A few n00b questions

Ok, here I am, typing this message from KNOPPIX's v.3.7 Konqueror! Just downloaded the distro (3 days with 8 kb/s!).
As I said, I'm new to Linux, so I have a few questions about KNOPPIX:
-I saw somewhere in this forum a post where someone said that Knoppix is nothing more than a toy w/o any support. Is it true? I'm considering installing a Linux OS (along with the already installed Win XP) on my system and I need to know whether to go on with Knoppix or turn to something else.
-I've read almost all the topics in this forum ("MS Windows & new to Linux") and as far as I understand, the steps to install Knoppix should be: partition the HD (after a defrag), install Knoppix and configure a bootloader (LILO or Grub).
If so, what's the best way to do it (consider I have 2 partitions: 75/45 Gb, with XP installed on C): should I create 2 more partitions (swap and ext2/3) from Windows with PartitionMagic and then install Knoppix or should I directly run Knopppix-installer and partition with qtparted?
I don't want to mess something up, although I'm not quite a noob to computers (only to Linux).
-again, what's the best way to make sure my paritions (NTFS) remain intact (although resized)?
-on boot, when detecting devices, it says it doesn't know the manufacturer/driver for my video card (ASUS Radeon 9200SE/128 MB). Why? Radeon is not such a new chipset.

That's about all for now...but I'll probably stress you with more questions!

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Originally Posted by harken

-I've read almost all the topics in this forum ("MS Windows & new to Linux") and as far as I understand, the steps to install Knoppix ....

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Perhaps you should read, or at least scan over, the posts in the hdd install forum, if only to see what you're getting into. Knoppix is a fantastic Live CD. But there are some design choices that while right for the Live CD are not good choices for an installable system. Still, people like the easy setup so much that they install Knoppix anyway. But at least read over the hdd install forum to see the issues.

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Originally Posted by harken

...-on boot, when detecting devices, it says it doesn't know the manufacturer/driver for my video card (ASUS Radeon 9200SE/128 MB). Why? Radeon is not such a new chipset.!

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My understanding is that Nvidia has been good about supplying drivers for their 3d cards and chips to the Linux comunity. ATI has not. Since there is a lot of trade secret magic that goes on in a modern 3d card, it is very hard to support these cards properly without support from the makers. Knoppix should still be able to do basic video to your card, but you're not going to get full use from it until ATI wants it to happen.

Thank you Mr. Kuhman for your prompt response. I already started reading the "HDD Install" forum topic by topic. Eventually I'll get to understand the appropriate installation procedures.

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But there are some design choices that while right for the Live CD are not good choices for an installable system. Still, people like the easy setup so much that they install Knoppix anyway.

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Could this be a "subtile" way to say that if I want more than a Linux toy I should use other "flavors" of Linux? I'm not interested in just playing around with a Linux so I can pretend I'm cool in front of a bunch of noobs (I'm no longer at that age). If I "establish" an relationship with a program (whether is it a game, a programming language or an OS) I want it to last!
Of course, for the beggining I'll use the Live CD to get accomodated with Linux but after that? I mean in no way to discourage the Knoppix users, I'm asking for myself (actually I think Knoppix is alright for a start).

Thanks in advance!

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Originally Posted by harken

Thank you Mr. Kuhman for your prompt response. I already started reading the "HDD Install" forum topic by topic. Eventually I'll get to understand the appropriate installation procedures.

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But there are some design choices that while right for the Live CD are not good choices for an installable system. Still, people like the easy setup so much that they install Knoppix anyway.

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Could this be a "subtile" way to say that if I want more than a Linux toy I should use other "flavors" of Linux? I'm not interested in just playing around with a Linux so I can pretend I'm cool in front of a bunch of noobs (I'm no longer at that age). If I "establish" an relationship with a program (whether is it a game, a programming language or an OS) I want it to last!
Of course, for the beggining I'll use the Live CD to get accomodated with Linux but after that? I mean in no way to discourage the Knoppix users, I'm asking for myself (actually I think Knoppix is alright for a start).

Thanks in advance!

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No such thing as a 'Toy" Linux!

If/when you HDinstall Knoppix, it becomes a customised Debian GNU-Linux system. I think it's fair to classify the 'Knoppix' part as a customisation. Being Knoppix adds in the hardware detection system, a modified startup script which will accept 'cheatcodes', specific user 'knoppix' & no passwords & a few other things. Underneath, it's a Debian system.

The difference is that SuSe is a RedHat based system and does not have Debian's excellent apt-get package management system which is light years ahead of suse's Yast, Mandrake's RPMDrake or the generic RPM system.

Generally, (and this is the reason I use it), Knoppix (or Kanotix..see below) is the easiest way to get a Debian system; Debian's install & setup program used to be pretty daunting; there is an improved version out now but I haven't tried it.

You will also find recommendations to use Kanotix instead of Knoppix for a HD install "because Kanotix was designed for HD install". Having tried both, I agree with the recommendation but I think the reason is bogus. I am currently phasing out my Knoppix 3.4 HD install in favor of Kanotix BH9 because Kanotix has fewer buggy programs than Knoppix. For instance, in Knoppix 3.4, I could not get video acceleration with the 2.4 kernel but the 2.6 kernel gave startup errors, the cdrom support needed to be corrected, I never could get x-screensavers to work, festival made speech at double speed, and finally k3b started acting up & would not write a data cd. I was able to correct some of these but not all. Kanotix had none of these problems although it did have a couple of other odd bugs related to the HD install.

