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galvatron1983
December 31st, 2005, 12:50 AM
I want to immerse myself in all things Linux, and that means not limiting myself to Ubuntu, as awesome and Windows destroying as it is.

Ive heard good things about Mandriva but I cant seem to find a live CD .iso download link.

The things Id be looking for in a distro would be...

Availability of a Live CD
Good multimedia support (ie mp3, divx, xvid)
Good for the internet
General ease of use (vague I know)
Easy installation of a USB DSL modem (from Ive heard USB modems and Linux dont mix!)
Consists of purely open source software

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated! :)

23meg
December 31st, 2005, 12:53 AM
By your criteria, I'd say SimplyMEPIS.

fordfan753
December 31st, 2005, 12:56 AM
I can't think of many distros I like that have a live cd, but if you go to distowatch.com they always seem to have a heap of live distros.

My personal favourites, in no particular order, are Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, and Slackware.

Try Mepis, that comes as a live cd, just as long as you don't mind using KDE

stimpack
December 31st, 2005, 01:01 AM
Mepis seconded, that so perfectly fits your criteria.

Omnios
December 31st, 2005, 01:12 AM
I thought of other distros till I looked into them and found that you need to download 10 cd's of stuff. You might want to try Debian as it has a small download footprint compatered to the others but Ubuntu's 1 cd beats them all.

I was going to download Fedora but found out it is a 2 DVD download.

fordfan753
December 31st, 2005, 01:15 AM
umm...doesn't Sarge have like 20CDs?

If you wanted to try something like Debian you'd be better off getting the minimal network install ISO or boot floppies, and installing via FTP.

Nimefurahi
December 31st, 2005, 01:21 AM
A major consideration for me has always been to select a distro-flavor of Linux that can be easily upgraded, one that offers a means of adding or removing programs with careful consideration of all dependencies... in short... anything based upon Debian Linux.

Apt-get is to Linux as bread is to humanity. Debian's apt-get is our very sustenance. Be assured, Ubuntu is certainly Debian-based! There are certainly others; Libranet, Knoppix, Mepis, Aplinux, Morphix, Xandros, Linex, Gibraltar, Linuxin, Stonegate..... the list goes on. You could just as easily grab the REAL THING. Debian Sarge!

Ubuntu is the friendliest Debian based distro I have experienced yet! It's community is "down home". Feel free to look around, but then y'all come back here!

galvatron1983
December 31st, 2005, 01:24 AM
Enough with all this Linux lark, real men use AmigaOs 2.0 on an A500 with 2MB RAM! Why the hell do you need 512MB for!!???

Well maybe if you wanna play Monkey Island with only 300 disk swaps...

:cool:

Nimefurahi
December 31st, 2005, 04:45 AM
Ah... the Amiga!

It brings back happy memories for me when I thought I was really something to have upgraded my ZX81 to a full complement of 16KB of RAM. (Slober, slober). Oh and I was ever so careful to make every byte count when I'd write my own assembly language programs. Economy of resources! Love that Z80 processor! I could read all 20 words of my full screen text from across the room.

Then came along the C64! Was I strutting then. With careful use of irqs I could actually write sound and graphics into my programs. Imagine that. Concurrent sound and graphics whilst the program executed its code!

Then came Amiga! I couldn't afford one, but I loved the television commercial that IBM used to launch one of their blazing PCs. It was a beautifully designed commercial with flying sprites and humming birds and such. At the very end of the commercial, in very, very tiny type was a credit given to the creator machine of these television graphics..... an Amiga! Amiga was King! IBM used an Amiga to sell their wares!

But that was 17 years ago.

Happy New Year 2006!
Happy New Technology!
Happy Ubuntu!

BWF89
December 31st, 2005, 04:50 AM
umm...doesn't Sarge have like 20CDs?
Can anyone confirm this?

