Re: most suitable linux distribution on 64bit pc

On 12 okt, 08:05, Vahis <waxb...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
sobriquet wrote:
On 11 okt, 19:21, Vahis <waxb...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
sobriquet wrote:
<snip>
Does anyone know what the best linux distribution would be for that
purpose?
This has been asked here and all over the Net a gazillion times
There are always lots of recommendations based on personal experiences
and preferences.

But things change fast with hardware and software developments, so for
up-to-date advice,
it might be an idea to inquire in a newsgroup where people might be
willing to offer advice
or suggestions based on personal experience or things they have read
or heard.

OK. My recommendation: Take openSUSE.
Download the Live thingy and boot from that.
Run it and if you like it install it.

Perhaps you're right and I should have searched a bit more before
asking and perhaps the question
isn't particularly sensible without more information about what I
intend to do with linux (all-round use I guess basically).

Like I said: You can do everything with any major distribution.
If you know someone who is familiar with any of them, take that one.

One of the old faves is to ask you back:
I'm thinking of buying a car. Which car should I buy?

If you provide some additional information, like what kind of car
you're looking for
and how you intend to use it, I'm sure people can come up with an
advice.

I was kinda thinking of getting a good car and using it for driving on
streets and roads. Occasionally on motorways, too.

How's that?


Well, that would exclude the need for an offroad vehicle for instance
or an antique car
that is only suitable for decorative purposes.




A virtual machine is a _very_ good environment to install different
distributions one after the other and see what you like.

So far I've tried ubuntu and that seems to run fine, except that I'll
have to figure out how to obtain drivers for my display or graphics
adapter so I can run at a better resolution than 800x600.

I'm sure that can be no problem with Ubuntu or anything else, either.
In openSUSE you would run sax2 in a console and it would make the
settings for you.

 But I was

pleasantly surprised I got internet functionality and was able to
browse the web within minutes after installing ubuntu, while I still
haven't figured out how to get the internet working in a virtual
version of xp pro.

There you go :)

 Kind of odd that ubuntu is easier to hook up to the

web (via a proxy) than xp pro, given that I'm hosting virtualbox under
vista.

There you go :)



Whatever it is you want to do with which ever distro you choose, you can
do it. The way you want it.

Linux is _not_ windows, remember?

It's similar. Both have pros and cons. Linux can be more of a hassle
to configure, with obtaining drivers for
recent hardware that tend to be more readily available for windows,
but windows seems to have stupidity build into it.

In the case of openSUSE you can have the whole machine configured
automagically (this is default) by YaST.

In case of something needing to be changed you run YaST manually and
answer some questions.

My main reason to run openSUSE is YaST which is unique.


OpenSuse seems like a good distribution to try next to see how that
goes
with getting everything configured optimally and preferably
automatically (although answering
a few questions via a guide or wizard isn't so bad either).


I've run others and the rest is a matter of taste.

But YaST (Yet another Setup Tool) is unique.

It configures _everything_ that an average user needs to configure.

That is software _and_ hardware configuration.



I'm running vista 64bit home premium on a HP m9351 with 4 gb of
memory.
I might also like to run linux standalone on a separate partition
besides as a virtual machine with Sun xVM Virtualbox.

The above is still a bit unclear.
Are you talking about dual boot and/or virtualization?
Both run just fine.

If linux turns out to run more stable than vista, it would indeed make
more sense to use that as a host.
But vista requires the most memory so if it would be advantageous to
run vista 64 natively for heavy applications, that might warrant a
dual boot option. So I can run vista/xp/linux all virtually under the
linux host and occasionally resort to running vista 64 bit natively
from a separate partition (though the overhead of linux as a host for
running virtual machines is probably not too big).



Go ahead. Just do it.

I was just thinking, wouldn't it be better to use vista as a host for
virtualbox, as I already have all the drivers for vista because those
corporate criminals from micro$oft actually forced me to accept
windows vista (you can't even buy the friggin computer without vista
installed), as opposed to using linux as a host,

I run openSUSE as host. But they say windows works as a host, too.
The difference is that windows runs as it does and acts as it does.

Almost any change in the system requires reboot.
Also many updates require reboot.

And after some time windows also requires a new installation.

It's disks get fragmented and need defragmentation.

It's not exactly great if your guest OS is stable but your host requires
reboots after almost every update and disk fixing operations now and then..

If your host is Linux it requires reboot _only_ when the kernel changes.
Depending on the filesystem you choose (yes, you can choose from
several) it may require checking after a certain number of boots or a
certain amount of time running. This is automatic during boot.

There are also filesystems that don't require this at all.

The rest of the time your windows guest OS can boot as often as needed.
And it's often.

It's really absurd how often vista needs to reboot. Often it just
displays a screen and you expect it to reboot and after a few hours
you look and it turns out you actually have to turn off your computer
(not just reboot it) for updates to be installed. Not just once but
multiple times in a row (more than 3).
But apart from that very annoying reboot or shutting down hassle with
updates, it runs pretty stable, and there is a lot of nice software
available on p2p. I've used both gimp and photoshop and photoshop wins
hands down (if only because it supports 16 bit), but that is to be
expected of course because it is very expensive software if you have
to buy it. Having said that, gimp is still very great and in practice
you can do most things you can do in photoshop in gimp as well,
sometimes with some extra steps.


 given that the

computer comes with windows vista installed as the default operating
system with all the suitable drivers available and installed.
On many or even most websites from hardware manufacturers, there is a
windows driver available, but no linux driver, so I reckon it must be
a hassle to obtain all the proper drivers.

That is not accurate.
Why don't you just boot from a Live CD or DVD and see what happens?

I will experiment some more soon.


 It was even a bit of a

hassle to obtain drivers for xp for a dualboot system that had vista
installed by default I recall from a recent experience.

It has always been like that and it has been accepted by the people.
Also constant crashing and rebooting even when there's no crash have
been amazingly well accepted by the people.

Maybe Vista is different, I wouldn't know. I ran it once for a short
while in a virtual machine, but I saw nothing in it that would have made
me want it.

I sure see a lot of nice windoze applications on demonoid and
piratebay.
But I hate the idea of the operating system being a black box you're
not supposed to understand
by design (they don't disclose the sourcecode after all).


--
Vahishttp://waxborg.servepics.com
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