What is Reddit's opinion of
DistroWatch?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
100 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
This sounds like the kind of thing its creator would've probably talked about in an interview at some point...so let's try that -
https://www.google.com/search?q=arch+pacman+interview
The second link looks perfect.
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>Pacman doesn't really do anything that other package managers have not done before. It's goal is to do all the mundane parts of package management, leaving the tricky parts up to the ever-capable administrator.
"Would you be able to compare pacman with apt-get? Is there anything that pacman does better than apt-get?"
>Apt-get is far more mature and feature-rich than pacman. But functionality-wise the two are comparable. Pacman's --sync operation was definitely inspired by apt-get, but pacman is more of a "complete" packaging system, whereas apt-get fills in the features that dpkg doesn't provide.
>In my limited experience with apt-get, the only complaints I had were the awkward split between apt-get and dpkg, and the odd time when apt-get would fubar my system with its recommended upgrades/replaces. Otherwise it's a great tool. I used it for a good while with PLD.
~~-------~~
And there you go, there's your answer. Judd Vinet wanted to create a simple standalone package manager for his operating system.
Being sarcastic is fun an all, but there are actually many free tools available that you can download, which will disable all of the "undesirable" features of Windows 10. I don't know why some people make such a fuss about it.
that's a super general question.
as far a ricing (looking "pretty") goes, you can rice any distro. it's all about setting up the applications you want and configuring them. the first, and biggest, step is deciding which environment to use. full blown desktop (DE) or just a simple window manager (WM). both have pros and cons, but many (not all) the setups you see here are just a wm. i suggest to everyone who asks this to try the linuxbbq cream live iso. it's got 76 different window managers pre-installed so you can try out lots of them and see what you like.
the distro question on the other hand is much harder to answer. there are a great number of them, and many are variants of the same base, each with different goals and methods of doing things. i guess my best suggestion is to visit distrowatch and read up. i'm a distrohopper. i try out lots of them and change my setup when i see something new i want to try out. i don't understand fanatical devotion to one or another. at their core they're similar in many ways. just pick one and dive in. for me, the best way to learn is to do. lots of people will suggest you start with a simple system to get and get your feet wet, while others will tell you to try something more challenging and learn a lot very quickly. it's all about how you want to learn.
"The DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics are a light-hearted way of measuring the popularity of Linux distributions and other free operating systems among the visitors of this website. They correlate neither to usage nor to quality and should not be used to measure the market share of distributions. They simply show the number of times a distribution page on DistroWatch.com was accessed each day, nothing more." http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity
Firstly, Debian likes forks :) (http://distrowatch.com/search.php?basedon=Debian&status=Active). We're quite comfortable with others taking Debian and modifying to suit their needs.
In Devuan's particular case though, I think they run the risk of underestimating just what a large job running a distribution is. In the end, it comes down to volunteer time. There wasn't enough people who were willing to put the work in to ensure that sysVinit was the default in Debian itself, so I'm not convinced that Devuan will continue as long as Debian has. I'd be happy to be proven wrong though!
How old is the Netbook? I have one from 2008 that I just installed Lubuntu on and it runs perfectly. Lubuntu is a somewhat lighter version of Ubuntu with the lightweight LXDE desktop environment, and I highly recommend it!
You could also look into the LXLE distro. I haven't tried it, but it's based on Lubuntu and is supposedly even lighter. Plus, there are countless other distros out there that emphasize old hardware/netbooks. Check out Distrowatch to start the search!
The same way as you do with Windows.
You download a Linux distro .iso. http://distrowatch.com/
Burn the .iso into a bootable image. onto any type of media. Rufus is a good tool for this.
Change boot sequence to boot off that media device.
Now you follow instruction to install Linux onto that drive.
You can buy the media just like you can with Windows. By going here.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-ubutab-a-1tb-ubuntu-tablet-for-media-lovers
$36,000 to make a tablet? Really? Design, fabrication, and manufacture?
The founders bio says:
Hard working farm and city girl with big dreams and endless ambition.
"Growing up on a farm, I learned a lot about hard work and responsibility early on in life. This dedication and work ethic helped me tackle my first 4 years of college. I'm currently perusing my Masters of Education at the University of Minnesota"
ANother guy wrote:
"I work in the engineering field and have done numerous projects. Designs and mockups mean nothing unless you have actual working prototype.
Your first prototypes will cost between 30 to 50K minimum. Anyone can source parts and estimate costs etc. The processor alone is in the $80 range not including pcba costs unless your using pre-made hardware.
I can assure 39K will only be tip of the iceberg to start this project not complete it."
My concern is for Distrowatch attaching implicit backing by having the ad on their frontpage. This is going to burn a lot of people if its not shut down.
Being "quite familiar with computers" is not close to knowing enough to safely hack your bully. you are about a decade away from being a hacker.
don't send the trojan. you have no idea what you are doing and it will be traced back to you.
if you are seriously interested in IT and hacking related stuff, pick up a linux distribution and set up a web server, mail server, dns server... etc. learn some networking protocols. pick up TCP/IP Illustrated.
in the mean time, spread rumors to the girls in your school that the bully has herpes and leave it at that.
This made me remember of a time, when I "repaired" a broken laptop for a friend with a Slax live cd, the laptop had a faulty HDD and was really outdated even back then, so replacing it wasn't going to happen.
