Quote: Original post by matt24
why are these linex downloads so big, they seem to be bigger than windows...and very slow downloads too.

Well, if that's actually a question...

Most of the most user-friendly distributions tend to include a well rounded suite of applications (browser, email, multimedia, office, graphic editing, and occasionally development tools). With enough bandwidth at your disposal, I'd generally recommend a network installation for most distributions that support them; a minimal amount of packages are included on the image and the extras selected are downloaded at install time. Ubuntu will also ship you installation media if you'd prefer ("free of charge"). Otherwise, maybe try BitTorrent or simply an alternate mirror to increase your download speed.

Quote: Original post by matt24
why are these linex downloads so big, they seem to be bigger than windows...and very slow downloads too.

They come with a bunch of other stuff but personally, I still don't understand why it is SO big. Usually 5 or 6 CDs or 1 DVD (almost takes the entire space).
Also, keep in mind that they use compression. Some zip compression I guess.

Damn Small Linux is probably created for that reason.

Quote: Original post by novo
I've started with slackware. I installed it on my laptop, so I used it mostly when i was out of home. I think It's a great distro for beginners. Surely you'll have to spent a bit more time at the beginning, but after that you'll have the taste of how to work with any linux distro. Since then, I've tried FC, suse, Mandrake/Mandriva, ubuntu and now I'm using gentoo. FC, suse and mandriva sucked from the beginning, I've remove them after a few days. Ubuntu was very nice, but I like to compile everything locally, so I've chosen gentoo. It has a very nice feature of USE flags. You specify some flags in /etc/make.conf and then it builds all the packages using those USE flags. You have to set those flags, it took me about 30-40min, but this way you're sure that all apps you are using have all the features you need. But the compilation might take a while. On my old AthlonXP 2500+@2400Mhz, 1gb ram full installation took about 9hrs. After 30-40min i had small install without any x, and the compilation of Xfce, x.org and family took the remaining 8hrs. But after that, when you are using ccache, the recompilation is 5 to 10 times faster, only the new apps are slow. Also installing nvidia drivers(AIGLX) + compiz was very easy. And the effect is amazing. After few days it's hard to go back to classic window managers :P
But if you don't want to compile everything I'd suggest ubuntu. Its easy, and I had no problems with it.

I guess I'll never try gentoo then. I really really hate source code.

Quote: Original post by V-manI guess I'll never try gentoo then. I really really hate source code.

Boy, are you on the wrong end of the web...

I've tried numerous distros... started with Slack 8 (IIRC), Redhat 9, and Mandrake 7. When I gave (K)ubuntu a whirl, I instantly fell in love, and swore off any other distro which did not have a similarity to apt-get repositories.

Quote: Original post by matt24
why are these linex downloads so big, they seem to be bigger than windows...and very slow downloads too.

In my experience, they're not really all that big, I beleive you can still install Debian over a few (5-10?) floppies, using your net connection to download the packages you want/need.

I haven't experienced the slow downloads yet when downloading or updating my Ubuntu, using the local mirrors.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I use Ubuntu for development on Linux, together with Kdevelop (Gnome and KDE apps mingling? Heresy!)