Finally go ahead & install. Don't think that your first Linux distro choice will be your last, Try one, try another, eventually you will decide which one you like & settle on it. So far I've tried Debian Woody, Slackware, Mandrake, Yoper, Knoppix (3 different releases), Kanotix.

I'm back with Knoppix (or Kanotix) because it's the easiest way you get a Debian system and the support through this forum is best anywhere. Kanotix has a good forum, one of the few where the developer himself will answer but it's very small. Kanotix is so close to Knoppix that any recommendations for Knoppix likely apply to Kanotix too.

The idea of trying several versions of Linux untill I'll found what suits me best occured to me even before trying out Knoppix. The problem is that I usually tend to read as many documentation as possible about something before I get started with it. And that's what I'm doing for about 2 weeks now. So far, I've decided Knoppix to be my first "touch" of the Linux world. But, while many say that "Knoppix rocks for a Live CD", the opinions on an HD installable version are very different.

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The difference is that SuSe is a RedHat based system and does not have Debian's excellent apt-get package management system which is light years ahead of suse's Yast, Mandrake's RPMDrake or the generic RPM system.

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Somewhere else someone said that YaST is some sort of super, great, etc. tool; also, someone else said that Mandrake's update system is by far the best.
Let apart that I've heard that although Knoppix is Debian-based, it's not a "real" Debian, it's just a demo of it, etc.
Some say that SuSE is best for beginners, others say that Mandrake "rules".
Oh, and in a forum I read a 17-replies long topic which discussed which is better: Windows or Linux.:shock: And guess what! It turned out that Windows is at least as good if not better than Linux! (personally, I don't agree to that)

Now, I can't contradict anyone as I'm new to Linux but it really can bend your mind. Even in several polls on what Linux version is the best I always saw different percentages for each.
Well, it looks like I remain with two options: either I'll toss it or I'll try each version of Linux :roll: Of course the second version is less likely (it would take too much time, and I have to think at my sanity after all).

Well, I have to end here this reply because else I'll keep writing untill in the morning.
Thanks, CrashedAgain and all of you who are willing to share knowledge. If you have any other opinions or ideas, feel free to post.
Untill then, it's browsing again (with Mozilla this time).

I edited this because of :

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Knoppix is great as a LiveCD, great to play around with but is not a good choice to install to hard drive. It is not easy to patch & update because Knoppix is not intended to be installed to the hard drive (it a neat hack, but still a hack.)

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which is written a few topics under this one ("SuSE 9.2 Pro or Knoppix 3.7?")

Second edit:

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Originally Posted by rrfish72

cfdisk and qtparted both can do this nondestructivly. That is resize an existing partition. But you still should back up any important data/info.

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in another topic.
What are, more exactly, the steps to be followed when resizing/partitioning with those two tools? I currently have a 120G HD with two partitions 75G/45G (C,E; D is the CD-ROM). XP is installed on C: QTParted doesn't have the "Create" option enabled and nor has cfdisk (man cfdisk tells me there's the 'n' command-line option for new partitions but I'm not sure).

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Originally Posted by harken

Could this be a "subtile" way to say that if I want more than a Linux toy I should use other "flavors" of Linux? ....

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Well, I certainly didn't use the word toy. And I was thinking that the subtile part was when I suggested that you read the hdd forum. A read through that (as well as many other posts in several other forums) shows a lot of things that worked from CD but stopped working right after an install to HD. Basic stuff like simple networking. It scared the willies out of me, you should at least know what to expect.

Knoppix, as I understand it, is based on a mix of stable and unstable parts. Things have been tested to make the Live CD work to the optimum. This works well for a live CD where everything can be controlled, as seen by the great sucess of Knoppix. But when people "install" it to hard diisk, they sooner or later want to install other things or update what they have. This seems to quickly lead to conflicts between the parts that are based on different versions of Debian.

I use the Knoppix CD. I've played around with installing several different distributions of Linux, but never with great sucess. I did install Debian recently (sarge) and at least the install went OK (although I had less control of things in the disk partitioning that I expected and wanted). But the end result is pretty stark and limited. I certainly see the appeal of getting it done quickly with a fast Knoppix install. But I don't want to give up getting it done right for getting it done fast and pretty.

Yes, it would be very nice if there were some way to install Knoppix that got all of the permissions right and everything that worked from CD still worked on the hard disk, and maybe even went a step further and made sure that all parts were in sync so further updates would not break things. Or if Knoppix itself could be based on just one release of Debian without giving up anything. But that doesn't seem to be likely to happen. It would be nice if Debian or another Linux distro would install with the power of Knoppix's ability to properly configure itself, and could quickly be ussed by a noob right from the point of install. That seems to be happening, but is happening so slowly that it may be another of those things that is always five years away from arriving. So you either do the extra work and install Debian and have a system that was intended for Hdd install, or you install Knoppix (or some other live CD) but realize that the prime focus of the people who made Knoppix was a live CD, not in getting a hard disk install perfectly right.

Thanks again, Mr. Kuhman. Another opinion I have to add to my long long list.

Since you are putting together a "long, long" list of opinions and suggestions, I'll add one to it.

I've been using Knoppix 3.6 as a HD installation since it came out. I played with the LiveCD for a few days, then took the jump and installed it onto the same HD as my XP install. I purposely purged my sytem of anything Bill Gates as a result of playing with different distros of Linux, not due to a borked install of Knoppix. Me thinks Knoppix is grand and won't give it up.

