Perpetual Linux Distro Thread - Page 8

sarge_smiley · 20th June 2004, 11:00 PM

go get SUSE 9, i just got it today, and ready to set up my first linux. Its very easy to navigate through, except ill be asking questions later guys on how to run windows games and read windows files etc...

also have u guys checked out www.smoothwall.org

Space Hamster · 1st July 2004, 10:30 AM

I'm a Linux newbie who's installed Mandrake 9.0 on a dual-boot Windows XP system. I found the installation to be much easier than Windows (not to mention half as long). Unfortunately, I had two minor problems -

Mandrake would never save my desktop settings. If I changed my resolution to 1024x768, and chose the Gnome desktop, Mandrake would reboot into KDE 800x600.
Also, I couldn't establish an ADSL connection while in the KDE desktop. In Gnome the internet works just fine. So rebooting into KDE every single time didn't impress me.

I've since uninstalled Mandrake 9.0. However, I have an old PC, that I want to use as install a Linux distro on, here are the specs -

Pentium III 550MHz with 512MB RAM
IWill Motherboard (crap mobo)
Creative SoundBlaster AWE64
GEForce3 Ti 64MB Videocard
Western Digital 40GB 7200rpm ATA100 harddisk
12X CD-ROM Drive

Being a relative linux newbie, I have two choices of distro that I'd like to use - Mandrake 10.0 Official or Xandros 2.0 OCE. Which am I better off with? I'm leaning towards going with Xandros, as I had minor settings problems with Mandrake. I don't mind getting the Open Circulation Edition of Xandros, as I'm just trying it out.

So which am I better off with?

sarge_smiley · 2nd July 2004, 5:50 PM

Ive got Mandrake 10, SUSE 9 Pro, and Red Hat 9.
I dont think it makes sense to use any more - all linuxs are alike.
Ive also got a hell of alot of user guides now thanks to edonkey network

also gonna be learning Red hat or fedora in cert 4 networking operating systems

Jaymo · 30th July 2004, 5:59 PM

What is the best distro for laptop hardware support?
I have been using Fedora core 2 and Mandrake 10 official without any good results.
Mandrake 10 doesnt show me battery consumption no matter what.
Fedora core 2 doesnt work with any PCMCIA WiFi cards. I have tried Prism2 based ones too.

titan · 30th July 2004, 7:16 PM

I have full hardware compatibility with Gentoo on my Compaq Armada M700 (minus the winModem, but I have never tried to use it as I don't need it). Follow the handbook and Gentoo is a breeze to set up, and there are plenty of guides to getting APM (for your battery status) and PCMCIA slots working (specific guides by Gentoo users, for Gentoo users).

Do a search for "linux <insert laptop model here> guide" or "linux <insert laptop model here> configuration" and I'm sure it will come up with experiences of people with using varying distros on your exact model of laptop.

slicerdicer · 8th August 2004, 8:03 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Linux_N_BSD
Akk! Don't wait till Chrisie, upgrade now

Yeah Gentoo isn't an easy distro, but after you spend a few hours (or days) rtfm'ing you can have yourself one great distro

Actually if you read the manual to start with and follow it without skipping steps gentoo is very easy to install its just time consuming beacuse it compiles.

If you have any issues IRC is great and forums.gentoo.org are great. I had problems my first install but that was beacuse i skipped steps figureing they were part of stage 1-2 or something so I did not do it right.

If you ever do use gentoo I would advise against genkernel I hate it I like building my kernel myself just be sure to read documentation on what is required such as proc, dev and your FS support dont forget that also dont forget to set your motherboard type if its VIA or NVIDIA or you will be slow I mean its not hard.

Gentoo is great I have been using it since november 2003 I am a very big fan of Cedega "formally winex" I dont boot into windows at all anymore for gaming I run 90% of my games in linux. Its very viable for me. I like being able to control my system very closely and only have on what I want.

dukestar · 27th October 2004, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slicerdicer

Actually if you read the manual to start with and follow it without skipping steps gentoo is very easy to install its just time consuming beacuse it compiles.

If you have any issues IRC is great and forums.gentoo.org are great. I had problems my first install but that was beacuse i skipped steps figureing they were part of stage 1-2 or something so I did not do it right.

