Don't know where to ask this...Linux?

PainlessTorture

PainlessTorture

Official Best Member
Vista Pro
Ok, I know this site is called "Vista" but I need some suggestions for a Linux OS.

I am rebuilding my laptop on a Linux OS and was wondering what is the fastest, most secure version?

I know puppy Linux can run solely on RAM which is just cool but I don't know much about the security of that type of system.

Anyone know anything about Linux?

Thanks :)
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Hewlett Packard
    CPU
    3.40Ghz / 2.20Gz Duo Core
    Memory
    2GB / 3GB
    Hard Drives
    160 GB / 160 GB
Hey Fmjc,
If you are seriously thinking about running linux with little or no experience you would probaly do best to use Ubuntu as it is as user friendly as linux gets with sveral support forums.

PS. if you need advice you can always ask

Pooch
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Self build
    CPU
    Phenom II x4 Black Edition 940-Arctic-Cooling Freezer Xtreme
    Motherboard
    Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe
    Memory
    8 gig Samsung PC800 RAM
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVidia 9600gt
    Sound Card
    AD1988b
    Monitor(s) Displays
    22" TFT-MONITOR WIDESCREEN mit VGA/DVI 17" Video7 TFT
    Screen Resolution
    1680 : 1050 1280 : 1024
    Hard Drives
    Drive #1 - SAMSUNG HD252HJ (250 GB)
    Drive #2 - Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 (1000 GB)
    Drive #3 - SAMSUNG HD250HJ (250 GB)
    Drive #4 - SAMSUNG HD103UJ (1000 GB) External eSATA
    PSU
    Thermaltake Toughpower Cable Management 750W
    Case
    Enermax Chakra
    Cooling
    2x 120mm Front and Back 1x 250mm Side
    Keyboard
    Standard
    Mouse
    Easy Line Laser Mouse
    Internet Speed
    16000
    Other Info
    I have also used Fedora, Suse, Ubuntu Linux
    And all other Windows from 95 to date except ME
pooch said:
Hey Fmjc,
If you are seriously thinking about running linux with little or no experience you would probaly do best to use Ubuntu as it is as user friendly as linux gets with sveral support forums.

PS. if you need advice you can always ask

Pooch
Click to expand...

I'm inexperienced with Linux, but know just about everything about windows so I am going to try to use Linux too as it would be stupid not to learn one of the most widely used OS in the world.

I am a very fast learner and seem to have a way with computers. I have had no training with computers and seem to know a lot more than an average windows user. Well, I trained myself with windows. Should be interesting to try Linux :)

Thanks for your suggestion :)
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Hewlett Packard
    CPU
    3.40Ghz / 2.20Gz Duo Core
    Memory
    2GB / 3GB
    Hard Drives
    160 GB / 160 GB
I think its a great idea, I quite regulary play with linux when I get bored with windows and have tried several distros. :)

I hope you have fun

Pooch
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Self build
    CPU
    Phenom II x4 Black Edition 940-Arctic-Cooling Freezer Xtreme
    Motherboard
    Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe
    Memory
    8 gig Samsung PC800 RAM
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVidia 9600gt
    Sound Card
    AD1988b
    Monitor(s) Displays
    22" TFT-MONITOR WIDESCREEN mit VGA/DVI 17" Video7 TFT
    Screen Resolution
    1680 : 1050 1280 : 1024
    Hard Drives
    Drive #1 - SAMSUNG HD252HJ (250 GB)
    Drive #2 - Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 (1000 GB)
    Drive #3 - SAMSUNG HD250HJ (250 GB)
    Drive #4 - SAMSUNG HD103UJ (1000 GB) External eSATA
    PSU
    Thermaltake Toughpower Cable Management 750W
    Case
    Enermax Chakra
    Cooling
    2x 120mm Front and Back 1x 250mm Side
    Keyboard
    Standard
    Mouse
    Easy Line Laser Mouse
    Internet Speed
    16000
    Other Info
    I have also used Fedora, Suse, Ubuntu Linux
    And all other Windows from 95 to date except ME
Hi Fmjc001,

