New to Linux Please help

First i want to make sure i state i have read the sticky. I would like to try linux on my home pc. I have tried SUSE on my old laptop and it seemed really nice and very fast... much better than windows on that device. My main question is what type is best to start with.
I was lookin at one of the following
Slackware
PCLinuxOS 93a
Fedora Core 6
Ubuntu
or suse (what i have)

And also a friend was tellin me redhat was the best. Now from the sticky redhat makes Fedora so i was hoping you guys could give me a push in the right direction. And as far as drivers, im goin to be useing a triple boot on my pc so i have windows drivers sittin around if they are useable

Thanks in advance

 

I'm new to Linux, too, and no longer use Windows - I also use Macs. Recently, on my two formerly Windows machines, I Dbanned the drives and installed PCLinuxOS and Ubuntu. I'd read many articles and threads which described these distros as relatively easy to learn, and so far, that seems to be true.

You may find this to be useful, or at least interesting.

 

It really depends. Ubuntu has the strongest community support now, and you will most likely get answers and bugs fixed with it. It also has better multimedia and end-user support than Fedora, which tends to fall down on graphics drivers and codecs and such, with no easy way to fix it. I haven't used PCLinuxOS, but I have heard good things about it, but it doesn't have as large of a community behind it, nor as much money as Mark Shuttleworth is providing But it's all up to preference. Try a LiveCD of all of them, see which one seems most comfortable to you.

 

Im sure the answer is no but im gonna ask anyway. Do any of them support windows installations or windows games. Im lookin for an efficiant os to get the best frame rate. And i like linux to use on my laptop becuase i understand they use less resources and save battery. Also another reason which is just somthin i want to try. a friend of mine said that i can use linux to bypass network security at work and be able to use my laptop on the internet. any info is greatly appreciated

 

If your goal is to run the latest and greatest hard-core games, then there's little that you will be able to get to run on Linux. You will hear mentions of Wine and Cedega (which is based on Wine but has additional functionality geared towards gaming) but both have *very* uneven coverage of what games they will run well. Cedega is the best bet because they do work with game companies but I recently checked what they did support and was not impressed.

 

Also i when i was using SUSE i saw how the XGL alows you to move your desktop around like a cube is there any additional software or codeing needed or do u just hit a button if anyone knows... other than that For laptop efficientcy what you guys think is the best. Like i said earlier i would like an os to use while im running on battery power at school and work that will use less resources than windows and still just alow me to surf the web and maybe play music. And also about bypassing network security just so i can use my work network to access the internet

again thanks guys u are all really helpfull with this i cant wait to get home and start installing

 

anyone?........

 

uhm....please

 

lol @ bumping every hour

In Ubuntu the 3d desktop effects is a one-button thing. Web browsing and music should work fine too.

 

Ubuntu is a good teaching linux for beginners. Its done a lot for you but theres still a bit to do to set it up completely. And in that setup you need to do can teach you a decent amount about the workings of linux.

PCLinuxOS is real good for beginners who dont want to learn. It has almost everything setup for you and you dont really have to do any setup unless something goes wrong. But its rare that something does go wrong. It has some really high hardware compatibility.

Slackware, Fedora, and Redhat require a lot of setup and arent good for people who dont know a lot about the inner workings of linux and computers.

One of my favorites is Sabayon. It comes in 2 versions, a CD version and a DVD version. The CD version is very trimmed down but almost always works "out of the box." Theres some setup you need to do though which puts it in line with Ubuntu. The DVD version comes with a LOT of software and has a lot more setup for you. Its like a heavy version of PCLinux.

I'm not fond of Suse, mostly because of their recent dealings with Micro$oft. To be fair though, they have a good OS there but its not one of my favorites.

No linux supports windows gaming natively. You'll need to download either Wine or Cadega to make windows games work. Or you can run a VMWare Windows inside linux.

 

Ubuntu: excellent for beginners and quite popular right now. I recommend this for you.

Suse: more geared towards business desktops (and is in use as a business desktop for some large corporations and governments in Europe) but I can't recommend it for home use as it doesn't have all the latest versions of things that a home user would expect.

Redhat: terrible desktop. It was always more server oriented. Never tried any of the new 'Fedora' releases so I cannot comment on those. I get the impressing it's not really geared towards a Linux newbie though.

Slackware: is that still around even? Only for experienced users.

Gentoo: super linux guru experts only who find the command line is sexy and prefer to compile *everything* themselves from the source code.

Also worth noting is that many of these distros offer a free 'Live CD' (or DVD). What the Live CD is, is a bootable CD that gives you the experience and feel of the OS without actually installing it! It runs entirely from CD and doesn't touch your hard drive. Of course programs can be a bit slow to load since they're all coming off of CD, but it's a great way to 'test drive' a Linux distribution without making any commitment.