No, but they're probably targetting the users of Sabily, formally called "Ubuntu Muslim Edition"
Or even, Ubuntu Satanic Edition, Currently banned from distrowatch...
Well > The DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics are a light-hearted way of measuring the popularity of Linux distributions and other free operating systems among the visitors of this website. They correlate neither to usage nor to quality and should not be used to measure the market share of distributions. They simply show the number of times a distribution page on DistroWatch.com was accessed each day, nothing more.
What kind of people visit distrowatch? - My guess: people that are interested to know more about other distros (already not the typical kind of Ubuntu user / focus group of Canonical).
Which distro page is maybe the least interesting one for them? - Probably the one about the distro they are already running.
I always viewed Linux Mint like an highly attractive alternative for Ubuntu users, that feel uncomfortable with some of Canonicals decisions but are too conservative to switch to a totally different kind of system. So it wouldn't surprise me if most of the visitors of the mint page are actually running Ubuntu.
Quite a few distros have an ARM port: http://distrowatch.com/search.php?notbasedon=Debian&architecture=arm&status=Active (debian shows in the list because debian is not based on debian :-) )
Stick a major distro unless you have a very good reason to go for something niche http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major . Personally I'd recommend starting with Ubuntu, it is well established with lots of developers and users, big software selection, easy to find help and the defaults are designed for new users.
Just try it - download a few live images, give them a spin, and see if you like any of them. Or, if your machine is beefy enough, install in a VM. Won't cost you more than an hour or two of your time, you're not going to touch your existing OS at all, and you can still pay for a Windows 10 license if it doesn't work out. Booting a live image will also tell you whether your hardware is going to work without hickups - if the LiveCD boots and everything works, you're golden, and even if it doesn't, you might still get there with a bit of tinkering.
As far as distro choice goes, check out distrowatch. More important than the distro, however, is the Desktop Environment (DE); be sure to sample the popular ones to see which one you like - KDE and Gnome are the traditional choices - feature complete, mature, but somewhat on the heavy side; then there's the "newcomers" (Unity, MATE, Cinnamon); and the lightweight ones (Xfce, LXDE). If you don't want to invest any time whatsoever into researching these things, I'd recommend Linux Mint's KDE edition.
Gaming is kind of a hot iron still; technically, Linux-based operating systems are better for gaming than Windows (more efficient access to the hardware, better realtime scheduling, better timing primitives, ...), but due to social reasons (politics, market, etc.), the overwhelming majority of quality games hasn't been released for Linux yet. If you're just looking for casual gaming, Steam's Linux catalog should be good enough, or maybe you'll even find enough free software games that you enjoy; but if you're a hardcore gamer, I'd recommend keeping a Windows partition around to avoid disappointment.
For the other use cases, you should be fine.
Yes, the kernel is still Linux. But look at an average Linux desktop, and at an Android phone and you will see how little kernel means in the grand scheme of things.
I used to think that Stallman's insistence to call it GNU/Linux was some silly attention whoring, and it took Android to prove me that he was right all along. They are different operating systems, which happen to share the kernel.
EDIT: on the other hand there exists Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, that's closer than Android to what I used to think Linux was, even though it doesn't use Linux.
With the netbook, get a USB to ethernet adapter and a USB thumbdrive.
You can boot off the USB using one of these distros
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=firewalls
You now have a pretty kick ass firewall.
Take the tower and make it a LInux server (Ubuntu... just don't boot into the GUI). Run SMB, HTTPD and FTP on it and make it your media server for all your other PC's.
Take the notebook and make it into a digital frame. Then, take a video of your family or whatnot and loop it. Set it to the screensaver and you got yourself a Harry Potter-esque moving picture.
Get a .12 ga and shoot the monitor.
I'm using the Elementary OS Beta (Freya-Isis).
It's basically just Ubuntu under the hood.
And it's beautiful: Screenshot
I'm not sure about it being stable, resource hungry, buggy, etc, but I don't notice any major problems, even though I'm on Beta.
It's not a one man show, there is a development team. I'm not sure if there is a active larger developer community or not, but there is an active interest, it's number 8 on Distro Watch
I'd consider waiting for the new release since the last version (Luna) is based on a rather old version of Ubuntu.
I condiser it a solid distro.
If you look at the DistroWatch rankings, Fedora ranks 5th.
It's probably used as much as any other distro. There are just less Fedora users browsing reddit (probably).
Probably more a question for /r/linuxquestions or /r/Linux4noobs.
Check http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major
The difference between major distros (and the distros based on them) are beyond UI and cosmetics. The difference between forks of the same major is mostly Desktop Environment by default (UI) though.
Edit: Added links.
One nice thing about Linux is many distros run live off a USB - no “installation”. Put Ubuntu (or whatever) on a USB, boot it up, play with it. You don’t like it, or it it’s not compatible with your rig, try another distro.
Go to http://distrowatch.com to see popular distros and latest releases.
Linux is very easy. After you start getting your hands dirty. You'll be wondering, why I didn't do this years ago.
Ubuntu or any of it's family. Also Mint....
Enjoy getting your hands dirty.
