Best "out of the box" distro

If you end up paying for a non-enterprise linux, you're a sucker. So yea, almost every linux is free, dont worry about that.

As far as I know no distro supports Windows formats right out of the box. You'll have to use Wine or Cadega(sp?) in order to get windows stuff to work.

Ubuntu is probably the most "n00b friendly" distro out there. It will detect everything on install, unless you're running something really obscure or sometimes ATI video cards.

pclinuxos and elive and generally really good too about hardware detection....and they already come with many codecs installed....Mint is a ubuntu clone which simply adds on some junk.

Most of the popular modern distros are pretty good out of the box (Fedora, Mandriva, Ubuntu, PcLinuxOS). I'd recommend experimenting. Just please don't use SuSe as they (novell) are doing an amazing job fragmenting the OSS community.

ok, i reconsidered your question and here is a list of a few distros that i know about that should do what you said...be ready to go out of the box with media codecs and ati/nvidia drivers right then and there.

1 -- PCLinuxOS .92 --- comes with most codecs (win32codecs installed through synaptic), comes in ATI and Nvidia flavors (makes sure to download the correct one), a pretty full-featured kde-centric mandriva-based distro... version .93 does not come in ati and nvidia flavors but is more up to date and requires you to install the drivers by hand (reasonably easy actually through synaptic and then the control center).

2 -- elive --- as far as i recall it included all teh drivers and firefox plugins (java, flash, etc) out of the box. on first boot it also detected your video (in my case ati) and asked me if i wanted to use vesa, radeon, or fglrx drivers (nvidia users get a choice of vesa, nv, and nvidia). e17 is not exactly the most "friendly" desktop environment out there but sure as hell is one of the sweetest. not to mention since unlike KDE or Gnome that eats ram for breakfast, e17 is pretty quick.

3 -- Vida Linux 1.3 -- a reasonably up to date Gentoo-based distro with many codecs and both ati and nvdia drivers available on teh install dvd. it uses Fedora's Anaconda installer so you won't have to go through the typical "gentoo hell" and is a reasonably nice distro actually. the HUGE size of the gentoo community means forums and wikis are LOADED with valuable info to further tweak the distro to your liking. comes with both kde and gnome as desktop options, others available through portage.

Actually bigtrouble77 seem to be trying to fracture the OSS community. I encourage you to look into the facts before slamming the hundreds of open source contributers that make up openSUSE. Or you can burn the witch.... bigtrouble77 seems to have a lit torch.

still doesn't take away from the fact that Novell pissed off a whole lot of the OSS community members and that opensuse is really not the distro its cracked up to be..

I think BTs comment gets proven with this response to it. Whether or not you are a fan of Suse's movement, the fact is that many people aren't and many are distancing themselves from that company(Not the open source community per say around it)

Seablade

cjcox, you have proven my point without me even having to say anything.

Edit: Damn Seablade, I should have read your response first.

I think ars has a pretty decent take on the situation:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061121-8259.html

I think it's a decent analysis of the situation... But at the end they suggest that "The real culprit in this case is the patent system". The patent system is obviously a major problem here, but Novell has to realize that they are accountable for their part in this terribly suspicious deal. MS: We agree to disagree with Novell on Linux patent infringements? How is the OSS community supposed to interpret that? Novell is saying: Nothing to be concerned about here. Conversely, MS is effectively implying that you're all stealing our code and we may go after you if you don't use SuSE.

This is utter BS and many, including myself obviously, are not comfortable with it. This has nothing to do with openSuSE developers- it has to do with Novell's business decisions that could be harming the OSS community. Why do you think that there's already talk to amend the GPL3 to eliminate these types of deals?

All very true. I dont like being accused of stealing from Microsoft when I'm clearly not. I switched from Open Suse because of this deal. I have nothing against the operating system, its a very good linux distro, but I dont agree with Novell's business deals here and I've always been suspisious of M$.

