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If you have a high speed internet connection, and a cd burner, save your money and get it for free off the net. I tried 7.2 last year, (and I paid 79$ for it!) and while it was operable, it failed to recognize much of my hardware. I loaded 8.0 yesterday, and I was very impressed at the easy install, much improved over 7.2. It was a snap to hook up to the internet, and inside 30-45 minutes start to finish, I was up and flying!
i think mandrake if your new. its easy to use and i heard 8.0 is really good. though, the last time i used it or tried was 7.0
or you can try the most commonly used, redhat.
if you want good though, try slackware or debian. debian is way advanced though but excellent.
Well, tho i run Debian myself, i do have to admit that mandrake would be easier for a novice. And i would also suggest it over red hat or suse if you actually have to buy it, because it is much cheaper and will come with a lot more extras than red hat.
Mandrake would probably be easier to install than SuSE but the easiest I have found is Caldera. Whatever you do, don't go to the store and spend any real money. Check out Cheapbytes.com, linuxmall.com or linuxcentral.com. They will have all the flavors you can imagine and the cost will be from $.99 to $3.98 per distro. You could afford to buy 6 or 7 different distros and find the one that works best for you. If you really want to go on the cheap just let me know and I can burn them for you for the price of the blank cd.
Originally posted by madcrutch Mandrake would probably be easier to install than SuSE but the easiest I have found is Caldera. Whatever you do, don't go to the store and spend any real money. Check out Cheapbytes.com, linuxmall.com or linuxcentral.com. They will have all the flavors you can imagine and the cost will be from $.99 to $3.98 per distro. You could afford to buy 6 or 7 different distros and find the one that works best for you. If you really want to go on the cheap just let me know and I can burn them for you for the price of the blank cd.
Good Luck!!!
Umm yeah. You get a 'free' ISO version, not the whole enchilada. I agree that it's best to look at as many distributions as possible, but when you want to get the most out of your chosen platform, buying the official package is more than beneficial and economical.
In the real world, when you spend 'real money' you get 'real goods' and still get a good deal.
For US$30 you get three CDs + manuals for SuSE personal. Redhat is also in the same price range, plus you get priority ftp access (90 days?)
It's like mom says -you get what you pay for. Either way you need to invest your time or money.
Last edited by mcleodnine; 07-07-2001 at 04:47 PM.
caldera was the easiest I ever used but I thought they quit making linux after microsoft gave them all that money. I would not recommend using a distro that is not in active developement. Caldera was definitely the easiest I ever used, I even bult my 'linux from scratch' distro from it.
Look at the distro's web sites and try to find one with the best compatability with you hardware. Suse has been good for me in that regard, it really supports alot of video cards and monitors. Caldera was by far the easiest for me to configure and get running. Someone mentioned downloading ISO's or buying the cheaper no documentation versions of a veriety of different distro's. That is a good idea because you can compare all the different desktops, package managers, file manager ect. until you find what you like and put out the money for the full distro. with documentation and support.
I have had no problems with the free ISO versions. I have downloaded many different distros and found the free versions to be very useful. The so called extras found in the commercial versions are available for download also. If you need Star office or some other apps, firewalls etc. they are also available for download and cheapbytes has many apps available cheap. I see no reason to pay $30 bucks for something I can get for $2.99 especially for a newbie. Usually the third CD in the bunch is the source code. Probably not useful for a newbie. There are compatibility problems that you can run into with a distro no matter what their hardware compatibility page says. The manuals are available on the particular distros' website in html or .pdf form in almost all cases. (Redhat, Caldera, SuSE, Mandrake, Turbo etc.) Save your money and find the distro you like. I know that these companies need funding to keep going or they will go tits up (ie. Eazel). I don't like paying $400 to $500 dollars for an OS along with apps which is why I use Linux in the first place.
Ill throw in a vote for peanut linux. Peanut was the fist distro that I used, and it worked flawlessly. Bonus: the download is only 50 megs. I burnt it to disk, and used the cd setup option that Peanut offers to install. Really simple, pretty complete, and anything that you need you can download anyway. The documentation (and these and peanuts forums) are very complete.
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