Recommend a Linux distro to me

[Tortuga]

Hi,

I am a Linux novice and I am looking for a good Linux distro to put on my laptop, but there are so many!

Also, is it ok to put it on another HD (lets say an USB HD) or should I just partition the HD on the laptop?

I know there are free distros, but I also do not mind spending money for good one.

[linuxrocks]

Don't spend money, all the free ones are pretty good. I suggest you use Ubuntu Linux which is quite user-friendly. Other popular ones are Fedora (open source version of RedHat) and Suse.

[tinhat]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi,

I am a Linux novice and I am looking for a good Linux distro to put on my laptop, but there are so many!

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry, there's no pat answer here; too many variables. Check out http://distrowatch.com/ for a start.

I will tell you that Fedora seems to be popular, Debian/slackware are probably a little too hardcore for a novice, I see lots of ppl talking about ubuntu but have never used it myself, gentoo is what I use but likely not for a novice unless part of your aim is to really understand what "linux" is and SUSE (AFAIK) seems to be a popular entry-level distro.

You can also try this (http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html, an OS on a bootable CD). If you like it maybe you'll enjoy using linux. If not then you saved yourself a ton of time.

[ QUOTE ]

Also, is it ok to put it on another HD (lets say an USB HD) or should I just partition the HD on the laptop?

[/ QUOTE ]
The short answer is "you can do whatever you want." The long answer is that linux and its boot loaders are extremely flexible so really you need to define for yourself just what it is you're trying to achieve then proceed from there.

[ QUOTE ]
I know there are free distros, but I also do not mind spending money for good one.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't know if anything's changed but it used to be that anyone offering a linux distro for sale had to also make available all its source code. Typically you'd be paying for the media the distro comes on, a book, support to get help, etc., but if you scour the distro's site you should find access to the free version somewhere. Companies like Red Hat make it real hard to locate the free version (or did in the past), but it is there somewhere.

Mike

[Tortuga]

Thx for the help

[rjp]

slackware!

I mostly use FreeBSD as of late, but your best bet (if you're new) is likely RedHat.

[CrashPat]

Use ubuntu, I think it is the easiest to use right now. The installer is a live cd so you can try it before you install. It installs easily, updates easily, but is powerful enough for advanced users.

[Dave I]

I always liked Mandrake but I haven't touched Linux in probably 3+ years.

[wims]

Get Ubuntu, it's the most user friendly distro out there. It's pretty good

[BiPolar_Nut]

Depends what you're using it for.

I chose SuSe 9.3 (not 10.0) for one machine because it's my dual-head VMWare box and VMWare explicitly supports SuSe 9.3. Also, I'm using an Nvidia multihead card and getting dual monitors was literally point-n-click (Nvidia offers Suse-native single-executable driver install).

I prefer Debian for my non-gui boxes most of the time if they're not getting a *BSD flavor.

Laptops are always iffy on (distro-native/minimal-tweaking) driver support. Slackware had worked "out of the box" for me on more laptops than other distros.

Live cd distros would be good to try to see if everything works "out of the box", then you could install to the HD.

[_dave_]

[ QUOTE ]

gentoo is what I use but likely not for a novice unless part of your aim is to really understand what "linux" is

[/ QUOTE ]