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Best Linux Distro for me

KeithD
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Hi,

 

I realise there are other threads with a similar subject matter, however I would like to know the best linux distro for me personally.

 

I'm a Computer Science student so I know my way around computers, so something extremely user-friendly shouldn't take priority over functionality. That said, I'm not by any means experienced with Linux and have only ever used Ubuntu as a dual-boot a long time ago (probably five years ago) and at my University which runs a custom version of SL6.4. I quite like that, however they haven't released it for students to use so I can't use it on my personal rig.

 

The short of it is that I need a Linux distro that has good functionality and support for IDE's and the rest of it, but whilst isn't completely user-hostile. Don't need to worry about it being too lightweight or whatever, I've got plenty of power and storage to run it. I will be dual-booting it with Windows 8.1 and it's main use will be for doing development things.

 

Thanks very much!

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 .:. Processor: Intel Core i7-4790k @ 4.7GHz .:. Graphics Card: MSI GTX 770 Twin Frozr OC 2GB


Storage: 1x 250GB Samsung 840 Evo, 1x 1000GB WD Blue .:. RAM: 4x4GB G.Skill RipjawzX 2133MHz .:. CPU Cooler: Cryorig R1 Ultimate


Case: NZXT H440 Black/Red .:. PSU: Corsair CX600M .:. Fans: 5x 120mm AeroCool Dead Silence, 1x 140mm AeroCool Dead Silence

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-snip-

Many people recommend Arch Linux because it's lightweight. Others recommend Debian. But there's so many more choices.

 

You could try some out in a VM and pick one that you like. 

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Many people recommend Arch Linux because it's lightweight. Others recommend Debian. But there's so many more choices.

 

You could try some out in a VM and pick one that you like. 

lol you actually going to start posting on here now?

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lol you actually going to start posting on here now?

Maybe...

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I agree with lekro. Try them all. They be free.

I recommend having a goal/project, to motivate you. Is a good way to learn nix stuff. ie. Setup https services, or a subversion svn repository, or a plex media server in Linux, etc

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Many people recommend Arch Linux because it's lightweight. Others recommend Debian. But there's so many more choices.

 

You could try some out in a VM and pick one that you like. 

 

One of my flatmates mentioned he was thinking about putting Arch Linux on his machine too, seems like the 'in' thing at the moment. Thanks for your reply :D

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 .:. Processor: Intel Core i7-4790k @ 4.7GHz .:. Graphics Card: MSI GTX 770 Twin Frozr OC 2GB


Storage: 1x 250GB Samsung 840 Evo, 1x 1000GB WD Blue .:. RAM: 4x4GB G.Skill RipjawzX 2133MHz .:. CPU Cooler: Cryorig R1 Ultimate


Case: NZXT H440 Black/Red .:. PSU: Corsair CX600M .:. Fans: 5x 120mm AeroCool Dead Silence, 1x 140mm AeroCool Dead Silence

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One of my flatmates mentioned he was thinking about putting Arch Linux on his machine too, seems like the 'in' thing at the moment. Thanks for your reply :D

No problem. Linux is fun ;)

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Linux mint is a good stepping stone, but if you want to force yourself to learn, Arch Linux provides better incentives. I started with Arch too, and it's been fun breaking and fixing my system.

Interested in Linux, SteamOS and Open-source applications? Go here

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Just go on DistroWatch.com and start downloading them all :P

Linux "nerd".  If I helped you please like my post and maybe add me as a friend :)  ^_^!

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Linux is fun :D

 

Thanks very much for your suggestions, do you guys suggest VMWare or VirtualBox (or something else) for testing these distro's out? I'm going to download a bunch and see which I like the best :)

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 .:. Processor: Intel Core i7-4790k @ 4.7GHz .:. Graphics Card: MSI GTX 770 Twin Frozr OC 2GB


Storage: 1x 250GB Samsung 840 Evo, 1x 1000GB WD Blue .:. RAM: 4x4GB G.Skill RipjawzX 2133MHz .:. CPU Cooler: Cryorig R1 Ultimate


Case: NZXT H440 Black/Red .:. PSU: Corsair CX600M .:. Fans: 5x 120mm AeroCool Dead Silence, 1x 140mm AeroCool Dead Silence

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VirtualBox is more Linux friendly in regards to installing Guest Additions, sharing folders, etc but VMware as better video acceleration for heavy desktops such as Unity, KDE, GNOME.