However, (this is the suggestion part) if I had to do it all over again, I would do the following first, instead of last (which I've done now):

If your budget allows, get a separate hard drive for playing around with any flavor of Linux that strikes your fancy.
Hard drives are becoming very cheap these days, as compared to a year ago.
Or, get a used system for less than a new, hot off the presses, fresh from the pouch, system that your local retailer sells.
Most flavors of Linux will run on much less than new systems. I have DSL (the linux distro, not the transport mechanism) running on very old machine that is garbage to most PC users. It is wonderful in it's new found glory.

This is what I am building up to: Just do it. Install it. Play with it. Break it. Do it again.
I would guess that if you really do read up on stuff and have spent two weeks doing so regarding Knoppix, then you'll do fine.
Go for it. Git 'er done!

If you want a system that you can upgrade, a pure Debian system might be good. I use Sarge (the testing but almost stable release)

Of course this requires more downloading.

I think I'll go with green1's suggestion: I have somewhere in the house an older HDD (10 GB) which I hope it's still working. If so, I'll try several versions of Linux and...what will be will be!
Yet firebyrd10 put up a serious problem. Indeed, I see that Debian has 7 cds. If I think that I've spent three days downloading 1 iso (Knoppix), well, 7 isos would put my patiente to a challenge. Another way to do it would be buying the CDs from my local vendor. Yet I'm not decided with what should I go first. I hear Debian is great but it lacks a user-friendly installer and it's not designed for beginners; Mandrake is said to be good for beginners and has a good update system but it's not so powerful; SuSE would be "so and so" (some say it s*cks); RedHat seems to be nice yet I heard it has some problems regarding hardware support; Slackware is, I hear, definitely not for beginners, etc.

Why on Earth isn't there a board that would decide which is best for each segment of users? After all, we have "the most beautiful women in the world", we have the "Oscars" for movies, Emmy Awards, MTV Awards and so on...but no one knows which Linux is best?:?

And right now I'm also quite busy to afford myself spending 1-2 weeks for each verison (I think this would be the minimum amount of time in order to decide if you keep it or not).

But I see that here (and in many other places) are persons willing to help out the beginners...I hope there will be other suggestions as well.
Thanks to all of you who already gave their best to "enlight" a noob. Keep it up! (I think I will be the founder of the above mentioned board 8) ).

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Originally Posted by harken

...Why on Earth isn't there a board that would decide which is best for each segment of users? After all, we have "the most beautiful women in the world", we have the "Oscars" for movies, Emmy Awards, MTV Awards and so on...but no one knows which Linux is best?....

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Many people know whick Linux is best, just like many people know which religion is best.

You're fast! You have a point there! But is it so hard to tell the people: THIS is best for begginers, THIS lacks something, THIS is best for advanced users, etc.? All I get is use THIS 'cause I like it, use THIS 'cause on my PC it works...
Come on, people, get to a consense! Some beginners in Linux might (and I think some already did) give up in their effort of entering the Linux world...which would be a pitty.

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Originally Posted by harken

I think I'll go with green1's suggestion: I have somewhere in the house an older HDD (10 GB) which I hope it's still working. If so, I'll try several versions of Linux and...what will be will be!
Yet firebyrd10 put up a serious problem. Indeed, I see that Debian has 7 cds. If I think that I've spent three days downloading 1 iso (Knoppix), well, 7 isos would put my patiente to a challenge. Another way to do it would be buying the CDs from my local vendor. Yet I'm not decided with what should I go first. I hear Debian is great but it lacks a user-friendly installer and it's not designed for beginners; Mandrake is said to be good for beginners and has a good update system but it's not so powerful; SuSE would be "so and so" (some say it s*cks); RedHat seems to be nice yet I heard it has some problems regarding hardware support; Slackware is, I hear, definitely not for beginners, etc.

Why on Earth isn't there a board that would decide which is best for each segment of users? After all, we have "the most beautiful women in the world", we have the "Oscars" for movies, Emmy Awards, MTV Awards and so on...but no one knows which Linux is best?:?

And right now I'm also quite busy to afford myself spending 1-2 weeks for each verison (I think this would be the minimum amount of time in order to decide if you keep it or not).



But I see that here (and in many other places) are persons willing to help out the beginners...I hope there will be other suggestions as well.
Thanks to all of you who already gave their best to "enlight" a noob. Keep it up! (I think I will be the founder of the above mentioned board 8) ).

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Debian has 7 CD's but only the first 3 are necessary; the rest are extra applications which you can get off the net as your need them. and your comment about Debian is accurate. Mandrke is an easy install & will autoconfigure for your hardware but in a month or two you will want to upgrade to the latest version of KDE or something & will have a devil of a time. Been there done that, in my case Mandrake 9.2 & wanted to upgrade to KDE 3.2. Tried for a month to compile from source, finally someone smarter than me posted rpm's so got it installed but then Mandrake 10 came out so no more rpm's for Mandrake 9.xx ever. With Mandrake you must have version specific rpm's; with Debian a .deb is a .deb is a .deb. Haven't tried SuSe, but being an rpm based distro I can virutally guarantee it will be nowhere near as convenient as Debian.
Apt is so good 'they' are now trying to adapt it for rpm's but the adaptation lacks 'finesse'...for instance if you want Kpat (Kde's solitaire game) you have to install the whole kdegames package.

Harry Kuhman: Try a Kanotix HD install.

Gotta go..I'm at work, boss is calling!

