any of those entry level, or are they, experience required?

Red Flag Linux is a good entry level choice.

[himura-dono]

i'll look for it. i found a site where i can get mountable versions and not just live evals run off a disc and i'll check if they have red flag. if i can't find it, could you pm me a link to where i can at least download?

^_^"" wow, after yuhei's apple slam, i finally got some decent suggestions (i'm only messing with you macboi).

i found turbolinux btw, and figured i might as well download it to fuck around with when i get tired of whatever flavor i'm using, or want to try something new.

[Craig]

You can download Red Flag from the following website.

http://www.redflag-linux.com/xiazai/eindex.php

You can order CDs from ...

http://www.linuxcd.org/

You can find information about virtually all the Linux distributions on ...

http://www.distrowatch.com/

[YuheiCarreau]

^_^"" wow, after yuhei's apple slam, i finally got some decent suggestions (i'm only messing with you macboi).

Make fun of me if you want... But this lowly, technologically inept Mac user knew the difference between WINE and a Linux distro. Nyah nyah!

[himura-dono]

You can download Red Flag from the following website.

http://www.redflag-linux.com/xiazai/eindex.php

You can order CDs from ...

http://www.linuxcd.org/

You can find information about virtually all the Linux distributions on ...

http://www.distrowatch.com/

yeah, ism gave me distrowatch. the one i'm using for most of my distro dl's is www.linuxiso.org thanks for the link to red flag.

Make fun of me if you want... But this lowly, technologically inept Mac user knew the difference between WINE and a Linux distro. Nyah nyah!

yes, but i never claimed it was a distro ^_~. i said: "i've heard slackware, redhat, mandrake, wine and a few others." besides, my post basically said: me windows user...me no know lin-ucks.... *scratches self, bangs club on the ground*

[sageb1]

actually, most viruses and worms nowadays are written for Windows, so Linux machines would rarely be infected with them either.
ROTFLMAO

Linux machies get attacked by DOS all the time, especially Apache servers.

It only appears that Linux machines are rarely infected because you'd have to be a Linux guru to set up ipchains, use Snort, and protect your machine accordingly.

FreeBSD and NetBSD users however, may be oblivious to such things.

Knoppix is entry level.
So is TurboLinux

[Yeahman]

I would suggest Mandrake. Probably the easiest to install and maintain. When comparing Linux flavors the method of installing new software is important. Mandrake and RedHat use RPMs. If you don't want to compile all your programs I suggest staying away from non-package distros.
I still use Mandrake even though I've become fluent enough to use the more advanced distros. The available packages are updated regularly (maybe about once a day) and using synaptic, it's a breeze to install/uninstall/upgrade programs. Also with the PLF packages, you can do things with Mandrake that would take a lot more tweaking with other distros because of copyright restrictions.

Also when looking for a distro I suggest trying to find one that uses xorg by default instead of xfree86 (becoming obsolete). Mandrake 10.1 beta does and I believe the latest RedHat Fedora as well.

Things you would probably want to install...
Mozilla-firebird (not plain mozilla) for your browser
OpenOffice.org
XMMS
Gaim
Gimp

As for the windows manager. You may want to start off with something like gnome (full featured) or icewm (light and close to windows) then move to something faster like fluxbox (very light and takes some getting used to) if you want.