Which Linux Distro?

[Aeryn]

Which Linux distro should I run on my computer. This will be my first linux dual boot and I would like to have somthing that has advanced features but a realativly easy intstaller. I have heard that red had is good. Also, is freeBDS Linux? Thanks in advance for you help.

[Blue_Gundam2002]

Red Hat and Mandrake are very easy to install. I'm useing mandrake and it works just fine. But I think FreeBSD is hard to setup, i think.

[HAL9000]

I've used both Mandrake and Red Hat and hold a preference to Red Hat.

[Aeryn]

I also would like to know if my hardware will be compatible with Red Hat. This is what I am running right now. I plan to repartition the hard drive and dual boot linux and windows.

Dell Precision 360:

- Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz 800FSB
- 512MB DDR400 Memory
- 7200RPM 120GB SATA Hard Drive
- ATI FireGL X1 128MB
- 48x CDRW/DVD Combo Drive
- Floppy Drive
- Dell 1800FP Moniter
- Integrated Sound
- Onboard NIC

I would also like to know if I can use the same partition to store both my windows and linux files or does each OS need its own partitions to store file because of different file systems?

Thanks again for the help.

[kilgoretrout]

The onboard sound and onboard NIC might be a problem depending on what they are. I think your graphics card is based on the ati 9600 or 9800 both of which can be problematic in linux but I believe ati linux drivers may be available. Before you install anything you might want to test your system with knoppix which runs entirely off a cd and writes nothing to your disk. It's a good test of hardware compatability, not foolproof, but good. See if your sound and nic are picked up OK by knoppix and if you can boot into a graphical desktop.

[HAL9000]

I would be more concerned about drivers for the SATA hard drive and how Linux is going to handle that.

[Colonel Sanders]

I agree with Hal, the SATA will probbably cause the most trouble. Your video card might also cause some trouble. I would suggest downloading Linux-on-CD, like Knoppix and run it on our system first.

L J

[DrZaius]

I second Colonel Sanders's suggestion for Knoppix. It's a good way to get started and see if your hardware is supported without the fear of wiping your hard disk.

[Aeryn]

I tried to run Knoppix of the CD but it gave me an error on the black page that shows the two penguins. I am not sure if this is becasue my system in not compatible or if it is because I am doing something wrong in the set up because I am unfamiliar with linux. Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated.

[DrZaius]

What was the specific error?

[Aeryn]

Here is the error. It appered on a black screen which contained two penguins at the top and the cursor that marks the position of hte line.

hda: lost interrupt

To escape I had to manually power down my computer by pressing the power button and then booted into windows xp.

[kilgoretrout]

Hda is the drive on your primary ide channel configured as master. For most people this would be a hard drive. The lost interrupt error indicates some difficulty communicating with this drive and probably points to the SATA problem noted in the prior posts. SATA is so new that driver support is not what it should be; some manufacturer's sata controllers work and some don't. I suspect that the problem will be mostly solved when the new linux kernel comes out(2.6) probably this spring. I don't think sata wil run from the current standard linux kernels but some distros may have already patched for it in their upcoming releases for this fall.

[Aeryn]

Thanks. Do you know which distro's have pathed this problem or should I just wait until spring and try again?

[kilgoretrout]

You can check out the discussion on this thread:

http://www.linuxcompatible.org/forum...opic.php?t=508

Bottom line is the current 2.4 kernels will not recognize a sata drive without a kernel patch. Suse 8.2 apparently has this patched; the current mandrake 9.1 and redhat 9 do not. The new stable kernel, 2.6, to be reased this spring should have this ironed out. I'd wait for 2.6 unless you want to get into kernel patching. Or you might want to try mdk 9.2 or redhat 10 due out this September; they're both freely downloadable wheras suse does not have downloadable isos so you got to pay or do an ftp install if you have broadband.