Best Linux Distro for a long time window user?

[Prime]

For college we are building a computer and I need a OS. I thought about windows xp or vista but that requires money (they wont let you install any os or software which you obtain for free...yarr) so in order to save money and spend more on hardware I'll install linux which is free then when I get home I'll install XP or vista which i obtained for free......yarrr again.

I've been using windows xp for about 3 years then moved to vista for one year so I really like how windows xp and vista works and I'm use to always using it.

So what Linux distro would be best for me? I was going for Mint or Ubuntu...

 

[Banger]

For a more window feeling and a decent amount of bloat like windows. Either Ubuntu or Kubuntu, up to you. What exactly do you plan to use it for?

 

[Prime]

For a more window feeling and a decent amount of bloat like windows. Either Ubuntu or Kubuntu, up to you. What exactly do you plan to use it for?

Internet, Photo editing, IRC, MSN, Playing Music.

But i might not be using it for long, It might just be a OS to quickly install so that I pass the course or i could dual boot.

 

[TLSpartan]

What you would be looking into is the DE. GNOME mimics the Mac interface and KDE mimics Windows.There are many other as well (LXDE may be good for your needs, it looks alot like Windows XP). If you want to go from the ground up get a Debian netinst CD(stable would do). Install the base system and everything to get your network running. Once you reboot and the system runs fine, run this command

apt-get install xserver-xorg-core xorg

After that get a login manager (You will most likely end up using GTK apps so gdm would be good as the dependencies wont pile up)

apt-get install gdm

Then what ever DE you want

apt-get install lxde

And there a fully working Debian system that is free of crap (The opposite of Ubuntu). To make installing more stuff easier get synaptic as well.

 

[Banger]

I myself like Gentoo. But since you do not plan to use it for very long just go with Ubuntu, simple install (Or if need be you can just use the Live CD) Will save you the trouble of having to install every piece of software you want to use and is very straight forward.

 

[TLSpartan]

I myself like Gentoo. But since you do not plan to use it for very long just go with Ubuntu, simple install (Or if need be you can just use the Live CD) Will save you the trouble of having to install every piece of software you want to use and is very straight forward.

Have fun compiling

?

Reading your post over again Prime, it seems you will just wipe GNU/Linux off it so just install Ubuntu or install Debian with GNOME (easier to install then lxde and such since you can select in the options on the install cd).

 

[Banger]

I myself like Gentoo. But since you do not plan to use it for very long just go with Ubuntu, simple install (Or if need be you can just use the Live CD) Will save you the trouble of having to install every piece of software you want to use and is very straight forward.

Have fun compiling

?

Reading your post over again Prime, it seems you will just wipe GNU/Linux off it so just install Ubuntu or install Debian with GNOME (easier to install then lxde and such since you can select in the options on the install cd).

Yea I had fun compiling Gentoo and everything else I needed

It was a fun learning experience. A friend though since I was primarily a windows users I was far to stupid to get everything up and running especially in my first try. I found it easier then some windows installs

You might even like Ubuntu and will stick with it. (I personally do not like Ubuntu, but with any OS it is the users choice and I still do recommend it on a per case to case bases)

 

[FAST6191]

Wait, real computer knowledge from a computer course*. In the UK too.

My opinion, I tried many distros but perhaps not as many as some (I draw the line at 20).

Fancy stuff: I suggest linux mint, it is like ubuntu but with the fun stuff included. Being based on it means pretty much all the support for the ubuntu line also applies to mint.

Get up and running. Live CD based (most have a live CD but few are designed for it) such as puppy linux (which has some of the best hardware detection of any OS, let alone among linux). It comes with decent media, web, network, office, machine management stuff though.
Be sure to also check out the user made versions as it is originally designed to be small but others add different software.
Note puppy linux is JWM based rather than the big two of KDE or gnome, all the big software apps are independent in some way though so it does not really matter.

Most like windows:
There are several skins aiming at replicating windows but provided you can read then most modern "desktop" varieties will do what you need.

Stuff WINE in there (it is not usually that hard to set it up to automatically work with exe files) or perhaps something like http://www.playonlinux.com/en/ and you are laughing.

*others reading, I have both seen and heard of those with degrees in computer science shy away from building a machine. Yes they did get laughed at and quite a lot.

