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General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Bird on September 30, 2011, 03:09:00 PM

Title: Linux flavours
Post by: Bird on September 30, 2011, 03:09:00 PM
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/10-best-linux-distros-for-2011-704584

I'm bored at work, so thinking I'll have a play again with Linux. I havent had a go with it since Mandrake 10 came out years ago.

Looking at it, Linux Mint 11 sounds ok, anyone played with it?

Got Ubuntu at work, and Red Hat on servers but want something different. I dont get to play with those systems anwyay.
Title: Re: Linux flavours
Post by: noel_w on September 30, 2011, 03:36:00 PM
Funny you should say that!. My W7 box at home is being migrated to "newer" hardware, my nephew's old gaming box that I have resurected from his garage, only needed a working graphics card, mobo battery & OS. I have been toying with loading a nix os on the old girl when I finish offloading all my crap. I have had a fair bit of experience wiith SME server over the years but not with a desktop as yet other than loading a distro and saying "what do i do with it now". Unfortunately Redmond has had their hooks in for too long now & have got used to it. I think it is time to get out of the "safe" seat & start thinking again. Remembering arcane command line commands could be a worry as I have forgotten most.
I think I'll:
shutdown -k
now.
Title: Re: Linux flavours
Post by: Bird on September 30, 2011, 03:44:04 PM
Funny you should say that!. My W7 box at home is being migrated to "newer" hardware, my nephew's old gaming box that I have resurected from his garage, only needed a working graphics card, mobo battery & OS. I have been toying with loading a nix os on the old girl when I finish offloading all my crap. I have had a fair bit of experience wiith SME server over the years but not with a desktop as yet other than loading a distro and saying "what do i do with it now". Unfortunately Redmond has had their hooks in for too long now & have got used to it. I think it is time to get out of the "safe" seat & start thinking again. Remembering arcane command line commands could be a worry as I have forgotten most.
I think I'll:
shutdown -k
now.
yea, you can have command line, but most of these are all GUI now.... so your safe ;)
Title: Re: Linux flavours
Post by: koshari on September 30, 2011, 04:33:25 PM
you could try linux mint debian edition, its a rolling distro based on debian testing,

Title: Re: Linux flavours
Post by: noel_w on September 30, 2011, 06:01:38 PM
Quote
yea, you can have command line, but most of these are all GUI now.... so your safe Wink
Last time I looked there were still a few things you had to drag out the prompt box. It may have been improved though in the last couple of years. Distrowatch.com lists Mint as No.2. Be interested to know how you get along with it.
Title: Re: Linux flavours
Post by: D4D on September 30, 2011, 06:08:18 PM
Try this http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516
Title: Re: Linux flavours
Post by: Darcy7 on September 30, 2011, 06:15:51 PM
Hey Bruce

Give gOs Linux a try.  It's Ununtu based but has a nice MAC feel about it. I've been using it on my old laptop that originally came with Vista. Never looked back.

Darcy
Title: Re: Linux flavours
Post by: GC19WA on September 30, 2011, 08:34:46 PM
I just had a quick look as I'm pretty interested in this kind of thing and it seems gOs is out of development according to its wiki page :( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOS_%28operating_system%29

If it were me starting out I'd probably look at Ubuntu Desktop, though they have moved away from Gnome to their own unity desktop manager so perhaps Linux Mint or if you want more of a challenge the latest stable Debian and update it with newer packages...

Title: Re: Linux flavours
Post by: Darcy7 on September 30, 2011, 09:44:55 PM
I just had a quick look as I'm pretty interested in this kind of thing and it seems gOs is out of development according to its wiki page :( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOS_%28operating_system%29

If it were me starting out I'd probably look at Ubuntu Desktop, though they have moved away from Gnome to their own unity desktop manager so perhaps Linux Mint or if you want more of a challenge the latest stable Debian and update it with newer packages...




Bugger...! Thats disappointing. I was really enjoying gOs but hadn't used the laptop for a while since I got the iPad. If it's still available to download, it's still worth a go as it was very stable when I used it.  In fact I can't ever recall it crashing.
Title: Re: Linux flavours
Post by: Jason B on September 30, 2011, 10:01:01 PM
WTF you guy's.

I opened this thread thinking you were onto a new flavour of ice cream or something I had missed...................................LOL ???

Regards


Jas  ;D
Title: Re: Linux flavours
Post by: Darcy7 on October 01, 2011, 10:02:11 AM
Ha ha. Gotta expect the unexpected here.