[](/sunsetexplains)Of a search on DistroWatch for any kind of Linux-based OS that specializes in multimedia applications, one of the most popular is Ubuntu Studio. Since it's based on Ubuntu, it should be easily navigable and easily installable. Since it's a studio edition, it should be capable of supporting non-free codecs and should come pre-packaged with audio editing tools, video editing tools, art creating tools, and basically everything else of that ilk. You can take a look at the other OSs in that list and see if there's another that you'd prefer.
If that's not up your alley, or if you think you're experienced enough with GNU/Linux to build your own to best take advantage of your high-ranged hardware, you may want to consider Arch Linux. I haven't done this myself, but even so I find myself regularly using the Arch Wiki because its community is knowledgeable and well documented.
I've only ever used Fedora, but its focus on only officially including free/libre software precludes using patent-encumbered and non-free codecs, which means you won't really want it unless you're okay with adding RPMFusion's "Bad" and "Ugly" repositories or you know how to view and create "free" multimedia (e.g. recording and publishing with Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora and WebM, among few others). I do not recommend it for YouTubers.
It is imperative you get that data off immediately by any means necessary, I have dealt with far too many people that just went with it for an extra week and lost everything.
If it is your only HD and running an OS, download a liveCD for whatever flavor of Linux you want and throw it onto a flash drive. Boot to that and backup your files that way, the OS will put a lot of unnecessary stress on the HD and cause it to burn out quicker. If this isn't a viable option then take out the HD bring it to a friend's place, throw it into their computer and back up everything that way.
Going back to the replacement, with time frames anywhere between four months to a year (I've heard a million different projections) and you're current HD on it's last breathe I say just bite the bullet and do it. Might be able to score a decent deal on black friday (but do the backup immediately!).
Good luck, hope it all works out for you!
There are some issues with your question. First off, "Linux" is the kernel (cue GNU/ GNU+ jokes...) and a lot of what is called Linux, and what is part of the OS, is actually not Linux.
It is splintered into distributions, of which you will probably select some notable ones (off the top of my head some of the influential ones: Slackware, Gentoo, Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat, Fedora, Arch, Mint, OpenSUSE, Knoppix)
The "problem" now is that most of these are still updated every day, so there is not really a definitive version for you to grab.
You could go with the first official release of each of them. That's probably what I would do. But Ubuntu and Fedora for example, have 2 releases a year. Arch has no releases at all (but rolling updates) and many distros even have different branches that release at different times.
How are you going to display your collection? Are you just going to collect the .iso files of each? Or do you want a physical copy? A lot of them don't have official physical copies, but you will find plenty of user-made box and disc art for all of them.
Good luck!
Edit: Distrowatch is probably your best bet for a universal source on information on the different distributions.
That depends, you have Tiny Core which is for ancient hardware, there is Puppy Linux for old hardware and if you want something modern but lightweight, I recommend building yourself a setup from Arch Linux.
Guix is still missing :(
Guix is a GNU(/Linux) distribution that uses Nix and for package description it uses EDSL in Scheme
EDIT: of course, congrats, NixOS!!! :)
Ubuntu is a Linux distribution.
If the meaning of that is unclear, then yes, I'd suggest you do start with the very user-friendly Ubuntu, or Linux Mint.
There's also Elementary OS and many others that are geared toward new users converting from Windows. Check out DistroWatch for a list of popular distros (distributions ['flavors' of Linux]) and what their intended use/audience is.
Which is completely meaningless:
> The DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics are a light-hearted way of measuring the popularity of Linux distributions and other free operating systems among the visitors of this website. They correlate neither to usage nor to quality and should not be used to measure the market share of distributions. They simply show the number of times a distribution page on DistroWatch.com was accessed each day, nothing more.
Other alternatives include Antergos or Apricity, which are both based on Arch, have graphical installers, and provide a more refined user experience ("just works") than vanilla Arch as well.
Apricity is the newest and from what I've seen of it, the best looking one, and offers Cinnamon as a desktop environment out of the box, if you've enjoyed Mint so far.
Lite, Netrunner, Elementary, Peppermint, PCLinuxOS, openSUSE,Korora, Sabayon, Voyager, BunsenLabs, Etc.
Try out some Window Mangers. That should take the boredom out.
i3, JWM, or openbox.
Make things look like at r/unixporn
Depends. Why not head over to Distrowatch and have a look at what each of the top-ranked distros have to offer. (page hit ranking list is on the right)
I'm sure you'll get a lot of replies to try this or that, but Distrowatch actually shows the real differences between each one, which will help you make a more informed choice.
The weekly news on Distrowatch is kind of crap though. I think that part could be done a hell of a lot better. Especially distro reviews. Just as an example this:
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20151109#fedora
This is garbage. I think we could do better.
According to DistroWatch, these are the "Top Ten distros today" and these are the top ten distros by pagehits. Debian and Ubuntu are #2 and #2 respectively while Fedora is #5 by pagehits. Arch seems to be #9 by pagehits.
The Distrowatch-search missed LMDE
Hello, welcome abroad:
First things first Download a distro, this can be Ubuntu or Linux Mint or many other distros that might interest you the installation is pretty straight forward.
Depends on what companies you like when it comes to game making, some of them support Linux while others don't. (Meaning you won't find any native Blizzard games here, although you might be able to get them up and running via wine)
There are, but you can get used to it pretty quickly. Best of luck!
