Linux Distributions

T

topnotchtouch

New member
Hey all,



Just curious how many of you guys out there run Linux and if you do what distros?



I have been a Red Hat guy for many years and run Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 on one machine and the latest test release of Fedora 7 on another.



Redhat Enterprise Linux Desktop

redhat.com | Desktop



Fedora

Fedora Project



I recently downloaded Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn for my kids though and they are enjoying it. I know it is considered a "newbie" distro but not sure you can call anything based on Debian a "newbie distro" :D



Ubuntu

Ubuntu Home Page | Ubuntu



Anyone using Linux in their work? Anyone using at exclusively at work or home? Just hoping to converse with other Linux users here on Autopia :D
 
First off, I'd like to clear the misconception that Ubuntu is a "newbie' distro :) It has every bit of customizability and features as any other distro. The terminal can still be used to perform any feature other distributions of Linux have. The only thing is that Linux newbies find the graphical interface more pleasing and similar to something like Windows. It allows them to perform the same operations, except graphically. More experienced users use the terminal if they choose to.



I use Ubuntu Linux on my laptop and I use it exclusively. Originally I was dual-booting Windows XP and Ubuntu, but I switched completely to Ubuntu after finding that I had all the applications and necessary features that I needed. I've found that little things in Ubuntu have allowed me to be much more efficient in my use of the computer and web browsing. Things like keyboard shortcuts, pressing ALT to move windows, powerful applications, all contribute to my decision to use Ubuntu.



What I like about Ubuntu is the amount of programs that you can get from open-source projects. Sure, you won't be able to run Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Photoshop CS3 without lots of tweaking, but little programs like the calculator and the file browser are so much more efficient and useful compared to similar programs on Windows computers. Another big reason why I chose Linux and Ubuntu specifically is that there is a large support base on ubuntu forums, where help is easily found.
 
You don't have to convince me, we have been running Ubuntu Feisty Fawn since it came out on the kids machine and they love it. The only complaint the kids have and this is one shared by all Linux distros and that is the lack of a Shockwave plugin. The kids love to play flash and shockwave games and since the switch to Linux from Windows on their machine they haven't been able to play the Shockwave games.



Ubuntu has even got me looking at Debian again. I have played around with the latest version "Etch" and was impressed by the changes they have made. I am going to be putting Etch on my old Cobalt Qube that will act as a log server for my small home network.



Debian

Debian -- The Universal Operating System



Debian on Cobalt

Debian on Cobalt
 
I am also an ubuntu fan, for now I am dual booting. I have to make sure that I can run everything before I sitch to non microsoft world. I am running XP on one Desktop and one Laptop. Ubuntu is on the laptop with Vista (I'm sorry but I'am not a big fan of Vista, to put it lightly).
 
rjstaaf: Flash games work fine for me. Adobe recently released it's Flash program for linux, so flash shouldn't be a problem. As for shockwave, I'm not so sure.
 
I am a faithful Linux User



For Desktop use: Mandriva



Server: centOS - or RHEL



I DO NOT like Gentoo or debian based distros AT ALL



Ubuntu quickly takes users away from the "open source" method of computing and putting 3rd party non-free packages right at their feet. Not my kinda way of computing in the open source world. I stay away from as much non-free as possible.



YES, this means I DO NOT like Unbuntu - PUKE



Also, come over to IRC and chat with us in the forums.



You should have xChat available



the server is: irc.freenode.net



Join the channel: #mandriva or #lfd



You will see me there!
 
rjstaaf said:
Hey all,



Just curious how many of you guys out there run Linux and if you do what distros?



I have been a Red Hat guy for many years and run Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 on one machine and the latest test release of Fedora 7 on another.



Redhat Enterprise Linux Desktop

redhat.com | Desktop



Fedora

Fedora Project



I recently downloaded Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn for my kids though and they are enjoying it. I know it is considered a "newbie" distro but not sure you can call anything based on Debian a "newbie distro" :D



Ubuntu

Ubuntu Home Page | Ubuntu



Anyone using Linux in their work? Anyone using at exclusively at work or home? Just hoping to converse with other Linux users here on Autopia :D
Click to expand...



I see your a Honda Fan....Go Nicky GO!!!!!!
 
I dual boot a FC6 install with an XP pro install. I've tinkered with Ubuntu and Debian and like them both, but for whatever reason I just keep coming back to Fedora. One of my good friends really likes Suse, but it drives me bonkers. I just abhor their menu system, I can't really explain it, but for whatever reason it just doesn't jive with the way my brain works.
 
Prometheus said:
I dual boot a FC6 install with an XP pro install. I've tinkered with Ubuntu and Debian and like them both, but for whatever reason I just keep coming back to Fedora. One of my good friends really likes Suse, but it drives me bonkers. I just abhor their menu system, I can't really explain it, but for whatever reason it just doesn't jive with the way my brain works.
Click to expand...



I know what you mean. I started with Red Hat 6.0 and have run every version since. I currently have the latest RC2 of Fedora 7 on one of my machines.



