Linux

[Guest]

Hi, I'm currently using WinXP and am thinking of switching to Linux to, amoung other things, run Celestia. I hear it handles multimedia well.

My question is about which distrobution to try. I'm familiar with DOS and Windows, I have fairly standard hardware, and I'm looking for a good host of applications. I hear Mandrake is a good bet, especially for a newbie like I, and I see that Celestia is actually offered for Mandrake and Suse. Anyone have any tips or ideas for a good one to try? Good features and flexibility, as well as running fast and well?

Thanks.

[Andrewski]

Whoops, that was I. My login didn't register....

[t00fri]

Hi, I'm currently using WinXP and am thinking of switching to Linux to, amoung other things, run Celestia. I hear it handles multimedia well.

My question is about which distrobution to try. I'm familiar with DOS and Windows, I have fairly standard hardware, and I'm looking for a good host of applications. I hear Mandrake is a good bet, especially for a newbie like I, and I see that Celestia is actually offered for Mandrake and Suse. Anyone have any tips or ideas for a good one to try? Good features and flexibility, as well as running fast and well?

Thanks.

I think it's no big deal. One argument may be where you are located:

If it is in the US: => RedHat
if it is in France: => Mandrake
if it is in Germany: => SuSE.

But this is by no means compulsary;-)

Bye Fridger

[Andrewski]

What difference does that make?

[t00fri]

What difference does that make?

I think, this is hard to capture objectively. That's why I phrased my reply above in this 'vague' manner.

In the US the /local/ tests with surely put RedHat ahead, in France the testers love Mandrake and in Germany SuSE wins regularly over RedHat and Mandrake is not even considered;-).

It also depends on the type of user. What is his/her highest priority? Ease of installation or professional server-style performance or bleeding edge latest versions of everything (with correspondingly lower stability)?

My laboratory entertains a close collaboration with SuSE on a highly professional level. We have >1000 SuSE PC installations on site with custom additions like AFS and special security precautions etc. Sure that I use SuSE since about 10 years.

Bye Fridger

[Christophe]

In the US the /local/ tests with surely put RedHat ahead, in France the testers love Mandrake and in Germany SuSE wins regularly over RedHat and Mandrake is not even considered;-).

Gee, that's German objectivity at its best ;-). Of course Mandrake is the one.

Seriously the one downside to using RedHat is its highly customized (some call it bastardized) KDE, and also the fact that we don't provide packages for it. But Celestia is probably not the only application you want to use, and it's been heard in the forums that some have managed to compile Celestia on RH.

[chris]

Seriously the one downside to using RedHat is its highly customized (some call it bastardized) KDE, and also the fact that we don't provide packages for it. But Celestia is probably not the only application you want to use, and it's been heard in the forums that some have managed to compile Celestia on RH.

In fact, one of the developers regularly compiles Celestia on RH 9.0

--Chris

[Christophe]

In fact, one of the developers regularly compiles Celestia on RH 9.0

Yes, and using the Mandrake or Suse spec file he could probably provide RH RPMS without too much effort

[julesstoop]

Most Linux users I know (I'm a Machead myself) like Gentoo the best. What's the opinion of the Celestia specialists on this distro?

[Christophe]

Most Linux users I know (I'm a Machead myself) like Gentoo the best. What's the opinion of the Celestia specialists on this distro?

My opinion is that I have better things to do than compiling my distro day and night. If I had to choose a community based distribution I would rather go with Debian than Gentoo.

[jamarsa]

Most Linux users I know (I'm a Machead myself) like Gentoo the best. What's the opinion of the Celestia specialists on this distro?

I think Gentoo is good if you want a finely tuned installation, if you have a *good* Internet access, and if you don't are in a hurry to use the system. I haven't installed it myself, but it seems a thing to try in a rainy weekend. BTW, I need always to recompile my kernel to include special features I use. Definitively is not for beginners IMHO (nor Debian ).

If you want a distribution with a easy installation and learning curve, I would give Mandrake a try, later RedHat and SuSE behind (sorry, Fridger).

If you want to select a huge variety of software from the start, I would select first SuSE, later RedHat and Mandrake last. (This way were on the old days, its more diffuse today).

If you want technical support or go for a bussiness-oriented installation, I would go as Fridger says: RedHat for the US, and SuSE for Europe. (Debian for the rest of the world? )

As for the stability issue, my guess is that Debian is the best (albeit older), SuSE second, RedHat behind and the last/loser is Mandrake..

[jrobert]

I recently got started with linux myself not too long ago. I tried three other distributions (redhat, suse, and debian). What really thrilled me is the ease of installation of Mandrake. The distribution's installer automatically configures the KDE interface which is something that not a whole lot of linux builds do. I can't say that about every linux build out there though. The most challengeing part was getting the updated graphics card driver to load instead of the one that comes with the distribution. See this topic which describes the steps involved in getting Celestia to work with updated graphics drivers: http://www.celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2559