Re: What linux distro is recommended

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On Sat, Oct 25, 2003 at 04:12:47PM -0500, A. Danial wrote:
> On Saturday 25 October 2003 12:21 pm, Niels L. Ellegaard wrote:
> > Quentin Spencer <address@hidden> writes:
> > > Obed Sands wrote:
> > > I believe there
> > > are several users on this list who would recommend Debian. The
> > > advantage of Debian is you can use apt-get to install the latest
> > > version without compiling anything yourself.
> >
> > I don't think it is right to advice a Linux novice to start out using
> > Debian. I did this myself, and I learned a lot, but it also took a lot
> > of because Debian does not work out of the box for novice users.
> 
> I disagree.  By far the easiest Linux install I've ever witnessed 
> is Debian-based.  This distribution I'm referring to is Knoppix,
> http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-old-en.html
> 
> Download the .iso, burn a cdrom (has to be the larger 80 minute size),
> then boot your computer off this cdrom.  As Knoppix runs right off 
> the cdrom you can try it out without any modifications to your computer.
> If you don't like it, reboot, take the cdrom out, and you are back
> to your untouched Windows/Linux/FreeBSD/whatever-was-there-before 
> system.  If you do like it (and I haven't met anyone who hasn't),
> you can install to the hard drive with a single command,
> http://www.freenet.org.nz/misc/knoppix-install.html
> 
> After the install finishes you have a Debian system running KDE.  
> Unless you have unusual hardware, sound, graphics, and networking 
> will all be autodetected and autoconfigured.

And if you use my Quantian variant of Knoppix, you even get openMosix
clustering and a ton of quant. software, include a number of Octave
packages, thrown in for good measure.

> > Novices should start out with one of the following: Mandrake, Redhat
> > or SUSE. 
> 
> Knoppix has a big advantage over Mandrake, RedHat, and SUSE:  there
> is no risk with Knoppix.  If you don't like what you see running
> off the cdrom then you can just reboot and have your original 
> computer system back.  With the other three, your options
> are much more limited:  commit to a hard drive install, or see it
> running on someone else's machine.  
> 
> Debian, via Knoppix as the installation vehicle, is the way to go 
> for novices (and everyone else too really).   -- Al

Yep. And if you start from Quantian, you don't even have to worry about how
to add Octave.

Dirk

-- 
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
                                                -- Groucho Marx



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