What distro is right for you?

[Digiital]

Run this wizard and find out
http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/index.php

[Bogie]

Good test .... it said that I should use Linspire or Xandros ... and I use both :D

[ultrabuzz]

It recommended Gentoo and Slackware for me.
I don't care much for Gentoo though Slack all the way :)

[Digiital]

For me it was:

1.Debian (Never used it)
2.Ubuntu(using it now)
3.Kunbuntu(have used it)
4.MEPIS (never used it)

[Limey32]

Mandriva for me.. I've never used Linux before.

[Dan]

Mandriva

MEPIS
PCLinuxOS

Personally i've never heard of those lol. im a suse, red hat, debian guy

[Swordfish]

Good test .... it said that I should use Linspire or Xandros ... and I use both :D

Same here Bogie funny thing to Ive never used either of them :mbx:

[batkinson001]

it said unbuntu for me though it doesnt have 1 click update installs :-(

[Digiital]

Not sure why it says Ubuntu doesn't have one click. I know in my version the odd time it will have a flashing icon at the top to indicate that there are updates at which time I click on it and it updates my system.

it said unbuntu for me though it doesnt have 1 click update installs :-(

[Cat person]

Same here Bogie funny thing to Ive never used either of them :mbx:

It's mainly aimed at beginners to help them decide which distro to start with.

[batkinson001]

well I will find out in a few weeks or months when my unbuntu cd arrives...

[jinxed05]

I tried that distro wizard it told me mandriva and mepis, right now i'm using ubuntu

[Shred]

Debian

But I prefer Red Hat.

[Mista-X]

For me it was:

1.Debian (Never used it)
2.Ubuntu(using it now)
3.Kunbuntu(have used it)
4.MEPIS (never used it)

hmm, I got the same result as you, only I have only ever used Debian, and I actually liked Libranet a lot! :ibi:

[Just Doug]

hmm, I got the same result as you, only I have only ever used Debian, and I actually liked Libranet a lot! :ibi:

I'll look into Ubuntu at your "recommendation". I know you know Linux. What were the strengths of Libranet?

[sybil]

Hey, Just Doug! Good to see you :) Ubuntu is a nice distro - especially if you have newer hardware. It's one of the few that has had my Wacom Graphire working at least as a usb device right from install. It's got a little different setup as far as root - won't let you login as root, but it is accessible from your user account. They want you mainly to use sudo, but you can still acces the virtual terminals and setup a root account from there.

If you prefer to use kde, then kubuntu is the one to use.

[Cat person]

Ubuntu also works great on old hardware, just got around to installing it on an IBM ThinkPad (Celeron 500,128MB RAM and 6GB hard drive), runs fine, better than 98SE which was originally on this TP. :)

[Just Doug]

OK then, here's what I need to do.

Primary duty will be house server, including DNS, IP blocking similar to Protowall (and email if possible). SAMBA is a must and I would prefer some NTFS support even if R/O for now and am willing to convert data drives to Linux native format. I will need to add a reworking of a 5x80G drive RAID 5 array that I previously had. I'm sure Linux drivers exist for the card. LAN will be from switch so only personal firewalling required.

This box will have a total of 2 optical drives (maybe 3) and 9 (+ 5) hard drives.

I do like KDE more than Gnome. I like having to recompile the kernel less than either. ;)

AMD Barton 2500 stock with 1G RAM
VIA KT333 chipset.
standard kit (and likely have drivers for fax/modem et al.)
Nvidia GF3 card
Soundblaster Live

Suggestions?

[sybil]

Sounds doable with the raid being the big question. Everything else should work out of the box mostly. If it's via raid, it may be a problem - sounds like via is being it's usual - working on drivers.............. You might want to try a couple live cd's to see what works best for you.
http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netsysm/article.php/10954_3505761_1
http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/nethub/article.php/3504136
http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man8/dmraid.8.html
http://www.kubuntu.org/

[batkinson001]

Ubuntu also works great on old hardware, just got around to installing it on an IBM ThinkPad (Celeron 500,128MB RAM and 6GB hard drive), runs fine, better than 98SE which was originally on this TP. :)

cool.

how about getting the thinkpad software like access ibm and the thinkpad drivers and stuff to run it?

this is what i need to know b4 i try linux on my thinkpad R40, since i dont have working recovery cds, and I have yet to order a new set from IBM.

atm, thanks to TCM, i have xp pro back on the thinkpad and just found all the ibm software I could track down for my thinkpad.

