Few Questions To Help Me Decide On A Linux Release

[begavet]

Hey everyone,

Basically the reason for this post is because im kinda getting tired of using vista and i want to be able to explore Linux. I'm interested in recommendations on a Linux release that is very beginner user friendly and also has an advanced side to it. A couple of other things that im currently looking for in the release is for it to be able to detect my wireless connection to the internet, to detect my video card which is an Ati x800xt, Be able to play my mp3s and be able to scan thru my jpg wallpapers i have saved, and last but not least to let me be able to burn iso and img files. I would prefer to run Nero in Linux if its possible to be able to burn these files otherwise can somebody recommend another one just like it for Linux. Apart from that the only other thing that i use on a daily basis is Firefox and from what i have seen you can run it on Firefox, so that wont be a problem. And before i forget I would also like to install on Linux vuze for downloads if its possible. Can anybody recommend a good Linux distro for me thats not totally easy mode so i can break my head also sometimes and figure stuff on my own, and that ill be able to do the stuff that ive stated on a daily basis. Also I would like to get one that easy to install and deinstall later if i decide, cause i really don't want to have two partitions, i just want to completely wipe out vista and then just have plain Linux, and when i want to get rid of Linux ill just install vista again. Hope to hear from everybody, Thanks for reading this and I hope I didn't sound too much of a noob.

[Martian]

Pretty much any distro will do the things you want. Ubuntu is the generally recommended noob distro. Vuze is actually built on Java, and will happily run in just about any environment, and Firefox has a Linux build that will run just fine (and ships with most distros already). Getting Nero to run in Linux is a pain because it's Windows software, but there are a number of free and open source alternatives you can try. Nautilus has a built-in CD/DVD burning tool, or if you want stand alone software x-cd-roast is popular. For mp3's you have XMMS or Rhythmbox.

Caveat: Linux uses a different file system from Windows. You're going to have to format your hard drive. Linux can read NTFS partitions, but Windows won't know what to do with ext3.

There's really no such thing as a Linux distro that isn't advanced. Different distros pretty up the front end in different ways, but behind that it's all built on the same kernel. You can still do all the crazy console based stuff no matter what you're running (and will probably have to from time to time).

Wireless cards will generally auto-detect and install under Ubuntu. ATI provides binary drivers for their cards for Linux operation, although you may have to fiddle with them a bit to get them to work. Google is your best friend when it comes to error messages or general help on getting things to do what you want them to do.

[Hain]

First, you want to read this http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/tilted-...read-here.html .

Secondly, backup your data before you start playing with Linux.

There are two user-friendly distros that I recommend to beginners looking to get their toes wet. The first is Ubuntu, the second is Fedora. Both of these are remarkably simple to install and work with. During install, you will have a partition manager that will prompt how you want the system to be partitioned. Given that you already have Vista, it will recognize this and would, by default, create a second partition within the existing system partition. You can do away with this by selecting whole drive, but remember to have all you data backed up before playing. If you don't select whole drive, you have to be ready to set a slew of more options, which I am unable to remember off the top of my head.

Both of these are able to detect wireless cards and find suitable drivers, however they're ability to automatically detect configurations of wireless connections leaves something to be desired. This isn't much of a problem---it does not take long to guess what it is asking for (I knew and still know nothing about networking and internet, let alone wireless connectivity).

JPG support is not an issue.

Vuze might be an issue, since it is not ported to Linux. It might be possible to install it via Wine, but that is a long shot. Regardless, there are alternatives.

There are a variety of ISO tools for Linux, with some easier to use than others. Your best bet will be to get the tools that look like they are a one-app-one-job types, since the extraneous bells and whistles of the program are not there to dissuade and distract you. I have personally used ImgBurn through Wine to burn CDs and DVDs.

MP3 support is not native, you have to install libraries not included on default installs (if I remember correctly).

Installing programs is usually through an application manager similar to the Add/Remove Programs options in Windows. In Linux, if you are blessed with an application manager, it has a list of databases with applications that you can download and install, and does the work of installing it for you. There are some applications or libraries that are not included in the databases, and you have to download and install them manually. In my experience, the manual download and install is not that difficult if you read the installation instructions first. Installation has not taken more than three steps for me, and I hate reading instructions, but they are plainly written and helpful.

These are the essentials I learned in order to have an up and running Linux machine.

[Martian]

Once again: Vuze is built with Java. It will be quite content to run anywhere, so long as JRE can be set up.

If you want to encode mp3's, you'll need to add LAME. Playback is supported out of the box.

And yes, repos are your best friend. This is part of why I suggest Ubuntu as a noob distro. You will very quickly learn to love Synaptic. Probably around the first time you try to compile a piece of software from source.

[fiatguy85]

I've found Linux Mint is a great first Linux distribution to try. It's based on Ubuntu and comes with a couple extra tools to simplify things like video driver installation and other proprietary things that don't ship with Ubuntu.

[kajagoogoo]

Any variation of Ubuntu or distros based on ubuntu should be good.