> what would be a best distro for someone who does 3D modeling/gaming and overall games development?
All of top distro. Go to http://distrowatch.com/ and try 3-5 livecd of Top 10.
> do I have to install the Linux distro on the separate hard-drive or can I install it on my SSD along with the Windows?
You can install Linux on separate partition or hard drive/ssd.
Orange étant suspecté de laisser la porte ouverte aux services secrets français, ça promet. Sinon :
Old computer
Ubuntu might be too heavy, may want to try one of the *buntu variants.
You might also want to burn a few ISO Crunchbang, Wheezy, Cylon, Zorin, Puppy and have him try a few before install.
Also pay attention to the Architecture compatibility.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Linux_distributions#Architecture_support
Depends on why you want to install Ubuntu. If you want to just test it out, I would suggest using VirutalBox so you can do a complete install on a virtual desktop without any risk to your files. Plus, you can easily test any other OS just as easily. If you want to look at different OS' try poking around DistroWatch, it really helped me when I was trying to decide what OS I was going to use.
Or just do what R00t4rd3d said.
Install what flavor your friends are using. So they can help you further.
>1) What should I know before setting up Linux
Just take it slow. If you know how to install an operating system. You already know enough to get started.
>2) How do I update my drivers/get software on Linux (Graphics driver most importantly)
99% of the time it's already been done for you. May be do a few minor things manually. But, pretty much of this is on auto.
>3) What are some recommended programs?
It depends how you going to use your computer. Most important software is already preinstall for you. A beginners basic package you can call it.
>4) What makes Linux so much better than the competition, and why isn't it more popular?
After you install Linux and use it. You'll know why. Checkout http://distrowatch.com/ for popularity.
> 5) How is the OS performance in comparison to Windows
Again, it depends how your going to use Linux. Performance is great. As long you can use Linux software and able to stay away from Windows software.
> So 16.04 is coming in 6 months?
It should, and then the elementary team will spend some time building eOS on top of it. If the release dates on DistroWatch are to believed, there was about 4 months from 13.04 to Luna and about 12 months from 15.04 to Freya. If we're lucky, we'll see a new eOS around this time next year.
I think you're better off trying a minimal install of a major distro, then installing whatever software you need instead of looking for a so-called lightweight distro.
For example grab a CD or netinstall ISO of Debian or even a Ubuntu Server ISO then when installing choose the advanced/expert setup and deselect everything when it offers a selection of software to install.
Once done, you can install your Desktop Environment from the command-line with apt-get. This is probably what is the most important if you want a desktop OS light enough on an old PC. I recommend XFCE or LXDE/LXQT. If you like tinkering you could also check Windows managers like Fluxbox.
Here are guides with screenshots from a quick google on how to proceed :
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/LowMemorySystems
If all this sounds too complex, check DistroWatch they have a search category dedicated to old computers and it should meet your requirements : http://distrowatch.com/search.php?ostype=Linux&category=Old+Computers&origin=All&basedon=All&notbasedon=None&desktop=All&architecture=All&status=Active
It can really be quite easy to do, try out any distro you think you might like in a VM or on a thumbdrive. If you feel like it might be for you, but are unsure of making the full conversion... You can always dual-boot. There is a ton of support all over the internet that is freely available. :) DistroWatch.Com
Linux mint would definitely not be my first choice for an older machine (of course, it completely depends on what qualifies as old).
Here are some common suggestions for sub-512MiB machines: http://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=Old+Computers
>All it counts is how many people with that distro visit distrowatch.
no, that's totally wrong. it's a page hit ranking e.g. how many times the "Ubuntu" page is requested and "Only one hit per IP address per day is counted."
> We provide you with package repositories for the most common Linux distributions.
So that'll be why they have packages for Arch, but not Fedora, Debian (though I suspect the Ubuntu packages could be coaxed into installing, in this case), OpenSUSE, Mandriva, or PCLinuxOS (all of which are on DistroWatch's "Top Ten Distributions" list, while Arch is not) then.
Don't get me wrong, it's good they have a package for Arch, but to say they provide repos for "the most common Linux distributions" seems a little bit of an exaggeration.
I recommend you spend some time on http://distrowatch.com/ pick a flavor, download the .iso file, right click it > burn to DVD, stick it in your "other" computer and install Linux.
Yeah - but that's a bit too old.
I would go with Tinycore, or Puppy
I would start with Lubuntu for that fella. It'll be faster.
http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=09796
And if you feel like beta testing their newest revision:
http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=09880
You can test any OS you want by booting to it as a live cd/usb. See which one works/looks best before you install it.
Just write it to a usb with this and boot to it:
Linux Mint is base on Debian. So package Manager is apt
CentOS is base on Redhat. So package Manager is yum/dnf
To me there isn't much difference to any of the Linux distro's except the Package Manager.
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=package-management
Then your got the Desktop Environments and Window Managers. To learn how to use each one of them.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/desktop_environment
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/window_manager
Buying a Unix book. Helps learning all those GNU toolchain. Even a old book will help. It helps to use the Linux commands. I bought a book call Unix Shells by Example Third Edition by Ellie Quigley. It sure help me out. To learn more about using commands in my terminal.
Even bought a book to receive a Linux+ Certificate.
