A Linux Question

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-11-13 09:24pm

Since I'm getting a new PC come the January sales next year, I'm seriously thinking about tinkering around with the current unit I have to evaluate a single, or possibly more variations of Linux as part of a project of mine to sample alternate OSes incase a switch is needed come the release of Longhorn.

Given I'm not really in the mood to relearn crap I was taught and subsequently forgot from computing, I'd like an interface that is user friendly and much like Windows (GNOME for instance) and a general system that is not going to bitch at me to alter bits of the kernel or rewrite half of the OS just to install new soft/hardware.

So, think there's something in it for me to venture into and explore or is it not worth the hassle?

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2004-11-13 10:25pm

Linux is always worth it. I personally use Debian. The set up isn't all fancy but if you've used a computer for more than about a year you should be able to figure it out just fine. Plus it's really easy to get updates/new software. Just get a commandline up and type "aptitude" and you have a simple package management program. If you really want something more nub oriented I suppose you could try out suse or redhat, but either one uses rpms to install packages and largely relies on the end user to manage their dependancies. Which sucks. Trust me.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-11-13 10:37pm

Well, I can do basic commandline stuff, but I don't want to have to revert to DOS like work just to use my PC. I had heard Red Hat was somewhat finnicky even for first-timers.

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2004-11-13 10:46pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:Well, I can do basic commandline stuff, but I don't want to have to revert to DOS like work just to use my PC. I had heard Red Hat was somewhat finnicky even for first-timers.

You probably won't need to use the command line for basic stuff early on with debian. Barring aptitude anyway. And you can launch that from within the gui with a shell. I say probably because if you fuck up configuration of your X-Server you'll need to use the Command line to fix it. If you do it right though you can get by with KDE and the occasional shell window.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2004-11-14 12:13am

I think it's easy to utilize Linux help, since one can always have someone else edit your config files, and commands can be typed in verbatim w/o vague descriptions of what to do w/ a GUI.