Thinkpads Forum

Hey everyone...I would like to get into Linux. Now that I've put together my T60p with everything that's in my signature, which version of Linux should I install? I am particularly interested in running vBulletin, and I've read that Linux is a good OS for running vBulletin.

Thanks all...

Depends on what you're gonna use it for. I have a similar machine as yours (see my sig) and I've been using Ubuntu 7.10 as my primary OS for some time now and quite satisfied except that the ATI driver can't use AIGLX to run Compiz-Fusion and also this problem.

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Yes, I noticed. Mine's also a a type 2007...-94u to be exact. Well, as I said, I hear excellent things about running vBulletin on Linux. vBulletin is the defacto standard for forum software. Why is Linux your primary OS if I can ask? I figured Ubuntu as well, but didn't know about the driver issue.

Hmm...You have a slightly better video card in the ATI V5250. There are those who say they prefer the V5200 because of the abundance of drivers for it. Do you think I can run Ubuntu w/ the V5200?

Thanks...

VESA driver will support it, radeon driver should, fglrx driver should and maybe RadeonHD.

Try Fedora

Do give PCLinuxOS 2008 a try. It is a live CD and the drivers for your card are easily installed from the Utils Icon on the desktop. If you do give it a try, please let us know how it went.

Choosing a Linux distribution is very complex. It depends on your needs:

- How much community support do you want? (Ubuntu leads, Fedora is big too)
- How much vendor support do you want? (Red Hat and SuSE are two that let you buy support)
- Is latest technology a need or desire? (Fedora leads, Ubuntu is good)
- Is stability important? (CentOS and Ubuntu LTS are good choices)
- Extreme performance? (Gentoo)
- Windows-like experience?
- Large and/or 3rd party software repositories?
- Do you want to experiment? (Plenty of choices)

There are so many, and they are all a little different, and yet all very similar.

It seems that you want to run server software on your ThinkPad. Do you plan to have it sit on a table always on running vBulletin, or is that just to learn from?

whizkid wrote:Choosing a Linux distribution is very complex. It depends on your needs:

- How much community support do you want? (Ubuntu leads, Fedora is big too)
- How much vendor support do you want? (Red Hat and SuSE are two that let you buy support)
- Is latest technology a need or desire? (Fedora leads, Ubuntu is good)
- Is stability important? (CentOS and Ubuntu LTS are good choices)
- Extreme performance? (Gentoo)
- Windows-like experience?
- Large and/or 3rd party software repositories?
- Do you want to experiment? (Plenty of choices)

There are so many, and they are all a little different, and yet all very similar.

It seems that you want to run server software on your ThinkPad. Do you plan to have it sit on a table always on running vBulletin, or is that just to learn from?

Or if you want things to be "radically simple" you go with PCLinuxOS.

But, seriously, whizkid has a good point. Is this laptop mostly for your home use and entertainment, for development, for providing support to others, or what?

Crunch wrote: Why is Linux your primary OS if I can ask?

Many reasons. I'm taking several courses that involve programming in a *NIX environment. Linux is more fun to customize. There are fewer viruses that target Linux system. Just an interesting side note, in order to access our school's wireless network, I need to download a security check program that makes sure I have anti-virus and firewall installed if I'm running Windows. When I use Linux to access wireless, no question was asked!

If you want eye candy try Linux Mint: http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php
It comes in Gnome, KDE and XFCE versions. They like their backgrounds dark but it is only a couple clicks to fix that.

Picking the right distro is a very personal affair. When asking a question relating to which linux distro is best, you're liable to get as many answers as there are different distributions of linux!


Having said that, I second Linux Mint...

It's perhaps the only distro that has everything working right from the get-go without added configuration and is perhaps the best fit from the beginner right through to the power user.

I've tried out many distros starting with SuSe, then moved to Mandrake (later Mandriva), used Gentoo for a long time, Debian, RedHat and then Fedora, back to Gentoo... and then found Mint. One word: awesome.

The one basic element that differs among all the distros is the packaging system. RPM (RedHat package manager), DEB (Debian-based distros: Debian, (K)(X)Ubuntu, Mint), portage (gentoo)... and each one offers varying degrees of user involvement in terms of installation and maintenance.

Some distros require a bit more work to install and configure properly, gentoo (in particular) requires lots of time for proper installation and maintenance (for best performance, the user ought to compile (build) the software from source - which can be quite time consuming and require a little more intimate knowledge of the inner workings of linux for proper implementation), other distros, such as (K)(X)Ubuntu, Fedora, Mint require much less effort to install the OS and little effort to tweak the system for optimal performance. Debian and Slackware are somewhere in the middle of the pack as some hardware requires some code tweaking, with which beginners may not be familiar and which may detract a user from installing everything correctly and efficiently.

Since the vast majority of distros are freely available, however, you ought to download some of the latest releases of the various "flavours" (linux distributions) and find one you're comfortable with by trying out their respective "live CDs".

If you're completely new to linux, I'd once again suggest Linux Mint as a start since it will offer all the power linux has to offer yet is rather painless to install and use. Once you get comfortable, you may like to try out other distributions.

Ah - before I forget - visit Distrowatch as a source of info on the various distros available. Site offers screenshots, descriptons, direct links, etc. Good place to start.


Hope this helps!

Cheers!