Just like with detailing products and most everything else, I am a tinkerer at heart. I probably have a current set of CDs for at least a dozen different Linux distributions and I have installed and played around with each of them but, like you I keep coming back to Red Hat/Fedora.
 
envirocbr said:
I am a faithful Linux User



snip...



Ubuntu quickly takes users away from the "open source" method of computing and putting 3rd party non-free packages right at their feet. Not my kinda way of computing in the open source world. I stay away from as much non-free as possible.



YES, this means I DO NOT like Unbuntu - PUKE



snip...
Click to expand...



This is a tough issue as I am on the fence about it as well. The problem I see though with the "free-software" purist philosophy is that there is no way Linux will ever be anything but an "enthusiast" only OS if we cannot compromise. I too do not want to see Linux dominated or influenced by any commercial entity but unless the community can come up with viable alternatives to these non-free packages that are in such high demand, distributions like Ubuntu are going to continue to grow.



Regardless of how you feel about Ubuntu, one thing is hard to deny. They have brought hoards of people into the community that likely would have NEVER given Linux a second thought. That can only be a good thing :2thumbs:
 
I ran Red Hat several years ago when I was in school and really enjoyed it. My brother and I started the Linux Router Project, but never got around to getting it fully set up. I am in the process of partitioning for Ubuntu. This will be the first distro I've used in a long time, so i think it's a decent way to get back into Linux. Eventually, I will install one of the other versions. Now, if I can just remember some of those terminal commands. LOL.
 
Recently, WinXP gave me some trouble on an old laptop of mine that I hadn't used in 2 years. I thought this would be the perfect time to try out Linux. When the laptop was newer, I was never able to get any Linux distro to boot up. Surprisingly, I've been able to install and use OpenSUSE 10.3 and Kubuntu 7.1 (for some reason, my laptop will not read any of the disks I burn for Ubuntu). I also thought that it was funny that both distro of Linux automatically installed the proper drivers for my laptop's Synaptic pad and cursor and the volume buttons right out of the box, yet when I reinstalled WinXP I had to go download the drivers from Compaq. OpenSUSE also popped up with a message that my S.M.A.R.T. hard disk drive was failing, which was probably the culprit of why XP failed to boot on me. S.M.A.R.T. has been around for years now for hard drives, yet I never figured what the heck it was for. Freakin M$.



I used OpenSUSE with KDE and it takes forever to boot into the system, but once I'm in it feels pretty fast. Kubuntu I boot into much faster and feels the same while I'm using the system, but it's shutdown/restarts seems to hang compared to OpenSUSE.



I'm a linux noob, but at this point I can't really say which I prefer. They both have their pros/cons. I do not care for OpenSUSE's menu system at all. Coming from a Windows environment, I thought it looked cool at first but I found it to be annoying having to go through the menus.



On the other hand, OpenSUSE seems to be less buggy than Kubuntu. Kubuntu's Adept Manager kept crashing on me until I googled for help and found other users with the same problem. I ended up having to fix it through the console. It wasn't hard to do, but that stuff should work right out of the box.



Which brings me to my main gripe about Linux: wireless card support. I've given up on trying to get wireless to work with my particular wifi cardbus adapter. I have an older OrinoCo 802.11 b card that might work with these systems, but I don't feel like dumbing down my router or disabling security all together just to use that card for Linux (it's only capable of doing WEP).



I know a lot of the blame for this is on the card manufacturer, but my laptop is pointless to me without wireless internet access. I wish it was easier. I may be a linux noob, but I'm fairly PC-literate, so I feel more comfortable with computers than the average user. As much as I'd like to just use linux only on this laptop, I don't ever see myself switching completely to it.



If I were to just install linux on the family desktop, there's no way my wife or any other family member (who are all computer noobs) would be able to figure out how to do basic functions using Linux, such as installing/removing programs, at least not on their own. It's just not friendly enough for the average user and as much as we all hate Microsoft, their OS is easy enough for an average user to pick up and learn. There's a slightly higher learning curve to OS X compared to XP, but it's still a much easier OS to use than any of the Linux distro's I've tried so far.



I was really looking forward to not having to install M$ on this particular laptop, but for now it looks like I don't have much of a choice.



/end of rant
 
Thanks for the comments BlackElantraGT, I definitely agree that wireless networking is definitely an issue. As you already pointed out Linux needs more support from the manufacturer's if we are ever going to solve this issue. There are workarounds though such as ndiswrapper which may allow you to use the Windows driver with Linux.



NDISwrapper - Home



I also did a search for OrinCo drivers and found a site that may be of some help, there may be others but this one poped up on the first page of my Google search...



The Linux ORiNOCO Driver



At this point I can sympathize if you feel that it is not worth fiddling with. I just got a laptop myself and to be honest I will probably wait until next year to install Linux on it. It is a Dell Inspiron 1520 and I purchased it configured with Windows XP.



I have been using Linux for a lot of years now and in just the last few Linux has made huge strides and I think we will see more support from the hardware manufacturers as the Linux user base continues to grow.
 
