[Lancaster] Help me select a distrob

[max*]

Hi HAB

Not easy to choose :-)

Mandriva and SuSE are definitely nice for starters - almost everything can be 
done using a mouse. this is nice while you get used to things.

Ubuntu is also getting very popular - it does things in a different way 
(encourages you to get into things in a less wizzardy way), but is 
nevertheless extremely popular amongst people who just want to do things with 
their computer (as opposed to doing things to their computer).

Mandriva used to be my main recommendation, because it was fairly standard 
under the skin, so when you felt the time was right to start investigating, 
you could swap and switch between using wizards and editing config files. but 
the last few versions have got _very_messy, with lots of weird stuff going 
on.

SuSE, although very good in lots of ways, (and near to my heart as my first 
distribution about 10 yrs ago), is quite non-standard in too many areas, and 
mixing the wizards and hand tuning is not recommended. (although this is 
getting much better).

Fedora - i just find confusing these days. they just seem to be wandering 
around thinking "ah yes, that'd be nice." (which isn't unusual when it comes 
to choosing software, but is confusing when they can't make their minds up 
about which graphical front end for installing software they promote).

Result: i usually recommend ubuntu. it has lots of wikis, newsgroups and 
howtos - all of which are really important.

however, if you have a friend or nice neighbour who will be helping out, ask 
them for their advice, since they'll be the easiest ones to ask in case of 
difficulty!

As regards DEBs or RPMs, don't worry too  much about that. For starting off 
it's best to just use the software that is available on your CD, and in the 
'repositories' (ie sites with lots of software specifically put together for 
your distro). If you start downloading rpms and such willy-nilly you can get 
into awfully disempowering problems with something called 'dependencies'. 

You can almost guarantee that all the software you want will be available 
packaged up neatly for your favourite distribution. 

Hope this helps!

max

> On Monday 17 Apr 2006 11:41, HAB Boy wrote:
> > Guys/Gals,
> >
> > I have done a lot of search to select a distro to switch from Win to
> > Linux. Finally, I came up to two distros
> >
> > 1. Mandriva (Mandrake)
> > 2. Fedora Core 5
> >
> > Can any of you help me making a choice and may be give me some of the
> > pros and cons of both based on your experience.
> >
> > HAB
> >
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> > Lancaster at mailman.lug.org.uk
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