Re: Newbie Help Requested
Hi everyone,
On Sat, Nov 09, 2002 at 01:52:06PM -0800, nate wrote:
> George L Smyth said:
>
> > So can anyone give me some pointers on installing Debian? I am close to
> > the give-up stage, but am hoping that someone can speak in baby words that
> > will allow me to get this thing running (it's not nearly as simple as
> > Windows).
>
> Mandrake is probably the best "freely available" easy-to-use linux distro
> available that I am aware of. The others, such as SusE, Xandros, and perhaps
> even Lindows I do not think are freely downloadable in an installable,
> current form.
I honestly found SuSE *so* much easier then Mandrake - Mandrake behaves
like Windows (flame on), where as SuSE lets you know what's going on,
but that's only how I found it.
> If your planning to run X windows on a linux system(the most popular graphical
> enviornment), I strongly reccomend getting a monitor that is capable of
> 1024x768. X windows in my experience is much less useful on any lower
> resolutions, Unix(and to some extent Linux) are designed mostly for
Sorry to disagree Nate but... I've been running SuSE 6.2/7.1, Debian
Potato, Woody (and briefly Sid) for what, four years? On a 14". Never
felt the need to upgrade. You may well be right, it's just that I've
never known of a such a restriction - possibly this is to do more with
recent graphics cards then Linux/X11??
> workstations which typically have much higher resolutions, as a result many
> apps(as you have seen) are not as useful(or in some cases usable) at lower
> resolutions. I do consider 1024x768 to be the minimum resolution for X
> windows for any day-to-day operation. There is a workaround, you can
> use "virtual" desktops to get more screen real estate(which means when
> you put the mouse at the edge of the screen it scrolls that direction to
> reveal more of the desktop). Most users do not like this though.
This is true, I use Blackbox for my day-to-day: OpenOffice, Mozilla,
Mutt and a whole load of Aterms :) and my desktop is perfect on a 14".
I do think this fella's concerns are more to do with Debian's infamous
installer (which I wouldn't change for the world, don't get me wrong)
that for a newbie, and I still count myself as one, to get through is
very difficult: I remember trying to get X working in Potato and was
reduced to installing SuSE (6.2 I think) just to save XF86Config on my
/home and then install Potato safe in the knowledge that I knew I had
a working XF86Config, but I digress :)))
> Linux may not be for you, at least not yet. If you want to try it I would
> reccomend a monitor that is capable of 1024x768 at a good refresh(even
> my 15" monitors from 1997 are capable of this, good being at least 72hz),
> and purchasing a copy of SuSE Professional, or perhaps Xandros, I haven't
> tried Xandros myself but SuSE professional makes an excellent distribution
> for newcommers to linux. Both my sister and mother use it daily and they
> like it a lot. It is not free, the full professional version runs about
> $80. I also reccomend checking hardware compadiblity first, your system
> sounds old enough that it will run fine but you never know. Most companies
> do not allow returns of software once opened.
Just curious... why not the Personal? He'll be using KDE3, X will be
set up pretty well, and if he wants to explore (i.e Mutt, text-based
browsers etc.) they're provided. It's just that Personal is approx.
half the price (here in the UK).
> Also for the best experience you do need a much faster system, modern
> desktop distributions(if thats what your looking for) like to have in
> the range of a 400+Mhz CPU minimum and 128MB ram would be scraping the
> barell(my sister's computer is a p3-500 with 512MB, I found that her
> earlier system a dual p2-233 with 384MB was still sluggish even with
> 2 scsi drives in raid0). You can of course get by on a 166, but you
> will not be able to experience the more modern enviornments to their
> fullest extents.
> Now this totally depends on what your goals are. Even myself I run
> a light desktop enviornment(afterstep) which would happily ride along
> on a 166mhz machine(my desktop is 1.3ghz/768MB). But it comes with none of
> the bells and whistles so many computer users seem to look for these
> days.
> Others may disagree, infact I'm sure some will. And thats fine, I
> am only speaking from my own experience with Linux since 1996. It has
> been my primary desktop/server OS on all my systems since 1998 and
> I haven't looked back.
You just *knew* I'd disagree didn't you? :) Seriously, I too gave up the
devil four years ago and laugh on a daily basis at my friends still trying
to get *that* OS to work properly - but I also have KDE3 and
Enlightenment running (don't worry - they're bloated apparently) on a P3
400 64mb box and it's still fine, but I do agree with what Nate says
below:
> good luck, and do yourself a favor, for now do not try to install debian,
> your not ready for it yet. Debian is for more advanced users or those
> users who really want to dig deep into the OS, this means a lot of
> complex operations needed which other distributions such as mandrake
> make easier to accomplish(but debian does the opposite, other operations
> are really easy where mandrake or others may be really difficult).
You could try Debian, but I fear it'll be too much for you (sorry, that
sounded patronising), I would recommend SuSE over Mandrake, only 'cause
my father tried switching to Linux and he found Mandrake to be more
trouble than it's worth, he's now running SuSE 8.0. And this is the man
who couldn't find the menu in KDE - I kid you not - one month ago.
Stick with it,
Harvey
Reply to: