Felix Leong says:
Personally I used Fedora Core 4, as far as my experience goes, it is a solid distribution, but yet a lot of things doesn’t work out of the box
For my case, those that I have to work out myself (up until now): media playback (especially MP3 and WMVs), (W)Linmodem support, a more efficient updater than the yucky up2date, applications that went into the extra list (e.g. Blender, Inkscape), I have NO idea how to make Chinese input work in KDE (and I searched HARD in the net with no avail)…
The transition period took me about 2 weeks in order that it was tailored to a point that I can do all my work that I performed in my Windows PC. Most of the time spent is to find drivers for hardware.
It DOES have some really good system administration tools which really simplifies the setup, though. If the list above I had above have items that carries any importance to you, I would rather recommend you those distros which are targetted to Windows users who are converting. But if you are considering installing Linux as your server (which you are not expected to work on it on a daily basis), then Fedora is for you.
Leo says:
I have used FC3 and Mandriva and I liked both of them. These two are probably the easiest of the stable distros to get to know. I have heard that Debian is very good, and extremely stable but I gather it is a more advanced OS.
EngLee says:
Thanks for those tips, guys. I really appreciate it.
Keldon Alleyne says:
It is really hard to decide on a distro. That test is good as it also reminds you of all the decisions, but now I think of it I should write a list of what I want to do with my linux distro first.
Nathan says:
Debian is hard core. It gives you raw Linux. You start out with just a text based OS but you can get a desktop version. sudo apt-get install all the way! I have used Ubuntu before, did not like how it worked out of the box (couldn’t play mp3’s) and of course, with just one click you can download the “ugly” codec repositories and it works. I am going to try Fedora Core 6 and try to update to 7 (couldn’t find it on the ftp mirrors fast download) Any suggestions? I took the quiz and thats what it recommended. I have a Sony VAIO TR3A laptop and I am going to start fresh with Linux. I would like to get the built in web cam working, the wide screen resolution to work, the fn keys working… A LOT of stuff on your laptops are specific and when you install ANY OS you need to tweak a bunch of stuff. If you reinstall windows you have to go out and find all the drivers, if it ubuntu, downloading stuff, taking tutorials, working a lot from the command prompt. Well, I have written to much.
Nate