ATAQ
December 31st, 2005, 05:35 AM
Well 20 CD's is for the full amount of debian packages,well official ones, Just download the minimal install, called the net install. Its just 111mb, and then you download the files that you actually need. one app for one need!
download the netinstall @ http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/

although Ubuntu is debian based, so I don't really see the point in going to the bother of downloading and installing debian.

Storm Rider
December 31st, 2005, 06:11 AM
Take a look at Suse. 1 DVD or 5 cds. A live DVD is availble also.

briancurtin
December 31st, 2005, 06:53 AM
i was going to mention SuSE but you beat me. anyways, the great thing about SuSE is that if you want, you can buy the boxed set and get printed manuals. of course it is all on the web, but i liked having the printed manuals in my hand, as well as the dual layer DVD that had everything under the sun on it. SuSE is a pretty solid distro and i will definitely go back to it when i get another computer, it just didnt run too well on my laptop but my laptop has problems of its own. id check SuSE out if you can.

firenurse4
December 31st, 2005, 07:05 AM
Ah... the Amiga!

It brings back happy memories for me when I thought I was really something to have upgraded my ZX81 to a full complement of 16KB of RAM. (Slober, slober). Oh and I was ever so careful to make every byte count when I'd write my own assembly language programs. Economy of resources! Love that Z80 processor! I could read all 20 words of my full screen text from across the room.

Then came along the C64! Was I strutting then. With careful use of irqs I could actually write sound and graphics into my programs. Imagine that. Concurrent sound and graphics whilst the program executed its code!

Then came Amiga! I couldn't afford one, but I loved the television commercial that IBM used to launch one of their blazing PCs. It was a beautifully designed commercial with flying sprites and humming birds and such. At the very end of the commercial, in very, very tiny type was a credit given to the creator machine of these television graphics..... an Amiga! Amiga was King! IBM used an Amiga to sell their wares!

But that was 17 years ago.

Happy New Year 2006!
Happy New Technology!
Happy Ubuntu!


Hey, I still have that thing (Z80) in the junk drawer. Wonder if it still works?:p

BWF89
December 31st, 2005, 03:53 PM
Well 20 CD's is for the full amount of debian packages,well official ones, Just download the minimal install, called the net install. Its just 111mb, and then you download the files that you actually need. one app for one need!
download the netinstall @ http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/

although Ubuntu is debian based, so I don't really see the point in going to the bother of downloading and installing debian.
Kinda like how Fedora Core is 4 cd's but you only need 2 if your going to be doing a desktop install.

XQC
December 31st, 2005, 03:57 PM
I recommend OpenSUSE 10... if you like KDE, that is.

JeffS
December 31st, 2005, 06:57 PM
I recomend Mandriva - it's very easy, very polished, has live CD, a great installer, great GUI config tools, equal support for both KDE and Gnome, it's fast, stable, and relatively bug free.

Also, you can only go for Mandriva Discovery, which would be a minimal desktop install. If you go with the free download version, it's 3 CDs.

Debian Sarge is good. It's a quick download for the net installer, then installs a complete desktop system (if that's what you choose during the install), installing both Gnome and KDE. And you get a very stable, fast desktop system that is configured to use Synaptic going to the full Sarge Repos. And since Sarge (stable) repos only get security updates and bug fixes, it's very stable, consistent, and compatible. With installing new software from the massive Deb repos, or doing updates, you don't have to worry about your system becoming borked.

SimplyMepis is awesome - super easy to install, boots Live, well configured, great hardware detection, codecs, Flash, and Java pre-installed. The only drawback to SimplyMepis is that it is a Debian "hybrid" distro - combining both testing and unstable packages. Also, when doing updates or installing new software, you can run into compatibility problems, or software getting uninstalled, or the system becoming borked because of the hybrid nature, and because of the volitle nature of the Debian testing and unstable repos.

That leads to one of the great virtues of Ubuntu - it takes Sid (unstable) packages/repos and freezes them. So once it's intalled, you have a consistent, stable, compatible repos to add software from and do updates, that won't bork your system.

xequence
December 31st, 2005, 09:54 PM
I was going to download Fedora but found out it is a 2 DVD download.

