Which Linux is best?

Question

I am looking into putting Linux on one of my spare drives. Right now I am only looking to use it for learning purpouses, but will want to use it for internet, gaming, school, and buisness purpouses later. I am running an AMD Athlon 64 3000, Soyo K8USA Dragon Ultra Socket 64 Motherboard, 200 GB Maxter SATA HDD. I came across the IA-64, but is that only for intel chips? Don't figure it is, but wasn't sure.

Answer 1

use the 64 bit version of ubuntu. it is the most user friendly for beginners, which is what I'm assuming you are (which isn't a bad thing, it's awesome that more people are getting interested in linux). It recognizes most hardware and installs easily off of only 1 disk. If you download it from ubuntu's site, don't forget to check the md5 before you burn it. It has great community support, and right now is the most popular distribution of linux distros.

Answer 2

I'd say Ubuntu linux or Kubuntu, which is Ubuntu but a bit different (a different desktop, for example). It's easy to learn on, I did (and still am). In fact, I'm using it right now! I wouldn't recommend anything that doesn't get a bunch of reviews for being easy. I first tried Fedora Core 5, and was next to lost. Ubuntu was easy, though. It's a linux experience you could probably call pleasant.

Answer 3

i might say Ubuntu, that's somewhat easy to apply for a beginner, even nevertheless it nonetheless has the flexibility to do very progressed issues additionally GNOME is a computing device ecosystem, like KDE. Ubuntu comes with GNOME. in case you like a extra homestead windows-like ecosystem you ought to use Kubuntu this is Ubuntu with the KDE ecosystem rather than GNOME. a good ingredient with Ubuntu is which you will exchange between the diversities very truthfully, merely employing synaptic kit supervisor (a software you will use plenty in case you get Ubuntu or Debian) you are able to exchange computing device environments and upload the useful factors of each and every version with purely some clicks. additionally Ubuntu is predicated off debian, so as that they are comparable yet ubuntu is designed to be extra consumer-friendly.

Answer 4

As to the best Linux distribution, it's up to you to make the call!

I would recommend checking out www.distrowatch.com. It's been my favorite resource for all things Linux. There you can find reviews of almost every distribution out there.

A quick list of my personal favorites:

Ubuntu
SuSe
MEPIS
Fedora

If you're looking for the easiest, I would try Ubuntu or MEPIS. SuSE and Fedora are still easy to use, but are slightly power powerful and geared towards people who wish to customize their own Linux environment.

The hardware you plan on using will be fine for any of the distros I listed.

Regards,
John

Answer 5

A lot of people seem to like Ubuntu Linux which is fairly new but has gained massive amounts of popularity. Be sure to check on named Distrowatch which provides information on about all Linux distributions. OpenSuSE also seems to catch up on Ubuntu but I didn't like that at all.

Anyway, you'll probably find yourself switching distributions sooner or later because no distro is perfect for everyone, so you'll have to find the perfect (or at least close to) one for you. I personally use Xubuntu because it is lighter.

Answer 6

FYI, IA-64 is actually for Itanium chips, not normal Intel chips. Most 64-bit cpus use x86-64

Ubuntu and SuSE are probably the best distros for learning.

Answer 7

I wouldn't recommend Red Hat, because of their new business model. If you want something like Red Hat, then get Fedora, which is a "fork" of the old, free, Red Hats.

I personally prefer Debian or Gentoo, bot these tend to be for the more experienced user.

Ubuntu has recently got a lot of attention for it's ease of use and support for eg. wireless networking. It is a fork of Debian.

Answer 8

I strongly recommend Red Hat Linux - it is well known, well supported (backed by a company) and has lots of books available as well.