[Just Doug]

Sounds doable with the raid being the big question. Everything else should work out of the box mostly. If it's via raid, it may be a problem - sounds like via is being it's usual - working on drivers.............. You might want to try a couple live cd's to see what works best for you.
http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netsysm/article.php/10954_3505761_1
http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/nethub/article.php/3504136
http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man8/dmraid.8.html
http://www.kubuntu.org/

The only RAID will be the RAID 5. It's a Highpoint 454 Controller card, nothing onboard or software, unless I considered an mirrored o/s-apps drive...

[Just Doug]

Here's the d/l URL for the LiveCD... http://kubuntu.org/hoary-kde-342.php

where would I find the full deal?

[sybil]

http://us.releases.ubuntu.com/releases/kubuntu/hoary/

[Just Doug]

Takk. Now I currently have some data on my 120G windows boot drive that I need to work with for a bit so I was wondering. Can I dual-boot with the boot loader being installed on the 80G Linux drive.

[sybil]

So that's 2 separate drives? You can go about it a couple of ways. First of all, the default install location when Grub detects Windows is the MBR. Tell it to install to the root partition, or make a small boot partition at the beginning of the linux drive (50 mb should be enough). Windows doesn't like to be the secondary drive, and won't boot even though it's listed in the Grub menu, but you can setup the linux drive to be the primary drive, and just add a mapping for Windows to fool it into thinking it's the primary. An example of what you need to add to the Grub coniguration file is here:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/valhalla-list/2003-February/msg00732.html
Another way, if your mb allows selection of which drive to boot, is to just go into the bios when you want to boot Windows and change the boot drive to the Windows drive. You have to change the boot order again, then to boot back to linux, but you don't need to make any Grub config changes and when you're done with Windows, just remove it.

[Cat person]

cool.

how about getting the thinkpad software like access ibm and the thinkpad drivers and stuff to run it?

this is what i need to know b4 i try linux on my thinkpad R40, since i dont have working recovery cds, and I have yet to order a new set from IBM.

atm, thanks to TCM, i have xp pro back on the thinkpad and just found all the ibm software I could track down for my thinkpad.

This is an old TP and I got it used without any sort of CDs. The track point works with Ubuntu, the sound and video works just fine, the external modem (dialup) works ok too. I haven't had time to test everything yet so if I come across any problems I'll let you know. All this worked as soon as Ubuntu was installed, no fiddling around needed! :)

[Deb]

I have a few of those kubuntu cd's at the store here in Oshawa if anyone wants one.

Courtesy of dbusguy :)

[justabitcrazee]

Did you know that Ubuntu has the live Kubuntu CD on it? You can burn it from Ubuntu ( The Ubuntu install CD)

I'm runnin it ubuntu now :)

[batkinson001]

cool

[Just Doug]

So that's 2 separate drives? You can go about it a couple of ways. First of all, the default install location when Grub detects Windows is the MBR. Tell it to install to the root partition, or make a small boot partition at the beginning of the linux drive (50 mb should be enough). Windows doesn't like to be the secondary drive, and won't boot even though it's listed in the Grub menu, but you can setup the linux drive to be the primary drive, and just add a mapping for Windows to fool it into thinking it's the primary. An example of what you need to add to the Grub coniguration file is here:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/valhalla-list/2003-February/msg00732.html
Another way, if your mb allows selection of which drive to boot, is to just go into the bios when you want to boot Windows and change the boot drive to the Windows drive. You have to change the boot order again, then to boot back to linux, but you don't need to make any Grub config changes and when you're done with Windows, just remove it.

I plan to install kubuntu onto an 80G o/s, apps and swap drive (and keep the option to mirror that later) and do the BIOS boot order thing then.

I'll simply start a new thread if problems arise. Thanks Sybil and others. :)