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  1. #1
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    What's the best *nix distro in your opinion?

    So I decided to go laptop-only
    here at the house, and use some of the existing hardware laying around to make a file server, for access to larger media (laptop will have 40 gigs, which barely fits all the media files, much less all the rest of the stuff I use).

    So I've spent some time, cleaned up the drives on the current desktop, and got it 'prepped' for a reformat with a new non-windows os.

    Now here comes the 'sticky' point. Which OS should I load on it? Here's the requirements I'll be placing on it:

    1) Gotta be a *nix, whether that's bsd or linux
    2) Gotta be updatable easily. It won't be accessable outside the firewall, but I'd like to keep it up to date on a regular basis
    3) Gotta run samba well - shouldn't be a big deal, most distros have that after all
    4) Gotta have good multimedia support. I may be adding more drives and making a secondary raid array for PVR purposes in the future. It'll already have a tv tuner, after all.
    5) Stable, stable, stable. After setup, I don't wanna be tweaking this n that all the time to keep it working outside of software updates.

    So, with those requirements in mind, which distro do you think I should use?

  2. #2
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    My personal choice is Redhat 9. IMO it would work welll with 1-5 you listed.

  3. #3
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    Lindows if you want to put minimum effort in Linux, there is a discount code you can use to download it for free (Developer or main edition.) You can use Mandrake also if you want to put a minimum effort into it. Slackware if you want to configure it by hand and want to learn. I've never used Debian although i've heard it's apt-get feature is priceless and you configure it by hand like Slackware. Gentoo i've never used. It sounds good as it build it from the ground up.

    I suggest buy the books: Linux for Windows Addicts (By Michael Joeph Miller) ISBN: 213081-4 and "Linux in a nutshell" by Ellen Siever (O'Reilly Books) ISBN: 1-56592-585-8
    Don't look for a way out.

  4. #4
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    My personal choice would be Slackware.

  5. #5
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    Hmm.. Of the above...

    Redhat 9: Concerned with the availability of updates to the system in the future, though I could setup apt/yum for that I guess. I also considered fedora, but it has such a short lifecycle compared to other options... And I sure as heck am not gonna pay rhe prices for a home storage box..

    Lindows: Seems very desktop-based. The primary purpose for this is going to be remote storage/auth through domain controller functions in samba. Not much desktop use, if any.

    Slack: Never used it. The package management appears to be a tarball format? What's all this I hear about 'slack is dying'?

    Mandrake: Used 'er, don't really like urpmi so much... Seems to be drifting into lindows territory. Worked well on the old laptop tho.

    Debian: Me and debian have a checkered past. Used/administered it successfully, but last time I tried to install the unstable branch (this was a couple years ago) dselect decided to get itself in a loop with dependencies. It also called my mother bad names. Ok, maybe not. Any debian users reccomend a branch to use for this?

    Gentoo's scary. Portage sounds good, seems to take a lot from freebsd's ports tree.. But is it worth the pain/tinkering of getting it all compiled/installed?

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
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    Installilng linux or freebsd on a laptop isn't always a snap if you want things like power managment and wireless cards to work.

    If it were me I would install whatever distro I thought would take the least time.

    If you haven't already, take a look at places like
    linux on laptops. There are two How-Tos on your machine listed for RH 9 and one on Debian.

    Here isanother one specific to your machine.

    Best of luck. The 600m is a nice machine.

  7. #7
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    Take a look at this: http://linuxiso.org/finddistro.php
    Don't look for a way out.

  8. #8
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    Oh no you misunderstood

    The old, freezy, junker desktop is going to get gutted and used for a storage server for the windows based laptops to use/connect to/authenticate to.

    Buuut...

    I have heard rumblings about centrino drivers for *nix coming out, which is one of the limits that stopped full linux usage on the old laptop. Netgear had a driver, but I never got it past sensing the hardware itself.

    (links bookmarked for future reference )

    So yeah, basically need it for a server-based app.

  9. #9
    Join Date
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    My choice is SourceMage( http://sourcemage.org/ )

    It might not be the easiest thing out there to get going, but once when it does get up and runing it is very neat and smooth.

    Major benefits:
    timely and easy updates,
    great dependency checks,
    self healing,
    optimized for your paticular system

    Some samples:
    sorcery update -> updates everything
    cast kde-profile -> installs complete KDE
    cast --fix ->finds broken apps and libs and repairs them

  10. #10
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    Fascinating. Going to do some more research on sourcemage - it's a very interesting concept (casting spells, et al). Must do more reading on that one. Looks like a new version just came out too

  11. #11
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    Originally posted by thedavid
    Gentoo's scary. Portage sounds good, seems to take a lot from freebsd's ports tree.. But is it worth the pain/tinkering of getting it all compiled/installed?

    If you install the operating system using the "stage-3" tarballs (pre-compiled binaries), it usually only takes 1 hour to 2 hours to get it installed. It's very nice, and portage rocks
    John Kata

  12. #12
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    Fedora all the way, power management and wireless al working without any manual configuration with text editor. Was basically as easy to get going as Windows

  13. #13
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    Slackware 9.1 =)
    Steven Ciaburri | Industry's Best Server Management - Rack911.com
    Software Auditing - 400+ Vulnerabilities Found - Quote @ https://www.RACK911Labs.com
    Fully Managed Dedicated Servers (Las Vegas, New York City, & Amsterdam) (AS62710)
    FreeBSD & Linux Server Management, Security Auditing, Server Optimization, PCI Compliance

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
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    192
    Slackware or Mandrake.

