NotebookForums.com › Forums › General Notebook Discussions › Linux & Other OS's › Linux on my Inspiron 9300 - Step 1
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Linux on my Inspiron 9300 - Step 1

Poll Results: Which distro would you use?

Poll expired: May 21, 2005  
  • 16% (5)
    Suse
  • 10% (3)
    Slackware
  • 36% (11)
    Gentoo
  • 36% (11)
    None of the above
30 Total Votes  
post #1 of 21
4/21/05 at 4:17am
Thread Starter 
Okay, so i have my new inpsirion 9300 and i want to put linux on it. I also want to LEARN linux. as i'm new to the game of 'nix OSes - as much as i know about pc's i still know squat about Linux. I am STILL trying to choose a distro for me, i want to learn the meat of the stuff, recompiling, whatever it takes, but i need to know where to start and whatnot. I've narrowed my choices down to the following three but am not sure which yet:

Suse, Slackware, and Gentoo

I really just want something where i can learn the OS. Can some of you share your experience on how you learned the in's and outs of Linux? Was there a support board, chat group, otherwise you hung out in, did you learn it from your friends? did you have to learn it for programming in school? Or did you just wing it and learn from the docs and trial/error. I really apreciate all your guys' feedback on this as i've been wanting to get into linux but never could find the right place to start (for me)

Poll: Please also let me know why you like a particular distro if you vote in the poll (I honestly dont know what the differences between any of the 3 are)
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 21
4/21/05 at 7:59am
Debian Sid or Gentoo
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 21
4/21/05 at 9:55am
Fedora

more informatation about the 9300 and linux:
http://www.atlink.it/~conti/?page_id=5
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 21
4/21/05 at 10:45am
check out a debian-based distro. they're all very easy to use and install, and are very stable and fast.
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 21
4/21/05 at 12:53pm
Thread Starter 
Alright, sooo debian and fedora are 2 more on the list now is there anywhere i can find out why i should choose one or the other? So far as i know they all seem pretty stable for my mundane uses of just trying to learn the OS, so what's the difference?

as a side note, if anyone mentions another linux disro for me to choose without giving their opinion as to why, i'm going to scream. ok so i wont scream but its going to drive me nuts. THanks in advance for your advice.
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 21
4/21/05 at 3:22pm
I'm gonna try gentoo soon
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 21
4/21/05 at 5:21pm
I'll vote for SUSE. Might be ok with SUSE 9.3. Probably some work with 9.2 (I had to do some work before 9.2 would work well on my M70... probably in common with the 9300).
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 21
4/21/05 at 6:05pm
Thread Starter 
i can't seem to find the 9.3 ISo's for SUSE, only the "Live edition" which isn't what i want for the install... is it just not released offically yet?
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 21
4/21/05 at 8:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Engineer
Suse, Slackware, and Gentoo
If you really wanna learn linux then linux from scratch is the best way. But being a bit more realistic my first suggestion would be to try Ubuntu (probably best for a newbie-good forums and howtos). The best way to learn is to get away from the GUI crap, break stuff and figure out how to fix it. Good forums/mailing lists are your best friends.

I personally have Gentoo on my 9300 and Archlinux on my work HP laptop.

--
Shawn
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 21
4/21/05 at 11:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Engineer
i can't seem to find the 9.3 ISo's for SUSE, only the "Live edition" which isn't what i want for the install... is it just not released offically yet?
It's official.. just takes them a bit to get the free version online. You can purchase the complete version today or wait for the stripped down one to be available for download.
Reply
Reply
post #11 of 21
4/21/05 at 11:57pm
I said Slackware, mostly cuz you have to configure a lot of config files and whatnot. Which is fantastic if you want to learn. It's what I am currently using/learning on on my desktop. It is really a nice distro, reputed to not be newb-friendly, but it has been ok for me, and I was about as newb as they come.

