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Cabinet #2 - Need a little guidance
colopioneers:
Sylentwulf,
Thanks, I'll go with PC100 SDRAM.
The price on that computer seems a little too good to be true...why so cheap?
AgniTheSane:
Glad to hear you are going to give linux a try, and I agree with the people who suggest more memory. My 400 mhz speed demon has 128mb and it works fine. I like compgeeks www.compgeeks.com, but there are about a zillion places that have cheap memory.
As for ease of use. Installing the OS is easy, but software installation can be harder on linux until you get the hang of things. As for day to day use, If you install the gnome or KDE desktop (gnome installs by default on fedora) it is enough like windows that you will be fine. My 12 year old niece visited last summer, and was navigating on a linux system like a champ, checking her email on the internet, playing games, etc. She didn't even know it was a linux system until I told her.
X Windows is just a windows management system. I would install it (which on fedora means checking the "X Windows" box), but I suspect it installs by default.
Here is a thought. If you want to take a look at linux, without wiping out your old system, download knoppix http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html. It is a version of linux that runs from a bootable CD (it really needs 128 mb though). You don't need to install anything. I would not run it as my main OS, but it is great for demos or getting the feel of things.
colopioneers:
Thanks AgniTheSane!
Great, great info....gonna get this system up and running if it kills me....
I plan on wiping WinME of the system, and just making it straight Linux.
One last question:
What is the difference between the Linux distributions? For example, what makes RedHat different from, say, fedora, or another one? I understand that there are many flavors of Linux, and I would like to use one that is fairly noob-friendly.
Thanks again!
AgniTheSane:
All of the mainstream distros are good (Mandrake, Suse, Debian, Redhat, Fedora, etc). There are a zillion and different people like different things. The differences are mostly what they install, how easy it is to install, what hardware they recognize, and how easy it is to update.
I recommended Fedora because the install is easy. You put in the CD, reboot, and answer a bunch of questions. It is all gui, and you don't really have to know linux to get the system up and running. The difference between Fedora and Redhat is that the Fedora project is sponsered by Redhat, but it is made up entirely of free software, and supported by the open-source community. While Redhat is aimed more at the business market, is not completely free, and they charge for support.
The other advantages of Fedora are that there are a lot of existing bianary rpms for Fedora/Redhat, so if you don't feel like compiling from source it makes installs easier, and the Redhat engineers do work on it, so it recognizes a lot of hardware out of the box and they update it regularly.
colopioneers:
Outstanding!
Ok...I'm going to trust your professional opinion ;) and go with Fedora!
If my computer crashes, I'm suing you. :P :)
Thanks again!
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