  15. #15
    well this is for a file server with samba.
    you want debian. debian. debian. debian.

    dont install the unstable version, install the stable one.

    apt-get has been ported to other distros, like RH9, and SuSE... however debian with apt-get is just "wow".

    give debian another go, you wont be sorry.
    IWDN - Really smart web developers... and me!
    More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads.
    One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction.
    Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

  16. #16
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    Gentoo is great. It has the best management system I have used. I also like how gentoo't init scripts, it is very easy to create your own runlevels. I have 1.4 installed on my work laptop with no problems at all and I get about 3.5 hrs of battery life with cpudyn running. Hopefully intel will release its centrino drivers soon.

  17. #17
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    I'm a debian loyalist. I like to install a bare system then build it out to my exact specs, no extra garbage. It's nice and small, and quick to provision once you've learned. I've always liked their social contract, http://www.debian.org/social_contract

    I haven't used RH since 5, so I can't give a fair comment.

    Still, I think it's just a matter of personal choice. Use what you're comfortable with.

  18. #18
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    Mac OS X is absolutely perfect for what you want.

    Built on *nix: Check

    Easily Updatable: Check (Just run software update and it downloads and installs updates for almost all your software in one go. Updated kernels require a reboot, however)

    Runs Samba Well: Check. Flawlessly, with simple, to-the-point GUI configuration which a 5 year old could understand.

    Good multimedia support: Check. Best in the business. All major video and audio formats, DRM support, TV in and out supported with EyeTV for FireWire etc. As for storage, how does an Xserve RAID tickle your fancy (3.5 Terabytes in 3U rackmount)?

    Stable: Check. Built on BSD, so even more stable than linux.

    Last login: Sun Mar 21 13:22:16 on ttyp1
    Welcome to Darwin!
    te0s-Computer:~ te0$ uptime
    18:25 up 107 days, 1:48, 3 users, load averages: 1.04 0.99 1.01
    te0s-Computer:~ te0$



    And to top it all off, it's open source (everything but the GUI elements - the core unix distro (darwin) is open source and free to download for PowerPC processors and now x86 processors)
    Gone.

  19. #19
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    My personal suggestions are the following. I have used all of them before and would suggest them to anyone.


    Mandrake 9.1 or 10.0 (don't use 9.2)

    Suse 9.0

    Whitebox Linux (RHEL without the licensing costs)
    Jeremy Johnstone
    Personal Blog: http://www.jeremyjohnstone.com/blog

  20. #20
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    Originally posted by phision.com

    Stable: Check. Built on BSD, so even more stable than linux.

    Last login: Sun Mar 21 13:22:16 on ttyp1
    Welcome to Darwin!
    te0s-Computer:~ te0$ uptime
    18:25 up 107 days, 1:48, 3 users, load averages: 1.04 0.99 1.01
    te0s-Computer:~ te0$

    What makes BSD more stable then linux? Obvioiusly it isn't the kernel so what is it?

  21. #21
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    Originally posted by genlee
    What makes BSD more stable then linux? Obvioiusly it isn't the kernel so what is it?
    See http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html
    Gone.

  22. #22
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    Originally posted by phision.com
    Mac OS X is absolutely perfect for what you want.

    I dont think so... he wants to put it on his celeron laptop.

    Doesnt MAC only go on MAC hardware?

  23. #23
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    ilyash, you misred his posts twice... he is putting linux on his old DESKTOP.

    I too am a deb head.... debian rocks!

    The basic netinstall takes 30 mins or less to get a basic system set up. From there, you can apt-get everything.

    apt-get update (dowloads updated apt-list)
    apt-get install package1 package2 package3 etc
    apt-get upgrade package1 package2 package3
    apt-get dist-upgrade (upgrades your whole distro. If testing became stable, it would upgrade you to the latest)

    I run stable for servers, and testing for desktop. If you want better desktop support, check out libranet, its debian based, and has an autodetect system like mandrake to configure Xwindows.

    Or you can go FreeBSD... I'm moving all my hosting servers to FreeBSD... ports is your friend!

  24. #24
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    Unfortunately I can't access that page right now but uptime doesn't prove bsd being more stable. It proves that those admins are running a very old kernel or have not patched their kernel for any security exploits that have been released since then. Linux just had a major kernel release which a lot of users/admins have moved to so naturally the uptimes for Linux would be a lot lower. Uptime is useless to show stability until you can load a new kernel without rebooting. I have never had any stability problems since 2.0 kernel.

  25. #25
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    Ok, here's what I'm gonna try (for now):

    Downloaded/burned fedora core 1. Going to install that now, and if I get disgusted at any one point...

    Debian... If that is mean like last time...

    whitebox linux... hadn't heard of that till now, but I've got so much momentum with deadrat that I figure I may as well continue.

    If all that doesn't work well for me, I'll do the gentoo dance and go from there..

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