*NIX Prodigal Son

[Phyre]

It's been a long, long time since I've had a LINUX box up and running, but I'm ready to remedy that situation! I started with Slackware 3.6 (still have the install CD's for that one ) and have used many distros over the years, i.e. RedHat, Mandrake, Suse, etc. I tried Debian, but never had the patience for the installation screens.

So, all that aside, I've got my old machine that I'd like to turn into a LINUX box, but I'm not sure which distribution I should hit up as I've not messed with any in awhile. I'd really like a distro where I can just grab the .iso's and burn the discs. I also don't know if I should go with the 64-bit or 32-bit version. Haven't played with the 64-bit OS's at all actually.

Machine Specs.:
Athlon 64 3200
2 GB RAM
nVidia 6800 w/256 MB RAM
SoundBlaster Audigy 2Z
2x200 GB SATA drives

The box would probably be a tinkerer as I can never seem to keep a LINUX box running because of my damned curiosity.

Thanks,
Phyre

I would definetly recommend Ubuntu 7.04.

I would suggest the alternate install cd.

Reasons are stability and support.

[Sazar]

I am dual-booting vista/ubuntu. Not a bad setup.

Resolutions is definitely an issue for me.

By the way, how good is dual-display support on Ubuntu?

Sazar, I haven't had dual displays since I got this 2405, around the 5.10 days but it did work then.

I vaguely remember having trouble with extending the desktop..heh, when in doubt go to the source.

[evilghost]

Another vote for Ubuntu, it's well documented, very active in the community, and the package management system I find superior to RPM yum.

http://www.ubuntuguide.org and http://www.ubuntuforums.org are two excellent sites to have bookmarked.

[Banko]

I would honestly give the new Debian a try, the installer is much improved. I remember installing Debian Potato damn what a pain.

I personally hate all distros like Ubuntu, they don't allow much customization and actually tend to not work for me.

My distros in order of preference:

1. Gentoo Linux
2. Debian
3. Slackware
4. Arch Linux

It pretty much ends there.

[Phyre]

Thanks for the help, guys. I'll probably look at Ubuntu. I had been considering Fedora, but friends have been suggesting Ubuntu as well.

Phyre

[ViN86]

i just put Slackware back on my machine. im runnin Slackware 11.0 and i compiled my own kernel (2.6.21.3) with SMP support.

no fancy GUI's for installs or any of that jazz. but it's clean and fast and full of great packages. also, supports RPM packages (RPM2TGZ)

[t3hl33td4rg0n]

I would suggest Ubuntu and Fedora. I just tried out Ubuntu 7.04 and is a speedy little OS. I am a bit torn though, as I have not tried Fedora 7 (last was 6 for me) and I hear its a big overhaul of a lot of things, including rpm.

[Phyre]

I'm doing an installation of Ubuntu 7.04 right now. And things look to be installing okay, but I'm getting the dreaded Grub Error 17 when I reboot after installation.

The drive I'm installing Ubuntu onto is a SATA drive, and in my research of the problem, I'm seeing a lot of issues with Error 17 and SATA installations. This is not a dual boot installation either; it's a staight up Linux install. So, I've printed a 60 page Grub "manual" and am in the process of figuring out this problem.

Currnet BIOS boot order is CDROM first and HDD second, and this is not being changed after install. I'll be reviewing the Grub manual and checking the Grub configuration. That's gotta be where this problem is occuring.

Phyre