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Subject : Re: LUG: Linux Flavors and help for a novice

From : Alex Marten <alex.marten@gmail.[redacted]>

Date : Sat, 24 Sep 2005 08:01:20 -0400

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Personally I would recommend trying out Ubuntu. It has great hardware
support out of the box, I have run it on some really weird setups and
it has always supported the hardware. In my case I just prefer the
debian family.

Ubuntu has a great live cd which you can always try out to see if they
support your hardware by default. Most times it will, which is great,
after nearly a decade of linux use I am really tired of compiling my
own kernels.

I have a stack of Ubuntu produced cd packs (live cd and install cd)
that they sent me sitting in my office on campus. If you would like
one just send me an email. Actually this goes for anyone.

On 9/24/05, Ed Anderson <nilbus@nilbus.[redacted]> wrote:
> I wouldn't really recommend Slackware or Redhat. One distro that a lot
> of people have had a lot of success with recently is Ubuntu. From what
> I hear, it has great hardware support. It's based on debian and uses
> apt for a package manager. Honestly, I've never used it, but I only
> hear good things about it. ;-)
>
> The distro I use at home is Gentoo Linux. Gentoo is probably a bit
> different than what you're used to, but it's very good. The biggest
> difference is that every package you install is compiled from scratch
> when you install it by the package manager Portage. This gets rid of
> virtually all the dependancy problems that other distros have (like how
> you were saying stuff needed GTK but thought it was not there or the
> wrong version). Also, there is no installer for Gentoo (well, except a
> testing version that may or may not work). Instead, you follow a guide
> called the Gentoo Handbook, which walks you through the entire
> installation process. It guides you through doing things such as
> setting up your partitions, the kernel, grub, etc by hand. In other
> words, it takes a lot of time, and you learn a whole lot by doing it.
> In the end, (in my opinion) it's one of the best distros out there.
> Getting your hardware working will probably just require configuring
> your kernel correctly and installing the right packages.
>
> Both of these distros are very well documented and have a large user
> community. I recommend one of these, depending on what you feel
> comfortable with. I hope this helps. :-)
>
> Ed Anderson
>
> Brolly Ferret wrote:
> > Hello all
> >
> > Well this semester I'm torn between showing up to lug meetings and Taas,
> > well not really, anime wins for me.
> >
> > Anyhoo, My IBM laptop recently lost its systemboard so to replace it I
> > got a 300 buck linspire desktop. Hated Linspire and dumped it for
> > Slackware 10.1.
> >
> > Well my problem is configuring my hardware for slackware as well as
> > getting JRE, python, bittorrent, and several other software packages to
> > install right. Running into a lot of points where the rpms or makes are
> > giving me that they want gtk or other softs that I know are installed.
> >
> > The hardware that I'm having trouble configuring is my logitech MX 700
> > wireless mouse, my printer/scanner a HP PSC 1610, and a Pioneer USB DVD
> > Burner. I also have a keyboard with extra multimedia keys but that I
> > think I can get configured on my own.
> >
> > I do have a cd burner/dvd combo drive that is internal as well, but
> > haven't figured out how to get the software to burn anything on it
> > configured (and bittorrent would be useful in getting the isos anyway).
> >
> > I'd like to upgrade to the current version of Slackware, or to a current
> > Redhat version as well.
> >
> > Just wondering if anyone has any help/advice/mojo they could share with
> > me. I don't have any major data on this machine yet that I can't
> > replace or stand losing so I'm open to trying other flavors of linux as
> > well.
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Gerald Sears
>


--
Alex Marten
alex.marten@gmail.[redacted]


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