What form of Linux for noob ??

HaVoC

Ok I want to learn a bet of Linux and I’m not afraid to do some work on it.

The system I would be installing it on is a amd 2500+ laptop lidl one just out last week currently has xp on it.

I can get my hand on SuSe or red hat but is there any other version yeah could recommend? or which or the 2 would be better

Any help would be good
Thanks

oscarBravo

If you're prepared to roll your sleeves up, then I highly recommend Debian. Get a recent unstable distro on CD for up-to-date hardware support.

Haven't used SuSE in a few years, but it seemed pretty cool when I did.

eggshapedfred

i'd recommend red hat, have used suse and didnt like it (s'pose its not fair to compare RH8 and 9 with SuSE 7.3, but still...). yep red hat gets my vote (cant stand YaST2).

gimme

if you have broadband nothing beats debian.
if you don't then install redhat or mandrake.

scojones

This question seems to come up again and again. Since you are a total "noob" as you say, go for RedHat. Normally i'd have said suse (because SaX is god), but i've just seen rh9.0 and it's very nice. So nevermind what the others say! Go and get redhat, if you can't dl it, check out http://www.linux.ie to see if there's someone in your area that will give you a cd.

ARGINITE

try slackware if ur willing to work
www.slackware.com

Stark

Wouldn't recommend debian for newbies.

Mandrake is the best bet for a newbie. The easiest of the lot of them to use, plus it's a full-featured professional distro so it gives you room to expand.

Typedef

Mandrake, SuSE then Slackware.

That's the Linux lineage I did.

Capt'n Midnight

Knoppix - Debian on a CD - can store files / settings / swap file as ordinary files on a FAT32 partition

700MB download though.

make a boot floppy disk - edit the syslinux.cfg so the second line (APPEND ....) ends in KNOPPIX HOME=SCAN (rather than just KNOPPIX)

(might also edit the timeout down from 300 tenth's of a second to maybe 90 ie 9 seconds)

Now boot it up - when you end up in the GUI - right click on the US flag to change keyboard to UK,
There is also a desktop wizard to use "windows look&feel" and an option in knoppix to save settings to your hard drive, the boot disk just means these are loaded up next time...

you can also setup a swap file..

When you get used to it - just go for a HDD install ...

Stark

Yeah KNOPPIX is a good choice. In English it's a Linux distro you can run straight from the CD by just booting off it.

There's also GNOPPIX which is like KNOPPIX but for people who want to try out GNOME instead of KDE. (personally I prefer GNOME, but to say which is better would be to invite a religious war).

noog

yes, knoppix.

HaVoC

cool thanks guys think i just start with red hat as its the easiest to get :horned:

scojones

good choice kiddo

Cabaal

I'd have to say fort total n00bs your better off with Mandrake or SuSE.
If you want to piss about with linux without partitioning etc why not use Knoppix?

commuterised

hey havoc, I've just started ramping up myself and I've been working on Red Hat 9, seems to be the best for newbies by all accounts, good luck!

vibe666

I'm gonna go for the Red Hat 9 Bible (Book with 3 CD's full 'o' Stuff).

Waddaya think? (for a linux n00b)

scojones

Good plan, but before you go putting that little baby online you need to close all services that you don't need (httpd, ftpd ect ect ect) and get the latest version of everything that you are running. Also you need to sort out all of your suid/sgid files. Only suid-root files that NEED to be suid-root. Actually there's no files suid-root on my box. But i'm super paranoid. You also need to sort out your directory permissions as well. To see how all this is done, and more, please read the following:

http://members.boards.ie/sjones/general.txt

Have fun!