CompTIA Linux+ Powered by Linux Professional Institute Study Guide Third Edition. By Christine Bresnhan and Richard Blum.
Been using Linux for 13 years. So I'm diffidently using Linux power tools by now. All the GUI is just a color curtain. It's what behind the curtain that counts.
Enjoy Linux. I never went back to Windows. Concentrating on one OS, you'll become a pro at it.
I thought this was kind of interesting. The linux community tends to be rather harsh towards KDE for some unknown reason.. and just perusing around /r/linux or /r/linux_gaming or /r/unixporn, sometimes it seems like just about nobody uses it. When I do see discussion about it outside of this subreddit, usually it starts spawning comments about how bad/buggy/resource-hungry/etc they think KDE is.
Not a terribly big sample size (582 users), but it's nice to see it on top.
In other news... in the last 30 days (rightmost column), KDE Neon was the 15th most viewed page on Distrowatch :D http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity
You might be better served at /r/linuxquestions or /r/linux4noobs.
Also it's pretty hard to recommend a distribution for someone else. Take a look at http://distrowatch.com/ and consider your options.
Distros with relatively up-to-date programs with little maintenance:
- Fedora (you will need rpmfusion for codecs)
- Ubuntu
- OpenSuse
Before you choose any of these or others, I would suggest visiting distrowatch and in the distros that you are interested checking some package versions. For example for Fedora, the page is http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=fedora and in the section titled "Table Notes and Explanations" select "All tracked packages" and refresh. Then do the same with other distros and compare which packages are more important for you to have up to date. In my little research it seems that Fedora Rawhide (rolling release) and OpenSuse tumbleweed (also rolling release) are the most up to date. However, for stability I would prefer Fedora 22 or OpenSuse 13.2.
Any distribution should do the job (altough there was some concerns in the past with Ubuntu (Amazon Lenses)).
Some solid beginner-friendly distros are Xubuntu, Linux Mint.
Take a look at distrowatch and perhaps test them in live cd mode before installing.
> I'm going to be scowering the interwbes another 30 minutes for other distros
Distrowatch more or less has all distros, you can look at there if you want. Otherwise, feel free to just pick one, you can't really go wrong. Whatever you can do with one distro, you can do with others too.
I use the Fedora Linux distribution. That is where you get Fedora. You have to burn the ISO image to either a USB stick or a DVD and reboot your computer to install it. You will have to install additional software to get a setup similar to what your friend showed you. You should get some guidance from him for installing software and exactly what to install to obtain a similar setup.
You can also visit DistroWatch for other options, but most distributions of Linux will be similar once installed. The main thing is to find one with good community support/documentation and a sufficiently comprehensive repository of software for you to choose from. Fedora should meet both requirements.
My only concern is that you called it "some kind of Fedora thing." You need to understand that it will replace Windows 8 on your computer and it will not run the same software that you use in Windows.
Let that sink in.
It can be installed alongside Windows, but unless you run one or the other in a virtual machine, you will have to choose which one to run when you start the computer.
I suggest that you find someone who can help you decide how to set it up and to help you with the particulars of doing so.
Distrowatch’s rankings have always been useless, as the site itself explains. For example, Ubuntu has more desktop users than all the others combined, but often (as now) isn’t even ranked #1.
However, this article isn’t about the rankings, it’s about the number of distributions in active development. Do you think Distrowatch is worse at counting distributions than it used to be? If so, why?
Have you tried cinnamon UI? I guess its just opinion but the new version is just around the corner and it looks to be better than ever. And if you go to distrowatch, Mint and Mageia is getting clearly more attention than Ubuntu. But I do have to Agree with you that both Elementaryos and Mint deserves more respect than the core Ubuntu is getting right now.
What resources did you use? What did you do exactly? What hardware are you install Linux onto?
You download a Linux distro .ISO. You find them here.
You burn that .ISO into a bootable image. Using Rufus will do a good job for you.
You set your BIOS to boot from your USB flash drive if that's what you going to use. Change your boot sequence to boot off the USB flash drive that your created from that Linux .ISO file.
Now you should be seeing Linux in a live version. From there you just double click on the install icon and the way you go.
So your still using Linux Mint?
Explain about the crashing and maybe we can help.
If you don't like Mint. There are 281+ more Linux distro's to try out.
If you got Linux Mint install. Then you should know how to install others.
>I looked up free OSes and they all expect me to download ISOs.
.ISO you just burn that image to a USB flash drive and to make it bootable to install your OS.
Unless you want to buy one already made up for you.
I'm on an openSUSE spinoff right now (GeckoLinux), and it's quite fantastic actually. Much prefer it to Ubuntu, which has really gone downhill lately.
No, Canonical's lawyers did, in fact, contact Linux Mint and demand that they accept their license. See e.g. here (Ctrl+F → "fee for using"). Although they didn't really want money, they wanted to impose certain restrictions on Mint, especially when it comes to the OEM market.
Hi, I have installed Linux on hundreds of computers (for family and mostly friends and some people I don't know, who wanted something better than Windows). I have probably a hundred cd's and I don't know how many USB's with Linux distros on them.
I would suggest for you, as I do with everyone I install Linux for, to start off with Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition. Everyone says 'Ubuntu' but I found Ubuntu to be missing 'stuff' and 'not all that.'
