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Ubuntu! UBUNTU!
- Thread starter Compl33t
- Start date
bb_matt
Executive Member
stepper said:
Ok, for your Flyvideo 98 You need to enable I2C -> Video4linux in the kernel. It uses the bttv driver.
http://www.linuxcompatible.org/cdetail12087.html
For your printer, that may require a bit more work (although compiling a kernel can be rather nasty when you first do it)
Ubuntu :-
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=5496
Gentoo :-
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Lexmark_Printers
fergus
Expert Member
Compl33t said:Cool. Just ordered 10 copies of Ubuntu Linux. Totally free. Even delivery.
Pity it's a GNOME system.
I have a ton of Ubuntu cds if you want. I ordered some from the site and they never arrived so I ordered again and I eventually ended up getting 2 deliveries. Compl33t if you want to get some from me then pm me. I've got the ppc version as well. Otherwise be prepared to wait.
fergus
Expert Member
Raithlin said:
If you really want to get your hands dirty with Linux then I would suggest trying out Gentoo. You really get to do everything yourself, just be prepared to wait while you compile your gnome or kde. I tried it once and it was quite awesome and learned alot but I accidently wiped out my Windows partition in the process
Gentoo is really professionally done with a great packages system called portage which is written in python. Very similar to the FreeBSD ports system and if you've used that you know how easy it is. But, I definitely wouldn't recommend it for a noob unless you have 24 hour internet and can easily google for help when you get stuck with something. Cos you'll probably be doing that often in the beginning.
I tried Ubuntu and its a very good effort so I can understand the popularity of it. Its based on Debian which is totally solid and their package system is also excellent. Alot better than an rpm based distro. What I didn't like about it is a lot of stuff doesn't work out of the box. For example: mp3 player. To me its inconceivable that a Linux distro doesn't have a working mp3 player. There's this fancy media player that comes with it called Kaffeine (IIRC) but its completely useless. It doesn't play mp3s, DVDs, Divx or just about anything. I don't know why they even bother installing it. So to get all that stuff to work you have to download a ton of packages and apps which your average noob is not going to be able to do. Then there's Java (or there isn't I should say). Its a complete mission to get Java to work on Ubuntu. If it weren't for a page on Martin Fowler's blicky which explained the whole art to doing it I don't know what I would've done. When you look at other distros that have all these problems sorted out of the box I can't understand why not Ubuntu.
Eventually I've settled on Suse 9.2. Everything just works. Its the most impressive distro I've ever used. Yast is awesome and its gui based or you can run it from the shell with the curses version. When you're installing on a Windows system it automatically resizes the partition down to make room for the Linux partitions. Some of the software that comes with the standard distro: realplayer (I don't like either but some sites need it), flash-player, Java, etc, so you start off with a really good base from the begining. The only thing that doesn't work is my laptop modem but I haven't really tacklaed that properly yet. If you're just starting with Linux then I'd suggest go with Suse.
bb_matt
Executive Member
Suse IMO is bloated in it's default install - so many damn services are started unneccessarily. Sure, you can go and hack them out after, but it's a pain.
It's the same as Mandrake - totally bloated.
I used to be a Redhat fan, until they started Fedora and until I wanted to do multimedia stuff - Redhat have a policy of not loading up mp3 or mpeg4 codecs - you have to go and fetch rpm's from freshrpms and wade through a sea of dependencies just to get a flipping decent media player installed. Also bloated.
3 CD distributions are just totally overkill IMO - why anyone would want all of the software on those CD's is beyond me, which is why I've moved away from them and settled with Slackware. It can be installed from 1CD - the second CD contains KDE and Gnome amongst other things.
Slackware is quite simply the most stable mature distribution you can get your hands on, simply because it never used "bleeding edge" versions, always using the last stable release of apps.
But then, everyone has thier favourite !
It's the same as Mandrake - totally bloated.
I used to be a Redhat fan, until they started Fedora and until I wanted to do multimedia stuff - Redhat have a policy of not loading up mp3 or mpeg4 codecs - you have to go and fetch rpm's from freshrpms and wade through a sea of dependencies just to get a flipping decent media player installed. Also bloated.
3 CD distributions are just totally overkill IMO - why anyone would want all of the software on those CD's is beyond me, which is why I've moved away from them and settled with Slackware. It can be installed from 1CD - the second CD contains KDE and Gnome amongst other things.
Slackware is quite simply the most stable mature distribution you can get your hands on, simply because it never used "bleeding edge" versions, always using the last stable release of apps.
But then, everyone has thier favourite !
There's a comparison table in the December issue of LinuxFormat, which compared a number of distros - kernel info at the time as follows:Compl33t said:
Conectiva 10 - 2.6.5
Debian 3.1 - 2.6.8
Red Hat/Fedora Core 3 - 2.6.9
Gentoo 2004.2 - 2.6.9
Knoppix 3.6 - 2.6.7
Linspire 4.5 - 2.4.23
Lycoris 1.4 - 2.4.27
Mandrake 10.1 - 2.6.81
Slackware 10 - 2.4.26/2.6.7
SUSE 9.2 - 2.6.8
TurboLinux 10 - 2.6.8
Yellow Dog 4 - 2.6.8
Yoper 2.1.0-4 - 2.6.81
If you want to use the latest kernel, it's really just a question of getting it from kernel.org and compiling it. I don't recommend this, unless you have low-level driver or developmental issues. If you really want to crunch your compiler, get a source distro like Gentoo and enjoy...
fergus
Expert Member
bb_matt said:
Definitely true but then having a lot of software installed by default makes it easier for noobs since they don't need to figure out how to install it themselves
I find it a pity though that for most of your latest distros you need a fairly powerful machine for them to run smoothly. My previous laptop was a celeron based one and it was quite painful running linux on it. For pcs that are a few years old you can forget about running linux on them as a desktop unless you load a more lightweight window manager.
bb_matt
Executive Member
mbs said:
I guess it depends if a custom kernel can speed up your system as to whether it's worth compiling your own.
I've spent quite some time over the months hacking away a the 2.6 kernel config for my slackware boxes hardware and learnt a lot on the way - I turfed out a good 70% of config options cutting down extensively on modules and kernel size. I also made a TON of mistakes along the way.
... yeah, I guess your right no to recommend it !
fergus
Expert Member
Broo said:I downloaded Suse 9.1 personal from a local site (700 MB)...worked well until I found out that there was no compiler included...the first time I attempted to 'make' ... it reported 'file unknown'
Not by default. You need to go into Yast to the software section and select the developer packages and install them.
Mandrake has configure_bttv command in MCC, thats why its easy in Mandrake. But Debian based distros except Knoppix, the command is nowhere to be found.DFantom said:I had an old Flyvideo 3000 card and with Mandrake 9 it was a case of running 1 command to get it to work, and in Mandrake 10 it was all done for me
Before making an ass out of myself, what command do u run and is the bttv module automagically loaded?
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Guess what? I got my Ubuntu package today, hey there's hope for u Compl33t!
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