Just one tip if you do go for Ubuntu and if you have a Nvidia Graphics card I would suggest you go for the 8.04 Hardy Heron release as the new 8.10 Intrepid Ibis release has some serious issues with the Nvidia Drivers at the moment, mind you it was only released on the 30th October :D

also if you have the suitable hardware go for the 64 bit version
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • Operating System
    Windows 10 Pro x64 Latest Release Preview
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer G276HL 27", (DVi) + Samsung 39" HDTV (HDMI)
    Screen Resolution
    2 x 1920x1080 @50Hz
  • Manufacturer/Model
    Real World Computers (Custom by Me)
    CPU
    AMD FX8350 Vishera 8 Core @4GHz
    Motherboard
    Asus M5A78L-M USB3
    Memory
    32GB [4x8GB] DDR3 1600 MHz
    Graphics card(s)
    Asus nVidia GTX750TI-OC-2GD5 (2GB DDR5)
    Sound Card
    ASUS Xoner DG + SPDIF to 5.1 System + HDMI
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung 32" TV
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    Internal
    Crucial CT256MX100SSD1 256GB SSD,
    Seagate ST2000DM001-1CH1 2TB,

    External (USB3)
    Seagate Backup+ Hub BK SCSI Disk 8TB
    2.5/3.5 Hot Swap Cradle, USB3 + eSata (client HDDs)
    NAS 4TB
    PSU
    Aerocool Templarius Imperator 750W 80+ Silver
    Case
    AeroCool X-Warrior Red Devil Tower
    Cooling
    Hyper103 CPU, Rear 120mm, Front 2x120mm, Side 2x120mm
    Internet Speed
    68 MB Down 18.5 MB Up
    Other Info
    Six Sensor Auto / Manual Digital cooling (Fan) control with Touch control Panel
barman58 said:
Hi Fmjc001,

Just one tip if you do go for Ubuntu and if you have a Nvidia Graphics card I would suggest you go for the 8.04 Hardy Heron release as the new 8.10 Intrepid Ibis release has some serious issues with the Nvidia Drivers at the moment, mind you it was only released on the 30th October :D

also if you have the suitable hardware go for the 64 bit version
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip ;)
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Hewlett Packard
    CPU
    3.40Ghz / 2.20Gz Duo Core
    Memory
    2GB / 3GB
    Hard Drives
    160 GB / 160 GB
You can use Fedora or Suse if you want something "advanced" in some way... They are cool and no so "easy-to-use" as Ubuntu.

But the 3 are good distributions!
 

My Computer

System One

If you go for ubuntu then you can use the wubi installer which will install linux from within windows, and then if you dont like it you can remove it via add/remove programs, wubi will auto download the ISO for ubuntu upon running the application. The only problem with this way is that the download is way slow. You can get around this by downloading the ISO beforehand into to same folder as the wubi installer, and then once the ISO has download you can run the wubi installer and it auto pick up on the ISO and start the installation.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell
    CPU
    2.53 Celery Stick
    Memory
    2Gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    Onboard
    Sound Card
    Onboard
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Viewsonic
    Screen Resolution
    1280*1024
    Hard Drives
    320Gb Western Digital
    Case
    Dell Standard
    Internet Speed
    20Mb
I dual boot my lap top with Ubuntu and Vista. If you use Lexmark printer Linux won't work with you printer. Ubuntu can run off of disc and you can check hardware issues before doing a complete instal.
 

My Computer

System One

You might want to try it out with vmware or virtualbox in windows first so if anything bad happens you can still log into windows.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Self built
    CPU
    Intel E8400 3GHz
    Motherboard
    Intel DX48BT2
    Memory
    Kingston PC3-10666 4Gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    XFX 9800 GTX XXX
    Sound Card
    Soundblaster X-Fi XtremeMusic
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2x Samsung SM-T220HD 22"
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050 on two monitors
    Hard Drives
    WD Raptor X/150Gb in RAID0
    WD Raptor 36gb
    3x Samsung F1 1Tb
    PSU
    Thermaltake ToughPower 850w
    Case
    Thermaltake Armor
    Cooling
    Tuniq Tower 120
    Keyboard
    Dell Multimedia Enhanced USB
    Mouse
    Razer Diamondback 3G
    Internet Speed
    8128/832
    Other Info
    Thermaltake Muse esata caddy
I am currently using Linux Ubuntu 8.10 and so far i am impressed. This is the most current version and if you are a new user I would highly recommend it. I installed it on a seperate drive all by itself and it recognized all my hardware and even my Air Card modem works just fine without having to pre-install any software .There are 1 or 2 lines of programming to enter in the terminal but if you go to Ubuntu's website all the enties are clearly explained step by step



