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Linux
shikitohno:
--- Quote from: fohfoh on February 02, 2012, 05:08:00 PM ---*Shrugs*
In any case, metro, go mess with a distro and let us know what you think.
--- End quote ---
^This. In the end, you're the one behind the screen, not us. Try something out, and if you like it, great. If you don't like it, let us know what it is about the distro you dislike, and maybe we can guide you towards something more your style.
Kyrdua:
Can't really call this a "fanboy war", shikitono explained why. and since this thing's already started might as well make the most of it. not like this thread will live on after the op decides.
--- Quote from: shikitohno on February 02, 2012, 01:56:46 PM --- (click to show/hide)Actually, I'm not a big fan of Fedora, but I prefer it to Ubuntu for sure. And as I believe I said earlier on, Fedora's more likely to be useful career-wise. Unless the OP is told to maintain servers all of a sudden, if he runs into Linux at work, chances are it'll be RHEL, Fedora or CentOS. Red Hat and CentOS function just about the same as Fedora, so familiarity with Fedora will give the OP the ability to use any of those systems with relatively little difficulty.
--- End quote ---
that's a pretty far future proofing you had in mind. I always recommend ubuntu because I know if they aren't satisfied by it, they'll look for something else. I recommend it with distro hopping in mind. which is what you'll inevitably do because you have tons of options in linux. that's an unstatistical claim, but i'm pretty sure it's true for a lot of people.
--- Quote from: shikitohno on February 02, 2012, 01:56:46 PM ---I don't know how you've really managed to use any other version of linux if you found Fedora's command line difficult to use. Outside of package manager specific stuff (i.e. yum and rpms)
--- End quote ---
this is actually what made me say "screw it" and stuck with opensuse. some things in my fedora install didn't work properly too, when ubuntu and opensuse worked.
--- Quote from: shikitohno on February 02, 2012, 01:56:46 PM ---yum has had a graphical front-end that functions the same exact way as the GUI program from Ubuntu. Search for packages you want, tick the box next to the one you want, and hit install to install it and all of the dependencies.
--- End quote ---
this is actually another reason i didn't like it. it's harder to navigate than ubuntu's.
"get a different package manager"? what, want me to find something i like among the many ones when another distro provides an easy to use one? I'm not that much of an expert nor do i have the time to find a gui package manager! I have other things i'll use more often to tinker with!
--me, back when i was distro hopping
--- Quote from: shikitohno on February 02, 2012, 01:56:46 PM ---Debian isn't that tough to use if you're just doing general purpose stuff. I managed it quite fine when I was first trying out linux and testing out a variety of distros.
--- End quote ---
I think i'll try installing it for once. I only shy away from it based on my mentioned hype.
--- Quote from: shikitohno on February 02, 2012, 01:56:46 PM ---Chakra is based off of Arch, which has some massively helpful forums, active IRC, and a wiki that will answer most questions you have before you need to go to either the forums or IRC support channel.
--- End quote ---
So it's just arch with a graphical installer and not a full blown derivative like ubuntu?
I'm assuming what you said means any solution applicable in arch is applicable in chakra with no adaptations on the solution.
--- Quote from: shikitohno on February 02, 2012, 01:56:46 PM ---Now for your BSD questions, what? Just get out... Yes, freeBSD has plenty of recognized programs. 23000+ and growing, at last count. What's not already there is usually pretty easy to port.
--- End quote ---
Sounding like your "ubuntu experts" buddies right here. I'm not referring to known programs within BSD. those are exclusive ones. what i meant are cross platform ones, which is why i mentioned firefox and openoffice.
--- Quote from: shikitohno on February 02, 2012, 01:56:46 PM ---s for your next point, that everything should be as similar as possible to Windows, it's an idea I find pretty stupid...
--- End quote ---
See previous point. That's why i deliberately mentioned cross platform software. and nothing about the GUI... It's easier to adapt to something with familiar programs. I never said anything about copycat gui.
Oh shit, my classmate uses mac! how do i watch videos?! Oh wait, he has VLC! *fires up the damn thing and plays a video*
--average windows user who finds mac alien
also, I think the first part of my post was ignored, did it make no sense or have you not found someone who did a similar experiment? I mean it's so obvious at least someone might have tried it in the last few years...
shikitohno:
To avoid making this more massive, I'm not going to quote, so hopefully it makes sense which parts I'm talking about.
I don't know what you mean when you talk about it wanting you to get a different package manager. Granted, I'm happy with nothing but terminals (anime and manga are the only reason I really bother having a gui), so it could have changed since I first tried Fedora. Back around Fedora 11 or 12, in the default gnome environment, there was a GUI front-end for yumunder the Adminstration/System Tools menu. Search box in the upper left, you typed what you wanted, and it would give you a list of matches from the repos you had enabled. You could tick the box next to it, click install and it'd automatically grab any dependencies and install it for you. I believe there was also a button to update your system, as well. Seemed pretty straight-forward to me.
