Which Linux is best for a home PC?

[werehere]

I wanted to get everyone's opinion on which linux is best for a home PC. I have been looking at the new red hat's and am thinking of getting the Delux Redhat Workstation 7.0

http://www.redhat.com/products/software/linux/rhl7_deluxe.html

Is this a good choice?

[werehere]

Well I actually went ahead and bought that one, and will buy the basic linux 7 if I need it =)

[Edited by werehere on 10-26-2000 at 06:56 PM]

[George L]

hehe let us or me know how it goes... i am a windows user but want to try out a flavour of linux soon

[werehere]

Yeah, I am a windows user as well, but I have a box right next to me with red hat 6. I am still learning, but it is coming along. I just figured it would be nice to have a more recent version is all.

[Godin]

aye, I get that feeling now and then with Linux, new versions beat having to dl all the update packages and compiling loads o stoof (never did manage to make XFree86 4 work)

[MattR]

Originally posted by werehere
I wanted to get everyone's opinion on which linux is best for a home PC. I have been looking at the new red hat's and am thinking of getting the Delux Redhat Workstation 7.0

http://www.redhat.com/products/software/linux/rhl7_deluxe.html

Is this a good choice?

From what I've heard Red Hat 7.0 is still pretty buggy -- it seems as if every Red Hat .0 release is a bit subpar -- I know it was with 6.0. It usually is best to wait a bit and get the .1 release, but I think most of the issues were quickly pulled from the 7.0 release. Red Hat's RPMs make it extraordinarily easy to add new programs and remove them, so it is a great beginner’s Linux. Also there are a wealth of books out there (for beginners try “Learning Red Hat 6”, and more advanced get “Red Hat Linux 6 Unleashed” by SAMS). It's a great OS, but I think the X environment is still a little too buggy for me, so I have my other box as my personal web server running Red Hat 6.2, and my Windows2000 machine is my development box (no crashes, hangs in 6 months. I occasionally reboot when I need to install a new driver or game).

MacOS X looks excellent, it's built on a NeXt backend (Unix derivative) with a tightly integrated Mac OS windower on top. I have the beta on one of my systems at work, and it is neat to play with. I highly suggest OS X to anyone who likes shiny things!

[werehere]

Yeah, I already run 6.2 Red hat for my web server, and Win 2000 for my pc developement.

I did install and play around with the 7.0 Red hat, and it seems to have a much more stable GUI (6.0 was buggy as hell).

We will see, but it appears to be way better for a personal use than 6.0!

[SAWolf76]

I just installed LINUX-MANDRAKE 7.2 a couple of days ago on my Windows 2000 Pro system and its grate. I got the free version from the net and burned it to CD's. Haven't used it a lot yet but it looks nice. This is my first step into Linux and I was so glad that it didn't give me any problems running side to side with w2k.

As soon as I get the time to play around with it I'll tell you all about it

[manifesto]

From my experience, Mandrake is a good one to start on for a home pc if you're new to linux... just my $.02

[Aldreis]

If you just want to try Linux, but are a little afraid of partitioning your HD, it is hard to beat WinLinux 2000, a Slackware 7 that runs on FAT32 ( that means: no separate partition required. It installs on c:/Linux ).

If you have a fast connection, just download it for free ( ~ 220Mb ), and run Setup. It uses your Windows configuration to recognizes every device ( from your NIC to your sound card ) and put a little Tux ( the Linux penguin ) icon on your Desktop. That's it. If you change your mind, just run the Windows Uninstall...

I recommended it to my little sister ( a real computer newbie ) and, in less than 15 minutes, without a single manual configuration, she was boldly surfing with the Linux Netscape on KDE...

[Mike Sullivan]

Thank you for the link! I haven't wanted to repartition yet, so this will probably do me well Hmm... 220 megs is going to take a while to download on this dialup.. Heh.

[JohnM]

Originally posted by Ed Sullivan
Thank you for the link! I haven't wanted to repartition yet, so this will probably do me well Hmm... 220 megs is going to take a while to download on this dialup.. Heh.

I once downloaded 150MB in 7 mins on my cable line

That should take me about 15 mins

[Mike Sullivan]

Originally posted by JohnM
I once downloaded 150MB in 7 mins on my cable line

That should take me about 15 mins

Whoop dee freakin' do.

I've gotten 15k/sec occasionally over dialup.

[Aldreis]

I already have a Debian in another partition , but, after writing that recommendation, I decided to have a taste of my own medicine, and install the thing...

And it did beautifully, recognizing everything, including local and net printers. The only manual configuration needed was for TCP/IP. Setup wants to use DHCP. I just click “Force Settings”, fire up Winipcfg and copy the contents to the appropriate fields. That’s it.

Exactly 17 minutes after I clicked on Setup, I’m writing this, using the Linux Netscape...

[werehere]

I tried it on my laptop, but it did not work at all. Although it was no problem because I just uninstalled it a minute later, so no harm done.

I have a dedicated machine for linux anyway, but I thought it would be cool to try.

I think I will give it another go on my desktop tomarrow.