user friendly but quick distro

[houndhen]

Windows user for over 20 years where I used DOS and the command line. Using XP and don't plan on getting Vista. New to Linux.

I have an older system that is dual booted with XP and PCLOS. Bought a newer system to devote to Linux. The kernel in PCLOS didn't get along with the motherboard of the new system. Don't have the particulars of the new system in front of me at the present. I think it has an asrock motherboard, intel core duo 3 ghz chip, 2 GB ram, 250 GB hard drive.

Anyhow, I have a stack of live cds of distros. I have tried Ubuntu, Puppy 3.0, PCLOS Junior, PCLOS Big Daddy, Fedora 7, Opensuse 10.3, TinyMe, etc. I have sort of settled on Opensuse and Fedora 7. I am just not completely satisfied yet.

Of course they seem complicated to me because they are unfamiliar. I have installed opensuse twice after trying to install Fedora 7 and the LVM and my ignorance kinda hosed the system.

Bottom line...both opensuse and Fedora 7 just seem slower than I thought they would be. Sometimes it takes 20 to 30 seconds to show up on screen something that I have clicked on.

I would like to hear suggestions about distros that are windows-like but have linux underneath that I can get into later as I feel more comfortable in the distro. But they would need to be IMHO at least as fast as XP on this new system.

Been browsing the threads - probably missed the post that answered my question. My apologies if that is the case.

thanks,
houndhen

[John A]

Something sounds funny, because while I wouldn't rank the distros you mentioned as very fast, they should definitely run at acceptable speeds on a machine like yours. To start with, I'd try recompiling your kernel, as the generic ones that come with Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. are bloated and contain far more hardware support than you need. If you don't know how to do this, go to kernel.org and download the latest kernel tarball ("F"). Extract it to /usr/src , and make a sym-link /usr/src/linux to point to the extracted tarball. This guide describes configuring and installing the kernel:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=7#doc_chap3

Make sure you install drivers for your video hardware. Using a generic driver will slow down the system, as it can't take full advantage of your graphics card's capabilities.

As for usability and speed, sadly, those two usually don't come hand-in-hand in the *nix world. The fastest distros are the ones that you build from scratch.

[houndhen]

Something sounds funny, because while I wouldn't rank the distros you mentioned as very fast, they should definitely run at acceptable speeds on a machine like yours. To start with, I'd try recompiling your kernel, as the generic ones that come with Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. are bloated and contain far more hardware support than you need. If you don't know how to do this, go to kernel.org and download the latest kernel tarball ("F"). Extract it to /usr/src , and make a sym-link /usr/src/linux to point to the extracted tarball. This guide describes configuring and installing the kernel:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=7#doc_chap3

Make sure you install drivers for your video hardware. Using a generic driver will slow down the system, as it can't take full advantage of your graphics card's capabilities..

Thanks, joeprogrammer, I will give it a go as soon as I can. I may have to get more detailed instructions but I will get back if that is needed.

I am not tied to Fedora or opensuse. Are there some distros that you could name that are faster?

Those that I could download and burn a cd. I don't think that at this stage in my linux experience I am up to building my own distro. Also remember that at this point I am still mostly point and click.

thanks,
hh

[John A]

>Are there some distros that you could name that are faster?
Probably some of the fastest distros out there include Gentoo, Arch and Slackware. Of those, Gentoo is by far the hardest to install (but also has the highest performance), but all of the three take a very minimalist approach that is not very user-friendly.

For some reason it slipped out of my mind, but have you tried Debian yet? It's probably going to be your best bet for something easy to use and speedy (and it's what Ubuntu was based on, but without the bloat). I'd definitely recommend you try this if you haven't already.

[houndhen]

I haven't looked at Debian. I will definitely do that. thanks

[houndhen]

To start with, I'd try recompiling your kernel, as the generic ones that come with Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. are bloated and contain far more hardware support than you need. If you don't know how to do this, go to kernel.org and download the latest kernel tarball ("F"). Extract it to /usr/src , and make a sym-link /usr/src/linux to point to the extracted tarball. This guide describes configuring and installing the kernel:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=7#doc_chap3

joeprogrammer, I went to the link above and after looking around it doesn't seem like something that presently I have enough Linux knowledge to be able to do. I would probably create more problems than I was able to solve.

