I was a previous user of Novell SuSe 9.2, and I understand that the latest version, SuSe 9.3 is available for download for free from Open SuSe .

After 12 months of using XP I am seeking to turn my back on Microsoft, and I no longer need my laptop for business purpose.

I am seeking advice from current Linux users, based on their experiences to recommend a distribution.

I am leaning towards SuSe as it is easy to use, and support, and software is readily available, however I am open to suggestion.

Thanks,
SSMe

NB:- My expert level in Linux is basic.

I'd start here:

http://shipit.ubuntulinux.org/

It's all free, including shipping.

All distributions have some problem. Your ultimate choice of distro will just depend to a large extent on what problems you can live with, and which ones you have the ability and patience to fix.

A good place to visit is www.distrowatch.com. It lists pretty much every distro going, ranks them by popularity, and gives you a listing of the features of each, as well as links to reviews and to their maintainers' websites.

The new Suse was just released a couple of days ago, so I really can't offer an opinion on it. Their offerings in the past have been decent, but, like all distributions, have varied in quality from one release to the next.

Are you just looking for something to use, with as little trouble as possible, or do you want something that will encourage you to get involved with the system as a learning experience? There's a huge variation within this spectrum.

Your preferred desktop environment will also play a part in your choice. Gnome is more Mac-like, with a simpler, more elegant approach, while KDE is more Windows-like, with more features but also more clutter. Flame wars between their fans can get very ugly. Some distros concentrate more on one than the other, so if you have a preference, that may affect your choice.

Suse is probably one of the better mainstream distros. Typically it will set up reasonably easily, and will likely find and configure most if not all of your hardware, as long as it's nothing too exotic. There's a fair amount of software available, but from what I hear it's sometimes difficult to find compatible third-party packages. In other words, there will be times when you can't get a new piece of software because Suse hasn't made a package and nobody else has stepped up to do so.

The more popular a distro, the more likely you are to be able to get all the latest and greatest software. If playing around and staying on the bleeding edge are important to you, you might want to stick with Ubuntu or Fedora Core.

Debian (on which Ubuntu and many other distros are based) is a bit of a mixed bag. It has several 'branches', including 'stable' 'testing' 'unstable' and 'experimental'. A new stable branch was finallized a couple of months ago, so it's still relatively up to date. Stable tends to lag a long ways behind all other distros though.You can mix in packages from testing and unstable, but then you're taking big risk on your system libraries and other dependencies getting buggered up so badly that your computer may not boot at all anymore. If a Debian-based distro has its own repositories (places you get software) or sticks to one branch of Debian, it's usually fairly safe. With Debian itself, you have the choice between being outdated or dangerously unreliable. Ubuntu is based on Debian, but it has its own up-to-date repositories. It can be a bit of a pain to get set up properly though. It depends a lot on your hardware and the luck of the draw.

Fedora Core is pretty good. I used FC3 for about 10 months without any real issues. I tried FC4 when it was released, and wasn't as impressed though.

Currently, I'm using Xandros, which is a Debian-based commercial distro. There is a free version,though, with a few features disabled. I originally tried it back in January and hated it. Two service packs later, though, the problems that I had with it have been eliminated. On install it found and set up all of my hardware, found and set up my internet connection (via my router and DHCP) and found my Windows network and shared printer, which worked perfectly without any intervention from me. It also installed the proprietary drivers for my nVidia videocard, which most distros require you to do yourself. All of my hard disks were found and set up without having to edit my fstab and USB drives autodetect and mount perfectly.

I started with Xandros because I wanted something that would just work, without my having to constantly fiddle with it. So far, after about a month, it has met that expectation. I found I actually missed the fiddling though, so I have a second drive I can use for trying out distros. That way I don't have to lose my working install when I feel like breaking and (hopefully) fixing things.

A new Ubuntu with the latest Gnome is due out in a few weeks. That might be a good one for you to try. If it's the laptop you're planning to stick it on, it may or may not find and set up your hardward properly, however. Their forums are pretty good though, when you need help.