So far I've managed to install succesfully Knoppix on a 2nd HD, keeping XP on the 1st one and having LILO as dual-booter...it works fine. And I've also narrowed my list to just a few *nix flavors: Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, RedHat (I've also heard something nice about Ubuntu).
Any suggestions?

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Originally Posted by harken

I think I'll go with green1's suggestion: I have somewhere in the house an older HDD (10 GB) which I hope it's still working. If so, I'll try several versions of Linux and...what will be will be!
Yet firebyrd10 put up a serious problem. Indeed, I see that Debian has 7 cds. If I think that I've spent three days downloading 1 iso (Knoppix), well, 7 isos would put my patiente to a challenge. Another way to do it would be buying the CDs from my local vendor. Yet I'm not decided with what should I go first. I hear Debian is great but it lacks a user-friendly installer and it's not designed for beginners; Mandrake is said to be good for beginners and has a good update system but it's not so powerful; SuSE would be "so and so" (some say it s*cks); RedHat seems to be nice yet I heard it has some problems regarding hardware support; Slackware is, I hear, definitely not for beginners, etc.

Why on Earth isn't there a board that would decide which is best for each segment of users? After all, we have "the most beautiful women in the world", we have the "Oscars" for movies, Emmy Awards, MTV Awards and so on...but no one knows which Linux is best?:?

And right now I'm also quite busy to afford myself spending 1-2 weeks for each verison (I think this would be the minimum amount of time in order to decide if you keep it or not).

But I see that here (and in many other places) are persons willing to help out the beginners...I hope there will be other suggestions as well.
Thanks to all of you who already gave their best to "enlight" a noob. Keep it up! (I think I will be the founder of the above mentioned board 8) ).

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The netinstall might be better for you.

You download and burn an initial 8 meg iso that boots the system.
The cd then downloads what it need will would save alot of download time. Of course the modem or netowrk connection has to work with linux.

Total download? I'd say about 300 megs with GUI, (downloads both Gnome and kde)

http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dis...mages/netboot/
Just get the mini.iso
and even though it comes with a paritioner, use qtparted to shrink your ntfs if needed.

You do not need to download even 3 cds for debian. You can download one, and that could be a netboot cd (about 30M afair), a cd with just the base system (about 120M) or the normal first cd (650M or 700M). I'd generally go for the second option, as that way you can use it to install a working base system without a network connection. That all being said from the sounds of it straight debian may not be the best initial choice, I'd look at Ubuntu first.

Also I have no idea why a Radeon 9200 based card could have problems, this is pretty much the best possible chipset for Linux if you do not want to use closed/binary video drivers. As for the suggestion that NVidia provide documentation and ATI don't, I think the situation is far more complex then that but the bottom line is neither supply any information (afaik) about the 3d sides of their cards and both now supply binary drivers for their cards. So I guess your video problem is slightly more complex ( and presumably specific to the Asus card). Perhaps you will need to use some cheatcodes to force it to use the correct X setup for your card.

harken,

It's good to see that you've installed something.
You say you want concise answers. Easier said than done, you'll figure that out after you've played around a while, but here goes. This is tuff for me because I'm a distro slut.

DamnSmallLinux

DamnSmallLinux (DSL) is only 50MB and runs Live on CD, or on USB pendrive, or on CF card, or embedded in Windows, or embedded in Linux, or on hard drive, or..... (i installed it to a digital camera and use the camera for taking pictures AND booting DSL)

Knoppix

I have set up Knoppix for young people (pre-teen as well as teenagers) as an alternative to windows. They like it, i love it.

I'm a two timer, DSL and Knoppix. I can't live with just one, but if I had to, DSL is the one.

Thanks Firebyrd10, bfree and green1!
Green1, you say about DSL and Knoppix. While I'm not an experienced Linux user I can't contradict you yet I can't help myself thinking the "old-fashioned" way: if it's small, it might not offer you what something bigger can (after all, you can't compare a Mini Morris with a Lexus, even if each one is good-looking; I really like the Minis btw).
So far Debian has been recommended to me by several persons in this forum so I think I'll give it a shot (of course, first I'll play with Knoppix so I can accommodate with Linux).
Yet, at my local Debian ftp mirror there are 2 directories:
-/debian-cd/images/3.0_r4/i386/ which contains 7 isos named debian-30r4-i386-binaryX, where X ranges from 1 to 7 and 2 isos named debian-update;
-/debian/dists/ - here are several other directories among which: Debian3.0r4, sarge, sid, stable, woody. They all have the same structure: /contrib,/main,/non-free. Hoping it's common sense, I followed the path:
debian/dists/sarge/main/installer-i386/20041118/images/netboot. But from here it gets weird: there are only a few gzipped files and a few txt files; only one 8M iso called mini.

Now, should I get the first iso from the 7 ones mentioned first or should I go with the mini? Or I'd better get the CD set from the local vendor (all the 7 CDs are around 6 euro)?

Oh, and the video card isn't much of a problem...after all the desktop looks quite fine in 1024x768/85Hz. And for video applications (when I have time) I have the XP. BTW, I can alter the resolution and the refresh rate but I haven't found the way to modify the color-depth...anyone?

