Thinkpads Forum

I know it says in the FAQ not to make topics that split hairs finely and I think that the personal choice of distro is one of these.

Nonetheless, I'd really appreciate it if you could just tell me your favourite distro of Linux along with some of your favourite things, some of your gripes and maybe some improvements.

Just to help me gauge maybe what distro I want on my T41p. Thanks.

Two questions that have to be asked:

1. What do you do with your computer?
2. What is your skill level in linux?

This will have a lot to do with which distro fits you the best.

Thanks carbo_unit, I'm an experienced user of windows, I'm a student programmer as well.

As for Linux, I've been meaning to make the jump for about three years, but I've been waiting. _I have no prior experience with Linux_.

As for my computer, I'd use Linux as I would my windows partition (sans the gaming) web browse, read emails. Program, learn about the linux environment, what everything does etc. how to do maintenance.

So really as a learning environment, so something user friendly. But on the other hand, something that will definitely teach me the right way to do things. I want to know how to do everything command-line.

My favourite Linux distributions are (1) RedHat Linux 7.3 (Lean, mean, fast, runs everything in a small space; and (2) Ubuntu 5.05 (smaller than 6.06 and 6.06 doesn't run VMware tools properly). Those are the best of: RH6, 7, 8 and 9; SuSE 9; Gentoo 2004 (failure); Ubuntu 5.05 and Ubuntu 6.06.

It has to be said thus - For me, my all-time true favourite since 1981 is XP Pro - Hands Down and by 100 billion light years
... JD Hurst

Thank-you for that. I was thinking of trying Ubuntu as, from what I have gathered, people find it easy to use and setup.

I've also been thinking about using the new Fedora Core 6 when it comes out or maybe Slackware 11 (as apparently this distro teaches you the hard way, but the right way to do things).

Keep them coming

Puppy Linux.
It is one of the newer distros out there. It is a distro built from scratch and not derivative of any other distro. Just slightly bigger in download size than [censored] Small Linux, Puppy has a very small footprint in terms of the space it takes up. I think the ISO size is about 60MB to 70MB and the operating system loads fully into RAM if you have 128MB. I can boot my Puppy Linux anywhere from just a USB flash drive! Live CDs are also easy to make. Unlike [censored] Small Linux, however, the graphics and user interface in Puppy appear far more advanced and developed and Puppy is very comfortable to Windows users. I had never touched Linux until this year and have managed to become a music/audio package developer with Puppy in only a handful of months. Puppy has its own "Pupget" and "Dotpup" package systems for downloading applications, but Puppy can also utilize packages from other distros like rpms, debs, etc. Most important to me, Puppy Linux has a great development and support community and a very active forum of its own for troubleshooting, support, babbling, package development, etc. I have tried a bunch of other Linux distros with success and enjoy using several of them now, but I have a special place in my heart for Puppy.

Thanks toddyjoe, I'd never heard of it before. Sounds like something that I'll try out straight away due to it's small size. I'll dig around on Puppy Linux. Thanks.

I used to be a huge advocate for gentoo linux (used it for 3 years) and since then have switched over to arch linux.

Its a very nice alternative to gentoo being that its binary.

Sounds like you have good advice so far.
Ubuntu and FC6 are the mainstream distros that fit you.
Puppy is a good choice for a lightweight distro to get your feet wet.
Slack does teach you the right way but the learning curve is steep. Don't let non-graphical installations scare you. They are pretty self expanatory. The command line is actually easier than "Point and Click" once you know the commands. No more digging through menus and submenus to find things, just a few keystrokes and the program is running. Most linux distros can be point and click or command line depending on how you want to use it. It depends on whether you like typing or clicking.

I am been using Linux since 2005 July when i bought IBM ThinkPad.
Before, tried Red Hat 8.0 , Red Hat 9.0 and Mandrake Linux.

I tried Slackware 10.0 on my laptop as a first Linux distro. But
as a newbie i was unable to use Slackware efficiently. Then after,
i went for Mandriva Linux and it worked.
KDE interface of Mandriva is very user friendly. And GUI interface
is execellent. 1 of the impressive feature in Mandriva is, it detects
and installs sound card, graphic chip drivers automaticaly. And it
takes only 25 minutes max for full installation.

I am still a newbie, due to CCNA preparation was not able to
practice Linux that much, but now i am free. I finished CCNA.
Now i spend more times at Linux forums and contribute whatever
i know. Specially i provide support for users who facing problems
on laptops running Linux. I tried many distro's already including
Slackware,Mandriva,Gentoo,Ubuntu,Kubuntu,Berry LIVE, Knoppix
LIVE,SuSe 10.x .

