Can anyone recommend a good Linux distro for me?

Can anyone recommend a good Linux distro for me?

I want my Linux to be:

• Safe,
  
• Reasonably easy to use (not too much code!),
  
• Good with 5000 series ATI cards,
  
• Good with games,
  
• Well maintained.
  

Cheers,

Cam

Did you tried any Linux distros yet? If so, then tell us which experiences you have made!

I´m used to Ubuntu with Gnome, especially 10.10 is very stable and safe. You don´t have to expect any serious viruses on Linux iirc...

You really should find out yourself which distro is suitable for you. Many people will say in this thread that distro X is the best, others will say that distro Y is better and even more people will complain that distro Z is shit. It really depends on YOU, what you want and what you can do.

It took me one year to find out which is the best distro for me after trying out many...

inb4 distro flamewar!

No really, as a beginner-friendly system I would recommend Ubuntu (which I'm using myself for a couple of years now). It is based on Debian, has many newer features (like support for multimedia hardware and such), and you can easily extend it with custom packages (e.g. there are many games on PlayDeb.net). Can't say anything about them ATI cards though, but I guess it depends more on the underlying Linux kernel and graphics support, not on the specific distro.

Of course, I fully agree with Maddin here - check out some distros, use them for some days, then decide which one suits you best. For a huuuuuge list of distros check http://distrowatch.com. Note that you don't have to reinstall your system just for testing, since you can check it out in a virtual machine like VirtualBox. Maybe it's also a good idea to set up VirtualBox in Windows, test some distros, and then decide which one you're going to install.

I recommend mint ... with kde ...

because I was having issues with ubuntu versions newer than the one maddin suggested ...

note .. mint is based off of ubuntu so ... its ubuntu ... with MORE ... awesome ...


distros to avoid

suse
...

Most ppl would recommend either the distro they are using (openSUSE in my case) or some generally known allegedly newbie friendly distro like buntu or Mint.

But the reality is that the best distro to start using for a newbie is the distro that your good friend who is good with Linux is using himself - cause he's the dude you're gonna run for help if anything happens and it will be better if he knows your system as good as his own.

because I was having issues with ubuntu versions newer than the one maddin suggested ...

You mean with Unity, Ubuntu's new "desktop" (I don't remember the correct term)? At first I thought, what the hell, but I got used to it surprisingly quickly. Now I even like it, although some things could be better. Have to mention that I'm using Ubuntu 11.10, not the newest version 12.04, so some things may already have been improved in the latest version.

And I like Unity better than Gnome 3, which I also tested on Fedora

I suggest you start with Ubuntu (not Kubuntu or variants), at least just to give it a try and troubleshoot potential issues that you might have if it does not work out of the box. Since it's the most popular distro for beginners, you will get better support and user-friendliness.

When you get it working, you could then move on to something different like Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Mint, etc.

But maybe there are better ways to approach this. I'm no Ubuntu expert.

Maybe you should explain why you want to give Linux a try!

debian testing

fedora stable

Maybe you should explain why you want to give Linux a try!

I'm going to have a look at some Linux distros because:

• I want to see how games perform in Linux,
  
• Steam is moving over and I want to familiarise myself with Linux in general,
  
• I'm kinda fed-up with Windows.
  

note that you don't have to reinstall your system just for testing, since you can check it out in a virtual machine like VirtualBox. Maybe it's also a good idea to set up VirtualBox in Windows, test some distros, and then decide which one you're going to install.

Thanks for telling me about Virtual Box, I think it's a really nifty idea! One question, will things I do in Virutal Box affect my registry or make any permanent changes to my PC? If something goes wrong, I don't want Windows to be affected...

Did you tried any Linux distros yet?

I've tried Ubuntu 11.1 (which was nice) and Puppy Linux (which was a bit ugly and annoying to use).

Nearly four years after the last stable release, the Damn Small Linux distribution is once again being actively developed. Yesterday John Andrews announced the availability of the first release candidate version 4.11:

Good news for those with low end hardware! Maybe it could feature Damn Small Xonotic?!

Afaik Steam for Linux is not stable yet so don´t expect it to work properly.

Also most of those games out there won´t work on Linux except those from id-software (Doom, Quake, etc.) and some small free to play projects (like Xonotic ). Don´t expect Battlefield to run on Linux natively!

