Linux distro, what to take?

[Jace]

So, I'm using Vista and I love it. But as a computer enthusiast I feel sort of obliged to just try out Linux for once.

So, which distro will give me the most polished Linus experience?

[Chiknaa]

Damn Small Linux is a very versatile 50MB mini desktop oriented Linux distribution. You can use it for the following purposes -
* Boot from a business card CD as a live linux distribution (LiveCD)
* Boot from a USB pen drive
* Boot from within a host operating system (that's right, it can run *inside* Windows)
* Run very nicely from an IDE Compact Flash drive via a method we call "frugal install"
* Transform into a Debian OS with a traditional hard drive install
* Run light enough to power a 486DX with 16MB of Ram
* Run fully in RAM with as little as 128MB (you will be amazed at how fast your computer can be!)
* Modularly grow -- DSL is highly extendable without the need to customize

Get it from here: DSL information

[zztech]

Well, I've always used RedHat Fedora. It's not the smallest (HDD size) of the bunch, but it runs well.

However, I have been at the receiving end of a few of Fedora's shortcomings. Fedora Core 5 played an annoying thing on me where it refused to show the mouse.

[coolwrks]

I'll stick to Debian or a distro based on that. Ubuntu is a nice one, which is very dynamic now. Updates are released in every six months. And, the latest version of Debian, "Lenny" will be out almost after this month. As a student, I think it will be better for you to choose Debian, as it is community supported and will help you in many ways...

[naives]

Debian is good. It is has got a great community of developers behind it. And it is the best distro I think. There are many others derived from debian available. Go a Debian based GNU/LINUX

[Jace]

I'll try that "Damn small Linux". Sounds quite interesting.

Busy downloading Ubuntu now too, though the download is very, very slow... I'm talking about 2 - 4 kb/s.

Might try Debian after that then.


I think I have to have used it if I want to work at some computer store that I've got my eye on (being a 15 year old, one can't do much more).



Thanks for the help and by the way, I guess I'll have to make a partition for Ubuntu (and Debian). I've never actually done this before and is there actually a way to remove partitions and the data that it contains afterwards?

[.Ghost]

For me, if you're just beginning to use Linux then Ubuntu does it well (or Kubuntu if you want to try out the KDE interface).