Which distro

Walker34

Hi,
I'm new to Linux really, and installed Ubuntu 12 a few weeks back without much research into it. I had it dual booting Windows 8 and was able to use Windows 8 to remove Ubuntu after a few people suggested I did not choose the best distribution for a newbie. I found Ubuntu ok and not too challenging.

Mint/Cinnamon was suggested as possibly a better choice I think,??, what do you guys think is the best for a first time user. The NSA controversy was the prime reason for making the jump.....but I need it to be suitable for a neub to Linux.

Dermot Illogical

Walker34 wrote: »

Hi,
I'm new to Linux really, and installed Ubuntu 12 a few weeks back without much research into it. I had it dual booting Windows 8 and was able to use Windows 8 to remove Ubuntu after a few people suggested I did not choose the best distribution for a newbie. I found Ubuntu ok and not too challenging.

Mint/Cinnamon was suggested as possibly a better choice I think,??, what do you guys think is the best for a first time user. The NSA controversy was the prime reason for making the jump.....but I need it to be suitable for a neub to Linux.

Mint is a pretty good choice. I find the ubuntu gui annoying and mint/cinnamon far more to ny taste.

syklops

Walker34 wrote: »

Hi,
I'm new to Linux really, and installed Ubuntu 12 a few weeks back without much research into it. I had it dual booting Windows 8 and was able to use Windows 8 to remove Ubuntu after a few people suggested I did not choose the best distribution for a newbie. I found Ubuntu ok and not too challenging.

Mint/Cinnamon was suggested as possibly a better choice I think,??, what do you guys think is the best for a first time user. The NSA controversy was the prime reason for making the jump.....but I need it to be suitable for a neub to Linux.

There is no such thing as "suitable for a noob". Whichever one you choose there is a learning curve. If you are serious about your privacy then you need to know your OS inside out, so taking the easy route and getting an 'easy' distribution, is a non-starter. Debian 7 has just been released, I would start there. Alternatively, Fedora 18 came out recently, check that out. Fedora has a good community and good documentation.

excollier

Debian 7 Wheezy is effectively where I started by buying a Raspberry Pi as my intro to Linux. Then for my main computers I started with Linux Mint Cinnamon and I pretty much use Mint variants now, along with several others. Once you pick up the basics, the distros based in Debian are fairly similar and friendly to use.
I can't comment on RPM/Redhat (fedora etc) based distros but have used Slackware based Puppy Linux too.
All in the space of 10 months from my first trial with GNU/Linux, Windows is almost history to me now, and I consider myself as a realative Linux noob, but I have gained vast confidence in computer usage since switching. Something Windows never gave me.

syklops

Ubuntu is a tweaked version of Debian, and Mint is a tweaked version of Ubuntu or Debian.


If you are going to go down the ubuntu/mint route, and privacy is your passion, I would recommend Debian 7 itself. Not one of the other variants. Learn the OS. Learn to use the shell, that way, you can work on any OS, and you know how things work behind the scenes.

I never owned a Mac, but when someone asks me for help with one I ask them to open a shell for me, and I go to work. Pick an OS, learn it, know it. Don't jump from one to the next learning very little. Ubuntu is great in that it will recognise everything, and install, and be working and you wont have any problems, but you won't learn anything.

Johnboy1951

It depends on what reasons are behind your use of Linux.

If it is just to use it and not care what goes on underneath or learn how to fix it yourself when you break it, then I would have different suggestions to previous posters .... namely

PCLinusOS KDE (close to the look and feel of Windows)
PCLinuxOS Mate
Linux Mint Mate

All of those should give you good GUI tools to manage the usual things you might want.

Of course other distros would also do.

If on the other hand you intend to 'get into' Linux more deeply, then I see no difficulty in starting out with something a bit easier to manage initially, and widening your scope as you become more accustomed to the Linux way of doing things.