Now, Linux Mint is another story. I used Linux Mint for years and never had a problem with it. I have family and friends who say they love 'The Mint' and will never go back to the Windows way. Most just leave the distro as is (of course I applied my own tweaks and installed a bunch extra software) and others have gone on and tweaked a bunch of stuff for themselves. Linux Mint is an awesome distro and still will be very familiar for someone just coming from Windows.
Check out Distrowatch for info on all kinds of distros. http://distrowatch.com/
Linux Mint (you won't be disappointed) http://linuxmint.com/
Hope this helps. Enjoy!
> World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
I play World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Diablo 3 and Heroes of the Storm through Wine. They all work pretty well, and I've heard that while Blizzard doesn't officially support Linux, some of their team tries to make sure things run on Wine too. CS:GO does have a native port, and it runs well.
> zero mouse acceleration
No mouse acceleration I think is the default, but you might have to configure some stuff. Nothing too difficult, though.
> 60fps interpolated videos
I actually set up something similar, and made a blog post explaining it. The set up is not exactly pleasant, and it doesn't work really well, but I haven't used SVP so I can't compare.
> This is how my desktop looks:
That's a really nice setup, I didn't know you could to that in Windows. Anyway, Linux is much more customizable than Windows, you can certainly set up your desktop that way. Take a look at /r/unixporn, you can find some nice looking desktops there.
> What Linux distro do you guys recommend?
You may hear a lot of recommendations, but just pick whatever looks interesting. Distrowatch lists pretty much all distros available, if you want to search around.
distrowatch has a list like that.
Click onto any of the Linux distro's Page Hit Ranking list.
Example;
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mint
Stroll down to Full Package List. Choose the version you like to view all available package for that distro.
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mint&pkglist=true&version=17.2#pkglist
Distrowatch is very useful in many ways. I goto this site very often. You'll be surprise how much info is really on this site.
That is the version of the kernel, the innermost part of the operating system. From Distrowatch, I have determined that the version of Ubuntu is probably 9.10 (October 2009 - Karmic Koala).
This is an interim version of Ubuntu Linux and was supported for a year and a half. The following version, 10.04 LTS (April 2010 Long Term Support - Lucid Lynx), was supported for five years, now just past.
You should go with a fresh install, possibly of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS - Trusty Tahr, which will also be supported for five years.
Since the hardware is obviously old, you may want to use a lighter (less intensive) edition, such as Lubuntu or Xubuntu (same versioning), or even Linux Mint, which is based on Ubuntu.
While the machine, in its current state, could be used for learning about Linux, I would not recommend connecting it to the internet, as there are no more security patches for Karmic Koala, nor have there been for some time and previous security patches may not have been applied when they came out.
If there is anything on the machine you want to keep, back it up, to a CD or memory stick / thumb drive, before doing an upgrade.
The commenter linked to an article about how the systemd team forked the Linux kernel. While there was a linked github repo it had one commit from someone called systemdeamon
Edit: Here was the linked article: http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20150330#community
Linux is not Windows. It is not made just for the most recent hardware, which gives computer manufacturers leverage to sell new hardware to consumers. You can put an up-to-date Linux distribution on that old machine, one that is optimized for older machines or ones with fewer resources.
Have a look on http://distrowatch.com/ for desktop distributions optimized for older machines. You’ll still get up-to-date software, unlike if you were to put a version of Windows on it that is optimized for that hardware.
You should try all of them. Mint is extremely popular but I hated my experience with it. I enjoyed Arch for a time but eventually I wanted more of a hassle free experience, so I went back to Ubuntu. I hate Unity so now I run Ubuntu Gnome. But don't just run what I like, install them all and see what you like. With VirtualBox and Linux in general, there's no financial cost to trying them all out ahead of time.
I believe Transmission is the de facto Torrent client for Linux.
It's hard to summarize the differences between Windows and Linux. I see Linux as an extremely modular platform where each layer can be swapped out with your favorite package. Windows is generally a single monolithic install. I think this has to do with why Windows is so much better for gaming, it's a much more predictable environment for game developers, not to mention market share.
Also, if you haven't seen this yet: http://distrowatch.com/
Manjaro. It's Arch based (can access the AUR) and utilizes pacman (obviously). I've been using it for almost a year now on my old Thinkpad x61t with 3GB ram. Very happy with the XFCE variant as it also uses very little RAM. I would suggest taking a serious look at it.
There is an Ubuntu (possibly Debian, I forget which) distro that come pre-built with a crap load of Christian software. A co-worker of mine also runs the IT support at his church and I suggested it to him. They love it.
Edit: It's an Ubuntu base. Derp.
I want you to know before I make a statement that I hate on Macs all the time for many reasons....
With that out of the way I would like to say that expecting any computer hardware to have support more than 5 years after it was bought is expecting too much.
The fact that the XP machine still does the job is a testament to how good of a job was done making that OS, and not a testament to how bad the Mac is.
The power pc architecture in your G5 (made by IBM by the way, not Apple) was not only dropped by Apple, but by the entire industry. It is not in anyone's interest to continue writing software for hardware that went out of production almost a decade ago.
With all that being said, I agree with what others have suggested about running a Linux variant on it. Here is a list of Linux distros that are build to run on PPC processors.