As far as where I learned, I hung out (lurked) at the ATU forums on dslreports.com, and spent a LOT of time at linuxquestions.org.
So far I haven't tried Gentoo, but it is on my 'to do' list. I also plan to check out ubuntu/debian.

However, my opinions should be taken with a grain of salt, since I am still relatively new to linux, and totally new to linux on a lappy.

HTH

Louis
Reply
Reply
post #12 of 21
4/22/05 at 12:27am
I recommend Slackware, Gentoo or Arch Linux. Good luck!
Reply
Reply
post #13 of 21
4/22/05 at 1:11pm
Thread Starter 
thanks for the great feedback. i wonder how hard that linux from scratch is..... *scrathes head - maybe i'll do that until i get frustrated lol
I think though, if that doesn't pan out i will try fedora, and Slackware
Reply
Reply
post #14 of 21
4/22/05 at 2:04pm
Unless you consider yourself to be a subject matter expert on Linux/Unix, I would not do LFS. There's a lot more to a working environment than just getting a kernel built and booting. I vote you'll get frustrated... also.. it's not for the impatient... probably twice as hard (i.e. long) as doing gentoo.
Reply
Reply
post #15 of 21
4/22/05 at 3:43pm
Thread Starter 
-.- thanks for the vote of confidence.

LoL, really though i do think building my own distro from scratch is probably out of my league really, but i kinda do want to go headfirst into this so i may yet give it a shot.
Reply
Reply
post #16 of 21
4/22/05 at 8:27pm
I once did the LFS thing. It was painful but I did learn more about linux than I ever wanted to. You will gain an appreciation for the "noobish" distros. I waited for 3 years to try a LFS this is after running RH 5.x through 7.x. If you have the patience and the time to devote to lfs it's a great learning tool.
Reply
Reply
post #17 of 21
4/23/05 at 12:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Engineer
-.- thanks for the vote of confidence.

LoL, really though i do think building my own distro from scratch is probably out of my league really, but i kinda do want to go headfirst into this so i may yet give it a shot.
Dude dont listen to em. You dont need to be an *expert* just a copy and paste *jedi* *master*. You install your newbie friendly distro and install LFS from that. So just leave 5 or gigs available for your LFS partition. Then load up the LFS book in firefox and follow the directions.

--
Shawn
Reply
Reply
post #18 of 21
4/23/05 at 4:43am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by shawnifoley
Dude dont listen to em. You dont need to be an *expert* just a copy and paste *jedi* *master*. You install your newbie friendly distro and install LFS from that. So just leave 5 or gigs available for your LFS partition. Then load up the LFS book in firefox and follow the directions.

--
Shawn
alrighty, that ought to make it much less frustrating. Even for a young *padawan* i just hope my medichlorien count is on the up and up.

Really though, Thanks.

Also, I'm leaning now towards Fedora coreIII as 'other' seems to be winning in my 'lil poll and i DID mess around with redhat a 'lil bit back in the day.... just a wee bit though.
Reply
Reply
post #19 of 21
4/25/05 at 1:09pm
Thread Starter 

alright, so i have chosen Fedora CoreIII. I'm gonna close this thread and create a new one with my headaches and triumphs (hopefully). Wish me luck!
Reply
Reply
post #20 of 21
4/25/05 at 4:42pm
As a person new to linux, you should consider a distro that tries to walk you slowly into linux while at the same time giving you an enviornment that allows you to still do your work using many windows based programs. I have been with Xandros Linux for about 3 years now, and had my learning experience with RH 8.0, Mandrake 8-10, Fedora, Corel Linux and several others. I had alot of time to learn the code, and configure the kernel and KDE to run as I wanted, but you may find time at a minimal, so you should look at a distro with you specifically in mind. See us at www.xandros.com
Eric
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Linux & Other OS's
NotebookForums.com › Forums › General Notebook Discussions › Linux & Other OS's › Linux on my Inspiron 9300 - Step 1