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View Full Version : please recommend a good distro for a beginner.



snoopgst
July 14th, 2005, 09:17 AM
I want a distro with kde. So far I have tried kubuntu and suse 9.3

Kubuntu was nice but it kept on crashing on my laptop and desktop.
suse was OK but felt a little slow/sluggish and I didn't really like Yast

Right now I am downloading fedora 4, will try it out as soon as it downloads.

what can you guys recommend? (a distro with as much auto hardware detection (drivers) would be nice if it exists :razz: )

Knome_fan
July 14th, 2005, 09:27 AM
Hi, asking this question on the ubuntu forum might be a bit odd, but anyway:

Mandriva is pretty cool. I haven't tried the newest release, but the I always liked the older ones I tried. Giving it a shot should be worth it.
http://www.mandrivalinux.com/en/

Another option worth looking into might be mepis. It's also based on debian (like kubuntu/ubuntu), has kde as the default desktop and is very noob friendly imho. One great thing is that you install it off of a LiveCD, so you can in fact test out if you like it and if it works before installing.
http://www.mepis.org/

I hope you find the right distribution for your needs and most off all, have fun! :grin:

bored2k
July 14th, 2005, 09:27 AM
what can you guys recommend? (a distro with as much auto hardware detection (drivers) would be nice if it exists :razz: )
Xandros 3. If possible the Deluxe or Business edition.

KiwiNZ
July 14th, 2005, 09:28 AM
For out of the box hardware support and KDE the best options are Mandriva and Suse 9.3.
If you dont mind some work post install to get such things as multimedia support,flash etc running the Fedora core 4 .

Karlos
July 14th, 2005, 09:33 AM
try yoper

it is some kiddies from new-zealand who have re-coded the whole thing from scratch

really fast and flash looking distro

I reccomend it - as ive tried it and its good so there ya go..

http://www.yoper.com/

here is their main claim on the website


Yoper is a high performance operating system which has been carefully optimized for PC's with either i686 or higher processor types. The binaries that come with Yoper have been built from scratch using the original sources combined with the some of the best features from other Open Source Linux distributions (distros). However, Yoper is not like general purpose distros such as Redhat or Mandrake. It is a high performance Desktop OS. It is compact. It resides on 1 cd-rom. In fact, Yoper is also one of the most standards-based environments in the Linux community! You will find hardware performance as good or better than that of any commercial OS.


also libranet is worth a go it is debian based in fact it is fully debian compatible meaning you can use the stable, testing, unstable and experimental archives from debian..

which is nice

a great begginers distro, the hardware detection is brilliant as is the tool for configuring everything (adminmenu)

also the forum is very friendly and helpful {(much like this one)} :grin:

http://www.libranet.com/

snoopgst
July 14th, 2005, 10:04 AM
this is why i posted here, because of the fast replys and honest opinions its just a great community. I have done lots of reading on here about linux. I think I will try mandriva next as it has more hardware/multimedia support out of the box

Thanks

poofyhairguy
July 14th, 2005, 06:40 PM
I recommend Linspire.

Takis
July 14th, 2005, 11:09 PM
Sorry about stating the obvious, but I'd say Ubuntu.

poofyhairguy
July 14th, 2005, 11:27 PM
Sorry about stating the obvious, but I'd say Ubuntu.


Ubuntu IS easier than Kubuntu I think.

carlc
July 15th, 2005, 12:10 AM
Sorry about stating the obvious, but I'd say Ubuntu.

Agree. With Ubuntu and The Guide (http://ubuntuguide.org/), I don't see how you could go wrong!

snoopgst
July 15th, 2005, 12:30 AM
i want kde

aysiu
July 15th, 2005, 12:54 AM
If you just want to get to know Linux, Ubuntu is a wonderful distro. Once you've gotten to know it, and you still want KDE, you can always install KDE.

If you want a total point-and-click KDE, have you thought of using Mepis?

bored2k
July 15th, 2005, 01:02 AM
If you want a total point-and-click KDE, have you thought of using Mepis?
Hands down, Xandros is the KDE point-and-click champion.

gil-galad
July 15th, 2005, 01:58 AM
If you want KDE, mepis is supposed to be a great distro. If you wanted a commercial distro linspire has some good points. I wouldn't touch xandros with a ten foot pole.

snoopgst
July 15th, 2005, 04:14 AM
ok ill give mepis a try. is mepis 3.3.1-1 the latest? (or is it just a live cd?) or should I d/l mepis 3.3.1?

thanks for all the help.

poofyhairguy
July 15th, 2005, 04:36 AM
i want kde

You want SUSE

bored2k
July 15th, 2005, 04:51 AM
You want SUSE
That was funny..

aysiu
July 15th, 2005, 05:02 AM
ok ill give mepis a try. is mepis 3.3.1-1 the latest? (or is it just a live cd?) or should I d/l mepis 3.3.1?

thanks for all the help. As far as I know that's the latest. It is both a live and installer CD. When you boot it, it will be live. You either log in as demo with password demo or root with password root. Once you're in live, you can play around... or if you want to install Mepis, you click the "Install Me" icon on the desktop, and it'll walk you through the installation process.