Which Distro for Relative Newbie? (Ubuntu/Suse/Fedora)

Hi guys,

I'm thinking about dual-booting my laptop with Linux and Vista but am confused about which distro to choose. I was going to try Ubuntu as thats aimed at beginners but I've heard that programs are hard to install on it compared to Fedora. Something to do with RPM?

Another question, I'm gonna resize the vista partition with vista's partition tool and there use the livecd to make the partition for linux. Is it advisable to delete the hidden partition?
Also, once I've installed Linux, will I have an option of OS each time I switch my laptop on? Or will it automatically choose an OS as default?
Plus, should Linux be able to get an internet signal wirelessly without installing anything?

Thanks!!
Jam.

 

Hi,

I'd suggest Linux Mint as a good start. Most everything works straight from the get-go without the need for further installation, tweaking, etc. Mint is based on Ubuntu which itself is based on Debian, thus there is no shortage of ready-made packages for installation, plus you can always consult either one of the three communities in times of need. All three share the same software package management system (.deb).

Debian is geared more for the type of linux user who is already familiar with linux commands, the file and system structure and one who has no qualms to "dig in" and tweak the code to enhance system performance.

Ubuntu, while a fine distro, has some issues with connectivity (some users report no problems, others face many issues), with sound/video playback - nothing which isn't surmountable but could prove to be annoying at times.

Fedora is also nice, but there is some tweaking involved, namely sound support (hardware as well as codec-related such as mp3, etc), connectivity tweaking (mostly wifi related issues) and some other things to consider is the conflicting effect if installing software packages from different sources (official and unofficial). There are a number of places from where you can download RPM's (software packages are packaged in "RPM" format for Fedora) but if you mistakenly allow conflicting software to be downloaded from the alternate sources, this may "break" your installation. So there are a bunch of things to watch out for - for the un-initiated, this may seem rather perplexing and burdensome.

Other question you had regarding dual-booting.

Yes, once, you've installed linux, you do have an option to dual-boot your computer. There is some research involved, however, based on what you're running right now (XP v. Vista) and whether or not your lappy has some sort of hidden partition, or system recovery partition.

thinkwiki.org (although geared towards Thinkpads) contains some very useful information regarding partitions, repartitioning and preparing for linux installation. You could always also Google your system model number and linux to find some additional info as well, or better yet go to http://www.google.com/linux for the linux-version of google (returns info solely for linux-related sites) and just type in your laptop model number to see what appears. You'll probably find a blog or the like where someone has already gone through what you're planning to do.

I would suggest you download the CD's of the distro you think you'd like to have and then once you boot your system with the CD in question, type in "live" (works on most distros) and your system will boot into linux which runs off the CD, so you can get a better feel for how the distro is laid out.

Hope this helps.

 

pundit is correct

Choose either Linux Mint 4.0 (GNOME based) or PcLinuxOS 2007 (KDE based), both come with out of the box support.

Installing applications is different on both, Mint which is based on Debian uses .DEB files where as PcLinuxOS uses .RPM files. Both contain a package manager called Synaptic from which you can search and install software.

Another way to install software is to go to the applications website and see if they offer a .DEB file (for Mint) or .RPM file (for PcLinux), this is the case with most applications. After downloading just double click the file to install, do not try installing using .RPM on Mint or vice versa..DEB files are almost always available on respective applications website where as .RPM files are not always, so this gives Mint an edge for ease of use.

Dual booting is fairly easy, you just have to partition that extra partition into two during the linux installation procedure, into an ext 3 / (equal to C drive) and into a swap (equal to pagefile, recommended size 2096 MB).

Both distributions installation systems may or may not give an option to configure the bootloader, GRUB which decided which OS to boot into by default after a few seconds. If the option is not given which I think is the case with Mint then after installing when you boot your PC it will say booting into Mint in X seconds, and if you don't press up or down to select the listed Windows Vista it will boot into Mint.

To change which system the bootloader boots into by default if the option to do so during installation was not given you have to do some command line editing or use a visual application called GrubConf which should be available through Synaptic once you've updated it.

Mint and PcLinux should be easily able to pickup your wifi card without you having to do anything, this was the case for me at least with my Intel 4965AGN.

