Tips For Linux Rookies?

Hi, I'm a newbie. I've moved from windows 8.1 to Slackware a coupe days. They said If I want to know deeper about computer, I have to use one of Linux distro. So Slackware is very basic, that's why I try it. I used use Ubuntu a few time before but Slackware which it's harder. I begin search in the internet about driving the distro.

My language is not English. I used Lingoes in Windows. Now I'm lookin for same one. I need a help for downloading, installing software, maybe step by step because I don't have much experience at Linux in common.

The general question is: How behind are packages being packaged in Ubuntu? I know that this depends on the package and a ton of things, but I just want to get a sense of (stable vs. cutting edge--is there a good balance of both?) Ultimately, I want a system that fast, reliable, up-to-date, and easy to maintain.

I find myself debating whether to go with minimal Ubuntu, Arch Linux, or Slackware. I did some reading and realize that Ubuntu and Slackware are considered stable while Arch Linux is considered bleeding edge (yes, I realize Arch and Slackware require more work to maintain) but never to what extent. For example, I don't mind at all spending a ton of time setting things up since it is a one-time process, but I don't want to spend more than say 10 minutes a month for maintenance and ensuring things to work. From what I've read, Arch actually doesn't require much.

I'm not sure how behind the packages in Ubuntu/Slackware are to warrant me switching to another distro. I'm also not sure how stable Arch Linux is to warrant me to switching to a cutting/bleeding-edge distro for up-to-date stable packages (NOT anything newer, I don't want bleeding edge). I know that Arch has tests its packages too, but people often say "expect breakage".

Thanks!

Some notes:

- Don't recommend Ubuntu simply because Arch/Slackware requires a higher level of understanding to make it work. I intend to read documentations.
- I get the sense that Canonical is in the direction of "my way or the highway" and I really align with the Arch Way, but these are just philosophies that shouldn't have too much say in choosing a distro.
- Package management is important to me in sense that the system is tidy. For now, I have avoided PPAs on Ubuntu for this reason (apt-pinning is a solution but I don't know if it's a complete solution--if it is, I would have no problems with PPAs and actually use them).
- I like a system where it is bloat-free and has what I want, perhaps building from the base up. I don't know if this would necessarily provide me better performance though. I think Slackware kind of goes against this, but it's not a big deal especially because I heard Slackware is quite optimized somehow.
- I was originally set on Arch, but there are people telling me "expect breakage", "never update before an important event because of this" , "too much work to maintain when I just want to get things done" , and highlighting the disadvantages of a rolling-distro. This while I read things like "the only time Arch has broken for me was cause of my mistake in 3 years of using it" , "maintaining Arch takes like 5 minutes a month" , "as long as you subscribe to Arch news and don't do crazy stuff, Arch is as stable as any distro".
- I intend on being a programmer/doing software engineering if that matters. Maybe it means I don't want to spend too much time maintaining (not setting) the OS when I've got other things to do.

Thanks once again.

im using the latest version of ubuntu on a 4 year old dell 780 optiplex and I am more than impressed with the speed and agility of the machine. Im so impressed that I have asked my friend for an old dell laptop so I can go mobile with this thing.
my question is.... do i install the same distro for a laptop as i am using on this desktop or is there a widely used laptop distro that the linux experts always use or at least on avarage use more than any other.
thanks guys

Hi

I'm a telecom/IT contractor and my work laptop died so instead of buying a new one, I decided to give my spare laptop a try. It's a cheap Lenovo G585 with only 2Gb ram and a AMD E1. Needless to say this is a real slow laptop. W8 was preinstalled and barely runs. Even for simple work related tasks its too slow.

Instead of wasting money on it, I am contemplating the idea of installing a Linux distro. I manage via ssh a few linux servers for my customers (centos, red hat, ubuntu server) but actually never used it as my main OS.

I just want something lighter than W8 so the laptop will be faster. Which distro should I get? I was thinking about LXLE but there's too much distros I can't choose.

Speed is the priority in this case. I also like a good looking UI.

Also, how's Microsoft Remote desktop from a Linux client? Is it fast and well optimized?

