Thinking about Ubuntu

[Zephik]

Ubuntu is a very good distro. It's easy to use, has a great package management system (Aptitude is one of the best IMO, if not the best), overall great hardware detection and setup (compared to things like Gentoo), and is a great free alternative to Windows if your computer suddenly decides to crap out on you.

How is it loaded with non-free software? If anything it's loaded with tons of useful, free software (GIMP, Openoffice.org, Rhythm Box..) SuSE is bleh. You won't find me switching to it anytime soon.

Yea, I would love a visually stunning desktop, but I'm still pretty new to Linux, so Ubuntu sounded like the ideal choice as its supposedly the easiest to use.

What would you guys say is the best distro for newbies? Just Ubuntu or are there others? Possibly better ones?

Which are the most visually stunning, the easiest to use, the best combination of the two?

Also, does it matter if your on a laptop or a pc? I don't know about Ubuntu, but Sabayon says it has good support for laptops.

[.Maleficus.]

Yea, I would love a visually stunning desktop, but I'm still pretty new to Linux, so Ubuntu sounded like the ideal choice as its supposedly the easiest to use.

What would you guys say is the best distro for newbies? Just Ubuntu or are there others? Possibly better ones?

Which are the most visually stunning, the easiest to use, the best combination of the two?

Also, does it matter if your on a laptop or a pc? I don't know about Ubuntu, but Sabayon says it has good support for laptops.

Ubuntu is good if you don't want to tinker much and you want everything to just work.

Sabayon/Gentoo is good if you want to learn, and want things made for your system. You do it yourself and you get what you make.

Fedora is good if you want lots of package support and want things to just work.


You can make anything look good with the right knowledge. There are loads of themes and icons and all sorts o' **** out there for Linux. Look in my "Linux in a Nutshell" for links. Also, go to the *NIX section of Desktop Screenshots over at dA.

Gentoo, Fedora, and Ubuntu are my top three distros. I'm trying out Arch on my server when it's built but that is like a fresh Gentoo install which is probably something you don't want to do.


Edit: Forgot about the laptop part. No, it doesn't really matter what you choose. You just want something with good hardware recognition and you'll be fine.

[xmastree]

Wine is a Windows emulation tool that is supposed to emulate Windows so Windows-only apps can run on Linux.

Well almost.
Wine stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator. It's a compatibility layer, allowing windows programs to run on linux systems, but it doesn't emulate windows (apart from the frequent crashes...).

[.Maleficus.]

Well almost.
Wine stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator. It's a compatibility layer, allowing windows programs to run on linux systems, but it doesn't emulate windows (apart from the frequent crashes...).

Meh. It acts the same as an emulator (IIRC, haven't used it in a while). It can still be handy though.

[Guttenaffe]

I'm not supporting SUSE over Ubuntu, or Ubuntu over SUSE. I say this because each have their own benefits; SUSE has SaX2 & Yast2 which are outstanding management tools for Video Config and a Total system management(think M$'s MMC.) Better than anything in Fedora Core and vanilla Debian! (shock )
I used to be a Debian addict/fan boy till the went the path most other distros took...

I'm just saying that neither have the unique/innovative design that gentoo has, and both are loaded with non-free software. Though they also have a bunch of "free" software but there is so much non-free software... Just for a few examples java(though this is going to change soon according to what sun's plan is), codecs (MP3 and MP4 largest offenders), and tons of non-Free drivers (not even open source! ).

If you want to "learn" GNU/Linux I don't suggest going with any distro that is loaded with non-free software. You'll be dealing with a lot of other issues later because of this. Plus graphical interface systems don't really help you "learn" because most of them will mess up your config files and make it harder to manually learn how to edit them later!

[.Maleficus.]

Actually, Ubuntu doesn't have Java or MP3 installed. I'm not sure about MP4 but I know that Java and MP3 aren't.

And yes, if you want to learn Linux, then a distro like Gentoo is the way to go. But if you want an up-and-running system right away, Ubuntu is the best distro.