Thanks for telling me about Virtual Box, I think it's a really nifty idea! One question, will things I do in Virutal Box affect my registry or make any permanent changes to my PC? If something goes wrong, I don't want Windows to be affected...

Apart from everything which can go wrong when you install some piece of software, VirtualBox does not access your harddisk directly.
Instead you just create a virtual drive, which is a normal file on the host system (i.e. your normal Windows system). For the client (your Linux installation for testing), it will look like a harddisk though. That's where the "virtual" in VirtualBox comes from. Of course, it also virtualizes most of the other hardware like CPU, memory, graphics card etc. That means you can e.g. limit the maximum amount of memory your virtual system can use, or the number of CPU cores.

Also note that 3D performance likely will not be as good as on a nativ system, so don't expect it to run Xonotic or the like. I was more suggesting to use it for checking how you get along with the look&feel of the various distros.

Okay, but say I made a word doc in VirtualBox Ubuntu, would it get saved? Do any other things get saved anywhere on the hard drive? Will the registry of Windows be affected?

good with games? try linuX-gamers 0.9.7
here : http://live.linux-gamers.net/

Okay, but say I made a word doc in VirtualBox Ubuntu, would it get saved? Do any other things get saved anywhere on the hard drive? Will the registry of Windows be affected?

No offense, but what's this talk about the Windows registry all the time? There are other files which can get messed up, apart from the registry...

But anyway, VirtualBox supports a feature called "Shared Folders", where you can define a directory on the host system which can also be accessed in the virtual client system. To use that, you need to install some virtualbox package on the client, too (on Ubuntu the package is called virtualbox-guest-additions).
All other files will be saved on the virtual drive, i.e. the file that you created when setting up the virtual machine.

I also found a video tutorial (did not watch it completely) which should explain all the basics of VirtualBox: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2SPiHb1wZg

Cheers Zykure.

No offense, but what's this talk about the Windows registry all the time?

It's just something I worry about a bit because... Well, I dunno really! Maybe cause I think it's important.

Files saved inside a virtual machine are saved to that virtual machines hard drive - in this case the hard drive is a huge blob file located somewhere on your normal hdd. You don't have too many means to read the virtual hdd from the host system. There are ways to communicate between the host and the guest (virtual machine), which include network sharing, http, etc servers, and a nifty feature of vbox called shared directories, where you can see a dir from the host on the guest and load/save to it, then it get loaded/saved there directly.

When using a virtual machine the only thing that impacts your host system is the virtualization software that you use (vbox in this case) - the virtual machines themselves have little to no access to your host system. You can delete a whole virtual machine when you're done with it and it only removes that machines files, without any effect on your host system.

Anyway - as you want to try different distros, be sure to try each of them with different supplied desktop environments.

Regardless of the distro you choose, I highly recommend this free (CC licensed) ebook:
http://shop.linupfront.de/product/lxes/ (English and German versions available)
http://shop-download.linupfront.de/cc/lx...ual-cc.pdf (direct link to English version)

Well, I suggest these distros: http://www.gnu.org/distros/, but I rather recommend Debian GNU/Linux or Source Mage GNU/Linux, they're not on GNU's list but they are completly Free(as in free speech != free beer). Debian got good documentation, easy installer, GNOME, KDE and XFCE desktop envirnment. It's the best choice for a beginner in my honest opinion.

I would keep away from Ubuntu if I was you, just a tip.

I would keep away from Ubuntu if I was you, just a tip.

May I ask why?

Canonical is very against the GNU/Linux community + the distro has loads of bugs, cause they care more about release dates than making it work.

Still, why is Ubuntu bad as a transitional distro from Windows? You have to compare it to other distros and Windows if you want to make a point.

Why would you need a transitional distro? Everybody very quickly realizes that you can't be half way between windoze and Linux, so you might as well go all the way and take a normal distro that is ok with community values and is not overhyped.

Plus: Ubuntu is objectively bad, I stated why I think so in some other posts on this forum, so I won't write it all over again.

Also take a note of the book I recommended a few posts up - it's distro agnostic and it's really good for any Linux newbie & very helpful to start with any distro.

Okay, I will look into other distros other than Ubuntu. But please don't derail this thread!

btw. linuX-gamers 0.9.7 includes ~30-40 games, and also Nexuiz, Warsow and Urban Terror!!

I know Nexuz I've seen it! But no Xonotic...