I started with Fedora Core 2. I guess Fedora isn't the worst choice for a first distribution, but as soon as I figured out what I was doing, I couldn't wait to get it off my hard drive. Whenever you hear Microsoft comparing themselves to Linux, they are comparing themselves to Red Hat, and if that is the sort of distribution that you want, I don't really see the point of using Linux. It really wont teach you much other than Red Hat because of the menu based configurations, and I believe that the extensions that Red Hat has built on top of the generic distribution only serve to make Red Hat slower, less secure, buggier, and less stable. I probably had more crashes with Fedora Core 2 than I did with Windows XP, and I got a lot more use out of Windows XP.

If you're new, I think that starting with a live cd is a good idea, you get to try it out without risking data loss. When you're ready to install, well, others have recommended Ubuntu and that's probably a good choice. I don't much care for Debian, and I doubt I'd like Ubuntu much either, but it's probably a lot better for beginners than Red Hat or Suse or Mandrake overall.

My favorite operating system is probably FreeBSD. I don't think new users should wait too long before trying something like FreeBSD or Slackware, I tried FreeBSD after 2 weeks of fedora core 2 and I survived. It's harder, but it's a greatly accelerated path to competence. You'll probably learn more from Slackware or FreeBSD in a couple of weeks than you will from Red Hat in a whole year.

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Original post by _Sigma Quote: Original post by _Sigma Quote: Original post by _Sigma Wow, I have to say, thanks everyoone. One last quick question, well actually a couple of quick questions: 1) How do i set the Live CDs to work with a USB flash driver? 2) What is the difference b/w Mandrake 10.1 Official and Mandriva 2005 LE? Cheers Anyone? Common! Please? I really want to know!!!!

Hehe.

1) In my limited experience, the USB flash drives just worked. Plug them in, and then an icon should show up on the desktop.

EDIT: Oh, and I'd really recommend Gentoo, if you've got the time. I always felt lost in every Linux distro I tried, until Gentoo made me walk through every step.

I think that an OS should be user friendly. It's purpose is to serve you and don't get in your way. :) This is something that Linux doesn't do very well.
Of course many people don't think so but unless you have the right hardware, it will be very difficult for you to setup your linux. This is not funny, after all Linux is not a game to play around with it. If I want to play a game I'd buy one and play.

From all I've tried Ubuntu is the best. It is small, it is clean and it recognizes almost all of my hardware immediately.

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Original post by Anonymous Poster I think that an OS should be user friendly. It's purpose is to serve you and don't get in your way. :) This is something that Linux doesn't do very well. Of course many people don't think so but unless you have the right hardware, it will be very difficult for you to setup your linux. This is not funny, after all Linux is not a game to play around with it. If I want to play a game I'd buy one and play. From all I've tried Ubuntu is the best. It is small, it is clean and it recognizes almost all of my hardware immediately.

You're right that an OS should serve you without getting in your way, but I think that user friendliness is orthogonal at best to this objective. It's when you design software to be overly user friendly that it starts getting in the way. For example, Norton's home products, especially their firewall, throw a million popups at you, and they seem to especially like doing this when you are playing a game or something like that. In my opinion, a good firewall is a firewall that you set the rules for once and let it do its job after that. Because the Norton firewall is designed to be user friendly, it can *really* get in the way.

An operating system can try to hide system folders and throw up warning signs and things like that, as Windows does, but that can really get in the way too. It may help keep people from deleting some important file on a whim, but it's a pain.

Obviously there are good reasons to design software like this, especially if your goal is to make money, but I think that is the sort of thing that gets in the user's way more than anything. I don't think Unix systems really get in your way, if you want to shoot yourself in the foot, they let you, for the most part.

do you mean boot from the flash drive? im not sure why no one was interested in looking at your question

anyway, the best way to find out what distro to use is to just try them.
i started with slack, but it required me to know too much, before i knew it.
gentoo has the most thorough docs, i have seen, they should be helpful no matter
what you use.

mandrake is good cause it will get all the basics working for you, and its still linux
so even though its easy its not... nm

good luck

OK....I just meant installing stuff to the USB drive. Like I have UT99 Linux demo, so can i install that to my flash drive? It has enough room...

I have tried a bunch of LiveCds, and so far i think i like Mandrake the most :P lol. What is the difference b/w Mandrake 10.1 and Mandrivia LE 2005?

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Original post by Miserable There's a Gnome equivalent of Knoppix, called Gnoppix. As it happens, it is based on Ubuntu ...

I tried gnoppix, but it wouldn't boot correctly (and at the time i didn't feel like finding a way to fix it), i'd say Knoppix is deffinately it's superior.

I think FreeBSD looks interesting. Has anyone (who uses Linux) got any experiences?

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Original post by Pipo DeClown I think FreeBSD looks interesting. Has anyone (who uses Linux) got any experiences?

FreeBSD is excellent. I tend to use FreeBSD and Slackware a lot, they are similar in spirit. I'd say that Slackware makes a better desktop and FreeBSD makes a better server. FreeBSD is very, very stable. The ports system is very convenient for installing software as well. I recommend it for anyone that wants an operating system well suited to things like development and running a server.