Linux Distros?

[Tr00pertj]

Hey peoples of all creeds, Colors and status (everyone alive on the planet now who has read this:)

 

I am thinking of installing a Unix\Linux Distribution on my system for research purposes and am wondering if any Taffers around here have any recommendations/experience?

 

I'm looking at http://distrowatch.com/ at the moment and thinking it's not exactly the safest thing to do though I do have backup images of my system drives. It occurred to me that I might install on a USB memory stick and have a play, Just until some TDM Mods are released of course (Then I wont have any time for messing about with Linux).

 

Any one running a Unix/Linux distro?

[chakkman]

It's very much up to personal preference. The advantage of Linux having countless desktop environments, is also it's weak point, as most of the DE's are only slowly developed and maintained. I would choose one of the big ones, KDE, if you want a classic desktop with loads of configuration options (which can be pretty confusing at times though...), Gnome if you want a modern, a bit unusual, if you're not used to it, simple and easy to understand desktop. Or you choose one of the Linux Mint desktops, Cinnamon or Mate, which were developed with the people in mind, who were disapointed with the direction the Gnome and Ubuntu Unity desktops have taken. Talking of Unity, which is the Ubuntu distros default desktop, you could also choose this, like the Gnome desktop, it's aimed at ease of use, and simplicity. I don't like it so much personally though, as the idea of the dash, and it's functionality doesn't really make sense to me. I gave it a couple of tries, but never really got warm with it.

 

As i said, there's loads of other desktops, but usually, they're not well maintained, are spartanic, or have bugs. I'd stick to the big ones. Oh, and on a last note, Distrowatch might be a fun place to look, but their popularity scale isn't one. There's hoards of fanboys who will click once per day for their favourite distros. It's not a serious indicator of which distros are being used the most.

Edited September 16, 2014 by chk772

[Sotha]

Hiya!

 

Just pick Ubuntu or Kubuntu and you will be good to go. They are pretty mature and most of the stuff works out of the box without any major hassles. They are so common that if you run into trouble, quick googling will reveal the answer, because someone, somewhere, as already been bashing their head against the problem.

 

I personally use Kubuntu because I like the ability to customize the workspace, and KDE is pretty close to windows, so you will be very familiar with the OS immediately.

 

I've had windows/kubuntu dual boot system more than 5 years now.

 

Going linux will bring the fun back to computing. Welcome, and enjoy!

[chakkman]

Yeah, i'm only using Ubuntu based distros since years too, and most of the time, they're working fine. Atm i'm using Linux Mint Cinnamon and Ubuntu-Gnome. I started with OpenSuse, but i had some trouble with the paket management, and other things, so i switched to Ubuntu.

[OrbWeaver]

as most of the DE's are only slowly developed and maintained.

 

Actually the major desktop environments like GNOME, KDE and Unity are actively maintained and developed very rapidly, which is one of their major criticisms (things get changed and broken more often than some users would like).

 

You can't go far wrong opting for one of the main Ubuntu flavours: Ubuntu for Unity, Ubuntu GNOME for GNOME, Kubuntu for KDE, Xubuntu for Xfce and Lubuntu for LXDE. There's even an upcoming Ubuntu MATE remix for people who want to use the Arch-based desktop based on classic GNOME 2.

[nbohr1more]

My favorite light-weight distro was Vector Linux but sadly their package manager was in terrible shape the last time I tried it. Ubuntu has pretty much dried-up any developer interest in Slackware based distos as far as I can tell.

[PsymH]

A little bit out of topic, but for my mini-server I use Debian and I'm very satisfied, because the system runs pretty stable and fast, as the rig has only 700MhZ dual core ARM cpu und 256 MB RAM. And as I know the most of the distros like Ubuntu, Kubuntu or Linux Mint are based on Debian, right?

[chakkman]

Actually the major desktop environments like GNOME, KDE and Unity are actively maintained and developed very rapidly, which is one of their major criticisms (things get changed and broken more often than some users would like).

What i meant was that the smaller desktops are slowly developed and maintained. XFCE version 4.12 for example was due to be released 1 1/2 years ago, and is still not out.

[OrbWeaver]

What i meant was that the smaller desktops are slowly developed and maintained. XFCE version 4.12 for example was due to be released 1 1/2 years ago, and is still not out.

 

Ah right. I see what you mean, their "latest news" is April 2012.

 

Still, the choice to use (or even fork and take over development of) stagnant or poorly-maintained desktop environments is way better than the choiceless straight-jackets that Apple and Microsoft lock you into.

[chakkman]

If it fits, then it fits. That's my opinion. I like Windows for what it does as well. Especially it's stable like hell, my new computer with Windows 8 on it didn't crash on me one time, and i have it for like 6 or 7 months now, in daily use. And Windows 7 already was very stable too. Something i can only partly say about the various Linux distros i used. There's always some bugs and niggles in any of them tbh. But well, each to its like, and i surely don't want to start an argument about it now.

[lost_soul]

I use Lubuntu 14.04. It is pretty good. It runs 90% of the software I use on a regular basis, and it _never_ bugs me about the cloud. It doesn't try to get me to subscribe to things, or save my files to the cloud, or any of that which Windows is headed in the direction of.

 

I'm not an evangilist or anything (butchered spelling). Linux still has a lot of short-comings and things that need to be improved before the masses would accept it. Then again, when malware peddlers target Mac and Windows users through the use of malicious ads on big sites like Youtube, they do not even bother with Linux because of the small user base. This is a reason to *keep* Linux's user-base small.

 

Sure, its a greedy outlook on things, but it helps keep us secure even when our platform does have holes in it.