 

I also recommend that you try several distros. My current recommendations in order of most likely to work well for you are:

1.- Mandriva
2.- Linux Mint
3.- PClinuxOS

In order of nicest distro if all goes well with hardware compatibility:


1.- PClinuxOS
2.- Linux Mint
3.- Mandriva

So, I would try those three and see what you think and how well they work with your hardware. Fedora requires a bit more tweaking, but if you don't mind doing a little research and following step by step instructions you can end up with a very nice setup using Fedora.

One thing I would recommend before resizing your Windows partition is that you defrag the hard drive as much as possible. I recommend that you give this tool a try:

Whitney's Defragmenter
http://www.flexomizer.com/PermaLink,guid,ce99367e-158c-487a-879d-b32145cc1957.aspx

I understand that even MS employees use it.

As for the restore partition, if you have another way of restoring the machine to its original state (such as with restore CDs) you can delete that partition alright. That is what I did on my ThinkPad.

I hope it goes well for you.

 

When you say Fedora needs 'tweaking', what do you exactly mean. Is it basically saying that you have to type in a few commands to get proper audio/video playback etc?
About these .deb and .rpm applications, are there more or less and equal number of applications available for there relative compatible distros?

And finally, as I've never dual booted before, could some give a quick summary of what I have to do. .

And thanks guys, I've sort of narrowed it down to Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Fedora. I'm favouring Mint though because as you've said, it works with any/much tweaking.

 

Hmm, I've had a lot more trouble find deb than RPM. It was always RPM or standard tar-gz2. But that was before I discovered the wonderfullness of synaptic

 

If you have Mint in that list then you might as well remove Ubuntu since Mint is "Ubuntu done right" as the saying goes.

Fedora 8 is also a great distro, for the type of tweaking involved getting it to have full functionality have a look at my review it explains it all

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=220688

Dual booting is quite easy to setup there are many screencasts and videos explaining how to do so. Since installation procedure varies from distro to distro, let us know which one your going to install and ill find you an exact guide.

hmm maybe the apps i wanted were mostly available in deb. I reckon its safe to say there are equal amounts of deb and rpm since they are the most common now a days

 

Yes. For example, in PCLinuxOS there are "Wizards" right on the desktop to help you install proprietary video drivers for Nvida and Ati. In Fedora you are going to have to do a little Googling to find instructions on how to do this. Not too difficult, but a little less convenient and more time consuming. And this type of thing repeats itself in several other areas. If you have the time and motivation then this is no big deal.

You are going to find most everything you need right on the respective distro's repositories already. In fact, in Linux, installing things from outside a distro's own repositories is very much to be avoided since they are likely to break things. But, there are exceptions, of course. For example, one of the very few packages that I have to install from outside a Linux repository is VMware. VMware is available as an rpm. So, it was very easy to install in PCLinuxOS and Mandriva. (In PCLinuxOS the recommended tool for installing outside rpms is KPackage, available from Synaptic.) In Linux Mint and Ubuntu it was a bit more involved, but not by much.

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-install-vmware-server-in-ubuntu-710-gutsy-gibbon.html

Since the leading commercial distros, Red Hat and SUSE, are both RPM based, you are likely going to find more commercial programs ready to go as RPM packages, but I don't think this is a good reason to pick one distro over another. I think it is much more important to choose a distro that has a good package manager and good quality internal packages. In this category, I think PCLinuxOS, and Debian derivatives, like Ubuntu and Mint, have an advantage because they use the apt-get/Synaptic package manager and because the quality of their packages is outstanding.

-Defrag Windows!
-Resize the Windows partition.
-Install whatever Linux you want making sure to place the boot manager in the boot sector. (Usually the default option any way.)

And that is it. Maybe this will help you.
http://temporaryland.wordpress.com/2007/11/23/finding-the-right-distro-for-my-thinkpad-t61-part3/

 

Well... tweaking Fedora in the sense that you have to add "repositories" (physical locations of where software packages are stored online) to the package management software (synaptic is one of them). It's not difficult to do, but you have to keep in mind that not all software packages (say those that add complete audio/video support to your system) are compatible - depending from which repository ("repo") you get them from. As I mentioned, there are conflicting software packages that may "break" your installation and then it's a bit of a pain to get things working right again.