Cheers, have fun:)
 

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System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    HP Media Centre PC m8400f
    CPU
    AMD Phenom 9500 Quad Core Processor
    Motherboard
    AMD Phenom
    Memory
    3.00 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT
    Sound Card
    Realtek High Definition Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Generic PnP Monitor
    Screen Resolution
    1024 x 768
    Hard Drives
    ST336032 OAS SCSI Disk Device x 2
    PSU
    600 watt
    Case
    HP
    Keyboard
    HP 5189
    Mouse
    HP
    Internet Speed
    Broadband
    Other Info
    DVD/CD-ROM Drive- TSSTcorp CDDVDW TS-H653N CdRom Device
    1T Media Drive
    Logitech 400w sound system
I too have recently taken the plunge into Linux. The first thing that struck me was: holy crap, there are a lot of Linux distributions. So, before doing any research I tried Ubuntu. Mind you, I did not (and still have not) installed Linux, but booted from a live CD; If you want to try several distributions, live CDs are definitely the way to go.

The first thing I tried was a folder transfer of ~8GB from an internal hard drive to an external USB drive. Imagine my surprise when it announced it was transferring at 10MB/s, a speed I've never seen in Vista or XP. And imagine my utter astonishment to witness the transfer rate climb to 13MB/s!! This underscored my feelings that Microsoft has really been dragging their ass on fixing stupid bugs that should have been gone in Win2k simply because of their vast and luxurious PC market share. But I digress...

After trying now five (soon six) distributions (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Linux Mint, Debian Live, and Fedora), I've come to a few conclusions:

  1. There is a complete lack of information on the web for skilled Windows users looking to jump ship. Each site totes the biggest benefit of their distribution is that it's free. No sh¡t Sherlock, that's because it uses a Linux kernel and is GPL; tell me something I don't know.
  2. Having used only Windows my whole life, I was unprepared for the plethora of choices that exist, which is further complicated by my lack of knowledge on these subjects because Windows makes things like the kernel and the desktop environment seem inseparable.
  3. I prefer GNOME over KDE.
  4. Most people have no understanding whatsoever of how complicated a personal computer really is, let alone how to use Windows.
So far, Linux Mint has come out on top of every metric I'm using to determine which distribution to install. Pending any further developments (someone suggested I try UNIX...I don't know if I have the patience), it looks like Linux Mint will win.

It'll be so nice to get away from Windows for a while. Until, that is, I have to use software for which there is no decent Linux counterpart or that Wine won't run...
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    HP DV8000
    CPU
    AMD Turion 64 Mobile (2.20GHz)
    Motherboard
    HP 430180-001
    Memory
    2GB SDRAM w/ 4GB ReadyBoost, 256MB Video RAM
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon Xpress 200M
    Sound Card
    internal
    Monitor(s) Displays
    internal
    Screen Resolution
    1680 x 1050
    Hard Drives
    3 120GB (2 internal, 1 ex.) and a 1TB external (all Western Digital)
    PSU
    internal
    Case
    Black like a stallion with silver trim.
    Cooling
    I tilt my laptop up from the back...
    Keyboard
    internal 104-key Windows QWERTY
    Mouse
    Microsoft Wireless Notebook Optical Mouse 4000
    Internet Speed
    um...fast?
    Other Info
    My computer is pretty.
I think Linux is widely distributed but its not user-friendly.
Also, Canonical will charge you for the support.
I m a big fan of windows as its "Endlessly Configurable".
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Compaq
    CPU
    intel core 2 duo T 5550 @ 1.83 MHz
    Motherboard
    intel 965 chipset family
    Memory
    2 GB DDR 2 SD RAM @ 667 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    On board upto 358 MB RAM
    Sound Card
    Onboard
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15"
    Hard Drives
    160 GB WDC
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