If you ever do use gentoo I would advise against genkernel I hate it I like building my kernel myself just be sure to read documentation on what is required such as proc, dev and your FS support dont forget that also dont forget to set your motherboard type if its VIA or NVIDIA or you will be slow I mean its not hard.

Gentoo is great I have been using it since november 2003 I am a very big fan of Cedega "formally winex" I dont boot into windows at all anymore for gaming I run 90% of my games in linux. Its very viable for me. I like being able to control my system very closely and only have on what I want.

i am new to linux, but i have been using genkernal with no problems. By running "genkernel --menuconfig all" i can change everything i want to compile into the kernel, plus genkernel automatically moves the kernel for me to the boot partition. If your recompiling your kernel, it speeds up the process dramatically for you. If not, just takes a simple correction to your grub.conf and away your go.

Admiral_Trigger · 27th October 2004, 1:45 PM

Greetings

Gentoo ROCKS, my old Celery 950 got new life breathed into it once I installed Gentoo, the longest part was downloading all that source code on the Internet in my dorm room, it was a shared 512 DDS connection back then, it has since been upgraded to 1.5 Mb ADSL, (which is great, other than the router for it died a couple of days ago, bugger! back to the 512 shared)
It runs faster than every before and is able to outperfom my 2000+ which is clocked at 1.831 (or something like that) but only when it is running windows, when I boot it into gentoo, it leaves that crap INTEL behind

The only problem is mt Athlon is having problems with compling the most recent SVGALibs, gives some error relating to a kernel or module thing (might be because the /usr/src/linux directory points to a more recent source then the running kernel, all because the 2.6.8 kernel does strange things (well the one I complied does anyway), it won't even boot, its having problems with my Software RAID, which is on SATA Disks which it can't find due to changes in the SATA support in the Kernel and I have to some figure out what on earth it is doing, ARGH!!!

Oh Well, Everyone should run Gentoo, except N00bs that faint at the sight of a CLI (Command Line Interface, or Terminal, console in the Linux world), and I'd give them Mandrake or SUSE

Enjoy

dukestar · 27th October 2004, 2:10 PM

yup really enjoy gentoo, i've done two stage 3 installs. And at the moment i am half way through my second stage 1 install. Once you've compiled linux for your particular machine, its so responsive and quick you cant really go back. If you follow the gentoo handbook, you should be right as it explains concepts very well.

Oh and emerge is your friend

Dunska · 27th October 2004, 6:00 PM

For those wanting that extra speed boost in Gentoo, try this guide.
I just finished a stage-1, ~x86, 2.6headers, NPTL, UDEV build and it's damn nice

Dunska · 27th October 2004, 6:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaymo

What is the best distro for laptop hardware support?
I have been using Fedora core 2 and Mandrake 10 official without any good results.
Mandrake 10 doesnt show me battery consumption no matter what.
Fedora core 2 doesnt work with any PCMCIA WiFi cards. I have tried Prism2 based ones too.

Check out MEPIS. SimplyMEPIS 2004.4 was just release a few days ago. Its a LiveCD that can then be installed to HDD. I installed on my HP nx5000 and it works a treat. Detected the wireless, pcmcia, etc and has a great default install. It's also Debian-based so you get the joy of apt. I will be installing Gentoo on this laptop soon, but I'll keep a MEPIS CD handy for any "quick" installs I need to do.

good · 28th December 2004, 11:49 PM

hi guys, this is my problem

from this thread: http://forums.overclockers.com.au/sh...d.php?t=337246

Basically i have a
p 266 with 64 (or 128?) ram and a 20gb HD that i want to play my music collection.

I need something that will
- work with that tunez program (from link)
- support a network card (wireless network card hopefully!) without many hassels
- easy userface
- not large on resources

--- i have not yet tried the slackware as listed as im not sure if it supports wireless networks. I'm going to try it 2morow morning but if anyone has any other distros that wud be great
cheers

sm · 29th December 2004, 12:17 AM

Either slackware or debian are probably the best choices. Any linux distro will support wireless as the drivers are part of the linux kernel and are not specific to any distro.

Admiral_Trigger · 4th January 2005, 10:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by good

hi guys, this is my problem

from this thread: http://forums.overclockers.com.au/sh...d.php?t=337246

Basically i have a
p 266 with 64 (or 128?) ram and a 20gb HD that i want to play my music collection.