Second, there are just about the same amount of .deb and .rpm packages around for the software out there. They're really not all that difficult to find either. If you're looking for a program, just google/linux it and you'll find what you need in a hurry... download, double-click, install. Once you get used to linux, you may then think about installing the same software but actually compile it (make the program from source code), which isn't difficult to do, really, but what that does is that you can "custom" build any program tailored to your system. So, say, instead of having to install a program that will invariably install support for all sorts of processors, or this or that, you can compile a program and install it with only the stuff that your computer analyzes it needs. But that's in the future ... once you get the hang of linux.

Third... Before dual booting..... First thing is to keep in mind is that you should install linux AFTER installing Vista or XP... It's best if either version of Windows is installed prior to you installing linux. Second, your lappy may have come with pre-loaded software and/or operating system (Vista or XP). If you have the backup set of recovery disks, then go ahead with planning how to repartition your drive to accommodate linux, otherwise, make sure you have a backup set of recovery disks (original factory pre-load) before continuing (in case something goes total FUBAR).

Fourth: - Dual booting. Not difficult. BUT!

You'll need to do some more research here on your own, but here are a couple of links to get you started, depending on what you're running right now:

Dual booting Vista & Linux:
http://www.pronetworks.org/forum/about78184.html
and here
http://www.commonmancomputing.com/y/Learn/DualBootVistaandLinux/tabid/62/Default.aspx

Dual booting XP & Linux:
http://phoenix.csc.calpoly.edu/~kvoelker/cgi-bin/counter/cis122/dual-boot.cgi

One more word of advice.
Before even going ahead with dual-booting, if you can afford it, get yourself a second hard-drive - not HUGE, just something that you can afford (40 gigs would be plenty). You can swap out your hdd in your laptop with the new one and install linux on the fresh drive - better way to get familiarized with linux without having the possibility of messing up your current installation (whatever you have now - vista or xp).

Before you do that, you can always just download the live-CDs from Mint or Ubuntu and boot your computer with those (without installing, of course), just to see how linux looks etc..

Cheers,

Hope this helps!

 

+1 for Mint. Ubuntu underneath, then the Mint folks took aim at the multimedia/wireless/etc. complaints regarding default Ubuntu. Best of both worlds.

Regarding partitions, it all depends. An annoying trend has developed in the last few years - computers come from the manufacturer with four primary partitions. Because of a limit in BIOS, you can't have more than four primaries. However, if you can get rid of one primary and replace it with an extended partition, you can place several logical drives in that extended partition. Linux can boot from an extended partition, Windows can't. So that's what I've been doing lately, is making room for an extended partition and going from there.

Take a look at post #45 of this thread
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=214065&page=5
I posted screenshots of my "before" and "after" Acer 5920. It came with four primary partitions. Curse you Acer!

From what I understand you can delete the recovery partition after making your recovery discs. If you can identify the recovery partition.
I think that's the way it is with most of the manufacturers. HP says so right in their manual - the recovery partition is designed to be inaccessible after making your recovery discs so it can be deleted.

If you have four primary partitions the simplest thing to do might be to make the recovery discs, then delete that partition, then install Linux. But the recovery partition will almost certainly be too small so then you have to decide whether/how to shove the other stuff aside. It's all more complicated than it should be.

 

Thanks for your comments guys, you've been really helpful.
Seems like I'll intall Linux Mint since that seems to be a friendly Linux to me. I'm sure .deb files should be fine, I'll only be getting basic programs such as openoffice etc.
And dual-booting, I'll think I should be able to carry it out fine. As some of you have said, I'll do a bit of research first and then delve in.

Thanks again guys,
Jam.

 

ACTUALLY, 1 MORE QUESTION:
I'm getting the impression that Fedora is a better than Mint/Ubuntu once its been tweaked. If so, in what way is it better?

And also, openooffice isn't even available in English in the .deb format. CLICKY

 

No, perhaps you misunderstand. Fedora is another distro, just like the others. You do the tweaking (as a user). In fact, you can build your own complete distro by just downloading source code for all parts of linux that you think you'll need and tweak everything to your liking... Fedora, like Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, Slackware, gentoo, SuSe, Mandriva, (+ 90 other distros) comes preconfigured with software etc, it's not like it's particularly tweaked or tweakable more than other distros. For instance, you can make gentoo look and behave like Fedora, or SuSe to look and behave like Mint, or Fedora to look and behave like Slackware.... The core is all the same, the differences are in how the packages are managed and what comes pre-configured on a distro (oh, and perhaps wallpapers and logos...).

