Looking to Switch to Linux - Need Help with which Distro

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redwolfe3

Weaksauce
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Jul 16, 2004
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Now, I know there are just as many options and suggestions out there as there are people, so bare with me, I have a very specific goal in mind.

First, what I will be converting is my current desktop system which sites idle 99% of the time these days and mainly serves Email Checking duties and File/Printer Sharing Duties. The system is a Tyan S2875 Tiger with Dual Opty 244's, 1 GB of RAM (soon to be upgraded to 2GB), a Raptor 74 GB Drive and a Seagate 160 GB Data drive.

In my searching, it seems like Samba will do 90% of the sharing stuff that I want no problem which is good. It also looks like most distros include Samba standard, also good. Presently, I have been kind of looking between 3 major contenders: openSuse, openSolaris, and Ubuntu. I have tried all 3 of these on one of my old laptops and they all seem to work relatively well, but since this was on my old, unstable system, I never got much beyond the core install, getting WiFi drivers up and working, and browsing the web.

Ubuntu seemed nice, but some of the nice desktop stuff worries me and makes me wonder how stable/usable it is a daily system (my main work on this system would be web development, which means I will probably be using Wine to port some Windows Software).

openSuse seemed to be pretty easy to use and straightforward, but I have heard horror stories about compatibility and such. I also wonder how well it is really maintained when they have their "Paid for Support" professional version instead.

openSolaris gives me some of the worries of openSuse. The other big item is that I have heard a lot of stories about slow(er) speeds and software incompatibilities with Solaris due to changes in its Libraries, etc.

I personal have a lot of experience with Solaris (8) at work, but the type of programming I do there doesn't really require the graphical side as much as I will need to be able to do Web Development on this system.

Ultimately, most of the desktop tasks can fall on my Laptop without a problem, so long as I can get file and printer sharing up and running.

Does anyone have any good suggestions as to which OS would be best to go with, and what the best plan of attack would be. My biggest concern is wiping my current system as it has over 2 years of new data, and some data dating back as far as 10+ years. I have it all backed up elsewhere, but I would probably install this OS on a new set of Drives, and then later merge all my data from my other 2 drives once everything seems to be up and running stably.

Thanks for any help/suggestions, and sorry for my long winded question.
 
redwolfe3 said:
Now, I know there are just as many options and suggestions out there as there are people, so bare with me, I have a very specific goal in mind.

First, what I will be converting is my current desktop system which sites idle 99% of the time these days and mainly serves Email Checking duties and File/Printer Sharing Duties. The system is a Tyan S2875 Tiger with Dual Opty 244's, 1 GB of RAM (soon to be upgraded to 2GB), a Raptor 74 GB Drive and a Seagate 160 GB Data drive.

In my searching, it seems like Samba will do 90% of the sharing stuff that I want no problem which is good. It also looks like most distros include Samba standard, also good. Presently, I have been kind of looking between 3 major contenders: openSuse, openSolaris, and Ubuntu. I have tried all 3 of these on one of my old laptops and they all seem to work relatively well, but since this was on my old, unstable system, I never got much beyond the core install, getting WiFi drivers up and working, and browsing the web.

Ubuntu seemed nice, but some of the nice desktop stuff worries me and makes me wonder how stable/usable it is a daily system (my main work on this system would be web development, which means I will probably be using Wine to port some Windows Software).

openSuse seemed to be pretty easy to use and straightforward, but I have heard horror stories about compatibility and such. I also wonder how well it is really maintained when they have their "Paid for Support" professional version instead.

openSolaris gives me some of the worries of openSuse. The other big item is that I have heard a lot of stories about slow(er) speeds and software incompatibilities with Solaris due to changes in its Libraries, etc.

I personal have a lot of experience with Solaris (8) at work, but the type of programming I do there doesn't really require the graphical side as much as I will need to be able to do Web Development on this system.

Ultimately, most of the desktop tasks can fall on my Laptop without a problem, so long as I can get file and printer sharing up and running.

Does anyone have any good suggestions as to which OS would be best to go with, and what the best plan of attack would be. My biggest concern is wiping my current system as it has over 2 years of new data, and some data dating back as far as 10+ years. I have it all backed up elsewhere, but I would probably install this OS on a new set of Drives, and then later merge all my data from my other 2 drives once everything seems to be up and running stably.

Thanks for any help/suggestions, and sorry for my long winded question.
Click to expand...

