What to do with my PC

General Forums Off-topic Chat
1

In light of the latest string of rather ‘downer’ posts, I would like to change the subject.

I would like to add Linux to my box but I’m not sure on which distribution to buy.

Here’s what I’m want for features:

  • To be able to mount NTFS drives
  • Run comfortably on an eight gig drive/partition
  • Full support for nVidia GeForce video cards
  • KDE and Gnome
  • Easy GUI install
  • Visually setup a dial-up Internet connection
  • Support for DVD videos and data
  • Disk partition app that can partition disks w/o reformatting (that works with ntfs)

Here’s what I’m going to use it for:

-Graphics 2D and 3D
-Internet (dial-up)
-Office applications
-Miscellaneous multimedia purposes

The question basically means: what’s the best Linux distribution for the reasons listed above.

2

Personally, I would suggest Red Hat, but it dosn’t have anything easy to resize partitions. The last time (couple years ago) I bought Mandrake, it came with a light copy of Partition Magic, but I don’t know about now. As for the DVD, I’m not sure if it comes with it, but it’s best to keep up with the latest libcss packages and all, since this in continously in development. For all reasons though, I would look at either Red Hat, or Mandrake.

3

well, it seems that you will not be able to get the drivers for the videocard in any free distrobution.

that said, Mandrake 8.2 standard and SuSE personal edition both came with the nvidia drivers

I had trouble with SuSE, but that is because my hardware is wierd.

NTFS? Is that even possible? I was looking through the packages on my Mandrake CDs and it seems that NTFS isn’t supported well enough to not have to worry. There is at least one utility that will try to repair the corruption to the NTFS partition that I have seen…

umm, with SuSE (I don’t know about mandrake) it is possible to have partitions that vary in size depending on what is needed. I think it is called a logical partition manager or something.

DVD? I don’t know. I don’t have any dvd drives.

Linux (no offense) doesn’t seem to have the best video editing programs (default), or support for enough formats.

8Gb? That is in no way a problem. Well, for linux it is not a problem. For the video you may be putting on there, it may.

dial-up? I hope you have a hardware modem. If you do you shouldn’t have much trouble getting it to work.

Personally I choose Mandrake.

4

It is possible to mount and read NTFS but writing can be risky.

You can have varying size partions with anything, although to change them after install, you may be talking about the Logical Volume Manager, in which it handles the partions by making them up of blocks of harddrive space, in which you car reallocate these spaces as needed.

It is not hard to install the Nvidia drivers from the site:
rpm -ivh NVIDIA-GLX…
rpm --rebuild NVIDIA-kernel…
rpm -ivh /usr/src/RedHat/RPMS/i386/NVIDIA-kernel…

but that is if you have a custom kernel I think, they provide prebuilt ones for default kernels, so you just have to install them.

5

28.8 Moterola ModemSurfer 8)

6

RedHat used to ship with a nondestroctive partioning utility (ran under dos) that worked. Any of the distro’s that use the rpm manager (RedHat’s program installer, lots of software setup to install with rpm) are good.

7

Hi all,

seeing how were talkin about linux, has anyone seen this site:

http://www.unitedlinux.com

seems that the following companys are trying to put a standerd to
linux, and are working together to benefit the whole OS

Caldera
Conectiva
SuSE
Turbolinux

(or trying to bury Red Hat???)

   dale
8

For a first time user I would go with Mandrake. Really painless install. NVidia is a bit of a trick . Follow this thread for the howto:https://blenderartists.org/viewtopic.php?t=632&highlight=nvidia
It’s worth the effort, good luck.
Daniel

9

I run mdk 8.3 on a 3.2 gb drive, smoof as silk. best of luck whatever you decide.

welcome to linux!

<edit>Yay! this post just made me a forum regular!!!</edit>
<edit>8.2 I meant. duh. <action>smacks forehead</action></edit>

10

Mandrake Linux looks great.

11

Don’t know of a good partition editor for ntfs that comes with a distribution.
Partion Magic 7 worked great for it but you only need it really once for pay prog.
Dittohead: I’ve tried mandrake in the past but you dont have enough control. Too windoze like. Is ok for person very new at linux.
Red Hat or suse are both very good distrubtions to buy. RedHat is a little easier to setup.
I currently use a version of Debian and it works beutifully for all the stuff you mentioned, except partitioning. Should have better than dial up though.
Peace and non crashing computer 8)