What is the best\most compatible Linux release?
Archives Forums/Linux Discussion/What is the best\most compatible Linux release?
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| Knowing next to nothing about Linux, I'm wondering what the best version to install on my PC (dual boot perhaps) is... There seems to be a large number of choices. Does it matter as far as compatibility goes? I saw a book on RedHat Linux for $19.95US that included 2 CDs (bootable!) but wondered if it would be the best choice. Any help appreciated! Russell p.s. Are there any words of wisdom about dual-installing Linux with WinXP I should know about? |
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| don't do it. :) If you can buy VirtualPC, that's your best bet. Protected disk space and you don't have to worry about the multi-boot screwing up your boot sector. But if you MUST... Try Mandrake ummm 9 I think is the latest. Can't remember. And a windows boot manager. Don't use lilo or the other one that usually comes with the linux distro. |
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| I thought VirtualPC was a PC emulator that ran on macs? If I have a partition completely devoted to Linux (including its disk format - ext3, ReiserFS), wouldn't that be fairly safe? I also have Partition Commander, which I much prefer to Partition Magic, that makes it easy to install multiple OS's. Anyone tried this? I like the bootable CD idea, too: No installation to worry about at all! Sounds like an ideal situation. Russell |
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| LiveCD's are a good choice if you just want to use desktop apps, but I don't think you'll find them very useful for writing games, since most (if not all) don't include hardware accelerated video drivers. My favorite GNU/Linux distribution has always been Debian, but it's not very easy to install. You should try Fedora or Mandrake if you just want a quick Linux setup. In my experience, there's nothing dangerous about dual-booting. You just need to make sure you partition everything the correct way. Take a look at the Chapter 3 of the Debian installation guide for a good tutorial on dual-booting. Much of the information you find there will pertain to any flavor of Linux, not just Debian. |
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| In my experience, there's nothing dangerous about dual-booting. yeah, the only trouble i've ever had is if you have to reinstall windows it usually wipes the boot sector and you need a boot disk to get back into linux and reinstall lilo |
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| using xp and fedora core 3 here, no probs, i did install fed after xp thou, partitioned using partition magic in windows |
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| I'm using Mandrake 10.1 on my 2nd 'puter and can't get BlitzMax to compile on it. :( |
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| i was using mandrake, and max wouldnt work, so... id change to something else, mandrakes a bit pants |
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| i'm using gentoo here and blitzmax works fine. but if its your first distribution gentoo is maybe not the right for you. |
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| At the moment im using Fedora Core 3 with blitzmax on x86, and i was using Fedora Core 3 on x86_64 but it refused to compile anything, Ive also had it running on gentoo x86_64 2004.3 but had to use a 32-bit chroot to get it to compile anything. |
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| Using Mandrake 10.1(!), and it works..... |
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| Using Redhat 9 under VMWare Workstation - it works, but very slow screen updates due to software emulated openGL. (The firepaint example gives me maybe one frame every two seconds or so). Athlon 2800+. Oh, well - at least I can compile. I tried running one of the compiled examples under Knoppix bootable, but unfortunately the standard config apparently doesn't like my videocard much and the resulting application had completely skewed & corrupted graphics. My old 600MHz laptop doesn't support hardware openGL either. I was able to run the compiled examples though. Also very slow, although slightly faster than under VMWare on my 2800+ The win32 beta, meanwhile seems to give pretty decent speeds. I can increase the number of rotating stars in the background of the starfieldpong example from the default 1,000 to 12,000 before it starts dropping any frames (Measured with FRAPS, www.fraps.com, which apparently can also count framerates for OpenGL applications!) |
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| No problems with Debian Sarge (testing) with kernel 2.6.9 ... |
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| Using Mandrake and PuppyLinux here. Both work fine (but getting it to work on Puppy took a fair bit of work). |
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| I wonder what version of Linux Mark develops on? That's the version I want! ;) Russell |
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| Hi, I believe Skid mainly used Redhat 9, but having just blown that computer up he's moved onto Mandrake on another machine, which seems to be working OK. I also think he's found quite a few potential compatiblity problems, fixes for which will show up in the next beta. I haven't actually done much Linux coding myself yet - and now that I have BlitzMax I don't have to! |
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| SuSE 9.1 works quite happily here. |
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