# what flavor?!



## kanecorp (Jul 24, 2003)

First of all, there really isn't a correct place to post this, so I just did it hear, sorry in advance....

Well, I sold all my computers, including my iMac G4, so i could buy a G5.  Well, I sold them a while ago, (well, i a few weeks ago), so I could get the best price for them, i figured the longer i wait and the sooner the G5 comes out, the less i'll get for G4s, anyways, thats not even the point!  I'm stuck on an 8 year old PC i found in my basement until my G5 comes!  Its a p2 300MHz 128MB ram.  I was wondering what flavor of linux you'd recomend, right now i'm on win2k, i really can't stand it. 
thanks


----------



## Arden (Jul 24, 2003)

Well, I don't know anything about Linux, but this thread would go in the Unix & X11 section.


----------



## Dlatu1983 (Jul 25, 2003)

Dude, I feel  you....I sold my iMac, and I was considering waiting from June-Sept on an old 133mhz Packard Bell that we had laying around. In the end, I decided I didn't NEED a G5, and I'd be happier with a nice 17" iMac...if I got that G5, I'd be using like a 15" CRT....kinda defeats the purpose


----------



## Lycander (Jul 25, 2003)

Mandrake is nice and user friendly, it should run on most hardware but the descriptions say i586 so that includes the PII, you should be ok. I've used it for about a month before going to Gentoo.

RedHat is another obvious choice but I personally don't like it because KDevelop would not work for me.

Sticking with the major distros like MDK, RedHat, SuSE, and you'll get better support/documentation, and such. But they tend to be bloated which is no good for your particular hardware. So maybe you should check out some of the smaller light weight distros.

Whatever you choose, what will ultimately make a good user experience is the desktop environment you run. KDE is full featured and great, but bloated and slow. I'd recommend even Gnome, but better still is something like XFCE (version 4.0 just released) WindowMaker, or even Fluxbox.


----------



## bootedbear (Jul 25, 2003)

My roommate has done a lot of reading on Lindows. A number of reviews have touted is as the easiest Linux to install and get running.

Since this is just a stop-gap solution for you, perhaps the easiest might be best.

bear


----------



## Giaguara (Jul 25, 2003)

I'd suggest madrake or redhat. both have plenty of manuals available, and are easy to install or use. Lindows rather not - you can use an old system of windows and everything that you use of linux you have to pay to download them - so it tastes like a money making software for its inventors. 

Mandrake is easy, but with Redhat I feel more comfortable. As for 'easiness' of either - I have installed both (first mndrk, then RH) to my uncles peecee - he is 60 and HE thinks that linux is so much easier than windows that he asked me to format their computers to install only linux in them.


----------



## chevy (Aug 14, 2003)

ANYthing (even Linux) is easier to use than Windows for a human being.


----------



## chevy (Aug 14, 2003)

> _Originally posted by bootedbear _
> *My roommate has done a lot of reading on Lindows. A number of reviews have touted is as the easiest Linux to install and get running.
> 
> Since this is just a stop-gap solution for you, perhaps the easiest might be best.
> ...



I've also seen several Lindows info, did anybody really TRY it ?


----------



## N45800 (Aug 16, 2003)

Yellow Dog, Debian, and SuSE are good PPC Linux distributions.


----------



## Rhino_G3 (Aug 25, 2003)

A friend recently installed Redhat 9.  I must say, it was blindingly easy to set up and configure.  Every piece of hardware on a proprietary Gateway machine was found and works flawlessly.  I was amazed.  

Personaly, I run Slackware, but it's much less user friendly.
Slack is more of a hobby than an OS.   I figure if I want to use something, I'll get it myself.  
RH 9 comes on 3 ISO's and has just about any program you'll ever need while waiting for your G5.

When getting used to Linux you might begin to wonder why you ordered the G5 to begin with. I've recently started using my Linux machines much more than I use my G3.  Maybe this will change when I get the G5.


----------



## Arden (Aug 25, 2003)

Linux on a G5... screaming Linux machine!


----------



## MisterK (Sep 6, 2003)

I'd just use RedHat or if your up for a challenge try Gentoo, the most custimizable OS in existence, takes alot of time to install (since you'll have to compile everything yourself) but its great fun.


----------



## Arden (Sep 7, 2003)

Yeah, I'd like to start on a Linux flavor that doesn't take much effort to install or use, when I actually get there.  Eventually, when I have the download time and hard drive space, I'll probably taste test a number of distros, but I'm not to that point yet.  Perhaps after college.


----------



## Trip (Oct 6, 2003)

RedHat all the way! It's a lot of fun to be honest with you! RedHat is the only reason I ever got VPC.


----------



## mr. k (Oct 7, 2003)

I would try to get a variant of BSD on the box, OS X is based on FreeBSD.  The two systems are not identical, but similar enough to give you some good experience using them.
But if you want something easy to install (I hear configuring a monitor on linux can be a real bitch), there are linux distributions that have very easy to use installers, Like redhat.  I've heard good things about both red hat and mandrake, but yes, OS X is the best unix distribution available to anyone!


----------



## Pengu (Oct 7, 2003)

Why not try Darwin x86??


----------

