Gonna make the Linux jump!

[QuickSilver]

As soon as my new HDD gets here from Newegg, I'm gonna be setting up a dual boot sytem with WinXP and Linux Mandrake. Would this be the best version of Linux to start off with? I'm going to be setting these 2 OSes up on a SATA WD Raptor drive, so this may prove interesting. :D Hopefully, with the help of some of you, I can pull it off without a hitch.

[ZeratulsAvenger]

Woo Hoo!!

And Mandrake would be decent to start off with, although I found Slackware, in my small time of use before leaving home, to be very nice as well. Apart from the installer(took a few times to get it right on the partitioning... first time with fdisk) the X started up great, mouse works, sounds works, internet works... Oh sorry, we were talking about Mandrake, right? :p It should work well as a first distro I would guess.

No real personal experience with it, but a lot of people use it and recomend it, so I can only do the same until I try it myself.

[QuickSilver]

LOL. I actually have just about every mojor distro of Linux, mostly becuause I keep downloading them for friends that don't have broad band. :)

[icallmedan]

To start I would use Fedore Core 2...I kept getting a kernel error with mandrake 10, as you can see from my other posts, but Fedora's GUI was totally easy to install, and it is really fast and way to use. Also if you only do the Workstation install (if you don't want the Server options) you only need CD's 1 and 2 if you want to save 2 disks.....

[ZeratulsAvenger]

Or of course, as I mentioned before, Slackware 10.0 :D Whatever your choice, make sure to dab around in a few distro's, as all have their differences and ya won't know which one ya like best till ya try em all :)

[icallmedan]

Does slackware have a GUI installer?

[ZeratulsAvenger]

Umm.... uhhh... well... *cough* no *cough*...

Have you ever used fdisk? if so, then I don't know what else in the installation might be at all troublesome. Seemed easy enough for me, and I really don't know jack :) If you are deadset on a GUI installer then Mandrake, Fedora, or Suse would probably beyour best bets to begin with.

[icallmedan]

Learning how to use fdisk is on my list. Once I get familiar with how Linux is set up and such, how the file systems work and all I will move on to some other distros...I am using Fedora right now...

[QuickSilver]

Which one is the most compatible with most programs?

[ZeratulsAvenger]

I don't really know as if there is one that is "most compatible." Most things are distriputed as .rpm packages(Fedora/Redhat), .tgz(I think thats it, works on any system as far as I know) and also in source so you can compile it yourself. I know on Slackware there is a .rpm converter of sorts, but I don't know how well it works, and I am pretty sure they advised trying to stay with .tgz or source instead, as the conversion I imagine could be messy.


Ahhh... here (http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/4161/1/) we go. That should help a lil to understand the linux packages.

I am pretty sure that as long as a package is distibuted in a compatible package format or source, and all of the dependancy's are as well, you can install any linux program on any linux system.

[QuickSilver]

Thanks much! :)

[icallmedan]

That link sheds some light on those file types. Thanks!

[ZeratulsAvenger]

No problem. Glad I could do SOMETHING.

(Currently in a hotel. Been here for 8 days. To hot to do anything outside[in texas, from Alaksa... 40 degree's difference :P] and no way to loose my energy to sleep.)

[icallmedan]

So you aren't used to the extra heat? LOL!

[ZeratulsAvenger]

No... not at all :( Now I am in DC though. Much nicer, although I am only in a hotel for the night. Still, it's much cooler then it was last month when I was here(traveling a lot this summer). In the 70's :) That I can deal with. Kinda funny to e-mail a friend and have them mail back with horror stories of the 80 degree weather :D

[icallmedan]

Ha ha ha! I wish I was going somewhere, the only place I have gone this summer are different colleges for my sister's college visits...no real vactation for me.

[neouser99]

If I might recommend, Slackware 10.0 is very good, but lacks the GUI installer, which can stress people out. I would recommend to a first time got with Fedora Core 1, not 2. This is cause 2 was a major jump, and has lots of bugs in it that 1 doesn't come with, also one is more stable.

If you are looking to pay, you could get Linspire, which I haven't used but is supposed to be very nice.

-neo

[QuickSilver]

I ended up going with Fedora rather than Mandrake, as it has SATA support and instals very easlily to my SATA Raptor. The only problem is that I gooffed something up when I configured Grub, so now my PC just boots right to XP without asking me a thing. I gotta figure out how to fix it now. :mad:

[icallmedan]

If you put the disc in and go to rescue, you can re intstall the bootloader, and that should fix your problem. If not, just reinstall it, it's nice that it only takes about 15 minutes, and thats on my slow computer.

[QuickSilver]

OK, thanks, I'll give that a whirl. A little faster than re- installing Windows. :D

[icallmedan]

I meant reinstall Linux....Windows takes quite a bit longer....

[QuickSilver]

Thats what I meant, that re installing Linux is way faster that reinstalling Windows. I'm not going to touch my WinXP install right now. It's workin good. :D

[neouser99]

you don't need to reinstall linux or windows

you probably had Grub on the /boot directory and not the MBR. When it asks, install to the MBR, it won't mess anything up, I promise. and if in the future, you wish to go back to only windows, the windows rescue thing can rewrite the windows MBR. Otherwise, you have to have the /boot partition as a primary partition, and you must make that the active boot partition within partition manager, which even that doesn't work sometimes cause windows is a pain and likes to make itself the primary boot.

-neo