[Tr00pertj]

Thanks to all for the input.

I was looking at Debian.

This is part of a recent post/review on the Distrowatch site :

(The Debian GNU/Linux project is teaming up with the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and h-node to build a database of hardware that works with GNU/Linux distributions without the need for proprietary software. The Debian website has more details .

 

It sounds interesting and obviously any feedback on hardware/software compatibility for the devs I'm sure would be appreciated.

 

I might just go with Kubuntu to start with and see how I go, But should I go with the 32 or 64 bit version? It will be installed on 64 Bit capable hardware but the Kubuntu site recommends the 32 Bit install?

 

All suggestions have been much appreciated so thanks to all:)

Edited September 17, 2014 by Tr00pertj

[chakkman]

If you have never run a Linux distro, i'd rather stick to Ubuntu than to Debian. Admittedly, i never used Debian, but i often read it's rather for the more experienced users, while Ubuntu especially aims on more inexperienced users with it's "Linux for humans" approach. At least i found it to be quite user friendly, and easy to use.

[lost_soul]

I'll agree with that. I used to use Debian, but I left for Lubuntu. (I would not use straight Ubuntu because of the bloat).

 

Anyway, while Debian isn't that hard to get going, they have dumb policies on some things. Some of the packages that I use have been removed from the newer versions of Debian, while they are still in the Ubuntu flavors. If we want to install them, we have to go through a bunch of crap that no average user is interested in. They were there, and they served their purpose, why were they removed?

 

How much RAM do you have? Are you going to get more any time soon? Under Linux, it goes like this. You CAN use more than 4 GB of RAM with a 32-bit OS. However, each individual program that you run will be limited to about 2.6 GB of RAM or so. If a program tries to use more than 2.6 GB of RAM on a 32-bit machine, (and even if you have 10 GB free), the program will crash due to not being able to use more memory. Your other memory is still there for other programs to use, though.

 

I used to use Blender on a 16 GB machine with a 32-bit OS. The 16 GB was usable, but if Blender tried to use more than 2.6 GB, it crashed. Are you gonna run a lot of proprietary software? Some proprietary software can have problems with 64-bit, especially old proprietary software. However, this situation is mostly resolved due to the new ability to install 32-bit libraries alongside 64-bit libraries painlessly.

Edited September 17, 2014 by lost_soul

[Tr00pertj]

The system has 16G Ram so 64Bit for sure.

What do you mean by Bloat, Cloud ads and stuff I will never use?

Edited September 17, 2014 by Tr00pertj

[chakkman]

@ lost_soul: Afaik, Linux has the same RAM limitations as any other OS, when you run the 32-bit version. So a max of 3.5 GB can be adressed with the 32-bit version. With anything above that, you should install the 64-bit version.

 

@ Tr00pertj: Ubuntu and Linux Mint aren't really bloated in any version. They come with very few startup applications, and background services compared to Windows. If you have a really slow computer, or if you want a lightning fast system, it makes sense to install the low system requirement desktops like LXDE or XFCE. But every fairly recent (2008 and after) machine should be good enough to run every desktop there is.

[PranQster]

My personal preference is Mageia. I recommend using live disks first. Download and burn a few different live distros... mint, k/ubuntu, mageia, etc. Try each one and decide which you prefer.

[OrbWeaver]

If you have a 64-bit system, install a 64-bit version of Linux. There is no advantage whatsoever in crippling your system with an OS built for an obsolete architecture which cannot fully exploit the capabilities of your hardware.

 

I think the reason Ubuntu lists 32-bit as "Recommended" is to help non-technical users who don't know whether their machine is 32 or 64 bit, in which case the 32-bit version is the safer bet because it will run on anything. Last I heard they were intending to change this policy, but perhaps they have not done so yet.

[Lux]

Another option would be to install Windows and make sure you have virtualization turned on in your motherboard bios, VirtualBox doesn't always require this but it can speed things up if your board supports hardware virtualizaiton. Its generally on by default unless you've messed with bios settings.

 

Then install VirtualBox and install your linux as a virtual machine through Windows which is basically like mounting a live CD using Daemon tools. Then you can mess around in the flavor Linux of your choice from the comfort of Windows. It is another layer of complexity but VirtualBox is pretty easy to set up and use with many online guides.

 

You can mount and use multiple virtual machines simultaneously also, particularly with 16GB RAM. And you can let your Linux OS update or do whatever its doing in the background while doing other tasks in Windows.

[chakkman]

Even Ubuntu lists the 64-bit version now as the default download.

[lost_soul]

There has been the occasional Linux bashing `round these parts. I myself have talked trash about Linux... but guess what? I installed a new video card in this machine yesterday (replaced GTX460 with GTX750TI 2 GB). So what happened? I powered it on. Up came the Linux desktop with perfect hardware acceleration, at native resolution. There were no "found new hardware" messages. I did not have to reboot to finish installing a driver. It was like nothing had even changed, except for faster performance and a slashed TDP.

 

Then I booted into Windows. Up comes the VGA desktop, lacking hardware acceleration. Then came the "found new hardware" message. I then had to install the drivers from the CD.

Edited September 24, 2014 by lost_soul

[OrbWeaver]

Hell, half the time Windows gives me the "found new hardware" nonsense just because I plug in my phone.

[lost_soul]

The hardware detection method in Linux is actually really good. You can install a distro to an external HDD. Then if you boot it on a wide range of machines, it will just detect the hardware during the startup process, provided that it has drivers for the devices. If you install Windows to an external HDD, then try to go around booting it on different machines, it will flip out. If it even boots, it will spend a minute detecting all of the new hardware.