Second, you don't have to download OpenOffice (OO for short) separately. It's part of the Linux Mint package (i.e. it's already on the Linux Mint CD) - just make sure you select it during the installation and you'll be all set. Second, once Mint (or other distro you pick) is installed, you'll just need to invoke the "software installation manager" to download and auto install other software packages. You don't necessarily have to download and install software packages from a thousand different websites manually.. ... That's what those software depositories are there for - you just access one site to download and install whatever you want (in the case of Mint Linux, you just use the software install manager.

Cheers

 

Ubuntu (or Mint) now, and when you become an expert, the same thing.

 

Actually, I do like some things about Fedora that I wish I had on the distros I use (PCLinuxOS, Mint, and Mandriva) such as SE Linux and PulseAudio. Yes, other distros are working on integrating those things, but Fedora users got enjoy them first. Also, Fedora is going to be the first distro to ship with a KDE 4.0 desktop as the default KDE desktop. You see, every distro has an area where they shine. One of Fedora's strong points is that they are often times the first ones to implement some technologies. I like to enjoy it all, that is why I ended up deciding that for me, one distro is not enough. I definitely advocate having two, three, or more distros installed on your machine, especially if it is a laptop.

 

Ah, I understand guys. Thanks!!
Seems like I'll try Linux Mint out first.

Been reading some dual-boot tutorials on the internet and it doesn't seem to demanding so hopefully everything will go as planned.

Oh, one more thing is annoying me.
I don't know how much to shrink the current partition. The total size before shrink is 180474MB. Shrink space available is 53702MB and therefore the default amount of space to shrink is 53702MB. After this shrink 126772MB will be available. Is this the same as approx 126GB? Is it adivisable to shrink this much? How much is Mint likely to take up?

And also, I've made my recover cd's (i have two sets infact) and therefore is it safe to delete the hidden partition? I've got a few questions on using GRUB and choosing Vista's bootloader but I'll pose these once I've installed Linux.

- Jam.

 

Since Linux can read your windows partitions and write to them as well, 126GB of free space is more than enough, for me ive got a 160 GB HDD with linux on a 25 GB partition and i have enough space.

Just remember recommended size for sawp file is 2 GB, and partition can be 10 GB

 

You don't need that much room for Linux, especially since you are just testing the waters right now. 10 GB is fine for a normal Linux installation with plenty of room to spare. You can store your data in your Windows partition if you need more room.

What I would do, after shrinking the Windows partition, is create a swap partition of about 500 MB (since you have 256 MB of RAM). You can then create one or more 10 or 15 GB partitions where you can install one or more Linux distros. They will all share the same swap partition. The only part that is somewhat tricky is managing the Grub entries. But it is not that hard. If you are going to start with Mint, just install it on the first partition, after the swap partition, everything on one partition mounted on "/". After that, if you decide to install other Linux distros, just make sure to tell them to place GRUB at the root partition (that is the root of where that OS is being installed). Afterwards you can just manually copy the grub entries it created on its /boot/grub/menu.lst file and copy them into the /boot/grub/menu.lst file of the Mint installation. Easy as pye.

Oh, and yes, you can delete the recover partition if you have the media on CDs.

 

Blackbird is right that Linux can read your windows partitions, most Linux distributions will be able to read FAT32 and NTFS partitions, but not all have the ability to write to NTFS partitions successfully (some data corruption may be evident). Linux Mint is one of the very few distros that I've used over the years that has full support for read/write to NTFS without problems!

Linux isn't very demanding in terms of space (depending on what you install). I normally give it 40G minimum (but that's because I play around with coding a lot so I need space for compiling programs.

I would suggest the following space requirements for you:

/boot partition: 150 MB (no need for more) formatted EXT2 (this is where the booting information is stored)
/swap partition: 1.0-2.0GB - formatted as "SWAP"
/ (just plain "/" which is the root partition - this is where the operating system gets installed): minimum 10GB+ (or more) formatted as EXT3
/home partition: 10GB+ formatted as EXT3 (this is where all your user data will be stored and some personalized programs installed) - perhaps the most important partition.