I need something that will
- work with that tunez program (from link)
- support a network card (wireless network card hopefully!) without many hassels
- easy userface
- not large on resources

--- i have not yet tried the slackware as listed as im not sure if it supports wireless networks. I'm going to try it 2morow morning but if anyone has any other distros that wud be great
cheers

One simple solution (ok maybe not that simple, but read the handbook and its easy), Gentoo, sure its not for the faint hearted, and requires a reasonable amount of work, but it will be lighter on the resources then any of the other distros. Also if you have access to a few computers that you could uses to help out, download the distcc knoppix cd and setup a little distributer c compiler cluster, I did that to install Gentoo last month, got for PCs from a school were my Dad works to help out, took about a 1/4 of the time to bootstrap.

titan · 4th January 2005, 12:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Admiral_Trigger

<snip>

Are you serious? Only a nut would recommend a source based distro for someone who wants Linux on a p 266 with 64MB RAM. I mean seriously, who are you kidding?

Pretty much any binary based distro for such a simple application would work. Slackware, Debian etc...

NOTE: I use Gentoo on ALL my boxes at home, but they're not 266Mhz machines with SFA RAM. Your post is the very reason Gentoo users get mocked.

20th June 2004, 11:00 PM	#106
sarge_smiley Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: classified :) Posts: 320	go get SUSE 9, i just got it today, and ready to set up my first linux. Its very easy to navigate through, except ill be asking questions later guys on how to run windows games and read windows files etc... also have u guys checked out www.smoothwall.org __________________ .

1st July 2004, 10:30 AM	#107
Space Hamster Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Hobart, Tasmania Posts: 419	What about Xandros? I'm a Linux newbie who's installed Mandrake 9.0 on a dual-boot Windows XP system. I found the installation to be much easier than Windows (not to mention half as long). Unfortunately, I had two minor problems - Mandrake would never save my desktop settings. If I changed my resolution to 1024x768, and chose the Gnome desktop, Mandrake would reboot into KDE 800x600. Also, I couldn't establish an ADSL connection while in the KDE desktop. In Gnome the internet works just fine. So rebooting into KDE every single time didn't impress me. I've since uninstalled Mandrake 9.0. However, I have an old PC, that I want to use as install a Linux distro on, here are the specs - Pentium III 550MHz with 512MB RAM IWill Motherboard (crap mobo) Creative SoundBlaster AWE64 GEForce3 Ti 64MB Videocard Western Digital 40GB 7200rpm ATA100 harddisk 12X CD-ROM Drive Being a relative linux newbie, I have two choices of distro that I'd like to use - Mandrake 10.0 Official or Xandros 2.0 OCE. Which am I better off with? I'm leaning towards going with Xandros, as I had minor settings problems with Mandrake. I don't mind getting the Open Circulation Edition of Xandros, as I'm just trying it out. So which am I better off with? __________________ Visit Spacehamster's Blog Specs: Intel Core i7 930 CPU, 6GB 1333MHz DDR3 RAM, Gigabyte GA=EX58-UD3R Motherboard, ATI Radeon 5770 1GB Videocard, Soundblaster X-Fi Soundcard,Vantec ION2 620W PSU, Coolermaster Scout Case

2nd July 2004, 5:50 PM	#108
sarge_smiley Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: classified :) Posts: 320	Ive got Mandrake 10, SUSE 9 Pro, and Red Hat 9. I dont think it makes sense to use any more - all linuxs are alike. Ive also got a hell of alot of user guides now thanks to edonkey network also gonna be learning Red hat or fedora in cert 4 networking operating systems __________________ .

30th July 2004, 7:16 PM	#110
titan Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Leichhardt, Sydney Posts: 2,900	I have full hardware compatibility with Gentoo on my Compaq Armada M700 (minus the winModem, but I have never tried to use it as I don't need it). Follow the handbook and Gentoo is a breeze to set up, and there are plenty of guides to getting APM (for your battery status) and PCMCIA slots working (specific guides by Gentoo users, for Gentoo users). Do a search for "linux <insert laptop model here> guide" or "linux <insert laptop model here> configuration" and I'm sure it will come up with experiences of people with using varying distros on your exact model of laptop. __________________ Just go with the flow control, roll with the crunches, and when you get a prompt, type like hell. 19" Sony G420 Trinitron (2001 model) Indy, IndyCAM, SGI 19" + more SGI goodness