Thanks!

Hi
Im a newbie and i have this vaio VGN-nr130fe laptop whit windows vista as OS.
The device got virus infection and i want to clean the memory entirely {the hard disk and ram and stuff like that}{im sure of it and i dont need anything that it contains}.
Need to know wich is the best distro to my laptop and help to install it.
I want to start from zero supposing that i would have a new laptop whit linux in it

Please, it would be awesome

Best regards and all the best for you

I have dual-boot configuration, Windows and Linux Mint. I would like to replace Mint with Slackware. Problem is, Mint installed GRUB and Slackware uses LILO. At the moment I don't have second computer so I can't use help of internet if anything goes wrong, so I need first to make sure I know what to do.
Do I just proceed with installing Slackware and LILO will overwrite GRUB? Or how do I do it?

I am a basic computer user as far as operating systems are concerned. I do a little programming here and there but nothing special yet.

I have tried Linux many times, but I'm always left to getting *another* distro, after I fail to properly install Linux. Basically I resort to simple installs and found that Linux Mint and Ubuntu, most of the time work out of the box. However, after an installation, ... here and there I get error messages and sometimes crashes and i understand that my installation is not stable, simply because I did not properly configure some conf file or similar.

Another even more important problem I have is device drivers. Working from the command prompt (console) and the GUI is very confusing to me. I'm not sure if I'm setting something right with one and then unsetting it with the other. So basically I'm here with some noob questions and a couple specific ones.

1. Can someone recommend a good distro to learn to correctly configure drivers with manually. Remember, that I understand that there are distros that work out of the box mostly, but I actually am not worried about complexity as far as someone can guide me through errors. Which will lead to more questions of course.

2. After an installation there are sometimes a dozen errors during bootup, but no stops. Since it all scrolls by fast (most distros), where can I check after bootup what I need to fix?

The Goal is an *error free* stable installation of a linux distro, with enough common sense learned to take it to other distros.

Hey guys, what's the best way to try out distros? Do I completely reinstall each time I want to change a distro and if so, would nt that wipe all my data? Or does my personal data , text files etc etc stay on the system and only the distro changes?

My Linux computer comes today and it has Ubuntu installed which I believe is a very popular and stable system but I really want to check out the so evolve distro because it looks fantastic and the reviews were very favorable. BUT I was warned on this forum not to get involved with beta distros until I know what I'm doing.

Does swapping distros erase all data ?

Hello Gents,
Ive recently converted to Linux, only problem is, i can't get Linux Mint to download. I go to the BIOS, boot from USB, which has the Distro, i go through the configuration, Laptop does its thing, (looks like a bunch of garble, with being a noob and all) and then finally, i end up with:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BusyBox v1.21.1 (ubuntu 1:1.21.0-1ubuntu1) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands

(initramfs) [ 37.512065] random: nonblocking pool is initialized

_
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I had previously installed unbuntu on this laptop alongside Windows 7 a long time ago, but i ended up deleting it because i was having some other issues. for anyone who can help, i can send a picture of whats actually on the screen, since i cant add a photo directly from my hdd. sorry about not making this brief, but tried to explain as much as i much as i could to help you help me. Thank you.

First time Linux Mint user and fist time poster to this forum. Need to install a Linux distro on my family member's HP Mini 1000, an older netbook with minimal hardware (1 GB memory stick, Intel Atom N270 processor, 80 GB ATA HDD, and it runs XP SP3. . I advised her to uninstall XP and buy Windows 7, but she doesn't want to spend the $93. So ...

I have been testing different Linux distros from flash drive on my HP Probook 4530S laptop. Have tried Ubuntu 14x and now Mint, which I prefer. Ubuntu wouldn't boot to desktop on the netbook after choosing "Use without installing." Mint runs OK on it, but I can't configure the wireless connection. I suspect that either the network hardware isn't compatible or I am missing something when trying to manually configure the settings. I read some info from the Mint web site about this issue, but not sure about whether the Mini's wireless card is compatible: Broadcom 802.11b/g WLAN. Does updating Windows drivers help with this?

TIA,

Don