I definitely think Linux has made a huge leap. A few years ago I couldn't get this same laptop to boot up with Linux, and now OpenSUSE and Kubuntu installs with more complete features than WinXP right out of the box. Linux has also surpassed WinXP graphically, but then again XP is pretty old for an OS now.



When I took a UNIX class some years back at the local community college, we were using Red Hat 6.2 IIRC and mostly using the console, and not the GUI interface so I was pleasantly surprised to see how well my old and outdated laptop was running the newest flavors of Linux and how much better it looks compared to XP. My clean install of XP feels pretty fast, but I know once I start installing software such as anti-virus, spyware removal, Office, etc. there's no way it'll feel as fast as Linux.



Unfortunately I don't remember most of the UNIX stuff I learned and I no longer have the text book so I'm finding it difficult to do a lot of things that are probably very basic to a Linux power user. I've been running into trouble trying to manually install NDISwrapper, more specifically loading the Window's .inf driver file for the card. Kubuntu threw me off for awhile as I couldn't figure out why I wasn't able to login as root, until I learned about the "sudo" command. I know that my new wifi card is not supported by NDISwrapper yet (it's an Airlink101 802.11 draft n card using the RaLink chipset) so it looks like I'll either have to wait or find a card that the system can easily detect on its own.



I've also tried using ndisgtk and Kubuntu installs it without any problems, but when I try to use the program it looks like it's about to load, but then nothing happens. I had higher hopes for Ubuntu/Kubuntu but to me it just seemed very buggy, especially compared to OpenSUSE. And all this trouble just trying to get a wifi card to work. I haven't even bothered trying to connect a printer or any USB devices to it yet, so who knows how much more of a headache that will be.



I'd really like to see Linux grow in popularity but at this point, I still think it's far from being mainstream. Most people who will try out Linux will just give up and go back to Windows or OS X.
 
BlackElantraGT said:
Linux has also surpassed WinXP graphically, but then again XP is pretty old for an OS now.
Click to expand...

What does that mean? What kind of graphics?



I run Fedora 7 on a desktop at work, and have thought about trying Ubuntu, but haven't. I guess because I started with Core 5 I just kinda stuck with Fedora. We have RHEL machines, but it's not really a desktop program nor is it free.



I have thought about setting it up at home since I have some older machines sitting around, but really I wouldn't use it for anything.



Bob, there is a shockwave/flash plugin. I have it on Firefox on Fedora 7. I have never tried any shockwave games though with it. I notice Firefox performs worse on Fedora than on my Win machine of similar specs.



One thing I hate about Fedora 7 is their implementation of Java. However I now have Sun Java running on it. That's one of those things where the distribution license gets in the way. I can appreciate that that's how things go, but when free = annoying it means some people will be turned off by it.
 
Try Fedora 8, I think you will find a lot of improvements over Fedora 7.



Actually there is no implementation of Shockwave for Linux at this point, just Flash. Adobe does have a Yum repository for Linux so you can do Yum updates to update the acrobat reader and the flash plugin.



I would go to about:config in Firefox on both machines and compare how they are setup. You might fiddle with the pipelining settings, that might help.



They have just started work on Fedora 9 which will be the basis for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 in the Spring.



There is a great user forum for Fedora if you care to come by some time, I hang out there about as much as here these days. It is FedoraForum.org - Fedora User Support Forum & Community ...
 
Aurora40 said:
What does that mean? What kind of graphics?
Click to expand...



When I referred to Linux being better looking, I was referring to the look of the OS in general, not necessarily graphics for games or anything like that.



After my previous post on here, I switched back to openSUSE except I used it with GNOME this time. While I didn't have to deal with the annoying menu system of openSUSE with KDE, I found the GNOME desktop to be too minimalistic for my taste and I found myself having to click more than I liked just to get to certain programs. I actually prefer the annoying KDE menu system over the GNOME desktop. Graphically, GNOME to me felt really outdated, more so than XP and it bugged the hell out of me to the point where I've switched back to Kubuntu. It's like using XP, and having to downgrade to Windows 2000. For the most part they do the same things, but XP is a better looking OS.



I was also quite disappointed in GnuCash. It was way too rudimentary for my taste. I can say the same about a lot of the Linux games/apps I've found and used through the repositories. It's nice to have free software (legally) but I now have a better appreciation for the work that software companies/programmers put into their software.



I'll have to give Fedora a try. I've dropped my laptop way too many times so the DVD-ROM/CDRW is very picky about what it wants to read. It won't load my Ubunutu disk but it will read Kubuntu, go figure.



One thing I am enjoying is Frozen Bubble 2, especially in net play mode!
 
I'm a linux noob and have been downloading ubuntu, opensuse and fedora and all of them work although although slowly due to my old pc. They work fine on my laptop however altough I'm only using live cds right now. I'm probably going to make a dual boot partition as soon as I find a distribution I like.



YouTube - Beryl



Awesome video on what you can do with Linux on a desktop.
 
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