I NEED LINUX.. witch version is recommended?

Question

ALRIGHT enought is enought, i downgraded this HP to XP
everything seems okay, occasionaly i get the blue screen of death
because of hardware problems, i have formated the hard drive about 8 times, burn different copies of XP, try almost everything man kind has made, All from scratch to verify i did it well, wasted about 10 dvds (lightscribe ones) AND it still giving me problems, OH forgot to say something, VISTA SUCKS BALLS, only cool thing is, i have moving backgroup,, WOW, how impressing, a video that moves while doing something in the computer.. :-/

I have tried linux mint 5 cassandra before and i like it, the only bad thing is that i could never figure out a way to get wify on it..
witch linux do you recommend? I like my OS to look impressive, display is a big thing to me.. don't worry i have ram and CPU to run almost everything..

Answer 1

Before installing I would suggest that you get the live-cds for various linux distros to see which one will work best on YOUR computer hardware. Some versions of linux have problems with some graphics cards (nvidia seems to work best) and wireless cards. The live-cd will not make any changes to your hard drive, and it will run a little slow because it is running from the cd and not the hard drive. Once it is installed it will run like all your other programs. If everything works with the live-cd everything will work when installed. If for example your wireless won't work with the live-cd if you install it it will need to have some work done (look for and install new drivers, edit configuration files, etc). It CAN usually be fixed but it will take a little work and for a person new to linux it can be very frustrating.

When you find one that works and you like I would also suggest that you read the instructions and tutorials from the website of that distro on how to install, setup and use linux. This will make using linux a much more pleasant experience.

If you just go ahead and install linux and try to use it the same way you used windows you are almost guaranteed to be frustrated and unhappy. Linux may sorta kinda look like windows but it is not windows and you have to do things a little differently in linux. I am not saying it is hard to use linux just different.

The display and look when booting from the live-cd is plain vanilla. You can customize the look and feel of your desktop any way you like. I have not seen a moving background in linux yet, but it MIGHT be possible.

You should go to :

http://distrowatch.com/search.php

and use the search engine to filter which distro would be best for you. You can select a version for beginners, or multimedia, or a special purpose. They are all free to download. You can read reviews and articles about each distro. You can select a distro for ease of use, needs little ram or hard drive space, popularity, most software packages available, amount of customization,etc.

Have fun

Answer 2

Hi there,

I have used all the linux distros out there and I am a very regular contributor to linux as a whole. Depending on what your need is there are linux variants that fit the bill.



Development:



Fedora 10. Hands down the best and most stable development linux out there, it has any and all development tools on it. You want the lib-xyz it has it.



Desktop:



Ubuntu. The best linux for desktop. Has a very good interface, clean, good set of drivers, good WIFI support, nice software installer. It is horrible for development and needs a lot of libraries to run media. ITS A BIG NO for LAPTOPS.



Server:



Debian, the creme and god father of all linux distros. Its the best and most stable server grade linux out there with a test cycle for a single release close to a year.



Laptops:



Opensuse. Its a very good and highly customizable linux, gives good battery life and has a good set of drivers.

Mandrake is also a good option.



Gaming/Wine Emulation:



Remember Fedora all the way, it has the best graphics and driver support for any gaming.



Jose

Answer 3

I'm a big fan of Ubuntu. It's essentially a modified version of Debian. A while ago my Windows install got corrupted, but I wanted to salvage some documents before reformatting. I popped in an Ubuntu disk and ran the entire OS off of the CD, without installing it. I was able to save all my school work to a USB drive. Best of all, it supported all my hardware right off the bat, WiFi card included.



It's a really solid OS, and since you can download it free and try running it as a Live CD without losing your old OS, it's worth looking into. it'll be slow since it's running of the optical drive, but you'll get an idea for how things work.



As a heads up, sometimes when you try to run it as a Live CD, it will try to install itself anyways. Just close the installer when it asks how you want to format the HDD and it'll bump you out to the actual OS.

Answer 4

I use Xandros, but I don't really know how it compares to other Linux Distributions, 'cause I haven't tried any of them yet. =/



A lot of people I know seem to really like Ubuntu though... I'm looking into changing to that one at the moment... have a Google.



^^

Answer 5

Ubuntu 8.10 interpid.



> largest linux support community.



> good hardware support.



> Compiz : lets you add desktop effects beyond everything, 3D windows, video wallpapers, etc etc.



> Extreme customization possible.



> free software.



> high security.



< little gaming.

Answer 6

LINUX MINT ..... IT'S BASED ON UBUNTU

it's very usefull for basic users

download via this link

http://www.linuxmint.com/download.html

Answer 7

*Boot off of the LiveCD *Open up a terminal *Mount your OpenSUSE partition someplace. indoors the celebration below, replace /dev/sdb1 with inspite of the disk identifier on your USB is- this is the convention many Linux systems use for the 1st partition on the 2d complicated stress (sda is the 1st stress) yet i do now no longer understand what openSUSE does sudo mkdir /mnt/opensuse sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/opensuse *Use grub-setting up to place grub on the USB flash stress. decrease back, replace /dev/sdb with the extremely identifier of your device sudo grub-setting up --root-itemizing=/mnt/opensuse /dev/sdb