LIVE CD is the best option to start learning Linux without making
any partitions on hard disk. Just boot LIVE CD and Linux runs
directly from the CD. Amazing isn't it ? You can even use internet
via that LIVE CD. You can also save config after u shut down LIVE
LINUX on your hard disk.

My current fav Linux distro is > "Berry Linux LIVE"

Installed Distro on hard drive >Mandriva 2006

Alright then,
Regard's,
Amey Abhyankar.
==============================================

I'll have to ask you when I eventually install Linux, if I run into any undetected hardware.

I really like ubuntu. I've started on suse, briefly experimented with debian and ended up with ubuntu, whose advantage is that it's largely based on debian and is compatible with its huge repository of software.

Ubuntu is really easy to use, but if you want to work "under the hood", it's doesn't seem to get in your way (which I found was not true of suse).

Thanks ischg, I think my first choice is going to be either Ubuntu or Fedora Core.

I've been using linux daily at home and at work since sometime in 1997. I was a unix user previous to that. Ubuntu is simply the best thing to happen to unix/linux end users in years. For a desktop machine, it's as close to "it just works" as it gets for current distros. OpenSuse and FC are pretty good, but Ubuntu $@#^ rocks.

I have to agree with others, Ubuntu just worked out of the box on my t42. It is good starting point, if you enalbe most of the repos you gain access to a HUGE assortment of software that will work with min issues. For me it is a good all around OS, but when I want to get more in control of what is going on with services and other internals to the OS, and want to stay on the bleading edge I perfer Fedora, with the use of Yumex, or Yum you also gain access to a Huge library of software, the only issue is that Fedora is a work in progress (for Red Hat's Enterprise versions), some updates break things others make it better, but it is always changing the base pacakges and kernel, this can cause issues with pre-compiled software looking for a specific version. That is where Ubuntu is nice in that once a versions features have been established the packages rarely change major versions, unless a security update requires it.
JM2C

I would recommend Suse 10.1 its nice user friendly distro and has a decent package manager. It It would be my second choice over Gentoo. But if you decide to step up, Gentoo is the way to go.

I suppose that since Suse and Lenovo are working together and they say that there will be full compatibility, that would be the way to go.
I'm going to look into SLED10 soon.
I used to promote Xandros but with the latest release I am now not so sure.

I have been using SLED 10 for the last 2 weeks or so after about a year on OpenSUSE 10 and another 3 years before that on Fedora. I like it that my hardware works out of the box with most SUSE flavors. And the tools are good but I am not afraid of the command line so they are basically an added bonus.

Fedora Core (I tried 3 and 5) sucked with Thinkpad hardware + FC does not like NTFS partitions (who doesn't have a monster media partition these days) without add on packages. Meaning you are limited to 32GB partitions unless you are ready to do some hacking to make NTFS access work.

Getting DVD/mp3s playing on SuSe can be hassle if you are new to it and do not land on one of the sites advising you to save yourself a ton of stress and just use one of the packman repositories. Manual installs of media apps on SUSE are a nightmare.

That said, most other stuff just works: SuSE is supported by Oracle for their DBs which I do some development on, as does XEN virtualization (albeit not in as slick a way as the other new distributions do). SLED also allows on the fly resolution changes, a big plus for me since I do some HTML development and like to see how the pages look at different resolutions without having to reboot.

Thank-you all for the overwhelming response. You've brought SUSE back into my eye. I've been a bit put off SUSE by a thin-client system at my school that was so poorly designed. So slow. Now it is something for me to look into.

Ubuntu has gained more advocated and the hardware recognition and usability would definitely help.

I think Fedora Core is something I will have to look at after I've gained some experience with Linux in general, as I'm sure it would take me a long time to get the distro working how I wanted it too. Also NTFS is a big thing for me, as Windows will always remain a large workspace of mine.

Thanks again and keep them coming.

I've been running Linux on my laptops for the past 7 or 8 years starting with RH 7.3.

I've tried all RH flavors including FC derivatives. I've tried all Suse flavors since Suse 9.0.

So far, of rpm based distros, I think SLED10 is the best. It just works. FC6 and RHEL5 will also be very strong.

However, running an enterprise distro has it's drawbacks. Multimedia setup can be tricky.

I always seem to fallback to Ubuntu. It's free and has a huge software repository. I'm currently running 6.06 and also use vmware with no setup issues as a previous poster mentioned.

