[Preston] Re: Linux on my Computers

[Dougie Nisbet]

On Monday 12 January 2004 4:06 am, Granville Cousins wrote:
> Hello PLUG,
>
> I have a Toshiba Laptop Satellite 2180CDT running Windows 98SE on a
> 4.2Gig hard disk. I have acquired Fedora which came with Linux magazine
> and Mandrake PowerPack Edition 9.0. I would like to install one of
> these versions on my Laptop. Which do you recommend and are there any
> vital points that I should be aware of before I begin the installation.

[ ... ]

If I were you, and knowing what I know now, I'd experiment with two or three 
distributions before settling down with the one you'll use in anger. Are you 
going to wipe the Windows from your laptop or re-partition? You'll possibly 
run a bit tight for space if you want to run linux and windows alongside each 
other on a 4GB disk. The 2nd hard drive on your desktop sounds ideal for 
partitionioning and installing two or three different linux flavours and 
seeing which one you prefer. In fact, having two linux installations on one 
PC isn't such a bad idea anyway, as you can boot up the working one to fix 
the broken one! 

I tried Mandrake, Redhat, Slackware and Suse for varying periods of time 
before settling down with Debian. The thing about choosing the right distro 
is to forget all arguments that fly around regarding the 'best' distro, and 
stick with the one that feels right for you and you're most comfortable with. 
I recall Mandrake having pretty snazzy hardware detection and configuration 
and as a newcomer something like that might suit you better, at least in the 
short term.

Dougie