CHiLLaXen

ok, I had my hard drive RMAed few days ago cause it died. I'm thinking about installing 2 OSes. Win XP and a linux distro. Last time I tried installing linux, someone said to try out Debian. Well it was hard work installing it and getting to run propery. Is there a easier distro to work with? I'm new to linux and Debian was kinda hard to install.

Xie

easy eh? ... I would say main three "easy" distro's would be redhat, suse, mandrake.

punkandacoke

Slackware!

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SPeedY_B

Debian is easy o_0

But if you want something that can be set-up easily, then Mandrake or RedHat are the way to go. The only way to find out is to try them yourself though, as everyone has a different opinion on which is the best or easiest.

Mandrake: http://www.mandrakelinux.com/
RedHat: http://redhat.com

There is Fedora too, but it's fairly new, and I can't vouch for it's ease, yet some people are liking it a lot it seems: http://fedora.redhat.com/

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Geffy

I just got Fedora CDs with a Linux Format mag which I might try out, but I have never been a fan of RH so I might be a bit bias

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Yharn

i currently use gentoo on my other machine. although it is one of the harder ones to install i find it easier to use....but maybe thats just me.

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Geffy

If you want the best then get FreeBSD though

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SPeedY_B

The best pain in the **** to set-up ?

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Vector

I used Fedora a while back. It's basically identical to Redhat, but it was a little too buggy at the time. The Fedora Core 1 may have fixed some (or most) of that.

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Geffy

its easy you just have to know what you are doing :P

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Bman

I'll have to say Redhat, but thats the only one I have tryed.

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SPeedY_B

and if someone is looking into RH and MD, FreeBSD ain't exactly going to be friendly. Even when you do know what you're doing it's a complete ****

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NetRyder

The difficulty in getting a Linux distro setup is almost entirely due to your hardware configuration. There is nothing difficult about installing any Linux distro other than getting your hardware properly setup. With that said, Slackware is "considered" to be one of the more difficult distributions, but I've had the best experience with it...and I've tried a LOT of distributions in the past.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again...there is no best, or easiest distribution out there. Your best bet is to try some of the major ones, and see what you personally feel most comfortable with. Slackware, along with check-install and swaret, has everything I want from a Linux distribution in a nice, non-bloated, and very customizable package.

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vern

As with Netryder, I've had a great experience with Slackware. I'm currently running Slackware 9.1 and it works great for me as a router and simple development server. I run it with no monitor, keyboard, mouse, and SSH to it. Most people would probably want to use Gnome or KDE, and if you do, I'd say Redhat 9/Fedora, Mandrake, or SuSe. Among those three, I've only used Redhat, and that was back in version 7, so I really can't say how user friendly they are. Debian would also be a good choice, but for my own use, I don't know why I would use it except maybe because I've heard great things about updating packages using apt-get ... then again, slapt-get and swaret is working well for me. I wouldn't recommend Gentoo though, source based distros aren't for the weak. If you just want to try Linux a whirl without diving too deep, you could check out Knoppix. I have a CD on hand just in case everything goes fubar and I can't boot to the OS. It doesn't require installation and it runs completely off the CD. Another Live-CD distro you might want to try out is Slax ... based off Slackware. Check out distrowatch.com and you might find a distro for you. This URL might help you choose among the big distros.... http://www.distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major. Thats about all I have to say ... goodluck.

NetRyder

You can use Slackware even if you want to use Gnome/KDE. In fact, check out Dropline Gnome, which is a Slackware-optimized version of Gnome 2.4 with an update feature that you can use to keep all your Gnome packages up-to-date.

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Zedric

I moved my linux server from RedHat 8 to Fedora Core 1. Fedora is just as easy, just as simple and works superbly.

I've tried installing Debian three times on different computers, never got it to work. No more Debian for me.

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