Best thing you could do is make sure you format in multiple partitions so that /home is separate from /. This makes it much easier to switch to different distros.

mariner09 wrote: Best thing you could do is make sure you format in multiple partitions so that /home is separate from /. This makes it much easier to switch to different distros.

Why is this? Being a linux newbie. Thanks. There's still Windows stuff that I have yet to learn, but I think the best way to learn is to jump right in there.

It is like putting "My Documents in a separate partition. Then when you reinstall all of your personal information is already saved and waiting for you, ready to use.

Ah I see, could you give me the instructions to do this please?

If you don't mind, otherwise I'm going to forget it. Thanks.

In the interest of science, I decided to drink the koolaid and try out SLED on my baby to make sure that stuff works with the Thinkpad like Novell/IBM swear it does and after living with SLED for about a month now, I have to tell you, it was a big dissappointment.

I never managed to get commercial DVDs to play inspite of the fact that I know quite a bit about setting up multimedia on SuSE. While the machine was rock solid from a functional perspective, the DVDdecryption library simply completely refused to install as did the mp3 playing library. I tried both the rpm and downloading ＆compiling the library from the source but nada. No luck. Even an attempt to install vlc/mplayer from the various packman repositories did not work.

Another downer - the single biggest one - was that wireless connectivity was very unreliable - about 3 dissconnects from my router a day which is a huge problem as I use a VPN to connect to work. Every time the connection dropped, I lost all unsaved work which was simply unacceptable. The problem was not the router since connections are rock solid in Windows (the machine is dual boot) and were rock solid in SuSE 10.0 before I installed SLED.

I must give SLED this though, from a work perspective, it was rock solid, VPN connectivity worked 100%, it run all the apps I needed and setting them up was a piece of cake. BUT I could not have any fun with the machine and for me, that was a deal breaker.

I also gave SuSE 10.1 a shot and then found out that they discontinued Atheros support out of the box - you now have to download and install madwifi for yourself and set up all the configuration stuff too. So, that plan went out of the window.

In the end, it was not worth the stress trying to make media work, I have gone back to SuSE 10.0 that was and is very stable, supports Atheros out of the box and has never given me wireless issues. I also tried installing DVD decryption and mp3 playing and it took all of 3 minutes.

I think one of the most common complaints of Linux out of the box is the lack of DVD/mp3 playing functionality. I just hope I don't run into as much trouble with whatever distro I choose, otherwise it's straight onto the forums to ask. Thanks again guys, keep 'em coming.

Dead1nside wrote:I think one of the most common complaints of Linux out of the box is the lack of DVD/mp3 playing functionality. I just hope I don't run into as much trouble with whatever distro I choose, otherwise it's straight onto the forums to ask. Thanks again guys, keep 'em coming.

there are plenty of DVD playback programs and MP3 programs in linux even out of the box on a basic install. i still say suse with KDE is the simpilest for new linux users and can beet a windows box any day

I've been running suse on my T23 since 9.0 and each release just work's better and better. SuSE 10.1 work's like a charm on my T23. Everything just work's...

God luck with your choosing.

Just installed ubuntu dapper as well as sled on my brand-new T60. Both worked out of the box, with minor issues that need attention (i.e. graphics, smp). While sled detected the dual processor, I had to install the smp-kernel for ubuntu by hand. On the other hand, the ati driver for my x1400 appeared to be a lot less painful to install in ubuntu, since there is a package available (needs to be compiled by hand in sled).

Is the X1400 a 4-pipeline card? I'd really love one of the T60ps I think they have 12-pipeline graphics *drools*

Is SLED; Suse Linux Enterpirse Distribution? Or something to that effect?

With Ubuntu Live CDs can I just try it out and then see how much it detects to help my assessment?

What are the main things that section up the different distros?

Thanks all, for the amazing response. Keep them coming,

Pipelines: I don't know/care, but keep in mind that the fireGL might be running even hotter than my x1400 (idle at 67-72 deg).

SLED is the suse linux enterprise edition.

Live CD's: tried ubuntu 6.06.1 - fully functional. It detected everything except graphics (it was running vesa at reduced resolution). I still used the alternate install CD to get grub into the boot sector of a partition instead of the master boot record (I have a fully functional dual-boot with the rescue partition intact). As I said earlier, you have to make minor adjustments to get everything running.

Main differences? I'm used to ubuntu and like the way it's structured. SLED appeared cluttered in comparison (I didn't like their new start window at all). I guess it's a matter of taste.