Debian isn't so terrible. Neither is Arch, despite the reputation it has. If you can read the beginner's guide on the arch wiki, and can manage to not run off screaming "Oh god, it's too technical looking!" you'll be fine with either distro. I think they're mostly rated as too hard by people who look at the documentation, skim it, and don't bother trying to do anything. Their, "This distro is too hard." usually corresponds to a behaviour my mother loves, "It looked like it would be really difficult, so I didn't even bother trying."
Chakra is Arch with a GUI installer, and a few configuration options taken care of for you. Arch is a totally text based installer, and you have to edit your own config files to set up certain things. Arch doesn't ship with X11 or any DE/WM installed, and a fresh install of Chakra will have KDE installed and set up by default. Basically, once you get past the installer (which the Chakra community will try and help with any issues you have), any solution that works for Arch should work for Chakra. The potential snag for this is package versions. I don't know how close to the Arch repos Chakra is with their packages. It should be pretty much no delay, but there's the off chance that the maintainers for Chakra could hold up a new version of a package, in which case it may behave differently than on Arch.
Concerning BSD, my "Just get out..." was half kidding. Basically any of the big name programs from Linux will run under FreeBSD. Firefox, VLC, Open/LibreOffice and many others have FreeBSD versions easily available. The one thing that could be a bit of work for newcomers is something like Flash. Adobe doesn't put out a BSD flash package, so you'd need to use the linux version. Just involves editing your /etc/rc.conf file to load a kernel module (typically just means adding a line like, "enable_linux-kmod="YES"), reboot and install it. On the plus side for noobs, they can feel all hacker-ish using the ports system to build their programs from source, and have optimized packages. "Whereis foo" will print out something like "/usr/ports/audio/foo" Change to that directory, and "make install clean" will build optimized packages for you. Any configuration options will pop up in a dialogue for you to choose from, rather than using arcane "./configure --enable-lua --enable-jpegs" or some such device like linux. And another perk for FreeBSD's ports system is that while you compile from source with ports, it'll also fetch dependecies for you, rather than you always having to compile everything in just the right order.
And your first part was ignored simply because everyone I know who uses linux/wanted to try it was competent enough that they just did their own research, and went off and tried it. Either that, or they were already using it by the time I met them, and had already gone through their distro search, and settled in on something that worked for them.
Kyrdua:
On the fedora installer, yes. it was straightforward, but the ubuntu one is still more straightforward. also, for some reason like i mentioned, the fedora install didn't work very well, and one of the ones that didn't work was the package installer. couldn't get results for some reason even after an hour of tinkering with it.
I still prefer opensuse's YaST though. similar but better to fedora's. got results on in the first time i used it with no tinkering.
yes, it was a noob thing that made me shy away from fedora.
and point taken on, debian,arch, and chakra. you've explained everything, got nothing more to say on those, thanks.
on FreeBSD, so there's more work to be done to get flash? hmm, makes me think twice, but hey, at least it ain't apple.
lastly, on the experiment part. how is that possible? no, make that "how the hell are your friends all linux users?"
shikitohno:
They're not all linux users. Simply all my friends who are interested in using linux either already do, or know enough google-fu to do their own research, and pick their own distro without stopping to ask me my opinion. The remaining people (most of them) are content with windows. I don't bother trying to win converts, if they want to they know they can ask me. Otherwise I'm just annoying them, which isn't likely to give them a great opinion of it.
Perhaps you got a bad install disk, though. And I can't really imagine it getting much simpler for the install process. Enter name and contact info if you want, else skip. Pick timezone (usually already picked properly for me), select language and keyboard layout (only need to change if you're not using US English and a standard qwerty keyboard), and prep your hard drives. Language and keyboard layout are the only two that I can see many people having to change. Hard drive partitioning options can be complex, but you usually have a pretty specific goal in mind if you're doing anything all that tricky, and if you want to do something difficult, chances are you know how. For the the most part, it's just "Click continue four or five times, go with auto option at partitioning screen." Reboot and set a root password.
I don't believe I've tried openSuse, but for now I'd say my favourite installer is Arch's. It might look a bit imposing at first, but the Beginner's Guide will hold your hand, and it's easy enough once you've done it one time. From popping in the install disk to having a fully up to date system with a GUI and everything takes me all of about 10 minutes of actually doing anything, and 30-45 minutes of just waiting for everything to download and install. Then I've got all my favourite programs installed, nothing I don't use or need in some form or another, and it's a simple matter of cloning my github repo on to the drive, and putting my tweaked config files where I need them. Maybe an hour of time at most, and everything is updated, and all my little tweaks to different programs have been put into place.
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