Fedora Core 4 needs 2 CDs to install. There are in total 4 though.


Can anyone confirm this?

Debian Sarge has 14 CDs, but only 3 are needed to install.

galvatron1983
January 1st, 2006, 09:45 PM
I recomend Mandriva - it's very easy, very polished, has live CD, a great installer, great GUI config tools, equal support for both KDE and Gnome, it's fast, stable, and relatively bug free.

Ive been on the Mandriva website and it seems that the Live CD download link isnt working at the moment.

kingsidy
January 1st, 2006, 10:10 PM
i'd say go for suse

Lord Illidan
January 1st, 2006, 10:11 PM
I dunno about SUSE. It can be a PITA to get multimedia support. I prefer Kubuntu. I haven't found a good replacement for Kubuntu, and I am not planning on finding one. Everytime I flush out Kubuntu to try a new distro, I always go back to Kubuntu. It is seamless, and easy.

mstlyevil
January 1st, 2006, 10:49 PM
I spent the last few months on Suse 10. Overall it is a very well polished distro. If you do decide to try it you should download the evaluation version. It is not restricted but you do not get free support or manuals. Also there is no option to download the DVD version so you will have to download the 5 CD set. It includes a bunch of propietary software including Realplayer, Flash and Java 1.5. I switched back to Kubuntu because I hated the fact that it installs everything under the sun by default. I found an easy guide to add resources and to add multimedia at distrowatch on the Suse 10 review.

I highly recommend Kubuntu over anything else I have tried. Debian based distros are the future of Linux. Also if you want to add extra repositories and install multimedia and other propietary software, use Automatix which you can find in the how to section of this forum.

Jengu
January 1st, 2006, 11:36 PM
Debian based distros are the future of Linux.

It's really weird to hear that. It's definitely possible -- but I'm so used to Redhat and RPM being the future. One misgiving though is that the LSB standardizes on RPM --it doesn't require the distro be RPM based, but has to be able to correctly install LSB RPMs.

bonzodog
January 2nd, 2006, 12:48 AM
I think mstlyevil might have a point - the reason there are so many debian spin-offs is because of the innovative 'apt-get'. It is by far the simplest and easiest way to install software in linux. This is the reason why other base distro's have copied the idea, like slackware is developing 'slapt-get', and gentoo has portage. Fedora are also using software repo's , but nothing quite matches the debian apt-get.

Adrian
January 2nd, 2006, 01:27 AM
Also there is no option to download the DVD version so you will have to download the 5 CD set.

I decided to try openSUSE on my Laptop when I found out that it's possible to install from the net:
http://www.opensuse.org/Released_Version#Internet_Installation

What I like:
* VERY nice KDE environment. It runs noticably faster than Kubuntu on my hardware (800MHz Celeron + 384MB RAM). Other people have reported the opposite, so I guess different hardware setups yield different results.
* The SUSE KDE adjusts itself to my awfully tiny 800x600 LCD perfectly by default. Kubuntu gives me too large windows.

What I don't like:
Once you get used Debians package management system, you will not like anything else. I totally agree with mstlyevil: it really IS the future.

ajgreeny
January 2nd, 2006, 04:26 PM
Like a lot of the respondents to this thread, I have tried Suse 10 for the last month or so. Like nearly all of them I also found it to be a very stable and polished distro.

However, once you have used apt-get and or synaptic/kynaptic nothing else seems to fit the bill. I have had no problems with apt since I started with Ubuntu in May 2005. I didn't do an online update from hoary to breezy as I was a bit concerned it might break my fully working system, so I did a clean install on a separate partition and once up and running, which it was immediately, I dumped hoary and thought I'd try Suse 10.

My recommendation? Stick with Ubuntu. There's nothing to beat it and this forum is many times better than the Suse forums, even though there are two separate ones for Suse. Ubuntu and apt/synaptic really rocks!!