Your right opinions are going to vary drematically depending on where you ask, and who you ask. However with that said, I think based on your needs, and the distro's you've listed Ubuntu will be the better choice.

Ubuntu has an LTS release. (Long Term Support) And it is rock solid, and very well supported by the company. In addition it is free to use. It is a little outdated, but if you need rock solid stability, then Ubuntu LTS is what your looking for. Also Of the distro's you listed Ubuntu will have the best WiFi support. I think all around it is the best choice for your stated goals.

OpenSuse is Novells testing ground. As such, it is designed to roll out new technology. This new technology is not always stable, and isnt supported by the company. The only thing OpenSuse is good for is beta testing new software.

OpenSolaris serves exactly the same role as OpenSuse. As such it has the exact same limitations.
 
Well, that's kind of what I was thinking, but thoughtI should check it out.

In terms of the windowing environments, I know that Ubuntu uses Gnome (although they also have KUbuntu with KDE). Are there big differences between the windowing Environments for different Distros, or is it mostly just how they come "Out of the Box" that differs?

As it sits, I'm running my system on a Suse Pro 9.3 Live CD right now, and most things seem to be working ok. Some of the drivers don't appear to be supported out of the box, but it looks like I can get those from either Tyan or the Hardware company, so that shouldn't be a big deal.
 
I would ask a few more questions before I made a decision. While the DE is pretty much up in the open..personal choice is what it should come down to, as a bit of disclosure, I am no fan of KDE. That would be a pretty minor issue for me.

I have never been a user of Suse. Can't say anything about it but what I have heard. So basically I can't help you out there. Yes I have heard all the horror stories, but I have never experienced them so..well your best off doing your own research.

As for OpenSolaris. Well. I have tried it. Not a big fan. Seemed clunky, slow, and pretty well unsupported save for server side. If you want to use it as an all around desktop/file/print server I'd look elsewhere. I'm also not sure as to there level of NTFS support. I would imagine you can read it easily enough, though being able to write to it may be a problem. (only mention because you said eventually adding your old drives. Not sure of your needs..you may not even need NTFS read/write support. Just a thought.)

I am a big fan of Ubuntu. I used it fulltime till recently. My Wife runs Xubuntu fulltime on her laptop. Great hardware detection, good stability, great support community. I use Openbsd now..but that has no bearing on this discussion. I don't think you could go wrong with an (K)(X)Ubuntu install.

I would also add you should look at centOS. It is for all intents and purposes Red Hat EL for people that don't want to pay the moola. Stable like a rock, configurable etc. Take a look with one of their live CD's/ I would shy away from OpenSolaris for a more mature, better supported BSD if I was looking for a VERY unix way of doing this. I don't think you'll ever see OpenSolaris gain the support, and ports that say FreeBSD has. If your goal is ease of use/install..FreeBSD is tough to beat. Having an SMP system..I'd also look at Dragonfly. Dragonfly is focused on SMP. You would be pleasently surprised as to the speed gains, optimizations, and clean code they write for MultiProc machines. Then there is plain old OpenBSd..my personal choice. I am a bit biased, so I wont say more than at leats give it a look. Not the easiest thing to install, and setup. But once your done..wow. Fast, stable like anyone could hope, and they more or less define security. OUTSTANDING wi-fi support to boot.

My suggestion would be either Ubuntu or CentOS, and a BSD style to look at. Your setup, and your concerns say to me you should be looking at a BSD, not actually a linux. For a first run I'd lean towards FreeBSD, if your willing to work and aren't put off by CLI work. Open or Dragonfly.

Anyhow, any help you need feel free to PM me. I'd be glad to help you sift through your options, and help out.
 
Although you won't have the full performance of the operating system, it sounds like snagging a copy of VMWare may be the perfect thing for you to do right now. Grab the version of VMWare Server (it's free but you have to give a little info to get registration codes) for Windows and install that on your current main system.

Once that is done, you should have no trouble installing whatever *nix distro you want into VMWare. You will know if it will support your hardware and what software it will or will not run.

I have been using OpenSUSE 10.2 on the machine in my sig for several months now. I also have a triple boot setup with two other OSes. However, I rarely use them at all as just about everything I need or want to do works with SUSE. About the only exception is gaming. Wine has a tendency to be a bit buggy so if I feel like playing a game that doesn't have a Linux port (which isn't that often) I'll just boot into XP for that.

