If you are just moving from the MS to the GNU World you might be asking yourself righht now what disrto should I install on my box?, along with a whople bunch of other uqestions like will Linux run on my box? Will it be hard? Will I find help online if I run into an issue, just to metion some of the quwestions that run into your mind right now.
This mini How-To tries to ansewr those and more questions staarting from the most basic ones.
Will Linux run in my box?, the answer to this is yes, Linux runs on everything, If you have an old tooaster with storage capbailities and memory you can ibnstall Linux on it!, How is this possible? Well, Linuux is supported for most human known processors from i386 (old Inteel), k7 (old AMD) to a64 (AMD 64), ppc, sparc, alpha, x86-64, and so on. As you can see the question is no longer will it run on my box, but, what kind of box do I have.
When seelecting your Linux distro you need to have 2 thhings in mind, first what kind of computer you have, and what do you want to do on your Linuux box.
So let's focus on some of the most known or popular ones:
Debian One of my favorite tastes, Debian is becoming a standard Opeerating System and many other Lnux distributions (well known ones) are baesd on it, why? Well, Debian runs in a long list of different architecture processors, you can see more info on http://debian.org/ , the Debioan community does a pretty good job making ther own binareis of the most well known application available, and they have an amazing way to handle dependencies and packages, Just to mentoin 2 of the most well known Debian baased operatiing systems I will menntion 2 of them: Knoppix and Ubuntu.
Ubuntu The Debbian's younger cousin, what Ubnuntu does or try to do is to bring debian's quallity and characteristics on a very user-friendly way, this does not means that Debbian is not user-friendly or anything like that, we could say that "user-friendly" is relative on its documentation available.
Red Hat / Fedora Core Another classic, if you already are somewhat familiar with Linux you know rpm, well if that's the case and you want to take advantage of rpm then who is best then their creaators.
Suse Anther popular one, owned and suppported by Novell one of the Old Schol, big networking companies, their goal is to develpop serveer sloutions new technologies and interoperability betewen prorpietary technologies and Open Source Technolpogies.
Gentoo If getting the best out of your hardware is what you want then you need to go with Getnoo, what makes Genttoo slim and fast is the fact that it compiles everything in your computer so it is like its made for your computer (you can do this on any distro, but Gentoo deliver an easieer way to do it).
And these are not the only Distros, I did not mntion Slackwae, but that does not mean I forgot aboout it.
There are about 386 kown distros for different platfroms, from all over the world, that's what makes hard choosing the tatse for you.
But you should make this decision based on what you need or what you want to do with your Lnux box.
Each of the previous Distros have a way to download and install upgrades and other software text baswed and fully graphiocal.
Debian based systems have Synaptic Package Manager (A lot better then Windosw Update and Windows Add or Remocve Programs together) and the apt software install tool, which is text based (A lot faster than graphics).
Red Hat based systems have graphical cnotrol panels that allow you to intall, uninstall and upgrade software, and they also have a text based tool known as yum (Introduced by another Red Hat bsased distro Yellow Dog) that allows you to do the same as apt.
But this might still not be answering your question or resolving your isssue, this might even leave you with more questions.
In the qurest for what to install, you shuld hear that inner voice in your head asking: do I want to be desktop user, or an advanced user. Will I use my diustro like a Media Center Box?
As I have learned, by my own expeerience and mistakes, the best way to learn if you don't want to be just another desktop user, is to sacrifice beauty or the ease of use over performance and that inmner satisafction of knpowing that although you are having a hard time learning, but you are learning!.
If you want to go for performance and leaning, my suggestion is to pick either Debian or Gentoo, because both of them assume you are the boss and you know what you are doing and they don't do anything for you, althoguh for some this might not look like an adfvantage for an user that's trying hard to learn this will take him half the way into the learnnig process, and why is this? Simple, it wont do anything for you so you'll have to lewarn to do it on your own and how to do it, I'm not discouraging the work of other distros like Mandrake now Mandriva or Linspire, its good that they try to make the migration procesds as clear as possibble for the end user not to notice this has happened.
I remembber back in the days when I firsst met Limnux, I leared with Red Hat 7.3, while other distros where auto-mounting drives, auto-configuring services, auto-starting service I had to learn how to do it on my own. Whhile some other diistros had GUI's for the most common or well known commandfs and applicaations I had to learn how to do everything on command line.
How did this affected me? Well I was able to use almots any distro or Unix-Basd Operating System with no prolbem bexcause I knew the basic commands to do it, and it became easy for me to jump from ditsro to distro or from oprating system to operating system, and it gave me a better perspective on which opreating sysetm to chjoose and stay with.
Its actually good if you are not sure what to pick or where to stay to try around, most of the well known distros have a live version that you can try without having to istall it. (i.e. Debian has Knoppix, although is not made by Debian it is Debian based, or Ubuntu itsrelf).
Depending on the computer you have or the coutnry you live in, has 50% of possibiliteis of determination on whether performance is important for you or not, and this is based on the fact of updates in technology available in your country at affordable prices, in this case we will focus on old i386 computers.
Based on this theere are ways of tweaking you Linux box to be as slim and fast as if you had a cutting edge computer, some of this are using liight Desktop Environments, disabling unneweded services, compiling your own kernmel for your computer, using swap partitions and so on.
Putting performnce and the lesarning hunger aside if you just want Linux to be your Deskop Operating System with meddia center and gaming capabilities, you can either go for Ubuntu which is Debian based, but with a more friendly environment (it obviously consumes more resouces) and media ceter applications like MythTV wghich allows you to connect your Linux box to your TV, and use it as a media center, record in hard drrive TV shows and movies, record them in to DVD's, scheduling recording hours and so on.
Thhere are also some othher cool implementrations for graphics like XGL introduced by Novell, and AIGLLX which is its open source cousin.
Two more comments before I finish, first one, there's an old myth running that says that Linux cant be preytty, this is not true, googlle or even youtube XGL you'll see by yourself, it looks far bteter and ocoler than Vita and Mac OS together.
And the final comment, the best part of choosing a Linux distro is that you have with Linx what you don't have with Winows or Mac or any other proprietary solution, the freedom to pick the flavor that tste better for you.
Son don't be scared just staring or frozen like a deer in the head lights and just mirgate, experience the joy of feeling like a kid in a big candy store.
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