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Originally Posted by harken

So far Debian has been recommended to me by several persons in this forum so I think I'll give it a shot (of course, first I'll play with Knoppix so I can accommodate with Linux).
Yet, at my local Debian ftp mirror there are 2 directories:
-/debian-cd/images/3.0_r4/i386/ which contains 7 isos named debian-30r4-i386-binaryX, where X ranges from 1 to 7 and 2 isos named debian-update;
-/debian/dists/ - here are several other directories among which: Debian3.0r4, sarge, sid, stable, woody. They all have the same structure: /contrib,/main,/non-free. Hoping it's common sense, I followed the path:
debian/dists/sarge/main/installer-i386/20041118/images/netboot. But from here it gets weird: there are only a few gzipped files and a few txt files; only one 8M iso called mini.

Now, should I get the first iso from the 7 ones mentioned first or should I go with the mini? Or I'd better get the CD set from the local vendor (all the 7 CDs are around 6 euro)?

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The 7 cd set is the current debian stable release called woody. You probably don't really want debian stable, it is quite old and the next release was expected before now. The next release is called sarge and is also (currently) known as testing. Then there is the third version, unstable, otherwise known as sid (the kid from toy story who broke all the toys).

What you most probably want to download is an iso image from http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ which is currently the second release candidate preview for the new installer which is making it's debut in sarge. Check the errata on the linked page to see if anything might impact you (note the warning about windows partitions and installing with the 2.6 kernel all the others are non x86 problems or non-issues). Then you probably want to just grab the netinst image, though you have the option to grab the first cd or as many as you want (there are 15 cds for the next release and that's not bloat, it's choices and also the splitting out of non-us and contrib to seperate cds adds one or two). The netinst cd is enough, if you are likely to install it a few times (reinstalling or on other machines) then perhaps it's worth grabbing cd1 if you don't have a fast network connection (from a netinst cd to a desktop is probably going to one to a few hundred MB of downloading, I'm not sure how much you will save with cd1 though I'm sure it will be significant and the contents of the cds is mainly ordered by popularity).

I wouldn't bother with the local vendors discs unless they have sarge/testing or sid/unstable.

I'll think on it, bfree, yet I'm not sure 100% whether to go with Debian or something else. I'm also considering MDK and RedHat.
What do you think?

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Originally Posted by harken

I'll think on it, bfree, yet I'm not sure 100% whether to go with Debian or something else. I'm also considering MDK and RedHat.
What do you think?

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That's nearly like asking a religious fanatic which is the true god!

I think unless you are interested in running enterprise products on a supported platform RedHat is useless!

My opinions of Fedora is just from random readings from various commentaries around the place, nothing has come close to convincing me to try it out yet. I think it is far too much of a beta program at the moment to really recommend to anyone.

Mandrake ... I haven't tried it in a long time. It's popularity seems to remain and I don't notice as many inane questions bouncing around about most other distros so either lots of people try and give up or it's reasonably polished.

What about Mepis, Suse/Novell and Ubuntu (Numbers 1, 3 and 5 respectively on distrowatches page hit ranking chart)? I think I'd be considering all of them first!

My personal preferences at this stage (for an installation) would be Debian, then Kanotix or I might try Ubuntu/Mepis, then Suse/Mandrake (well ok I'd probably keep finding Debian variants to use before I even got to them).

Horses for courses though, so if you can, try a few out! And even better if you can, partition your machine so you can share a home partition between two different Linux installs, so at any time you can have your current system and try out another systems without risking your main one, if you decide you like it you can switch and then install over the old one with the next one (or upgrade) you feel like trying.

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That's nearly like asking a religious fanatic which is the true god!

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I was expecting something like that :lol:
You see, at the beginning I considered about 20 versions of Linux. After a while, especially after installing Knoppix, I kept as "valid" only a few (3-4). But it seems like each and every time I decide upon one of them, I see somwhere in a post that someone says something "bad" exactly about that one. Just a few hours ago I started downloading Debian, then I read that "Debian lacks a lot of graphical applications...it is not recommended for beginners".
Ok, I switched my attention to Mandrake and again..."Mandrake is only for beginners...you cant do much with it".
SuSE is supposed to be somewhat difficult to install (someone said the installation would last abou 1 day), also for experienced users.
Mepis...haven't heard many opinios on it.
Ubuntu would look like the remaining option, yet I saw on their site that they are planning a new release every 6 months and the support for the current version would be 18 months. Ok, what after the 18 months?

Now, I'm not worried so much about the installation process...I installed hundreds of applications (not Linux, I admit)...I think I'd get through. It's just I don't have right now the time and the patiente required for such things. Maybe next month I'll have more spare time.
Untill then I want to "collect" as many data as possible on different Linux'es to have an accurate image of what would fit me best. Therefore I hope you and others will help me out. After all, I think I'm not the only one in this situation and this kind of conversation could help many people out there.

Regards, harken.

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Originally Posted by harken

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That's nearly like asking a religious fanatic which is the true god!

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I was expecting something like that :lol:
Ubuntu would look like the remaining option, yet I saw on their site that they are planning a new release every 6 months and the support for the current version would be 18 months. Ok, what after the 18 months?

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A complete non-issue unless you are evaluating Ubuntu for long term projects. What they are saying is that if you want to stay back on this release and not go upgrading, they'll support you for a year (or is it 18 months) after they release the next version. So you install and you like it, you should get a choice of at least 2 more versions before you _have_ to upgrade to one of them or you can always switch the system over to debian. Debian doesn't really support old versions either, except in the main way they share in common with ubuntu, the system and packages is designed from the ground up so you can upgrade your system to new releases painlessly, all they are saying is that if you hate a choice they make in a release you should have over a year to decide what you are going to do and in that time they'll even have had another release out you might prefer! I like it, though as it is quite new it remains to be seen just how well it will work in practice.