Why? Because you say so? Hardly a good reason. If you have some true valid concerns, say it... right now, you're just spreading mindless fud because SUSE isn't your personal distribution choice. I think people should be able to choose frankly.... without all the "SUSE sucks because abf says so" kind of mentality.

So.. according to Seablade, there is a mass movement away from SUSE. I guess you can produce some specific numbers then? I realize that 2500 (>90% NON SUSE users) signed a petition... but that doesn't actually tell us anything. Granted, we may well find out eventually that Novell's handling of the situtation does indeed result in an downturn of SUSE sales (at the enterprise level). I have not seen a mass migration at the openSUSE level though.... but that's entirely subjective.

So... Microsoft says that YOU are violating some of their patents, which you believe to be false (having gone through the patent process a few times and seeing the silly stuff that gets patented, I can almost assure you that everything in the universe violates a Microsoft patent or two).

So... because Microsoft says YOU are violating thie patents, you blame Novell. Have we forgotten some things here?? For the nay-sayers who are upset that Novell got Microsoft to agree not to sue their customers directly over such things.... what on earth are you wanting? If Novell agrees to sue their own customers on Microsoft's behalf... would you suddenly be happy? A Novell supporter?

Personally, I think it's a mistake to deal with Microsoft at all... and the audience here is pretty tainted with Microsoft already (dual booters and the like)... but Novell merely saw an opportunity to protect the end user and they got it written into the partnership. So can we agree that we're simply mad that Novell is wanting to keep the long arm of Microsoft off of their customer base? And that we simply can't stand that idea? Rediculous!

Please remeber that the ONLY one accusing anyone (and it's an informal FUD accusation at best) is Microsoft. Novell understands the problems with the patent system (being a company that holds patents) and knows that patent reform isn't happening anytime soon. Novell did what they believed to be a good thing for their customer base, should any of them get sued by Microsoft in a SCO-like manner.... now... does that mean that Novell is predicting that Microsoft will sue? Don't know. Microsoft is slowing learning that one of the reasons why Linux is all over the enterprise is because people are tired of beign ordered around by the 2,000lb gorilla in Redmond.... there are lots of Microsoft users out there, but not many Microsoft fans. And creates too many decision points and avenues for competitors. But we'll see... Microsoft may decide to take the SCO pill and sue their customer base. We'll just have to see.

I think people need to stop reading the blogs and writings of certain madmen, and look at the deal in total. Do I personally like Novell getting a huge check from Microsoft? No. BUT, realize that the check is in return for licenses of SUSE Enterprise Linux for THEIR customers... who would have seen that coming??

At the end of the day Microsoft is a company that is only interested in being the only player left on the planet (even if they continue to do as well as they are doing, it would take approximately 1,000,000 years to do this btw... I could be off by a couple of years). I don't think the deal with Novell is some part of a master plan to help them in their quest. But you may know differently. If so, please let us know what you know.

Maybe you should calm down a bit before you post, and if you were calm, learn to misquote a bit better.

I said nothing of a mass movement away from Suse. I said a lot of people were not happy with them. I also said your statements do more to support BT's position that their actions are fragmenting the community, because you are evidencing it entirely by your comments. It is one thing to make a nice calm rational debate, but you are certainly not coming off as calm or rational at the moment to me.

This to the majority of the Open Source community, has very little to do with Novell's sales, and wether they are popular or not. It has much more to do with the intellectual property agreements, one that might be seen as giving credence to MS's claims, no matter what Novell says. That entire thing of "Actions speak louder than Words." They will and do to most people in this case even if they are false.