I plan to look at Debian as I indicated in another post. If that doesn't work out after a while, I may just try and cleanup the bloat in Fedora. One of the things that a newbie needs it seems to me is a helpful distro community. It seems that Fedora may have that.

thanks,
houndhen

[TheNNS]

fedora is buggy in my expirience, i've had better luck with SLED 10. you should definetly give debian a try, it's very easy to install, it'll run quite fast.

[houndhen]

Thanks, TheNNS. I definitely plan to look at debian when I get the chance after work. I have been on quite a few forums in the last few weeks but this is some of the best useable information that I have gotten.

hh

[tl2050]

Since you've got computer experience, and I'm assuming you did more than just use MSWord during those last 20 years, I'd urge you to go for slackware. There are guides that will walk you through the installs for pretty much all of the popular distros, so you can't screw up too bad, and you'll know where things are and what is happening, which is the first step to becoming competent with another system. The slackware install honestly looks like a pre-win95 installer, but it will walk you through the whole thing and you'll be able to actually control what goes into your system to a very fine degree. If you've got the time and the interest, you'll do fine. You may also want to check out www.howtoforge.com before you try to install any other distros. Good Luck!

[houndhen]

Thanks tl2050, I will check out slackware. From what I have been reading it seemed like it was not so much for the newbie so I didn't look at it. I have installed Debian 4.0 and trying to find my way around in it right now. Have room for several on my hard drive but don't need too much complexity with the boot manager and mbr. I am pretty sure my mbr is messed up pretty good. I did the fix mbr from the xp install disk and was not able to get back into my sytem until after I installed Debian and grub gave me a boot menu again.

At some point I have to start using a distro and getting something done with it besides getting more confused. Also, I have bookmarked HowtoForge.

Thanks,
hh

[Sturm]

I would recommend Arch Linux, as it is i686 compiled and relatively simple.
Here are some links on the philosophies of Arch:

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_vs_Others
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/FAQ

[jbennet]

Opensuse and Fedora generally tend to be slow.

I like debian, if you a network connection via ethernet, just dowwnload the <200mb netinstall image and it will download what you need (choose desktop + base system)

debian is nice and fast, and if youve used ubuntu before, should be familiar

the installer is text based but good, if you can install Xp you can do this

also, by the way, to get rid of GRUB and reinstall the XP bootloader use the command "fixboot" at the recovery console

[houndhen]

I have Debian 4.0 installed and am trying to find my way around. Thanks for the suggestion.

Installed Ubuntu but it didn't seem stable and there was a problem with font sizes even during the install. Deleted Ubuntu shortly after it was installed.

I have downloaded Arch but I am holding off on installing it. At my age I need to focus on one new thing at a time.

[jbennet]

debian is good i like it

[TheNNS]

>At my age I need to focus on one new thing at a time.

how old are you?

[houndhen]

I'll be 65 next August. Never saw a computer till around 1980. It was a semi-portable mono chrome screen and loaded with DOS 2.0 and Lotus 123. Don't remember how big the HD was or even if it had one.

I have been using Windows since 3.0. I have used Quickbooks in my work every workday for the last 4 years. I have used Excel since before version 4.0. Trying to switch over to linux but it has its challenges. I have to find a replacement for QB for my personal use but will still have to use it and windows at work until I retire within the next year.

I have looked at mymoney and gnucash and didn't see them as something that could replace QB. Oh well, I'll find something.

[jbennet]

you like MS money?
Sage?
KMyMoney?

[houndhen]

jbennet,
you like MS money?
Sage?
KMyMoney?

From what I have seen the first and last are more like quicken. Not sure about Sage. Quicken and several others can't come close to doing what Quickbooks can do. They weren't designed to. A lot people use them and are well pleased. I think of them as Quickbooks light. I did look at gnucash. To me it was just clunky. Gave up on trying to use it for now at least. I may have to lower my expectations when I get to that point. Right now I am still in transition from Windows to Linux.

[jbennet]

ive never really used sage, i was just throwing it into the pile, but i know its an ms product for accounants

[houndhen]

What I am looking for is an application similiar to Quickbooks that will run in Linux. I am also looking into vmware in Linux so that I can run QB from inside Linux.