 

[Prime]

See..every time I research about Linux it is always installing and uninstalling stuff via the command prompt thing is there anyway to install and uninstall things like to you do in vista and xp? I don't like using the command prompt since I'd forget the commands and it would be a lot of hassle.

EDIT: Thanks FAST, That really helped.

 

[Scorpei]

See..every time I research about Linux it is always installing and uninstalling stuff via the command prompt thing is there anyway to install and uninstall things like to you do in vista and xp? I don't like using the command prompt since I'd forget the commands and it would be a lot of hassle.

EDIT: Thanks FAST, That really helped.

Synaptic (ubuntu), Yast (opensuse), you name em (they CAN be installed on other distros then the ones they come bundled with btw). There are several package managers which work pretty good (provided you add proper repositories though). It's even easier then in Windows as after you add the repos you don't even have to look online for the install but you just hit in the name of the app/game you want to install. If it is in the repositories (which most common things are) you can simply select to install it.

Personally I suggest OpenSuse to anyone new to Linux, but that's also personal. The new Mandriva seems to be pretty hot too.

 

[FAST6191]

Installing stuff, most are even easier than windows courtesy of packages (think MSI files), I wrote something a few months back here that I forgot about until just now:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=95600

 

[Maz7006]

Go for ubuntu if you don't wanna worry too much about command lines and such... however keep this in mind make sure you do enough research about what you are going to do before plunging in straight away. Boot up a live session and test if all your hardware works, and i would recommend having more than 512mb of RAM and a CPU that has at least 2GHz. If you find that some hardware isn't compatible just Google it, alot of friendly people will guide you with step by step instructions to how to get things working. I Personally use Ubuntu, which is installed on a comp in which i just store EVERYTHING on, i also use it to sometimes browse the web. But if i were you always have a windows comp in your house/domain/were you are. Its always good to have a windows based PC since there are some things that you simply cant do on linux distors, i.e. you may have difficulties setting up your webcam, or microphone, so keep these things in mind.

 

[UltraMagnus]

go with ubuntu or mandriva, both are easier to use than windows

I myself like Gentoo. But since you do not plan to use it for very long just go with Ubuntu, simple install (Or if need be you can just use the Live CD) Will save you the trouble of having to install every piece of software you want to use and is very straight forward.

isn't it about time you recompiled your kernel again?

QUOTE(Prime @ Nov 26 2008, 12:37 PM) See..every time I research about Linux it is always installing and uninstalling stuff via the command prompt thing is there anyway to install and uninstall things like to you do in vista and xp? I don't like using the command prompt since I'd forget the commands and it would be a lot of hassle.

nope, installing applications by packet manager is easier than installing windows and any required libraries are installed automatically. anything not in the packet manager can usually be downloaded in a .deb file that is pretty simple to use.

only reason to use the command line these days is if you want to.

 

[Scorpei]

WHY, why, why is everyone so hot for ubuntu

? Sure it's a nice distro, but I still don't get why people like it so much more over many of the others out there. For one I personally dislike gnome but you could get kubuntu for that. Also synaptic isn't that nice. I understand people don't want to start out with low level gentoo but why pick ubuntu over opensuse (aside form that partially sprouting from suse which I COULD understand being a downside in some views)?

Btw, seeing as it isn;t posted here:
http://distrowatch.com/
With their nice page hitlist on the different distro's, among other things.

All in all I have to say that simply trying them all gets you to develop your own preference

.

 

[UltraMagnus]

WHY, why, why is everyone so hot for ubuntu

? Sure it's a nice distro, but I still don't get why people like it so much more over many of the others out there. For one I personally dislike gnome but you could get kubuntu for that. Also synaptic isn't that nice. I understand people don't want to start out with low level gentoo but why pick ubuntu over opensuse (aside form that partially sprouting from suse which I COULD understand being a downside in some views)?

Btw, seeing as it isn;t posted here:
http://distrowatch.com/
With their nice page hitlist on the different distro's, among other things.

All in all I have to say that simply trying them all gets you to develop your own preference

.

having used opensuse at university, It is a useless unreliable piece of junk.

centOS, mandriva, ubuntu are all better.