Now in as far as us reading the blogs and writings of certain 'madmen' I will kindly provide one of many possible links on the topic from a large group of open source developers, and one of the larger projects around that gets used on a huge level...

http://news.samba.org/announcements/team_to_novell/

I doubt that many people would call the Samba team, whose code is used in MANY different projects, quite often in NAS applications, in almost any cross platform file sharing between MS and someone else, and overall a huge amount, 'madmen'

Then again many people call those that believe in open source 'madmen'

Seablade

I thought I was being calm.. I apologize if I took you statement of "many are distancing themselves from that company" to mean that people were moving away from SUSE... simply my misunderstanding. What did you mean by that? I'm confused.



My comment is that we shouldn't try to crucify a distribution because of something that is totally our own personal opinion or feeling rather than based on anything factual. That's all. I think I'm the only one playing with a level head trying put all the FACTS out on the table instead of heresay an personal bias. Again, I can dislike the agreement without making up lies about SUSE and/or Novell. That's just wrong/unfair.


Novell hasn't done anything to support Microsoft's claim of intellectual property abuse. Do you have information to the contrary? What actions specifically are you referring to? Novell's large scale presence in the OIN?? Again, I'm confused by what you're trying to say... and obviously I don't want to try to read into it again... just want to understand where you are getting all this from.


Since this was led up by a Novell employee... Novell being the largest single paying sponsor of free software development on Samba, I'm sure that Novell is wanting to talk this out with them and understand where they were coming from on the issue too.

Since you have read the Samba team's statements you'll see that they dislike the fact that Novell engaged in an agreement that protects their customers from being sued while not affording such protection to the universe... more particularly, they don't like the fact that one would seek such legal protection against a patent system which the Samba team believes to be fundamentally flawed... which I certainly agree with. However, fighting against software patents and living within the current law are two different things. I think if you read all of Novell's statements on the matter you'll see that they don't like patents, yet they themselves own patents (patents which actually made Novell out to be a hero not too far back in many people's minds). It's a tough road as a commercial company that owns patents. Do you just obliterate them knowing that Microsoft and others will certainly use their patent arsenals against you if they know you won't through countersuiits back? I certainly don't like that situation... but it's reality today. Do you have a possible answer to the patent conumdrum? Maybe there is a better way. I think Novell and other pro-free software companies would love to know what the "right" answer is. Samba teams says you shouldn't try to protect your customers from lawsuits involving patents... and that's fine... but hey... I know I don't want to be sued.. at that point it doesn't matter if I believe in patents or not... right? AFAIK, the Samba team hasn't done a lot to influence the current patent system or its reform (actually they want it to simply go away software wise... which could be very difficult). Do you know differently?

What I do know is attacking Novell for trying to shield its customer base from a potential misuser of patents (Microsoft) is probably the WRONG idea. And that seems to be goal here... for whatever reason. At the end of the day, if successful, Novell dies, we all celebrate and Microsoft can feel free to sue any Linux user SCO-style.



In particular I was referring to Mr. Perens, Mr. Petreley and Mr. Shuttleworth. All of which were speaking things that were simply not true and not willing to talk to Novell at all. If Novell had made the agreement with IBM, a much larger holder of a much broader range of evil patents... would we all be bashing Novell as much?

On the converse, I don't think Novell was intending to sue Microsoft customers for using Microsoft technology covered by Novell patents... but I guess it's a possibility.

I simply don't like people saying boycott Novell/SUSE/openSUSE because they FEEL that something is wrong... that's all. If there's a good reason.. fine... let's hear it (not necessarily talking directly to seablade with that comment).