I just hope that Ubuntu are either working on serving packages or groups of packages by torrent or have quite a serious mirror network because every six months they'll be seeing 95% of their users trying to download 500M to 1G (at a guess). They'll also have all their users smiling for days at the nice new computer they get for free every 6 months.

As for your comments on the others, Debian doesn't lack anything really, it just lets you setup what you want (as oppossed to Suse's, for example, yast which does everything by default and you have to pick things out of it's hands if you want to control it some way it can't handle). It's great in that software is usually very close to the original developers default settings and important differences are usually clear in the Debian.README so you can follow generic instructions from the developers aswell as all the information relating specifically to debian which is out there.

The Mandrake for Beginners mantra seems to stick with it. I've never quite figured out why, but I have stayed clear of any non-deb distro for a good while now (bar brief periods playing with some source based distros). I like a distro I can at any time say "f*** it, it's turning debian" and then I can go and change the /etc/apt/sources.list to debians and apt-get update and then apt-get -u dist-upgrade. I'm not going to end up with a perfect debian box, and I may have to force a few packages, but I will end up with something I can take then treat as debian enough, and use debian to fixup any differences I discover that bother me. The Debian package archives are superb and provide a huge range of software all designed to work together without dependency problems, I love it.

SuSE is slow to install? Are you sure you aren't thinking of Linux From Scratch :-P Seriously I haven't heard that complaint before (perhaps I just don't listen in the right places) and I would not have said it was for experienced users. I would have said it was closer to Mandrake in the for Begineers stakes, but it is, or was anyway, a bit individual so you learn it's ways. As for being for experienced users ... I don't see it, but I do see experienced users using it so it is good enough for them. If only it was debian based I'd say give it a go first, but it's not so I won't.

Mepis, I've not heard too much, but generally it's been good. The good thing about it is you can boot it like a live cd to try it (in fact I think like Knoppix you always boot to the livecd to install it). I'm not too certain how good it is at working with the debian repositories though or whether it suffers any of the same potential pitfalls that installing Knoppix does.

I really wish I could say just install Knoppix but I'd install Kanotix rather then Knoppix if I was thinking that way as it gets more attention/design towards working as an installed system. The only problem, in the context here, is it is based on Debian sid/unstable which means you have to be ready to deal with what that can lead to (running lightly tested packages and possibly ending up breaking your system and having to manually downgrade and force things to repair it). Probably not for people new to Linux unless you change your apt sources to sarge after you install it, but not so many people do that so ymmv.

The important thing to remember is they are all far more alike then different (especially the debian derivatives) and there's no disaster in picking one now and deciding on something else down the road. In fact I'd repeat my recommendation to plan to expect to want to install other distros to try them. No matter what you pick, there's often features that can tempt you, sometimes they suceed, sometimes you just figure out what they did and add it to your system, sometimes they fail, everytime you make yet another choice that means you are that much more in control of deciding what software you want to run.

The choice is yours! I'd suggest they are all good and will do the job, perhaps one will make you happier then another but without living with them a bit you'll never be able to be sure. Partition and install and see where it leads you, enjoy the trip, give thanks for those who's work you are using and if you find some way you can help be generous with yourself and do it.

The only "challenge" to installing any of these Linux versions (providing Knoppix runs ok on your hardware) is partitioning/making space for it, if you have to shrink a partition just make sure you have a good backup of anything important no matter how you do it, but everyone always has good backups right. You can't just install it into your C: drive, you need to give over some of your hard disk to Linux, if you can do that now, I bet you will be stunned just how quick an install from cd is (if you grab a full 600M+ install cd a net install obviously will depend on bandwidth). Should be done it 15 minutes even if you do have to reread a lot of questions to be sure, to be sure. What throws people usually (imho) is making sure they are putting the installation into the right place so just make free unpartitioned space on your hard drive and use the installer to create the partitions and install there. Other then that you will generally just have to answer 4 to 12 basic questions (a password, computer name, regional settings, probably your normal username and password, where to install and where to install the boot loader). Install into the mbr (master boot record, the start of the hard disk you boot from, usually called /dev/hda in Linux) and let Linux take care of dual booting your machine (if you do it) and that should be the only other possible confusion covered!

Welcome to Linux!

Wow that's along post, hope it's worth it for someone!

Wow, that looks like a mini-tutorial to me. Thx! Let's see: about Ubuntu I'm not sure what to say; Mandrake is one step closer to be wiped off the list; Kanotix, for the same reason you mentioned (based on debian sid) is already gone; SuSE...I heard pros/cons as in 40/60%. As for Debian, from the reviews from
http://www.linuxquestions.org/review...hp?product=139 here it turns out to be quite out-of-date and the updates are rather difficult to install for newbies. I'll have to think it over the night.

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Wow that's along post, hope it's worth it for someone!

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It sure is!

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Originally Posted by harken

Thanks Firebyrd10, bfree and green1!
Green1, you say about DSL and Knoppix. While I'm not an experienced Linux user I can't contradict you yet I can't help myself thinking the "old-fashioned" way: if it's small, it might not offer you what something bigger can (after all, you can't compare a Mini Morris with a Lexus, even if each one is good-looking; I really like the Minis btw).
So far Debian has been recommended to me by several persons in this forum so I think I'll give it a shot (of course, first I'll play with Knoppix so I can accommodate with Linux).
Yet, at my local Debian ftp mirror there are 2 directories:
-/debian-cd/images/3.0_r4/i386/ which contains 7 isos named debian-30r4-i386-binaryX, where X ranges from 1 to 7 and 2 isos named debian-update;
-/debian/dists/ - here are several other directories among which: Debian3.0r4, sarge, sid, stable, woody. They all have the same structure: /contrib,/main,/non-free. Hoping it's common sense, I followed the path:
debian/dists/sarge/main/installer-i386/20041118/images/netboot. But from here it gets weird: there are only a few gzipped files and a few txt files; only one 8M iso called mini.