One thing you might want to consider in the meantime is a live distro. These are distros that are all contained on a CD. You boot from the disk and it sets things up dynamically. Knoppix and a Knoppix derivative called Kanotix are probably the best ones. You'll find links at Distrowatch. Their hardware detection is very good. Trying a live CD would give you an idea of how your computer is likely to deal with Linux without making any permanent changes. If you don't like it, take out the disk and reboot and you'll be right back in Windows.

If you decide you like it, you can install the disk image onto your hard drive in a permanent set up, and be rid of Windows forever. There's also a third option with live CDs. Most of them now allow you to boot from the CD and use a USB memory stick to store all of your settings, so you can make changes to the desktop preferences, program preferences, etc, and have them remembered the next time you boot. This setup is also portable. You can use it on pretty much any computer that's capable of booting from the CD drive. It allows you to take your personal desktop with you anywhere, like to a friend's house, do your computing and then reboot, leaving his machine as you found it.

I don't know if all of that was in any way helpful. I probably could have summed it up with the link to Distrowatch, but that wouldn't have been any fun.

Good luck. You have my email if you have any questions while you're getting set up.

Monkey

@InfiniteMonkey
Wow, I guess you do have an opinion! Shoot me your email address to gogo@mchsi.c(take this out)om. NUTS! Is helping me with a TT Linux hosting project that you may be interested in. XD

And to save Mac users the trouble: Linux TT will not run on Linux/PPC (Mac hardware)

Last edited: Thursday, September 08, 2005 at 6:48:11 PM

I use suse 9.3 and love it. I also use slack, love it. I also use ubuntu, love it. I see that next slack is coming out soon. Will probably give that a try and if its what I am expecting I might move all machines to it. The thing I like most about slack is that it doesn't come with much. Like a music player, but I can throw one on. Then set it up the way I like. SuSe is nice because it comes with just about everything you would want or need. Fedora is nice as well, I just prefer the kde desktop.

@IM (or anyone really, just trying make IM feel special)
For BC's project we have been able to get the server running and get TT up and running. It is actually up now under a ThinkTanksServer name. My problem is that I can't find or access the pref.cs file (please keep in mind I am doing this all from the command line and do not have a gui). I even created one and placed it in the /ThinkTanks/games/server file. Still didn't change the prefs, any ideas? Email me or bc.

The prefs.cs file will be in the home directory of the user account that launches the program within a folder called ",bravetree"

Suppose your user name is nuts: look in /home/nuts/.bravetree/thinktanks/game/server/prefs.cs. Note the dot at the beginning of the.bravetree directory.

Also, if you install Dash's stuff, you have to change the admin password in both pref.cs files to make it stick.

In the trivia department, the ~/.bravetree/thinktanks directory is also where screenshots end up with Linux.

You can also get conflicts between mission and terrain files if you have manually put one of a certain name in the ThinkTanks that lives in /usr/local/games and then as a regular user you let a slightly different version of the map load through the game interface. That shouldn't be a problem here, though, because as I understand it, this is a server only.

Hope that helped.

Monkey

 

Well thats the problem. There is no /home/nuts/.bravetree........Not sure if thats created when run with the gui/console?

Oh.

Well then.

I suppose it is entirely possible that file isn't created until the full game is run. Who knows what the developers had in mind.

I'm making the assumption, by the way, that you installed the game as root, but you're starting the server as a regular user. Is that right?

There very well might be a.bravetree directory in root's home. Try to 'cd /root/.bravetree/thinktanks/game/server' and see if you go anywhere. I have this directory and it has a prefs.cs, even though I've never run the game as root.

If you have this directory, you could copy it over to your regular user's home and then chown the copy to your regular user.

Otherwise, you could try running "updatedb' (wait a few minutes for it to do its thing) then run 'locate prefs.cs' just in case it's gone someplace unexpected..

Beyond that, you could perhaps try copying the.bravetree directly from a working install on another machine (although, again, you'd have to chmod/chown to get the permissions and ownership issues cleared up).

Beyond that I'm somewhat out of ideas.

I miss Dash.