Real World Linux Use – Picking The Right Distro

In this series I’m going to covers the ins and outs of using Linux as your primary home computer operating system. It will cover in a realistic sense what you can and moreover cannot do with it.

Picking the right distro

Any any Linux nerd would tell you, “Linux is a kernel, not an operating system.” My typical response to that: Whatever. I don’t care if Linux isn’t technically the OS. People call it as they see it and that’s that.

“Distro” is short for “distribution”. This is what separates one flavor of Linux from another. So when you’re talking about a “distro”, you’re referring of the title of the Linux OS you’re running.

Confused? Yeah, it is confusing – but that’s the way it is unfortunately.

Where to get distros

The best place to see what the most popular distributions of Linux are right now is at www.distrowatch.com. On the right side (you may have to scroll down a bit to see it) is the “Page Hit Ranking”. This shows what’s being clicked on most which strongly indicates what’s being used most.

Are distros free?

Anything listed on DistroWatch can be downloaded as an image file and written to a CD or DVD.

How do you write a distro to a CD/DVD?

You download the distro image file (it always has the file extension .ISO) and then you can use the freeware Windows utility ImgBurn (free) to burn it to disc.

How do you know which one to pick?

You don’t. You have to literally guess which one sounds right. As crazy as that sounds that’s basically the way to pick out a distro.

However I can shorten that list for you with the following recommendations.

• Ubuntu – Has the most user and corporate support, hands down. And lots of stuff works in Ubuntu as well. This is most likely the one you want.
• Mint (otherwise known as Linux Mint) – This is actually very closely related to Ubuntu but has more stuff in it. In particular, this distro will play DVDs and have a whole bunch of other stuff preinstalled right from the get-go. It’s very convenient and rock-solid – but not as buttoned-up as Ubuntu is. Close, but not quiet. You still may really like it.
• PCLinuxOS – A bit lacking as far as development goes but has a solid following.
• Mandriva – This was the original “easy” Linux. Still has wide support and a large following.

You don’t have to take from my recommendations above, however I will say that you will most likely encounter the least hassle with the ones I’ve listed.

How long does a full distro of Linux take to install?

Assuming it fills a CD and isn’t a “biz card” small-ish release (like Puppy Linux), it takes roughly about the same amount of time as it does to install Windows XP.

If you need cold hard figures I have none to give you because everyone’s computer is different. If you absolutely need some type of time figure, you can count on the install taking at least 45 minutes to 1 hour – and this doesn’t include mandatory downloaded updates (much like XP/Vista) right after install once you get Linux connected to the internet.

In short, it takes a few hours before a Linux distro is fully installed (meaning installed + updates) to your computer.

Trying it out first

Every distro I have listed above in my recommendations has the ability to load the entire operating system in a “Live” mode direct from CD.

What this means is that to try out any one of those distros, download it, burn it to disc, pop it in the tray and reboot. You’ll be in Linux on next boot without installing a thing to your hard drive. Yeah, it will be a bit slow as everything is being loaded off the disc on-the-fly style, but yes you can test out stuff and see how you like it. If you don’t, download another distro and repeat suit.

Up next – the stuff you should test out once booted in a live mode.