Protip: You can use VirtualBox to try as many distros as you want before you nuke your Ubuntu install. I recommend going to DistroWatch and downloading a bunch of distros that strike your fancy and giving them all a try. What do you have to lose?
Definitely make sure you install openSUSE and Mageia as well. They're great distros with a bit of a different feel than Ubuntu, Fedora, and Debian.
The beauty of the Linux flavors is just that. There's a flavor for everyone!
- Don't like either Win or Mac? Use Ubuntu!
- Want something minimal & poerful? Use Arch-Linux!
- Prefer a computer with scientific & math package-power? Use Debian!
- Prefer something for the enterprise? Use Red-hat!
- Want to boot off your USB drive? Use Knoppix!
...and so on. At least, that's the way I see them! :)
> As always, the DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics shouldn't be taken too seriously - they are a fun way of looking at what's hot and what's not among this site's visitors, but they probably do not reflect install base or distribution quality. For a look at what DistroWatch visitors use while browsing these pages please see the Awstats output of our web server data.
Puppy has a good reputation for playing well with older machines.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppy_Linux -
If you really want to learn Linux, and have time, I would look into Arch, Slackware, or Gentoo. A word of warning, they're not for the faint of heart, but they will give you a really good understanding of Linux.
If you just want to play around, or want an easier time installing without nuking your windows partition on accident (which can still happen regardless of distro, but less likely with a more user-friendly one), I would go with Fedora since you're going to be using CentOS. This way you'll get an understanding of how Red Hat organizes things and RPM. You could also try openSuse, Mandriva, PCLinuxOS, or any other RPM-based distribution; however things may be slightly different from the Red Hat way of doing things.
Or you could go the complete opposite direction and look into Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint (standard or Debian Edition), Crunchbang, or any other Debian-based distro. Debian does things slightly different than Red Hat, but is rock solid. Ubuntu is more cutting edge, but has extra programs you may never use (but you can always remove most of them later). Linux Mint Debian Edition is my personal choice, but the standard edition is based off of Ubuntu.
If you want an idea of all the distros available, check out DistroWatch.
> Is there any way to see a short description without googling them all one by one?
You can browse distrowatch http://distrowatch.com/ and ArchiveOS (mostly for dead one) https://archiveos.org/linux/
From this version, in the SVG file (uploaded here is the PNG) every name link to page of my newly created archive with a dedicated page but is mostly empty at this point
> What is the main idea behind having a individual distro at all? Is it the kernel or just the bundled software?
Sometimes is just the desktop/icons theme, most distros are pointless; really and there are so many that aren't in the graph.
> Yes, am noob.
Noboby is born taught
Windows 10 Privacy? What Privacy? There isn't any.
Install a GNU/Linux distro and head over to ZeroPLAY for all your movie needs.
To be honest, any distribution will be just fine for Web Development. Just look around and find your favorite.
Some things to consider when trying to find a distribution:
Rolling or fixed release; do you value up-to-date packages or system stability?
Amount of pre-installed software; do you want a wide amount of pre-installed software or do you want to choose the software after the installation?
Desktop environment; what kind of desktop environment are you looking for? If you've already tried some out, which one did you enjoy the most?
Check out distrochooser, distrowatch and r/FindMeADistro as well.
You choose and then you enjoy.
Use your Linux distro community, a little Googling, even a stop here. And you can learn what you need while using Linux. First thing is to start using Linux. The learning will start on that day.
Your Welcome. There are over 276+ active Linux distro's.
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity
You get your Linux software from repositories mainly. It's like a built-in store. Currently I have 47,799 packages in my repositories. I install 2,436 of those packages onto my system.
Your going to enjoy Linux very much. I enjoyed Linux for the past 13 years, and still counting.
Budgie-Remix is #2 on Distrowatch's waiting list for evaluation, you can vote for it to be reviewed by the distrowatch staff .. might help the project gain more traction
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=links#new
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?waitingdistro=330&resource=links#new
Most distros come with steam or they're in the "package manager" just click around in settings. http://distrowatch.com/ I recommend Linux Mint or Linux Lite as beginner distros. Make sure it's the LTS (long term support) version.
Nvidia has great drivers, and AMD is working hard on theirs. The more people that play on Linux the more support it's going to get. ;p
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=sorcerer
sadly it looks like the actualy disto has since disapeared. I actually used it back in the day when the best internet connection I had was a 56k modem. downloading soruce and compiling locally was painful, but not as painful as trying to downlaod binary packages.
Yes it was very nedty the command for insrtallng package was cast and you removed packages with dispell
Just spin the wheel and pick one. Yes, some are easier then others. You can't really go wrong randomly just picking one. There is no wrong choice. As a wise choice for a newbie, I would suggested either Ubuntu or Mint. But, I can name about 10 others that would work for a newbie as well.
Disclaimer: I use Slackware on the desktop
It's not hip anymore. People want bleeding edge packages and ~~incomplete~~ "minimal" and "high-speed low-drag" distros like Arch. The fact that the last release was 21 months ago isn't helping either (though judging by the changelog it's still in active development). This is the longest the distro has gone so far without a new release.
Now I'm not one to claim that I need my packages to be no more than a week old, but the age of Slackware 14.1's packages honestly cause me real problems from time to time (probably because it's my first time trying Slackware, if I had stuck with it from the start I probably wouldn't have as many issues). After the next release I'll probably start using Slackware again (Linux 4.1, Emacs 24.5... drools).