 

Thanks guys i really appreciate all the info

 

BTW, the 3d cube effect you were referring to is a part of either Compiz, or Beryl (a fork of Compiz). Though now Compiz and Beryl are remerging into Compiz Fusion.

 

Did somebody produce some real benchmarks demonstrating that it is slower or is this an unwarranted opinion?

 

Personal benchmarking and community consensus. It's been slower for me on my PI 200, PIII 500, PIII 700, PM 1.86, and CD 1.83 machines. I'm sure there are benchmarks out there.

As Ubuntu has the broader hardware support, it's become a bit bloated. Mind you, not nearly as bloated as Windows has become, but bloated nonetheless. It's still very responsive, but you can for instance, notice the difference between Ubuntu and ArchLinux.

 

Here's a benchmark that shows Ubuntu doing better than Fedora at several tests:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=658&num=1

They conclude with "no clear winner" and I'd have to agree. Anyway, maybe you also want to label Fedora as "one of the slower Linux distros" too. I've got to wonder how big that bucket labeled "one of the slower Linux distros" would be once all distros are appropriately compared.

As for "noticing the difference", I'm sorry but it is way too easy to fool oneself in "noticing a difference" where there is none.

Edit: looking for a benchmark seems to be a wild goose chase. From Arch Linux's own wiki:

Funny thing, in the Arch vs Ubuntu section there's no claim that Arch is faster. But the above quote is found in the Arch vs Debian section and Ubuntu is based on Debian. So the very people responsible for Arch Linux do not substantiate their claims? Who would have thought? Until there are good benchmarks, the claims that Arch Linux are faster are just so much hot air.

 

Technically, there shouldn't be much of a performance difference from distribution to distribution; they all use the same kernel (or varying versions of it). The only differences among distributions are the collections of drivers, variations in pre-installed packages, and the installed desktop interface (KDE, GNOME, XFCE, etc). I don't think these variables make a big difference in performance.

 

Well, a couple thing, first, pre-installed packages do effect the overall speed of the system, as well as default configurations, and for most distributions that helps define the distribution as much as anything else.

Think about it this way, which runs faster? A Windows system straight from say, Dell, with all the bloatware installed, or a freshly reformatted system with only necessary software installed?

But, there really are more differences to distributions than that, because a distribution specific version of a program may have been compiled with certain optimizations which can theoretically improve performance (like Arch's i686 optimized binaries). Though, as stated earlier, whether or not it really makes an appreciable real world difference is yet to be proven.

 

Pre-installed packages only affect disk space -- until they are run. If you have many apps running at the same time, or many app links running in a system tray sort of arrangement, then the "bloat" can be noticeable. If you have 1,000 apps sitting on your disk but they are never initiated, then all they do is take up real estate.

 

jglen490,
That's true, but, that's assuming that those pre-installed programs don't run. There are a lot of components that most distros install by default that aren't always necessary, cups for example. I don't have a (working) printer right now, when I want to print, I have to put it on a flash drive and bring it to a computer at work.
Another is the GNOME Network Manager that Ubuntu now installed by default. On a laptop, I appreciate an app like that, on my desktop? Not so much.
Granted, that's just a couple of examples, small ones that won't likely make any appreciable differences on their own, however, lots of small differences can add up to a bigger one.

 

And you also are correct. But, you can turn off specific services that you don't need. If you don't print from your Linux box, then CUPS can certainly be turned off. It is installed in most modern distros simply because there is a need - many folks want their system to do "normal" stuff.

Granted, there are more activities turned on by default in most modern distros, but they can all be addressed when not needed. there are some pretty decent GUI tools for doing, also.

I guess my hair just stands up at shortcut descriptions - my problem. However, it is good to know that Linux space is evolving and reacts to user wants and needs.

 

I guess it's just a matter of preference, but, I'd rather start from scratch and add what I need, once I've determined that I need it, than to start with everything pre-installed, and then try to trim the fat so to speak.

But then again, I'm willing to do a little work to make sure that I have a computer running the way that I want it to. It doesn't have to work right out of the box for me.

I guess that's why even though I started with Ubuntu, I've been happy moving first to Gentoo and most recently to Arch. As they've both provided me a means to build up a system just the way I want. I also figure, the more I know about what it took to get the system up and running in the first place, the better chance I'll have of troubleshooting problems when something breaks down the road.

 

And that, indeed, is the most marvelous part about Linux and all OSS for that matter. You dictate your choice - not some fabulously rich corporate entity.