Thinkpads Forum

Hi all,

I used to run FC 4 on gnome on my X40; although I removed it because I couldn't find the appropriate software to run some mandatory programs and didn't have the time to appropriately learn Linux.

So now I ask, what distribution would be best for me? For all intents and purposes I'm a novice at Linux. Some of the programs I use on a regular basis are:

- MATLAB
- AMPL (www.ampl.com)
- LaTeX
- Microsoft Excel, sometimes Word
- Microsoft Powerpoint

What's most important to me is reliability. I use my X40 as a work machine and I don't want to go through the headache of not being able to find packages and discovering incompatibility problems. I want something that is stable and not bloated -- primarily the reason I don't like Windows XP (which is running on my laptop right now).

So what would you recommend? Also, although I prefer gnome (KDE seems a little too bloated with features); what interface would you recommend?

Debian is notorious for reliability. Although security is another issue. Ubuntu is notorious for being almost as reliable but providing a similarly large but updated package base.

I recommend ubuntu for any new users right now. The installer might be a learning curve, but so is linux. All those programs should work in Linux. Although, you might need to buy/pirate 3rd party software like CrossoverOffice to get Word an Excel going, otherwise, use the OpenOffice suite (fyi, there's a win32 version too if you wanna try it out).

As far as bloat is concerned. On my laptop, i've cold booted in about 15 seconds from power button to Firefox before (no joke). Its all about what the software can do for you, not how much you pay for decent software.

Cheers.

Keep in mind, as well, that alot of the efficiency has to be put in by the user. Having Linux doesn't give you a license to load as much cruft on your system as you can and still expect it to have a boot time of 15 seconds. Customize it, and slim it down and you will have a pretty good system.

As per suggestion I'm going to try ubuntu 5.10 w/ xfce.

Run a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) clone, because that'll definitely allow for easy installation of proprietary programs like MATLAB. I am not saying it cannot be done on other big distributions, like Debian, but if you pick up some other fringe distribution this is not a given.

So I'd recommend Scientific Linux (an RHEL clone), and GNOME. From the tasks and tools you've mentioned, you sound like you're at the uni, and Scientific Linux has some additional things (like AFS) over RHEL which often come in handy at the uni.

- Stable, well tested and "enterprise ready".
- Plays well with installation and functioning of proprietary software.
- Contains a fairly modern, yet light and responsive GNOME desktop.
- Provides additional programs which work well in a uni setting.
- Contains a new-enough OpenOffice.org to be useful for your needs.

Welp, currently running ubuntu 5.10 with gnome actually; and although a lot of things work straight out of the box (like wifi ); I'm not too happy with all this ubuntu specific stuff. I'll try a RHEL.

I tend to agree, I dont like the ubuntu specific GUI or ubuntu specific content at all. So I generally install ubuntu-core and go from there.

I get all the benefits of installing a fully functional system with all the hardware detection that ubuntu offers. But i configure the bugger outta it so I get much faster boot times and better performance because 15-30 daemons/fonts/monitoring/logging/connection/client programd dont need to load.

It seems i have a RHEL license through my uni. I think ill give it a try. Not sure its going to fare better than any other distro i've tried though. If they dont have a netinstall option it's another coaster.

OK now I'm on FC5 and fiddling with the wifi...

daba wrote:OK now I'm on FC5 and fiddling with the wifi...

For future reference, if you didn't know, ThinkWikican be very helpful.

http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/Fedora-Cor ... /#id233802

I have Ubuntu 5.10 running (as a guest) and it works well. Smaller than most other distributions. But FC 5 is more bloated than Windows XP by any measure (been there, done that and wiped out FC).

I'll take an alternative stance and say that a properly setup IBM preload of XP will run reliably 24x7 for years on end. Been there and done that. You want to run Windows programs, and XP will do it best.

... JD Hurst

I think you made a very good point, jdhurst.