Anyone Using Linux???

[mblanton]

I was thinking of getting a laptop (PII or PIII) to run linux on. It has to be compatible with a compact flash reader, external hard drive, cd-burner, and wireless network card (for internet). Anyone have experience in this area and care to comment. I was thinking of running CollegeLinux.

Mike

[KevC]

Gentoo has got to be the best disto I've ever worked with. But good luck with RAW... I never figured out how to get GIMP to read that...

[hickory]

I have a Thinkpad T22 P3 850 mhz with both Mandrake and Win2000 on it. Mandrake can do almost anything that I want it to. Probably if I spent more time using it I could do everything with it that I do with Win2000.

Never tried using Gimp with RAW but I used it and liked it with jpgs.

[MazerRakhm]

I've played with Suse and RedHat on both IBM Thinkpads and Dell laptops, and it really runs well. My brother in law just switched to Gentoo on his Dell and hasn't had very many problems.

KevC is probably right, Gentoo set up right is probably the fastest and smoothest running distro currently, but I will add one warning: If you don't have a lot of knowledge about Linux installing Gentoo can be a steep learning curve (Long too!) as you can compile everything from source for your machine customized based on what hardware you have. Where as a retail type distro like Suse (My preference) or RedHat are rather insert cd and next clicky now.

[Charles Richards]

If you are new to linux, I'd avoid gentoo. It's a great distro, but it can be quite difficult to grasp some of the concepts of using it for a beginner.

I'd say give Ubuntu Linux a try -- you can download and use a "live" cd to see if it'll work with your hardware before you install it. The install is very easy, and the OS is very easy to use and maintain (and if you want to delve into the more technical side of linux using the command line, you still can!)

[gjl711]

I'd say give Ubuntu Linux a try -- you can download and use a "live" cd to see if it'll work with your hardware before you install it. The install is very easy, and the OS is very easy to use and maintain...
I just switched over to Ubunto from Suse on my backup PC and my son's homework laptop. Both installs were exceptionally easy and both so are are running stable. I really like the user interfaces.

[Karl C]

If someone wants to keep their windows-based apps on a Linux box, I believe the WINE (http://www.winehq.org/) emulator can be used.

[Charles Richards]

If someone wants to keep their windows-based apps on a Linux box, I believe the WINE (http://www.winehq.org/) emulator can be used.

A note about WINE is that it doesn't work with *any* of the new Adobe Apps (CS2, CS3, etc)

The best I've been able to do is to get Dreamweaver 8 working under WINE.

If you desperately need to use windows applications, it's not a bad idea to look into installing a "virtual machine" on your linux box.

Look into some software called "virtualbox" -- it's a free VM software package that works well.

[squeakier]

Gentoo has got to be the best disto I've ever worked with. But good luck with RAW... I never figured out how to get GIMP to read that...

i don't think GIMP can read raw files, but i'm using rawstudio and i love it!

If you are new to linux, I'd avoid gentoo. It's a great distro, but it can be quite difficult to grasp some of the concepts of using it for a beginner.

I'd say give Ubuntu Linux a try -- you can download and use a "live" cd to see if it'll work with your hardware before you install it. The install is very easy, and the OS is very easy to use and maintain (and if you want to delve into the more technical side of linux using the command line, you still can!)

i second this recommendation. if you want to run it on an older, slower system, i'd recommend xubuntu as it's less graphically demanding than ubuntu but still a fantastic OS. i'm currently running xubuntu (feisty fawn) on a 5-year-old imac and it's great.

[lakiluno]

I'd recommend reading the date:2005.

When this thread was started, Ubuntu didn't exist.

[squeakier]

I'd recommend reading the date:2005.

When this thread was started, Ubuntu didn't exist.

wow, why was this thread even bumped up ???

[Charles Richards]

whoops, my fault. I saw it in the "similar threads" thing at the bottom of the page and just read thru it and posted.

Also, FWIW Ubuntu existed since 2004, with the "Warty Warthog" 4.10 edition of Oct 2004, followed by the Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog - Apr 2005) and Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger - Oct 2005) distros.

[lakiluno]

my bad - but still, it wasn't "the" distro that everyone recommended to n00bs back then...