A big part of initial use is the support forums for the chosen distro.
It might even be a good idea to read through a few forums and get the 'feel' of the community ...... they all have their own 'personality' and some will suit you better than others.

Regardless what you choose ...... have fun!

Walker34

the primary reason is the recent FDA revelations and the fact that I read a lot of political stuff which could be construed by some as un-european or un anerican or un whatever. Im a contrarian and always veer away from whatever the dogma of the day is.

Dermot Illogical

Walker34 wrote: »

the primary reason is the recent FDA revelations and the fact that I read a lot of political stuff which could be construed by some as un-european or un anerican or un whatever. Im a contrarian and always veer away from whatever the dogma of the day is.

Backtrack 5 as soon as you get comfortable so...

syklops

Dermot Illogical wrote: »

Backtrack 5 as soon as you get comfortable so...

Or do what I do and install Fedora and then groupinstall the Security Lab. Almost all the same tools.

Dermot Illogical

syklops wrote: »

Or do what I do and install Fedora and then groupinstall the Security Lab. Almost all the same tools.

I was thinking more of the anti-tracking settings in the browser tbh.
Nice to know that all the same.

Walker34

Dermot Illogical wrote: »

Backtrack 5 as soon as you get comfortable so...

I used Backtrack 4 before a couple of years back ,from a bookable usb key (startx was the command if memory serves)......but while it was excellent and relieved whatever paranoia attack I was having at the time, I just did not stick with it long enough. Probably needed to do something requiring windows and I decided to suffer the spying for a simpler if less secure life. That was back in the good old days when suspecting the NSA might be watching us was just that, a suspicion.......now with the truth finally out there and its worse than even my wildest suspicions ever were I give up.......I just need to talk to a few East Germans and find out how they got used to The Stasi and learned to live with them.......

humbert

If it makes you feel any more comfortable the NSA don't care what you read. Though, at the risk of making you feel less comfortable running a hardened linux box won't stop them from knowing what you read and if anything will make you seem more interesting.

Ubuntu is a perfectly fine choice for a new user, as is Mint. Really just a personal choice.

BlueJohn

Don't mean to change the subject but I kind of in the same field as OP. I am running W7 at the moment. I am lookin to do a clean install before college starts back up and have been looking at ubuntu and mint.

Anyway for me to really switch over from 7 I need a few programs to work on either with out any major problems. The programs I would be many using are Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Illustrator, Maya 2013 and Modo 701.

I heard wine can run some of these programs in ubuntu/mint. Anyone have any experience with said programs through either.

Cheers

Khannie

Could you run a virtual machine for those? To my mind VM's have made wine more or less defunct.

syklops

BlueJohn wrote: »

Don't mean to change the subject but I kind of in the same field as OP. I am running W7 at the moment. I am lookin to do a clean install before college starts back up and have been looking at ubuntu and mint.

Anyway for me to really switch over from 7 I need a few programs to work on either with out any major problems. The programs I would be many using are Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Illustrator, Maya 2013 and Modo 701.

I heard wine can run some of these programs in ubuntu/mint. Anyone have any experience with said programs through either.

Cheers

Head over to http://appdb.winehq.org/ and there you will see ratings for most major windows based programs and how well they work. It was a long time coming but Flash support is now flawless without wine.

I am an Open Source advocate, but as its for college I would advise dual booting until you know the OS well and can fix it if and when things go wrong. Also have a good backup procedure just in case.

excollier

+1, dual boot and cover all the bases, but I suspect you will use Windows less and less as time passes. I would go for Mint personally - specifically Mint 13 for good long term support. (try the KDE version to dazzle the other Windows users)

human 19

Have you looked at the last few page of the "Best distro for a newbie" thread?

After playing around with various distros over the years I have settled on Sabayon because it an up to date rolling release (no new installs of new versions required every 6 months)
and Hybryde because its an Ubuntu-based distro with easy switching between desktop environments/window managers without logging out. An excellent way to test out the different environments that are available.