Just this week, I installed OpenSUSE 10.2 on my PIII 800 with 512 meg of RAM. Yes, it's a bit slow with that CPU but the box is mainly a fileserver that runs headless anyway. Since it's a 24/7 box that will never really be touched and I have a couple things that only run on Windows but need to run 24/7 I used VMWare to install XP and run those programs. I really didn't want to use Wine for this and the VMWare solution works perfectly so far. I use VNC to do anything I need with the box.

I would definitely check out VMWare to see how everything runs on your current hardware with the distro you want to use. It also allows you to get comfortable with the distro before putting it into a production environment. I would suggest upgrading your RAM to 2 gig first to get the most out of it, though. 512 meg is plenty for my uses on the PIII and won't slow anything down, however, to get the best feel for another OS through VMWare, I would suggest getting 2 gig for that machine so you have plenty of RAM for both OSes running at the same time.

I'm planning on installing VMWare on my main machine and messing with a couple of other *nix distros just to see what I'm missing out on with them. Since I'll just be running them in VMWare, I can turn them on and off at will and don't have to reboot to mess around. It's a great solution overall. You won't have full functionality through VMWare for everything but you should have all the functionality you are looking for in regards to your everyday use.

 
Thanks for the info guys. I actually have run FreeBSD and OpenBSD from time to time. They did seem rock stable, but it seemed like certain pieces of software didn't work properly with them. The nice thing is I'm not dumping my main drive, so I have the option of dumping the install and re-installing if need be. I may try playing with FreeBSD again, its been about 2 years since my last install.

As for the VMWare path, that would work great for testing out the Hardware, but the issue I have had in the past is, if I'm not forced to make it work, I don't have the real incentive to make it work, this is the main reason I am going this route. But thanks for that.

Keep the information coming though, none of it hurts.
 
Well openBSd certainly isn't perfect. It lacks alot of packages for basic apps lots of people use. No K3B, which has been a rather large sticking point for me. Like I said their packages and ports are quite a bit smaller than the other BSD's. FreeBSD though has basically everything you can imagine. The newest realease has had some bug's with the new Xorg version..so be warned and do some research about your hardware. I doubt you'd find it to big a deal though.

With Ubuntu you have alot of options. Server install then add only what you need, you can just go with a basic install then pare it down to what you want. Your more or less free to do what you want and have a certain degree of safety knowing it will likely find your hardware, install the proper driver's and at the least have you up and running in half an hour or so. Even closed source drivers are installed at the beginning, you may simply have to activate them in the restricted drivers manager interface.
 
Well, I opted to go with Ubuntu 7.04 Desktop. I wanted something that I could have up and running relatively easily, and then tweak beyond that point. I am still holding onto my crutch Windows XP install for the time being.

In working with Ubuntu this morning, I have already gotten the core install done with most of the main drivers running (1680x1050 Resolution, woohoo). I've also spent some time tweaking the packages I have installed as well as the task menu's, etc...

I did run into an issue that I hadn't anticipated though. Ubuntu auto-detected my HP Laserjet 4000 Printer, but I seem to be having a problem changing its default tray. On the printer, Tray 1 is the "Manual" tray, and Tray 2 is the ream sized paper tray that I normally use. No matter what I do, it seems to always want to pull from Tray 1, even when I explicitly tell it to use Tray 2.

So, until I get it completely running reliably with all my Software, I will be swapping back and forth between Windows XP and Ubuntu.
 
Honestly, I had most of the same qualms you did. The only application I still have which makes me run XP in a VirtualBox image is Ladbrokes Poker ;) For everything else, I've just gradually migrated away from the Windows equivalents ie ASP.NET > Ruby and Java (using Eclipse/Aptana for web dev), MS Office > OpenOffice, Media Player > Amarok (sure, it uses the KDE libraries when run under GNOME, and bloats as a result - but it's still the best music player out there) etc.

The only problem you'll have is finding the replacement applications - there aren't
any rules here, except that you'll want to play with them a lot until you find one you're comfortable with.

For what it's worth, I'm running Ubuntu 7.04 64-bit with all the Compiz Fusion Shiny Goodness, and it's solid as a rock. I flirted with 7.10 Tribe 5, but I had a few issues with OpenGL (crashed X occasionally) and some weird sporadic performance oddities.

I'm never going back to Windows, especially with Steam apparently coming to Linux.
 
How much of the love is for Ubuntu in here? If you want something like Windows KUbuntu is the alternative. But I have to say, it seems limited; though I haven't tried Ubuntu which seems bigger and better. Others could back me on this or correct me.
 
