Linux! What the best Linux OS is, and is it worth the change from MS?

Linux! Anyone want to try? I have been playing around a little. Here is a site for anyone else who hasn’t. http://www.linuxnetworld.com/download.htm What I want is ya’ll to tell me your opinion of what the best version is? Any new links to other versions is would be nice.

It is worth installing linux - but instead of ruining your ms
setup dual boot it.

It is a lot more secure for net browsing - less virus & security threats
but there are still certain pieces of software you may want / need to
run on ms which there are no direct linux solutions for.

Suse has a very nice graphical Install as does Mandrake and both have
nice package mangers.

Although saying that Unbutu is a very nice linux version too.

Fedora Core 3 is my personal choice at the moment but I may switch at some
point.

Regards

Niteman1969

Thanks Niteman1969
I really want to set up a home PC with a few different versions on Linux. I need WIFI capabilities though. Also I would not mind trying to add it to my HPC. I know others have tried http://acid.ch.pw.edu.pl/~sq5bpf/mylinux/j720/ but I’m up for a challenge. Anyone here tried? I actually think the link it really cool!

well, I've tried Slackware (like 10yrs ago!), Mandrake last year (messed up my XP partn, and end up reformatting, while making a faulty backup ... which means I lost *all* data!) ... ... I recently tried SimplyMEPIS, or MEPIS. So far its doing great with dual-boot!

Out of the box, firefox and Y! messenging, DVD playback, Real etc etc all works! So, I'm pretty happy with it. Only grub on it (and most linux distro) is its support for hardware and peripherals, esp those that are not using a common chipset. My Pretec wifi card works out of the box (almost ... just a minor setup on the DHCP thingie, otherwise PNP). It however does not support APM very well. So far I have not gotten it to do hibernation proper. Not that I know if it is duely supported at all!

Suspension is not ideal yet for some linux distro. Most distro would turn off the LCD monitor but may not throttle down the CPU enough to qualify as suspend mode. Also, some distro may not turn off hdd or peripherals properly, or may not turn them back on proper. So far, MEPIS works fine on my m300 armada for suspend mode. But sometimes I wonder if it is really in suspend mode.

If hibernation and suspend works proper, linux can quite easily be a good substitute. I have not tried linspire or other distro that are geared towards notebook, so I cannot really say if there is much progress in that area. I know that some distro has made builds specifically for notebooks and now support advanced APM like suspend and hibernation etc.

So for now, I'm pretty happy to dual boot!

BTW, all my above comments were based on my experience with MEPIS on m300. The Mandrake was on a Inspiron1100 with XP and the slackware was on a 486dx2-80 (overclocked from 40!).

I started with Linux since RedHat 6.0. I didnt have internet then, but heard so many things about linux then that I bought a boxed version of it at the local bookstore. Installed it, and basicaly played with it since v9.

2 years ago, I stumbled on Gentoo.

I thought I knew linux, and could do anything I wanted with it, but I was wrong.
I nevercompiled a kernel, I never really had majer speed improvements when I tried tweaking the boot times and stuff, but from 1 install of Gentoo I learned more then I ever learned from 5 years of RedHat.

Gentoo is not easy to install, but their manual is very descriptive, and it works. It also takes a long time to install since everything is compiled on your system, using your tweaked settings (they do have precompiled stuff as well, but thats not fun)

RedHat I never really needed the terminals/commandline, but using Gentoo, you just notice it works so much faster.

Unfortunately I dont have any systems currently free to run Gentoo (not really easy to program windows apps on linux) but in a few weeks, a used system is coming my way, and it will be running Gentoo.

I tried another couple of "distro's" but gentoo is still one of the nicest to have running, and believe me, it ran awesome when I had it running on my laptop. even hibernate and stuff worked without issues.

PocketDVD, that is great! ... any particular gentoo flavor to try? Or there is only one flavor?

Hibernation and stuff works too? woo hooo

oh why is that? i thought it was a problem only with jornada linux. but the problem is more widespread then? why do they never care about APM?

now that's comforting to know

Well, for most system, when a notebook resumes from suspension, the system do not go through bootstrap, because it was in a sense, halted or throttled down instead of totally stopped. This means that the OS (linux in this case) needs to have the right drivers to do this, ie tell the h/w to go into state 0 or something.