This would be a good start. Don't try anything fancy yet, like partitioning in different formats (REISERFS or the derivatives) as that probably won't be much of a benefit for you until you get a grasp of the inner workings of Linux.

Hope this helps

 

Is this boot, swap stuff and home partition all done with the partition manager in the Mint installer?

 

Yup. You can either opt for auto-configure, or you specify the partitions (such as in my post above). Most distros provide the user with this option.

 

Ah right, I think I'll use the figures you and other guys have suggested and do it manually. When using auto-configure however, can you see the their values before it initiates the partition stuff?

Btw, this will be my last question!!

Thanks again pundit,
Jam.

 

I don't know why you always say this will be your last question, since if you have to ask one more you will feel uneasy doing so, provided you have a conscience.

We are glad to answer any questions you have, hence the reason for this forum. So don't hesitate, ask as many as you like.

To answer your question, yes it will, and if you feel that you have made a mistake then don't worry as the changes to the partitions have not yet been applied. Changes are applied once you move onto the next screen for some distros, but for mint I reckon it will give you an overview of the changes to be made before they actually are.

Any other questions which come to mind during the installation process, don't hesitate.

 

Yeh I know this is the point of a forum, but I was thinking I wasn't annoying a few people by asking such nooby questions. But yes, more questions will come later .
And anyway, I think I can ask many questions as I like since I do a heck of a lot of work helping people in the "Which Notebook" forum.

Thanks,
Jam.

 

Hey guys,
I've successfully installed Linux Mint and dual-booting was a breeze!! The OS seems great and also a lot faster than Vista. If I can get Q3A running then i'll most probably be using Mint as a main OS!!

Anyway, I'm currently downloading/installing all the packages available from mintUpdate. I'm a bit confused buy the synaptic manager however - seems to be a great integration but am confused which things to download - there is 1000's.

Finally, do I need any anti-virus protection or firewall? The firewall on my router is not enabled (I think) however does Mint come with a firewall or do you have any suggestions of which ones to install?

Thanks guys
Jam.

 

Good to hear.

You don't need any anti virus, at least ive never used one on Linux and have not yet run into any problems. If you are skeptical then avast anti virus is available for Linux (I think). Same applied to firewall, however I suggest you do turn on the internal one.

You should wait for others to answer as well as I'm not really a network security expert.

Here is a link to aid you in getting Q3A running

http://www.linux-gamers.net/modules/wiwimod/index.php?page=HOWTO+Quake3

 

Hmmm, I'll probably switch the internal one on now - it was turned off by default and on windows I have kaspersky's firewall installed and everything has been fine.
In terms of anti-virus, yes, I think most users don't include one - neither any spyware scanners since apparently there is no/very less threat.

And thanks for that link. Those scripts in the tutorial - do I use them in "terminal" .
Also, GRUB starts when I turn on my laptop. I've configured it very slighly such as changing the name of Windows Vista from longhorn etc. How do I use make vista's bootloader start instead? I've nothing against GRUB, but don't really want the Linux Mint logo appearing - I'd rather have a windows one, if any infact.

Thanks,
Jam.

 

Yep you run em in the terminal, also remove the # before entering the command, so say "# mkdir -p /usr/local/games/quake3/baseq3" would be entered as "mkdir -p /usr/local/games/quake3/baseq3".

Also before running any of these commands type in

"su" or "sudo" to obtain root privileges.


I have never messed with the boot loaders so I cant really help you on that one

 

+1 for better ubuntu - linux mint.

 

If you want to try out different distros, you can install freeware Virtualbox [or VMWare] and run linux [or multiple linuxes] in Windows, so you don't need dual-boot system at all. There is also co-operative Linux, which will run alongside windows, too. Virtualbox and vmWare are the easiest to work with, anyway. You don't get the best video performance and you may need to tweak some audio settings, though. But you can test the "feel" of the actual Linux system.

 

Thanks for the suggestion but I've already installed Mint now. Seems perfect for my needs in that nearly everything I need is installed.

 

Yep. It's a winner