Well, just a little update:

I have Ubuntu up and running successfully with my system. I still have Ubuntu on a separate drive as I slowly migrate all my software across. This weekend I spent time getting Samba installed and working with File and Printer Sharing... things look to be going good so far.

I still have a lot of development applications to move across, and a HUGE amount of data to transfer over from my NTFS drives though. At least 20 GB in MP3's (All Legit) and another 10 or 20 GB in Videos, plus nearly 60 GB in Web and Programming work *blech*.

I'm still trying to figure out a few things, like getting streaming MP3's to work, etc. I presently use foobar2000 on my windows box for MP3's, but there doesn't appear to be a similar tool for Linux. Can any of you recommend a good one (I've tried XMMS and I'm not enthralled with it at this time).

I'm hoping to have everything configured in the next 2 weeks as I have time (I have to slowly migrate as I still need access to my data and tools until everything is up and running). I also need to migrate a lot of data across to my laptop, but it is all coming in good time.

I'm getting excited, I'm really starting to dig the Linux enviornment for its overall speed and snappiness compared to my XP box, we'll see if that like continues.

Thanks again guys for all the great suggestions.
 
redwolfe3 said:
I'm hoping to have everything configured in the next 2 weeks as I have time (I have to slowly migrate as I still need access to my data and tools until everything is up and running). I also need to migrate a lot of data across to my laptop, but it is all coming in good time.

I'm getting excited, I'm really starting to dig the Linux enviornment for its overall speed and snappiness compared to my XP box, we'll see if that like continues.

Thanks again guys for all the great suggestions.
Click to expand...

Keep going! It honestly doesnt take long for the initial buzz to wear off, but once you completely move to Linux a appreciation for it grows on you over time.

Anyway, my real reason for replying to this thread.... I sorta have the same question as the OP, does anyone know a good MP3 player/streamer?
 
foobar runs with wine. I use it that way myself. A decent native player is amarok, though you'll need to install the KDE libs if you want to try it out.
 
I am thinking about switching from xp to ubuntu myself but I do a bit of gaming and I'm wondering if it is even possible to play games such as warhammer 40k dawn of war, steam (natural selection), and bioshock.
 
antishatter said:
I am thinking about switching from xp to ubuntu myself but I do a bit of gaming and I'm wondering if it is even possible to play games such as warhammer 40k dawn of war, steam (natural selection), and bioshock.
Click to expand...

You can barely even play Bioshock on Windows proper, I doubt wine or cedega will play it.
 
I play bioshock on max settings, just because i play older games doesn't mean my pc is antiquated
 
Ghettobox said:
My suggestion would be either Ubuntu or CentOS, and a BSD style to look at. Your setup, and your concerns say to me you should be looking at a BSD, not actually a linux. For a first run I'd lean towards FreeBSD, if your willing to work and aren't put off by CLI work. Open or Dragonfly.
Click to expand...

Yea, as a long-term FreeBSD user, I also thought that BSD would fit the picture nicely here. It's not as easy to set up as some of the more userfriendly linux distro's, but it's rock-solid, very efficient, scalable, and excels at the tasks the TS mentions.
Thing is just that I don't know how WiFi would work in FreeBSD, I've never tried it, so I don't know if it's any good. I do have a WiFi network at home, but it's just a wireless router/access point plugged into my switch, connecting to the network served by my FreeBSD box, which is the gateway to the internet.
 
You might want to take a look at PCLinuxOS, you can download the LiveCD by going through http://www.distrowatch.com and try it out without fully installing it. If you like it, on the liveCD desktop there is included an Install shortcut that will launch the full install of the OS.
PCLOS started off as a branched set of configs from Mandrake and has evolved into a complete OS of its own. I found that sharing with NTFS partitions worked right "out of the box", as well as WiFi. Anything else you like can be installed fairly easily. On top of that, it ran much faster than the same system with Ubuntu or Windoze did, and is highly customizable. Try the LiveCD and see what you think.
 
This post is somewhat dead but for future reference if you think you wanna dip your toes in linux i'd go with Ubuntu. That's mainly because my friend ordered it in the mail for some reason and he said they sent him 2 discs and he gave me one because I said i'd give linux a shot. I used it for a bit before my entire computer had issues but that's not because of Linux. I also heard it's better to start with slackware though because since it's a bit harder you'll learn alot more about the operating system.
 
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