A few nerds around...!
Title: Re: Linux flavours
Post by: Symon on October 01, 2011, 12:06:29 PM
Debian is pretty popular, but I've always used Ubuntu personally.
Title: Re: Linux flavours
Post by: austastar on October 01, 2011, 12:28:08 PM
Hi,
  some time before I finished working, I needed to move a power cord to my Ubuntu computer.
Powered down, moved cord, powered up and got a message that it was checking the disk as the computer had been running some 400 odd days.
That is on a computer used all day for network and helpdesk duties plus a lot of web browsing between jobs.
I can't remember it ever crashing, I was trialling Ubuntu for general usage and network compatibility.
cheers
Title: Re: Linux flavours
Post by: Bird on October 01, 2011, 06:29:56 PM
Last time I looked there were still a few things you had to drag out the prompt box. It may have been improved though in the last couple of years. Distrowatch.com lists Mint as No.2. Be interested to know how you get along with it.
its downloaded waiting on the server at work...
have 4 dell 320s to play with, so might actually download a few more different ones and try them
Title: Re: Linux flavours
Post by: pacs on October 01, 2011, 07:43:03 PM
Ahh the fun begins carful you don't cross to the darkside Lost :)


---
I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=-36.715117,144.302373
Title: Re: Linux flavours
Post by: Symon on October 01, 2011, 09:37:31 PM
its downloaded waiting on the server at work...
have 4 dell 320s to play with, so might actually download a few more different ones and try them

I have a few spare Dell servers here too, if anyone wants them (for a reasonable price) shoot me a PM.
Title: Re: Linux flavours
Post by: GC19WA on October 01, 2011, 10:29:20 PM
Another way you can try these out without needing a new computer, assuming your PC has a reasonable amount of ram, 2GB+ is use a program like VMWare Player, Virtual Box or even Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, all free, and probably would recommend in the order of suggestion, and it will let you install the trial operating system without it affecting your Windows (or OSX) install.  When you are finished just deleted the virtual machine and virtual harddrive and it will free up the space that it was using.  Its what I do when I want to go through a lab for my students before I give it to them or if I want to just expolore new things..
Title: Re: Linux flavours
Post by: Matto on October 03, 2011, 07:09:20 PM
I dunno Lost - I kinda like my OSes to work. Last time I played with Linux I had to buggerise around for 2 hours to get my soundcard to work, and even then it would only work in certain music players. I thought about setting up a printer, and decided I actually had better things to do with the next 10yrs of my life.

Then again, I haven't felt the need to torture myself for a while, so things might have improved since then. After all, isn't this year meant to be the year that desktop linux takes off? No? Maybe next year then?

Thanks!
Matto :)
Who has nothing of value to add, but feels like stirring up the linux nerds.
Title: Re: Linux flavours
Post by: Bird on October 03, 2011, 09:53:04 PM
Quote from: Matto
I dunno Lost - I kinda like my OSes to work. Last time I played with Linux I had to buggerise around for 2 hours to get my soundcard to work, and even then it would only work in certain music players.
Well I installed it today. Took about 20mins, I didnt realise it does a boot up from DVD first, so you can test it, and see anything not working, then click the icon on desktop "Install"  :'( RTFM!

Everything worked straight off the bat, very happy with it, internet works, and I havent had a chance to play with the 1000's of programs it comes with yet, that will be tomorrow although thinking of signing up for Cert 4 in either Training and Assessment, or OH&S.. something out of IT anyway... so might start that.
Title: Re: Linux flavours
Post by: koshari on October 04, 2011, 06:41:22 PM
I dunno Lost - I kinda like my OSes to work. Last time I played with Linux I had to buggerise around for 2 hours to get my soundcard to work, and even then it would only work in certain music players. I thought about setting up a printer, and decided I actually had better things to do with the next 10yrs of my life.

Then again, I haven't felt the need to torture myself for a while, so things might have improved since then. After all, isn't this year meant to be the year that desktop linux takes off? No? Maybe next year then?

Thanks!
Matto :)
Who has nothing of value to add, but feels like stirring up the linux nerds.

there will never be a "year" of the linux desktop just like there wont be a "YEAR" of the mac desktop, even various flavours of windows will remain fragmented for a long time as users and systems requirements are all diferent.

as far as installing linux, these days most distros will just work with the standard drivers to the point of being prolly more compatable than with the newer windows releases., , printers however can still be a little hit and miss, depending on the manufacturers drivers.
Title: Re: Linux flavours
Post by: Bird on October 04, 2011, 08:26:52 PM
Quote from: koshari
as far as installing linux, these days most distros will just work with the standard drivers to the point of being prolly more compatable than with the newer windows releases., , printers however can still be a little hit and miss, depending on the manufacturers drivers.
both this and mandrake both installed easily, much easier than 10 yrs ago..

still gettin head around installing addons..