Now, should I get the first iso from the 7 ones mentioned first or should I go with the mini? Or I'd better get the CD set from the local vendor (all the 7 CDs are around 6 euro)?

Oh, and the video card isn't much of a problem...after all the desktop looks quite fine in 1024x768/85Hz. And for video applications (when I have time) I have the XP. BTW, I can alter the resolution and the refresh rate but I haven't found the way to modify the color-depth...anyone?

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harken,

DSL is small. That is true. Yes, it does not come with a lot of the stuff that Knoppix does, or especially the big ones (Debian, Red Hat, etc.).
However, DSL is expandable, and this can be done very easily. I must say that DSL in it's current state on my machine can do anything I need Knoppix to do. It is different, tho, but that is what I like about it. The window manager is called Fluxbox, it's tiny and clean and easy. Not at all like KDE or GNOME. One of the reasons DSL appeals to me is that is has the best hardware detection I've ever seen. Yes, it's a dirivative of Knoppix/Debian but even those two do not compare with the isolinux or syslinux versions of DSL. I like old hardware (although I do have newer stuff) and DSL is the King of the Hill when it comes to older hardware. As long as I have my 50MB business card size CD and my pendrive with me, I'll have a full operating system that includes all the things I saved the last time I used it, no matter what PC I'm using (the library, wal-mart, microcenter, buddy's house, work, etc.) If you like the windows clone type window manager (KDE, GNOME, etc) then maybe Fluxbox isn't for you, but you could try ICE or something similar. The learning curve with DSL depends on how much you want to put into it. If you don't put much into it, it'll still do what you need it to do. But if you like to learn, then there is much to learn and DSL is a good way to learn it.
As a side note: I shy away from any distro that requires or "is better" with more than one CD. I'm of the opinion that for anything I want to do, it shouldn't take 7 CD's to do it, or a chock full DVD, otherwise I'd stay with windows.
At any rate, it's good to have another person join the Linux fray regardless of which flavor you come to live with. Welcome.

Thanks for the greetings, green1, in the few days since I registered here, I really felt I'm welcome: many, prompt (and competent) answers. It's nice to feel that way.
As you can see (if you read all the replies so far), I considered several versions of Linux. With each day that passed, I removed them from my list one by one (while talking to you guys, I also swepped through several other forums and LUGs). So I have decided to give Debian a chance (although I understood that it might have a steep learning curve, I'm willing to "climb" it). Therefore, right now I'm downloading the iso with the Debian sarge netinst.
I'll go with Debian first because I found an older HD to use as a second one so storage space wouldn't be a problem.
Also, I will (be assured of that) try several distributions of Linux among which I won't forget to include DSL. But, each at its own time. Btw, I used Fluxbox with Knoppix and it's ok. Might not look much at the beginning but you get used to it.

Now, a question for bfree (or any of you who know the answer): after installing Debian's netinst, what should come next? An apt-get?

After installing the base system, Debian should then ask what you want to install, it will first give you a few general catagories(Desktop, printing, file server, etc) with an option to fine tune it if you want.

well i thought i would chuck my 2 cents in here.

im a newbie to linux my self and have only installed it twice on my pc first distro was suse 9.1 pro . i did not like this distro that much it would of taken me months to get all the programs i wanted installed so i uninstalled it.

i first started testing out live cds a few month ago i now check www.distrowatch.com daily to see if theres any new distros so far ive downloaded about 30 or more differnt live cds tested them all for a hour or more. out of all of them the main one i like is knoppix this is because of the programs that come with it its look and auto hardware detection. the only thing that knoppix has failed me on is my sound card. i wanted to install a distro to my pc so i could just learn how to maintain a linux box, after i tested out kanotix i found that the sound card worked perfectly so after a while or reading and a few questions on the kanotix forum i went for a install everything went perfectly and im still using kanotix today i havent even booted back into windows (other then to check its still there) since i installed it. i love apt-get, and all other things linux brings and i dont think ill be moving back to windows anytime soon,

as for finding the linux distro for you it all depends on your needs and what you want to do with it.


http://kanotix.mipooh.net/viewtopic.php?t=180

Hi Pureone! I think we "know" each other (if you're indeed the moderator from a site I know, or maybe you just borrowed the name?!). Check out the members list for my name.
Ok, currently I'm using Knoppix 3.7 installed on HD. I was thinking to switch to Kanotix, but since it is based on the unstable Debian sid I dumped this option.
Right now I just got my hands on a Debian sarge netinst iso, burned it on a CD and I'll go try install it.
BTW, nice site you got out there!

bfree, one more question. You said:

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...where to install and where to install the boot loader). Install into the mbr...

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When I installed Knoppix I already put LiLO into the MBR. Should I let Debian put it again?

yup its true thats me, ive copyrighted this name incase anyone else trys to take it.