HPC linux developers have it slightly harder, as the mobo for these devices are mostly if not always very custom designed with proprietary chipsets. Less for the CPU (SH3, MIPS, ARMs etc), the design of the mobo may be totally blackboxed to the developers. Some even use signal probes to identify the interrupts etc in order to build the kernel up.

With increasing standardized parts (like mobo chipsets) for notebooks, it becomes "easier" for the kernel to be built. Still, it may still mean that certain less commonplace features like touchscreen or winmodem are not supported natively in the linux distro, as they may not be implemented with standard chipsets.

EDIT:
I realised I did not directly answer your question! ... APM is in some cases placed as lower priority while porting to a new platform. Usually, they go in the order of ...
1. Boot strap with generic screen buffer, memory etc
2. IDE or storage device detection
3. Kernel (micro kernel)
4. Video, sound, LAN/WLAN chipset support etc
5. Misc ... like APM!

Granted, this is an order I pluck out of the sky, from my distilled lab-controlled-environment experience while writing a simple kernel for MC68000 cpu back in college. ... and of cos we never had to deal with advance chipset detection! We only did bootstrap, memory check, video check (thru serial port), LPT1 printout etc! Super small kernel

Edited by Snappy! 2005-05-22 3:33 PM

I thought we were talking about Desktop Linux, not HPC linux.
Gentoo had an ARM project going on for a while, but the main ARM developper had some issues with the way Gentoo was going with it, and basicaly quit.

However, for desktop usage, the Gentoo (only 1 flavor) is the best way to go I think. Ubuntu is more populair at the moment, and is kinda based on Gentoo, but more userfriendly.

the reason why Gentoo is so cool is that you just get what you want, no more, no less.
the "emerge" command is quite powerfull, and if you "emerge something" it will get the requirements as well as the program you want to install. Also, they work hard to get the very latest of the programs working.

Also, the Forums for Gentoo are the best on any linux topic you can think of. Even if you have issues with other linux versions, you can usualy find an answer there (but never mention your using something else, otherwise they'll attack like pitbulls)

anyway, if you got a spare pc, give it a try. make sure you do keep their installation manual handy, since your gonna need it.
basicaly everything you need you can get to work, hibernation, speedstep, hotplugging, bluetooth, wifi etc, no darn worries at all.

I wanted to know opinions of both HPC and desktop Linux. Also to see if anyone has a working Linux HPC. And if so what it is. Everything so far has been great. Does Gentoo support WIFI? if so how? I had Gentoo on an old thinkpad once, but forgot the startup password, and had to reformat. I didn’t have the time to reinstall though. Sucks! I also had Lindows, seemed to me to be a bad copy of windows. DSL Damn Small Linux is another one I was playing around with. I thought it was nice that it came on a bootable disk and you don't have to install it. It is too small to really do anything with though.

I had asked questions on a Linux forum, and I accidentally said I used Windows. A mistake I will not make again!

I tried NetBSD linux on the MP790 for awhile, up to the point of getting X to work and dillo 0.8.1 to work (in a sense). Dillo turned out to be only fairly compatible with the web sites I want to access, like hotmail, hpcfactor.com, y!, gmail etc ... back then anyway, and since it didn't fit 80% of my needs, I relegated it to Try-Later status.

A while ago I did try a Linux version from www.handhelds.org on my IPAQ2210. it was highly unstable, but that was said as well, and it caused a hard reset, which was mentioned as well, but it did boot into a login screen from a cfcard with the linux files on it. It was pretty exiting, but unfort the calubration of the touch screen was not done yet, (which was also mentioned) so I couldnt log in, lol

I havent seen linux running on a hpc yet, but on desktops it works fine.
The only thing you got to keep in mind is that syncing with a windowsCE device can be a pain.

I've been wanting to switch to linux for a while (and have once or twice, to Debian the last few times), but keep getting held back with compatibility issues..

Not hardware issues, but with my gadgets. If I can find some way to sync my v551 phonebook and my whole MP790 with Debian I'd be there in a second

Someone else who wants what we want.
http://www.topology.org/hard/hpc.html