Any Noobs wanting to try Linux:: try "Ubuntu"

from someone who first installed redhat 7 6 years ago as a sphomore in high school, and learned found out how to install it with very little knowledge about it, I was lucky I stuck I got it installed, I was lucky I got it working, and I was lucky I didn't say fuck it. Since then I had tried a slew out for a kicks, mainly the bigs, always dual boot and used maybe 10% of teh time at most. The closest I got to sticking with it was slackware 9 I think, and then FC4 for a bit last year. I got a job at my school in the physics department and had to install ubuntu on a machine. I must say, it was the easiest installation yet. Second off, I was forced to use it, it was all I had- but this didn't matter. I had never used apt-get before and I discovered the beauty of it. In fact, Synaptics may be one of the best things ubuntu has going for it. But I had some minor problems- then I found the brilliant extensive wiki for Ubuntu. No more man commands- for the first time clear and concise explanations that cut down drastically on the bullshit you would normally have to read. It's not perfect, but no distro is, and neither is windows. But there is a reason the whole department is using it- Power, ease, cost, and support. Anybody can use it just like windows, or anybody can use the terminal to access some cluster a server, or do virtually anything. We have one windows machine for everyone to use (mainly for training use with DVDs), but virtually everyone else runs ubuntu, and our other tech guys love it because they don't have to go teach everyone how to use it (just because you have a physics degree doesn't mean you know how a PC runs)

my .02
 
I recommend Slackware. It won't have you so frustrated with compiling, use flags, but it is a dependable distro that works, without the candy layer shell. It's not the easiest to use, but you'll learn much from it. Not to mention, if it breaks, the reason is usually that you fucked something up.

If you aren't too intrested in learning linux (which I highly recommend) and would rather just have something aside from Windows to use, then Ubuntu is fine.
 
Bbq said:
I recommend Slackware. It won't have you so frustrated with compiling, use flags, but it is a dependable distro that works, without the candy layer shell. It's not the easiest to use, but you'll learn much from it. Not to mention, if it breaks, the reason is usually that you fucked something up.

If you aren't too intrested in learning linux (which I highly recommend) and would rather just have something aside from Windows to use, then Ubuntu is fine.
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That us beauty of use flags, that it handles dependancies like no other. Period. Slack has nothing.
 
Just to stir things up even more, I run into dependency problems more frequently in Gentoo (stable) than I do in Ubuntu. :D
 
jimmyb said:
Just to stir things up even more, I run into dependency problems more frequently in Gentoo (stable) than I do in Ubuntu. :D
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Such as? Do you post them to the bugzilla so they can be resolved?
 
Can't say I have. Normally I can resolve the issue myself, or a revdep-rebuild clears it up.

Off the top of my head, I ran into some dbus+hal issues about a year back.
 
jimmyb said:
Can't say I have. Normally I can resolve the issue myself, or a revdep-rebuild clears it up.

Off the top of my head, I ran into some dbus+hal issues about a year back.
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every now and again a big change will really screw some peoples machines up, this is usually down to them not following the migration guide or they are running ~ARCH (or part ~ARCH)

Likewise every now and again something will happen that will really screw up people systems.

I got stung with the binutils that completly screwed up executables,libarys and emerging.

the fix for those effected was to unzip a downloadable toolchain and use that to then re-build the toolchain.


all in all though dependancy's havn't been the problem
 
Archer75 said:
Gentoo? I guess you have to ask how much your time is worth? Yeah, I can and have installed it several times on a few different systems but I have to ask why go through all that crap? I don't need to learn linux at that level. I just need the OS to do it's job. How I got there is irrelevant.

I think the problem with linux is there are too many damn distros. Everyone is off doing thier own thing, the community is too fractured. The software I have come across is quite poor compared to the Windows and OSX counterparts as everyone is more concerned about doing things thier own way that IMO it actually hinders the growth of linux as a whole.

It's great to see that Ubuntu has such a large marketshare on the linux desktop and the community is so large. It's getting a lot of press and making a real difference. And with a more concentrated focus like this linux can grow alot quicker than it ever has before. And become much better.
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agreed


 
Aieget said:
Personally I think Ubuntu still has quite a way to go before it's fully acceptable to a new user.

I only tried Ubuntu myself about a month ago as my first ever Linux installation. Coming from years of troubleshooting Windows PC's, I was quite impressed with how easy and fast the installation was, and especially the fact that it was so easily able to connect to the internet without me having to do anything at all.

What spoilt the whole thing for me though, was that I very quickly realised that it hadn't installed the graphics drivers for my 6800GT properly, or that the drivers it had installed weren't up to par, as I was only able to get the resolution up to 1024x768, which is quite horrible on my 21" CRT.

Fortunately I had just been doing a whole lot of introductory stuff with the Linux command line in the first semester of my Bachelor of Information Tech course, otherwise i would have never gotten as far as I did. For some reason that I couldn't quite fathom the Linux drivers from the Nvidia site refused to install, and I eventually managed after hours of searching the net and fiddling with .conf files to get my res up to 1600x1200.

It was at this point that I decided I wanted to access all my files on my storage drive, and despite everything I could find saying that I should have no problem mounting and accessing it, Ubuntu refused to allow me access it. At this point, frustrated and extremely angry after already spending hours trying to get it to work, I formatted the Ubuntu drive.

So that's why I don't think it's ready for any sort of general use, especially for a public used to Windows. I'll try Linux again for sure, in fact I'll have to, but not just yet.
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that was my basic experience with Gentoo... I've dumped it since its just too hard to use... Hopefully Gentoo is better.


