MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
I got hold of a Dell laptop of some sort, need to install the system. Linux as it's free, so do I stick to Ubuntu (all home laptops and desktops have it) or should I check Suse out? Anybody here uses Suse? Is it really slow to boot? Is it really wicked to use?
BTW I know nowt about GNOME/KDU/whatever, I only use my computer, I don't want to know all IT geek's stuff, but Ubuntu seems plain at times (and now I'm jobless I've plenty of it).
Any recommendations?
Thanks!
If you've already got Ubuntu elsewhere, stick to what you know.
Unless you particularly fancy learning about the innards of SusE.
Not a great hassle to try both, so one way to find out.
I'd lean towards Ubuntu myself.
I agree with you Cougar, U****u
Ubuntu is easy to install and uses Debian's packaging system which is by far the best way of installing software on linux. Makes RPM (as used by most others) look like a bad joke.
Basically, there's not much to choose between desktop Linux distributions - you can install any user interface you want for the most part. And for the most part, the bog basic ones that look like Windows XP or MacOS work the best.
The real big differences are in how well setup they are as standard, and what packaging system you get.
Heard a few bods talk about Mint which is a prettier Ubuntu/Debian derivative. Never seen it myself though.
http://www.linuxmint.com/about.php
I've tried Mint, never liked it enough to persevere though.
Kbuntu was promising at first but failed me (or I'm too daft to work it out).
I'll see if I have any other distro than the Ubuntu, curiosity etc.
BTW I don't know Ubuntu, I use it.
Mint is by far the nicest variant of Ubuntu, if your not an evangelical free software advocate (it comes with the none free codecs -eg flash - installed and working)
But you'll not like it if you don't like green.
Colin
I use Ubuntu instead of Mint as Skype worked on the earlier but refused on the latter. Besides, living in Eire means I'm surrounded by green, not sure I need more of it 😉
My question got prompted by a review of Suse whose author waxed lyrical about what he called 'the ultimate user-friendly Linux distro'. I'm basically wondering if the laptop will be powerful enpugh as downloading the 4.7GB only to find out it needs an i7 seems pointless.
I use mint.
Pretty good IMO, not as quick to start as some but pretty easy to use. I think you can change the green theme but I kinda like it. I run it from a USB stick seems to work pretty good and means i can have various setups and take them anywhere.
The Gnome interface is generally easier to learn than KDE. You say Ubuntu is plain, but you forget it is 100% customisable. I run a pretty flash Ubuntu computer with Compiz, the desktop does all sorts of whizzy things, some pointless some productive.
I recommend Ubuntu because of excellent features like the Software Centre. Mint is good too, but in honesty it's main strength for a newbie is the fact it comes with non-free media codecs, flash etc. which reduces faff. However it actually only takes a few minutes to add this stuff to Ubuntu.
The caveat to choosing Ubuntu is that it may be the laptop that picks what distro you use i.e. you should boot from a live usb or cd first with your choosen distro to check hardware capability. There are lots of debian based distros out there to try.
Good luck.
Mint is an ubuntu based distribution.
Good advise on booting it from a live disk first.
I had Ubuntu running on a P2-powered (sic!) ThinkPad so shouldn't be too difficult to get it runnung on the Pentium M, should it?
Clearly nobody uses Suse....
I use mint over ubuntu. I think bugs get fixed quicker and ideas are taken on board more. I find it quicker too.