 

Thanks, it'll just be for testing them out :) 

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 .:. Processor: Intel Core i7-4790k @ 4.7GHz .:. Graphics Card: MSI GTX 770 Twin Frozr OC 2GB


Storage: 1x 250GB Samsung 840 Evo, 1x 1000GB WD Blue .:. RAM: 4x4GB G.Skill RipjawzX 2133MHz .:. CPU Cooler: Cryorig R1 Ultimate


Case: NZXT H440 Black/Red .:. PSU: Corsair CX600M .:. Fans: 5x 120mm AeroCool Dead Silence, 1x 140mm AeroCool Dead Silence

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Just go LFS. if that's too  hard then build Arch with KDE :)

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Just go LFS. if that's too  hard then build Arch with KDE :)

 

I don't know if I'm that bold  :o haha

 

Arch seems to be a popular choice so it's definitely on my list to try.

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 .:. Processor: Intel Core i7-4790k @ 4.7GHz .:. Graphics Card: MSI GTX 770 Twin Frozr OC 2GB


Storage: 1x 250GB Samsung 840 Evo, 1x 1000GB WD Blue .:. RAM: 4x4GB G.Skill RipjawzX 2133MHz .:. CPU Cooler: Cryorig R1 Ultimate


Case: NZXT H440 Black/Red .:. PSU: Corsair CX600M .:. Fans: 5x 120mm AeroCool Dead Silence, 1x 140mm AeroCool Dead Silence

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Thanks guys :)

 

Have you ever used Scientific Linux? That's what my University runs (albeit a custom version) and I like that functionality. Is Arch Linux fairly similar?

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 .:. Processor: Intel Core i7-4790k @ 4.7GHz .:. Graphics Card: MSI GTX 770 Twin Frozr OC 2GB


Storage: 1x 250GB Samsung 840 Evo, 1x 1000GB WD Blue .:. RAM: 4x4GB G.Skill RipjawzX 2133MHz .:. CPU Cooler: Cryorig R1 Ultimate


Case: NZXT H440 Black/Red .:. PSU: Corsair CX600M .:. Fans: 5x 120mm AeroCool Dead Silence, 1x 140mm AeroCool Dead Silence

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^ If that's the case then you might want to look at Cent OS or something along that line If your trying to get something similar to Scientific Linux. Arch is only similar as it uses a Linux kernel .. but that's about it. Package management is different to use and some setup is involved to get it working as opposed to installing Fedora or Cent OS pretty much running out of the box

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Try as many as possible would be my suggestion but some of my favourites are Ubuntu, Elementary OS, Mint, and crunch bang.

The first step to insanity is believing in your sanity.

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Thanks guys, I'll download VirtualBox later on and have a go at a few of these. For future reference, what's the best way to dual boot? Has Windows 8 got any better at it or is there better software out there to help along the process?

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 .:. Processor: Intel Core i7-4790k @ 4.7GHz .:. Graphics Card: MSI GTX 770 Twin Frozr OC 2GB


Storage: 1x 250GB Samsung 840 Evo, 1x 1000GB WD Blue .:. RAM: 4x4GB G.Skill RipjawzX 2133MHz .:. CPU Cooler: Cryorig R1 Ultimate


Case: NZXT H440 Black/Red .:. PSU: Corsair CX600M .:. Fans: 5x 120mm AeroCool Dead Silence, 1x 140mm AeroCool Dead Silence

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Thanks, do I need to do anything special in VirtualBox to set up Arch Linux? Is there a minimum amount of memory or hard drive space to allocate?

 

I've got VirtualBox installed and the ArchLinux ISO downloaded.

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 .:. Processor: Intel Core i7-4790k @ 4.7GHz .:. Graphics Card: MSI GTX 770 Twin Frozr OC 2GB


Storage: 1x 250GB Samsung 840 Evo, 1x 1000GB WD Blue .:. RAM: 4x4GB G.Skill RipjawzX 2133MHz .:. CPU Cooler: Cryorig R1 Ultimate


Case: NZXT H440 Black/Red .:. PSU: Corsair CX600M .:. Fans: 5x 120mm AeroCool Dead Silence, 1x 140mm AeroCool Dead Silence

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Very odd, I'm running it and getting a HostMemoryLow error, despite giving it 2GB usable which is more than enough.

 

Went and checked my processes, and saw this:

 

dab5e8bf2b.png

 

Something doesn't seem right here? Checking my processes and it shows this:

 

7d9664499d.png

 

11.2MB is showing as 97% of my memory. I'm not running the VirtualBox or anything. Any ideas @Name Taken ?