 
As a Linux system admin and Unix admin for over 10 years now iv ran everything from HP-UX to Solaris on both X86/Sun Sparq and for linux Debian since 1994

Gentoo is not that great it borrows a feel from FBSD and imo is not needed I do not myself like gentoo its slow to install regardless of hardware and if your going to use a pre-existing image then I fail to see the point in using it?

I know I would never use gentoo on a live server, suppose I cant hate on it to much as its still better then RH/MDK imo =) I really hate rpms and gentoo is good for clusters easy to compile stuff on 80ghz+ on a 10/1000 network or switched fiber but I would still use and have used Debian on OpenMosix/PVM-Condore cluster

I would recomend Debian Linux as imo its the best you can get its dpkg and apt-get front end are by far the best tools of any distro of Linux

its easier to maintain and scale then gentoo and many others including redhat/mdk, suse, slackware and including some forms of UNIX such as FBSD

not to rag on FBSD I like the BSDi it has its places but so does windows and MacOSX

Debian is not as hard to install as some would rant on its farily easy and has been so since about 1998, use testing if your looking cutting edge or stable if your looking for a more secure reliable setup.

call it... ima debian fanb*y =)
 
lordurza said:
Debian is not as hard to install as some would rant on its farily easy and has been so since about 1998, use testing if your looking cutting edge or stable if your looking for a more secure reliable setup.
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Debian is hard to install when its GUI doesn't recognise your NIC and offers no chance to drop to commandline to figure out why not. But hey, fanb*ys don't need to have a reason to like something. ;)
 
Debian is hard to install when its GUI doesn't recognise your NIC and offers no chance to drop to commandline to figure out why not. But hey, fanb*ys don't need to have a reason to like something.
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no chance to drop a command line even the netinstall offers to drop into a commandline as does the full install ISO images from its various trees or buy the dvd set iv never had a problem and iv had to load manually some NIC cards but that goes for servers laptops and desktops so im not sure what your trying to run it on but it matters not if your GUI sees a NIC and ill imagine you meant graphics card and you can simply install without and run dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86 and reconfigure it with debian also if you need ATI/Nvidia drivers then config them first then run that and reconfigure it.....

I fail to see the problem =) and yes your right do not need a real reason to like it however a long time user I am and on the desktop/laptop and server market and I would say my professional opionion is Debian is by far the best packaged Linux distro on the entire market
 
what happened to yagrasil...that was my favorite in 1995.

man those were the days and tons of fun NOT


sparks
 
what happened to yagrasil...that was my favorite in 1995.

man those were the days and tons of fun NOT


sparks
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iv never heard of that.....
and in 1995 redhat slackware and debian were pretty much the mains.....

kinda just like now everything is a clone of one or the other distros ;p

and 1995 was good times I was younger =) less bills more being young and dumb... ok well im still young and dumb but yea... I was going somewhere with that******
 
lordurza said:
no chance to drop a command line even the netinstall offers to drop into a commandline as does the full install ISO images from its various trees or buy the dvd set iv never had a problem and iv had to load manually some NIC cards but that goes for servers laptops and desktops so im not sure what your trying to run it on but it matters not if your GUI sees a NIC and ill imagine you meant graphics card and you can simply install without and run dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86 and reconfigure it with debian also if you need ATI/Nvidia drivers then config them first then run that and reconfigure it.....

I fail to see the problem =) and yes your right do not need a real reason to like it however a long time user I am and on the desktop/laptop and server market and I would say my professional opionion is Debian is by far the best packaged Linux distro on the entire market
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I don't want to be a bitch, but there was literally no punction in that post (unless you count the "...." pause). It makes it a little difficult to read.
 
ubuntuguide.org was all I needed to get ubuntu running good. And if I had known about automatrix, it would of been twice as easy.

I've found ubuntu easier than redhat and suse because of the community support.
 
jimmyb said:
I don't want to be a bitch, but there was literally no punction in that post (unless you count the "...." pause). It makes it a little difficult to read.
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HOLY COW!! That was hard to read. LoL
 
lordurza said:
no chance to drop a command line even the netinstall offers to drop into a commandline as does the full install ISO images from its various trees or buy the dvd set iv never had a problem and iv had to load manually some NIC cards but that goes for servers laptops and desktops so im not sure what your trying to run it on but it matters not if your GUI sees a NIC and ill imagine you meant graphics card and you can simply install without and run dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86 and reconfigure it with debian also if you need ATI/Nvidia drivers then config them first then run that and reconfigure it.....

I fail to see the problem =) and yes your right do not need a real reason to like it however a long time user I am and on the desktop/laptop and server market and I would say my professional opionion is Debian is by far the best packaged Linux distro on the entire market
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No, I really meant NIC. :rolleyes:
When I tried to use Debian c. 2000 it did not recognise my NIC, much less get me to the stage where it would install X. Incidentally when I tried Gentoo it automatically recognised it - I guess Debian was too old for the recent card (as is often the case, eh).

Punctuation is your friend.
 
"ease of install"

When you include all of the things that you have to do in the OS after the installer stops, it is not easy to install. I don't consider something as installed until it is fully up and running. This took me a good couple of weeks. There are some posts around here that I started that are good reading if you are interested.
 
Damn. I just installed Ubuntu earlier today but I can't get it to recognize my NIC either. I'm fucking clueless on any of the commands too. It sucks.
 
I find it hard to think that it wouldnt install due to a NIC, I can install Debian on any form of hardware with or without a NIC, I think you just didnt read the screen when clicking things typical from the windows community.

ubuntu is debian btw so I fail to see how it had somthing debian did not, it uses the base package configuration and adds in a lot of preconfigured layouts removes root access for the most part and adds in a few other lame things....

try reading the screen next time

RTFM
 
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