Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (888 mails)

["phanisvara das" <listmail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 21 Jan 2011 15:25:55 +0530, Doug <dmcgarrett@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I don't know if Richard mentioned it, but just about every modern version of
> Linux comes on a live/install disk, which means that you can run the basic
> operating system right off the CD without installing it at all, right on your
> Windows computer.  Just set the BIOS to boot off a CD before the HD.
> For the price of half a dozen CD blanks, you can try 6 Linux distros, and
> get a good feeling for how you like each one.  If you decide you do like one
> better than the rest, just put the CD back in, and run the install routine.

i very much agree with the suggestion to use live-CDs to try if your computer setup 
works well with a particular distribution or not. there are a few quirks that cause 
trouble for users with a particular hardware configuration on some particular linux 
distribution, but not on others. if you should run into one of these, you might 
have a hard time getting everything working. trying out a live CD before 
installation will show you if the main things like display & sound, work on 
your machine.

once you've established that your system works, i would strongly suggest going 
with openSUSE. i've tried different distros like fedora, ubuntu, but always 
came back to openSUSE in the end. it's more versatile, i.e., you can install 
applications for different uses from the repositories without having to compile 
everything yourself, and once you understand how online repositories, install 
and update mechanisms work, it's easy and intuitive to deal with it.

perhaps PC-[whatever] is easier for the very first steps; i don't know, never 
tried it. but i'm convinced it won't offer you as many choices later on, and 
re-learning how the basic operations that are needed to keep you system 
up-to-date and secure are performed is an additional hassle i wouldn't 
recommend.

another big point for openSUSE are these mailing lists and forums, where you 
can get expert help on pretty much any topic you can imagine. i haven't seen 
any other linux forum or mailing list that's as supportive and knowledgeable as 
this community. that's a very big plus, specially for a beginner.

--
phani.
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