Just what I said, unfortunatly I don't know of a better way of explaining it. A large portion of the open source community are not as supportive of Novell after this decision. As a result I say they are distancing, and many were looking at whether Novell's actions were even legal under the terms on the GPL(How that one works I am not sure, I read an article that explained it well once but I can't remember it or find it at the moment). This is the open source community as a whole though, and while they may not be as supportive of Novell now, this does not mean that those currently using it are going through a mass migration(Though to be honest I have seen more than a few posts recently on various forums of Suse users looking for another distro for the exact reason of this agreement, it hardly constitutes a mass migration since most of their market is not the individual desktop, but the enterprise) Now in as far as what actions Novell has done, even signing an agreement that agrees to indemnification gives an inference that there is a problem. That is why that entire "Actions speak louder than words" that I posted is important. Novell is SAYING that we don't think there is a problem, but their action of signing an agreement with that in there tell something else to many people, especially those that may not be as familiar with open source and Linux as some of us are. There actions will speak much louder in this case than there words, and I would not be surprised if in the future if actions are taken whether legal or slander or otherwise on MS's part that they point back to this agreement saying that this says it does exist. In fact that were trying to do that early on with the entire agree to disagree with Novell's words. To give a poor analogy, if I signed a statement that gives me protection from the boogeyman, one would immediatly ask, why the heck do I feel that protection is needed? I can say I don't believe in the boogeyman, but then why bother with that statement in the first place? It sends very mixed signals, and those actions will speak much louder than the words I can say. Hero is definitly a matter of taste. But once again we are fighting different beasts here. There is a difference between maintaining a patent portfolio and dealing with that system to survive, and signing an agreement that sure seems like you are agreeing that there might be something in your product(IN this case the open source OS Linux or the code distributed with it) that there is a benefit to being granted indemnification to lawsuit. That says something about the OS that is well beyond Novell's sphere of control to be honest. Getting off the direct patent part of things, there is also an interesting thought process on the line of thought that this is saying that open source software on its own can't compete, and needs to make those agreements to survive in order to implement features. Now that is open for debate, and in fact has been, but that is a different topic I suppose, just one more reason some people don't like that agreement. For instance what would have happened to the SAMBA project if instead of doing that way back when, an agreement was just made with MS to implement those processes? MS could then cancel that agreement in the future putting the OS at a severe disadvantage because there was no development on a true open source solution. Well while I can see both sides of the argument on some of the recent actions on the parts of some of those you mention, I would hardly label them as madmen. Why? To be honest how else are you going to get Novell to change its mind? Most people don't want to destroy Novell, they wish to change their mind, to unite the open source movement into a single direction again. As it stands Novell has made a statement with its actions that say there is a possible problem in the code of Linux that cause problems with MS patents, which most of the open source community severely disagrees with, and even Novell has said it disagrees with, but apparently considers it likely enough to be a threat to make an indemnification agreement. But Novell dying is hardly something that will benefit the Open Source community, at least in comparison to them changing their mind. That is just it, and where the fragmentation comes in. If Novell backs down, changes there mind and admits they were wrong with their actions and not just their words, while it may take a while it would be beneficial to the community far beyond them dying because that means that much more development that can be SUPPORTED on Open Source keeping people programming it full time instead of in there spare time, allowing things to progress faster. Whether or not their distro works for my use, or even most people's desktop use(Which I don't feel it does), it has its place, and in Novell's case that place is largely in the enterprise desktop. It can fight with RedHat there for that area, or better yet they can get together and work together to address problems, don't think that will happen, and the competition may spur innovation so it may be a good thing, but either way it will be better than losing a large flow of money into supporting linux development for the better of everyone. Now there are many that would disagree with me and say that the development shouldn't be supported. And keep in mind I am not saying Novell dying would be the death of linux, just that it MAY slow things down, if it happened. Now before I finish up this brief(For this topic) post, it is important to note there is a large difference between the company of Novell that markets Suse Linux, and the open source community that surrounds Suse, and possibly parts of which even work for Novell. I have tried to make the distinction in my posts, but may not have been clear enough or forgotten to at various points. Seablade

i never supported the "suse sucks b/c i say so" mentality.... i did point out that i tried every suse from 9.1 to 10.2 and it simply failed to impress me on my hardware (only 10.2 FINALLY supports my intel8x0 sound...) if you (or any other person around here) wants to try suse...go for it, but when you come back to the forum crying "this and that doesn't work" i'll be here saying "i told you so" just as i am equally aware that some people are not having the success i am having with ubuntu, or pclinuxos (currently using .93a minime) , or even in the latest one of my "ABF Approved" distros that i promoted here....elive.