27th October 2004, 1:45 PM	#113
Admiral_Trigger Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: PERTH WA Posts: 32	Greetings Gentoo ROCKS, my old Celery 950 got new life breathed into it once I installed Gentoo, the longest part was downloading all that source code on the Internet in my dorm room, it was a shared 512 DDS connection back then, it has since been upgraded to 1.5 Mb ADSL, (which is great, other than the router for it died a couple of days ago, bugger! back to the 512 shared) It runs faster than every before and is able to outperfom my 2000+ which is clocked at 1.831 (or something like that) but only when it is running windows, when I boot it into gentoo, it leaves that crap INTEL behind The only problem is mt Athlon is having problems with compling the most recent SVGALibs, gives some error relating to a kernel or module thing (might be because the /usr/src/linux directory points to a more recent source then the running kernel, all because the 2.6.8 kernel does strange things (well the one I complied does anyway), it won't even boot, its having problems with my Software RAID, which is on SATA Disks which it can't find due to changes in the SATA support in the Kernel and I have to some figure out what on earth it is doing, ARGH!!! Oh Well, Everyone should run Gentoo, except N00bs that faint at the sight of a CLI (Command Line Interface, or Terminal, console in the Linux world), and I'd give them Mandrake or SUSE Enjoy __________________ Admiral Trigger Happy SYSTEM: Althon AM2 6400+ X2 \|Stock AMD HSF\|ABIT Fatal1ty AN9 32X\|4 x 1 GB Coasair Twinx 800 MHz DDR2\|Nvidia 7950 GT 512 MB\|Samsung 18x DL DVD Burner \|1x 750 GB Samsung 7200 SATA 2.0 \| 1x 400 GB Barracuda 7200.8 SATA \|2x 120 GB Barracuda 7200.7 SATA HD\|30 GB Brarracuda III HD\|Antec Neo HE 550\|Antec Nine Hundred Case\|Logitech G15 Keyboard\| Logitech G7

30th July 2004, 5:59 PM	#109
Jaymo Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 1,262	What is the best distro for laptop hardware support? I have been using Fedora core 2 and Mandrake 10 official without any good results. Mandrake 10 doesnt show me battery consumption no matter what. Fedora core 2 doesnt work with any PCMCIA WiFi cards. I have tried Prism2 based ones too.

27th October 2004, 2:10 PM	#114
dukestar Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Sydney Posts: 827	yup really enjoy gentoo, i've done two stage 3 installs. And at the moment i am half way through my second stage 1 install. Once you've compiled linux for your particular machine, its so responsive and quick you cant really go back. If you follow the gentoo handbook, you should be right as it explains concepts very well. Oh and emerge is your friend

27th October 2004, 6:00 PM	#115
Dunska Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Brisbane, Northside Posts: 787	For those wanting that extra speed boost in Gentoo, try this guide. I just finished a stage-1, ~x86, 2.6headers, NPTL, UDEV build and it's damn nice __________________ ASUS P6X58D-E, i7-930@4.0GHz, Megahalems Rev.B Cooler, 12Gig Patriot DDR3-2000, OCZ Vertex4 512G SSD, 2 x Samsung 1TB, SoundBlaster X-Fi, Crossover 27Q LED-P 27", XFX 850W Black Edition PSU, Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 Overclocked Edition, SilverStone Fortress FT02B, Win8 Pro x64 Fight me! http://dunska.mybrute.com

28th December 2004, 11:49 PM	#117
good Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Melbourne Posts: 883	hi guys, this is my problem from this thread: http://forums.overclockers.com.au/sh...d.php?t=337246 Basically i have a p 266 with 64 (or 128?) ram and a 20gb HD that i want to play my music collection. I need something that will - work with that tunez program (from link) - support a network card (wireless network card hopefully!) without many hassels - easy userface - not large on resources --- i have not yet tried the slackware as listed as im not sure if it supports wireless networks. I'm going to try it 2morow morning but if anyone has any other distros that wud be great cheers

29th December 2004, 12:17 AM	#118
sm Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Melbourne Posts: 810	Either slackware or debian are probably the best choices. Any linux distro will support wireless as the drivers are part of the linux kernel and are not specific to any distro.