I'm not so sure it's about package count since after installing slackpkg+ and sbopkg I was able to install most of the software I needed, and thanks to SlackBuilds it was easy to make my own packages for the rest (and as others have mentioned, you can also use rpm2txz and related utilities). It's not that much harder than using something like AUR and Yaourt. Again, I think it's mostly a perception problem.
Somewhat interesting to note is that despite the amount of noise people raised about s******d, Slackware (being one of the few core distributions without it) hasn't seen any notable increase in popularity [0].
for out of the box working sort of experience, Mint Cinnamon is a great. Vsync works, its debian ubuntu based and things are easy to install. Its also great for audio switching ( HDMi/optical output to Headphone in one click ) and there is an app that controls app volumes integrated into the above i.e you can control your music game sound levels, output switching, vsync, and workspace switching mid game really quickly (ctrl+alt and arrow keys) without steam "shift+tab" overlay. good for multitasking when waiting in a lobby, que for a game or for a round to end.
before someone chirps up, yes other distros do this ( kde ) very well also, but some break vsync in doing so or arent as snappy or need some work on key mappings.
KDE or Cinnamon on something like Mint, Kubuntu.
I definitely would try one of the options tempose provided (I personally haven't used Fedora more than a few days, but Ubuntu was my daily driver for a few months in undergrad). The key word there is try. bobby177 suggested grabbing a live image, which can be used to try out Linux before installing, so you don't have to make any permanent changes to your computer if you don't want to (just don't press any install buttons if that's what you're interested in doing).
Once you're done playing with the live cd/dvd/usb, then you can either reboot (and save the installation for another day) or install right then and there (remember, installing can erase your entire hard drive if you're not careful).
On Windows, I used this tool to make a live USB. I like the USB option since I can just re-use the flash drive over and over and try out different distributions.
Spin a Linux LiveCD/DVD/USBFD. See what will work with your hardware. Then install it.
If you want Ubuntu then try that out first. If something goes bonkers. Then just try out another flavor of Ubuntu. Like Lubuntu, Xubuntu, etc. until you find one that is prefect for you and your system.
Aww, Red Flag Linux called it quits some time ago. Also, they've changed logos, the old one was Tux waving a red flag (as shown still in e.g. DistroWatch).
Dunno if this was the right thread, but I love trying new distros all the time! I have Distrowatch bookmarked and check it regularly for any new/updated distros that seem interesting.
Go here http://distrowatch.com/index.php?language=FR You can see ALL Linux Distro and what are there particularity... So I setup the link for French since may main language is French but you can filter by many criteria o find the linux distro that fit your needs ;-)
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20131125#feature is the only comparison i could find
"A little while ago I reviewed PC-BSD 9.2 and enjoyed my time with that project. The PC-BSD operating system has a nice installer, worked fairly well for me and came with a lot of great administrative features. So many and so powerful were PC-BSD's features, I was willing to overlook some sluggishness in its performance and some of the complexity it presented. GhostBSD, while it uses the same FreeBSD 9.2 base, offers the user a very different flavour of BSD. GhostBSD has a simplified installer, a very responsive desktop, one unified approach to package management and a more streamlined approach. In my mind PC-BSD is ideal for developer workstations, corporate environments and power users.
GhostBSD is a product for the home user who wants to put their installation disc in the drive, confirm their system will boot it and then simply start using their computer. GhostBSD offers an easy installation, enough software for most people to get started and a fairly straight forward package manager to supply additional functionality. The MATE desktop is fast, the configuration tools simple and the provided applications useful. This novice-friendly approach means GhostBSD skips out on some of the powerful tools offered by its PC-BSD cousin, but it also means GhostBSD may be more appealing to a beginner or the causal home crowd."
Check DistroWatch - there are literally hundreds of distributions specifically made for old and underpowered boxes. I'd suggest something based on Debian (Crunchbang or one of the light Mint-based distros) to start with if you're newish. Maybe ArchLinux if you already have some Linux experience? Alternatively, you might want to try FreeBSD or OpenBSD if you want to branch out from Linux.
Almost any distribution will work just fine. As far as desktop environments, I'd suggest RazorQt, OpenBox, or LXDE.
The best thing about linux is that it doesnt hurt to have a go.
Get a live cd of a few linux distros and see how they go.
DistroWatch has links to hundreds of distros. I suggest Mint, or Ubuntu for a new user.
DSL hasn't had a new release in a few years, I'd recommend something like Tiny Core Plus, which is at least under active development. That said Lubuntu sounds pretty good for those specs.
Edit: spoke too soon?
All the top distros on distrowatch.com are good and ones that you should look at.
Here are some differences to keep an eye out for:
- What type of computer was this distro made to run on?
- Who was this distro originally intended for in terms of experience with Linux and area of profession?
- What's the installation process like?
- What works out of the box and what doesn't?
- Default desktop environment (of any)?
- What kind of preinstalled software do you get (if any)?
- What's the default package manager and how do you use it?
- What's the release cycle like?
- How stable is the stable build?
- What's the community culture like?
- How much support is available? Documentation? Forums?
- Does this distro look like it will last or is its future uncertain?
That's all I can think of. Hope this helps.