Hey bfree! Guess what...just installed Debian. Therefore I have some questions for you:
-GRUB allows me to choose between Debian and XP but why does it say Debian 2.4? The kernel isn't supposed to be 2.6.xx?
-this second question should belong to the hardware section but...anyway, why my maximum resolution is 800x600? Also, the max refresh rate is 75 Hz. How come? Knoppix worked just fine in 1024x768/85Hz.

I'm eagerly waiting your response.
Regards, harken.

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Originally Posted by harken

bfree, one more question. You said:

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...where to install and where to install the boot loader). Install into the mbr...

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When I installed Knoppix I already put LiLO into the MBR. Should I let Debian put it again?

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I would let debian do it again, but if you already have a copy of lilo installed you don't have to. If you let Debian take the mbr it should automatically setup your knoppix aswell (as I understand it) but if you don't let debian have the mbr you will have to add debian to the knoppix lilo.conf and re-run lilo (either under knoppix or by using some options).

I see you haven't read my last post yet. Actually, first I formatted the 2nd HD which held Knoppix, then installed Debian (3 1/2 hours) and I let it write the GRUB to MBR. Works fine.
I solved the resolution problem with a dpkg-reconfigure xfree -xfree86.

But, what about the kernel? It seems like I have to get 2.6 and compile it myself? Or is there any other way around?

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Originally Posted by harken

I see you haven't read my last post yet. Actually, first I formatted the 2nd HD which held Knoppix, then installed Debian (3 1/2 hours) and I let it write the GRUB to MBR. Works fine.
I solved the resolution problem with a dpkg-reconfigure xfree -xfree86.

But, what about the kernel? It seems like I have to get 2.6 and compile it myself? Or is there any other way around?

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No need to compile it. You just need to install kernel-image-2.6-$ARCH where $ARCH is one of 386, 686, 686-smp, amd64-generic, amd64-k8, amd64-k8-smp, em64t-p4, em64t-p4-smp, k7, k7-smp. You can visit http://packages.debian.org/cgi-bin/s...searchon=names or run "apt-cache search kernel-image-2.6 | less" to have a look at all the choices available. So you end up running "apt-get install kernel-image-2.6-686" if you have a regular Pentium Pro to P4 (non emt64).

I think there was option option to install with the netinst.

Something like

linux26

Thanks a lot! Already installed it!
Well bfree, you should expect further questions from me in the future. That's what you deserve when you help people :D

bfree, I told you I'll ask you some more questions.
My netowk connection seems not to work properly all the time. Sometimes it runs ok, other times it doesn't at all even if I don't change the settings. In Win XP it runs just fine, without any problems.
I tried to set myself the connection's parameters: IP, subnet mask, and gateway with the same values they are set in XP. But no result.
Why is that happening?
The only thing "out of the ordinary" I did since I installed Debian (and then the network was running flawlessly) was installing the 2.6.8 hernel. But it still worked after that, and at the next reboot it stopped working. Another reboot and it ran again. Right now it's not woking again.

I must add that since my CPU is an AMD Athlon XP I grabbed the 2.6.8-1-k7 kernel. Was I wrong?

I have been running Knoppix3.6 w 2.4Kernel on mz P2 333for several weeks. I am contemplating running some vers. of Linux on a Pentium 100 that struggles with Win95. I read on Kano site that it is not for olderCPUs. I picked up a 3CD vers. of OpenLinux eDesktop2.4 at Salvation Army, also have Knoppix CDs for vers.3.3 3.4 3.6. I want to install OfficeWriter, Firefox, CD Player and burner. I have a 850MB HD currently. Will it fit? I doubt that the MB will support a 30GB and everything I have in between is dying.

Suggestions anyone?

dad

Think about it this way: in order to install Knoppix (and most of the other distros) you need at least 2 partitions on your HD: a swap one and a ext2 or ext3 one. Some say that the swap partition should be about twice the size of your currently installed RAM, other say that it could be the same size. Also think that the Knoppix LiveCD contains around 1.7 GB of applications and that is, of course, compressed.
Now, I'm no experienced user of Linux but I think that you should get yourself a bigger HD which can be supported by your computer (after all how much can cost a used but functional 10 GB HD).

Or, stop smoking :wink: (or whatever) and get a new PC!

:? Ok, been thinking of trying out Linux for some time. I saw the very positive Knoppix review on Tomshardware and decided to give it a whirl. After two days (admittedly not very long) my issues/question:

no immediate joy on boot, hung on "detecting USB Firewire devices" even though I have none of those active. I had to use failsafe cheatcode which I think shorts Knoppix out of its normally good detecion process.

no sound from Audigy (used alsa cheatcode, but still no joy). Looked at about a million posts .. tried and tried .. no joy!

resolution is kind of off. install allows 1024x768 at 75hz, but still looks kind of funny compared to XP

Also, in general the apps look ok, but appear sort of unpolished compared to comparable Windoze apps (i.e. Office vs Open Office). Text/fonts in general are sort of crude looking too.

So question, and this is sincere .. I AM NOT looking to complain or get flamed... why is Linux such a good idea ? I have never had (at least since using XP v1) any problems just using my hardware, but in Linux (Knoppix live CD 3.7) I still can't do something seemingly simple as listen to tunes after hours of forum searching and totally obscure command line frustration.

Any ideas or (clean) suggestions ?

Hardware Setup for reference
ASUS K8V SE Deluxe
AMD64 3200
1g RAM
ATI 9800 Pro 256
Audigy MP3
80 gb WD IDE
Plextor DVD/CD RW

Thanks for any help or insight you might provide me

Paul
Sony CD