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 .:. Processor: Intel Core i7-4790k @ 4.7GHz .:. Graphics Card: MSI GTX 770 Twin Frozr OC 2GB


Storage: 1x 250GB Samsung 840 Evo, 1x 1000GB WD Blue .:. RAM: 4x4GB G.Skill RipjawzX 2133MHz .:. CPU Cooler: Cryorig R1 Ultimate


Case: NZXT H440 Black/Red .:. PSU: Corsair CX600M .:. Fans: 5x 120mm AeroCool Dead Silence, 1x 140mm AeroCool Dead Silence

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Tackling my memory issue, I just removed one of my DIMM's and replaced it, and now my memory usage is back down to 17% doing casual web browsing. Weird how computer things work.

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 .:. Processor: Intel Core i7-4790k @ 4.7GHz .:. Graphics Card: MSI GTX 770 Twin Frozr OC 2GB


Storage: 1x 250GB Samsung 840 Evo, 1x 1000GB WD Blue .:. RAM: 4x4GB G.Skill RipjawzX 2133MHz .:. CPU Cooler: Cryorig R1 Ultimate


Case: NZXT H440 Black/Red .:. PSU: Corsair CX600M .:. Fans: 5x 120mm AeroCool Dead Silence, 1x 140mm AeroCool Dead Silence

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And now the VM is working and I'm now here:

 

119f9747cd.png

 

Good stuff :) Thanks for your help!

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 .:. Processor: Intel Core i7-4790k @ 4.7GHz .:. Graphics Card: MSI GTX 770 Twin Frozr OC 2GB


Storage: 1x 250GB Samsung 840 Evo, 1x 1000GB WD Blue .:. RAM: 4x4GB G.Skill RipjawzX 2133MHz .:. CPU Cooler: Cryorig R1 Ultimate


Case: NZXT H440 Black/Red .:. PSU: Corsair CX600M .:. Fans: 5x 120mm AeroCool Dead Silence, 1x 140mm AeroCool Dead Silence

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I have to say I am enjoying Arch Linux very much so far! Seems quite straight-forward but still has a fair few features.

I went with Xfce for my GUI, and I like that so far. Seems pretty nice and clean. This is all currently just running through the VirtualBox, so will I need to go through all the installation processes again once I install it properly?

 

Cheers :)

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 .:. Processor: Intel Core i7-4790k @ 4.7GHz .:. Graphics Card: MSI GTX 770 Twin Frozr OC 2GB


Storage: 1x 250GB Samsung 840 Evo, 1x 1000GB WD Blue .:. RAM: 4x4GB G.Skill RipjawzX 2133MHz .:. CPU Cooler: Cryorig R1 Ultimate


Case: NZXT H440 Black/Red .:. PSU: Corsair CX600M .:. Fans: 5x 120mm AeroCool Dead Silence, 1x 140mm AeroCool Dead Silence

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I have to say I am enjoying Arch Linux very much so far! Seems quite straight-forward but still has a fair few features.

I went with Xfce for my GUI, and I like that so far. Seems pretty nice and clean. This is all currently just running through the VirtualBox, so will I need to go through all the installation processes again once I install it properly?

 

Cheers :)

 

I've actually never been successfully been able to install arch on native hardware, I'm a little ashamed, but not too ashamed.

If you're not willing to go through the install process, like me, then you can just go with an arch based distro like manjaro which comes with the GUI installer and different desktop environments.

export PS1='\[\033[1;30m\]┌╼ \[\033[1;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[1;30m\] ╾╼ \[\033[0;34m\]\w\[\033[0;36m\]\n\[\033[1;30m\]└╼ \[\033[1;37m\]'


"All your threads are belong to /dev/null"


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I've actually never been successfully been able to install arch on native hardware, I'm a little ashamed, but not too ashamed.

If you're not willing to go through the install process, like me, then you can just go with an arch based distro like manjaro which comes with the GUI installer and different desktop environments.

 

Manjaro looks really nice actually, as much as I like using the terminal to do a lot of things in basic Arch there are some things I'd prefer to have a GUI for. I think I might try sticking Manjaro onto another VirtualBox and try it out :)

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 .:. Processor: Intel Core i7-4790k @ 4.7GHz .:. Graphics Card: MSI GTX 770 Twin Frozr OC 2GB


Storage: 1x 250GB Samsung 840 Evo, 1x 1000GB WD Blue .:. RAM: 4x4GB G.Skill RipjawzX 2133MHz .:. CPU Cooler: Cryorig R1 Ultimate


Case: NZXT H440 Black/Red .:. PSU: Corsair CX600M .:. Fans: 5x 120mm AeroCool Dead Silence, 1x 140mm AeroCool Dead Silence

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