Abf.. thanks for you more reasonable post (instead of: don't use SUSE, etc... which you have said many, many, many, many, many.. etc times).

1. Novell entered into a partnership with Micrososft specifically to aid with some interoperability around virtualization.

2. As a tack on, Novell negotiated a don't sue our customers provision, BUT remember it does NOT prevent Microsoft from suing Novell for patent infringement.

3. Microsoft agreed to buy a fixed number of SUSE Enterprise licenses to use as needed with their customer base... in particular in cases where virtualization is involved.

4. Novell didn't agree to buy ANYTHING, nor did they agree to promote anything Microsoft based at all.

5. The covenant not to sue includes a fee... this was simply a negotiated value. Obviously, if "free" was on the table, Novell would agree to that. Microsoft agreed to not pursue direct lawsuits against Novell customers (SCO-like lawsuits) in exchange for the fee. My guess is that instead of Microsoft paying Novell to not sue their customer base (an unlikely event) they agreed on the up front purchases of the SLES licenses. But you never know exactly how things were arrived at... only the final result.

6. The Samba team believes that protecting individuals from lawsuits involving patents is effectively saying you are "for patents". Which I don't think is what Novell is saying at all.
But I can't say that for sure... again, Novell has been around for awhile and has a patent portfolio. If software patents were somehow obliterated today... it would be a non-issue (and the Samba team sees their dream become reality).

7. The "madmen" went mad for several reasons.. many went mad because they believed that what Novell had done violated Article 7 of GPLv2. Which almost anyone could tell it probably did not... and later was confirmed by RMS that it indeed did not (in fact, not even close). Other went "mad" because they believe that Novell should have negotiated a deal for all Linux users and not merely SLES/SLED users (which I don't see how Novell could have done that). And for the most part, "mad" simply because the word Microsoft showed up in an agreement.

8. There is a move to change GPLv3 to somehow restrict GPL usage by companies that support patents... but it may be difficult to create the wording without effectively limiting all large companies from using Linux (which would be a bad thing to do IMHO).

I think the patent thing is certainly worth further discussion. However, I don't have any silver bullet answer for what the right thing is to do.

Since I work for a Fortune 50 company and in particular an "evil" commercial software company, all I can say is that the big boyz don't look at anything but Red Hat and Novell for enterprise Linux currently. Becuase Red Hat IPO'd (and made instant millionaires of many), Red Hat is highly favored, especially in the states. However, SLES is a much, much better product. But if SLES has to die because of all of this (again, for whatever reason anyone might have), we'll carry on supporting Red Hat instead (though there are areas where that just simply will not work.. they have a lot of work to do to support a large enterprise shop yet).

Now... as some of you know (most apparently don't), I have been advocating a SUSE fork ever since this mess began. Mostly to ensure the preservation of the technology in a non-trademark infringing form. Oddly enough, Novell has contributed some tools to help make that happen (they created a trademark removal tool). So you will see at least one if not two forks in the near future... again, probably just to make sure that the project can be forked if worse comes to worse.

Also, some of you have seen my scathing comments on the Novell blogs. I own a piece of Novell... and it is significant enough for me to be quite concerned with the handling of all of this.. which was poor to say the least. Rigth now, Novell is taking some pretty hard hits... perhaps a wake up call (finally). Novell does need to realize that perception is effective reality in the "world". Truth comes secondary (sad but true... sorry for the pun).
Novell needs to a lot (a whole lot) of damage control.

I'm looking forward to seeing how it all pans out... and I'm hoping that Novell wins in the end (that is to say, remains a competitor in today's two horse Linux race).

Thanks for the Samba link seablade, I hadn't read that on yet. I said in an earlier post in another thread that Samba's involvement in this is going to be interesting. Nice to hear things from their side.