OT: Windows is too expensive

parabolize · #1 March 19th, 2007, 05:44 PM

Yes you want a swap partition. How large depends on how much ram you got and how much processing power. You usually want twice your ram.
You usually don't need to recompile the kernel though adding non-free graphics modules is pretty normal (aka nvidia driver).
Almost none of a debian (ubuntu) install is source though all the packages have source available in the repositories. Other distributions are called source based and install/compile everything from source like Gentoo.

Baron Munchausen · #2 March 19th, 2007, 07:18 PM

Yeah, I'm still up in the air about which distro to use. Novell is in trouble with the OSS community, or I'd go with their very 'Windows friendly' package. Fedora is another possibility. I've heard both good and bad things about Ubuntu. The effort to make it 'easy' like Windows has apparently cut some corners.

Fyron · #3 March 19th, 2007, 10:01 PM

bah @ fedora. If you are concerned about Ubuntu, you could always go with Debian. Don't think you have to pick a distro and be stuck with it; play around for a while, see if it is for you, then decide whether to keep it or install something else. You can keep your /home partition separate so you don't lose some settings and such.

parabolize · #4 March 19th, 2007, 11:01 PM

Yeah, if you have the bandwidth download a few livecds and see which ones you like. Out of the ones you like do some research on their installer and package manager.

Also keep in mind what the distribution has installed by default isn't set in stone. I'm still running Ubuntu when I am using very little of gnome. If I was to reinstall I would probably do a custom net install from the Debian unstable repositories but my environment is far from user friendly or commonly preferd.

Fyron · #5 March 19th, 2007, 11:14 PM

And keep in mind that Fedora/Red Hat has a really lousy package management system. Not even a decent Debian-like central repository. :-\

Baron Munchausen · #6 March 20th, 2007, 12:09 AM

Hmm, isn't Novell using SUSE Linux? What's the difference between Novell's branded version and SUSE 10.2 (which is the latest, I believe)? Being on dialup, I'm not going to download a bunch of .ISO images.

I'll be going to a good source like cheapbytes.com and ordering CDs.

parabolize · #7 March 20th, 2007, 01:41 AM

SLE is aimed for businesses (lots of server support), openSUSE is aimed for everybody else. They both use YAST Package Manager which uses RPM (RedHat Package Managment) which most people agree stinks (certainly Debian users). They also can use Debian's APT (Advanced Package Tool - built off of dpkg) but don't do so for the default install.