other distro ideas

[SoulNothing 0]

i just got my 160 gb hard drive and am unsure as what t put on it im going to put on yoper, whitebox, slackware, and fedora core 2

 

the purpose is going to be a server like machine to manage a windows network and a place for me to run linux and learn linux

 

the thing is i want to touch base on a variety of distros ones i wouldnt consider so any recommendations would be appreciated

 

there is nothing installed right now but just preparing the onez listed are ones i have on disc and am going to try and install

 

im also trying gentoo(unluckily it will not boot gentoo) and its not the disk because it will work on oher machines

mepis

mandrake

these are main ones any other ideas of a distro for me to learn with

 

and im just going to go in and play with it i dont care if its hard to install easy to instal whatever

 

to help heres my systems specs

 

sound blaster live 5.1 platinum motherboard

PIII 650 MHZ

512mb pc100 ram (4 128 mb sticks)

12X creative dvd reader

CD rewriter not sure speed

160 GB Hard Drive

DLINK NIC 10/100

NVIDIA 32MB CARD older Model

FLOPPY

 

To make it clear heres what im going to do, put these on first seeing as i have all the isos downloaded and just need to burn them.

 

Mepis rc2 2004 (i beleive)

Fedora Core 2

Slackware 10

whitebox

yoper

 

and a final 3 part question should i install in a specific order

How many distros can i install at once

and grub or lilo

 

thanks in advance

[Edited by SoulNothing on 2004-08-28 15:40:49]

 

[danleff 0]

I just attempted an install of Mepis 2004 final. You may want to check this out, it is feature rich!

 

The issue that I ran into, is that Mepis insisted on installing lilo or grub without an option to install on a floppy, a problem in my case. So I aborted the install. The system works, but it did not get far enough to allow me to set my users and passwords. This is the first consideration, whether the install will allow you to place lilo or grub where you want it. I like to test the distro first, then add it to my original Grub or Lilo when I am satisfied.

 

Why was this a problem? I have six distros on my box, booting with Grub. I would rather add one distro at a time, than re-do all the settings totally for each distro every time I install one.

 

If I remember (and I have not tried a new install yet) Yoper is an auto install also. So, you want to find out if the install allows you to put Grub or Lilo where you want it, such as on a floppy to test. Not just installing a bootloader at will. Then you can add it to your original bootloader later.

 

Either way, always make a floppy disk when the install allows, to recover later if you need to. It makes life easier.

 

A 120 gig drive is nice and allows multiple distro installs. You can create one swap partition and point each distro to it, so you don't need to have multiple swap partitions, such as one for each distro.

 

I have Mandrake 10, Fedora Core 2, Mepis, Debian, Puppy Linux and Linspire all on my systems. Each has it's good and bad points. You have already tried a number of distros. Pick one for your main distro (the one that seems to meet your needs and that you are comfortable with) and then you can experiment with others at your hearts content!

[robstr12 0]

Hello SoulNothing.

I am a n00bie, but have been studying pretty hard.

I have installed Slackware 10 and am in love with it.

I would say this: heads up with the Slackware install...

it likes to have its / filesystem on a primary partition.

Life will be easier for you that way.

 

Also,

It is suspected that around the middle of September, Debian Sarge is going stable.

 

I'm telling you, I have high hopes for that release.

 

High hopes!

 

I am definitely going to install that as soon as I can buy some iso's. (I'm on dial-up).

 

I guess there is ego involved, too. For some reason, I just think that there is something special, prestigious if you will, about running debian.

 

 

 

 

 

[SoulNothing 0]

thanks for the responses

 

danleff there really is no issue right now i just havent had much success reconfiguring either grub or lilo despite reading manuals i looked around some more and i got some more isos i think im going to set core as the main and the others as ones to learn with

 

since im still a basic user/noob i do not know how to reconfigure the boot loader.

 

when i used mepis rc2004 i was impressed as well mepis is excellent however kde isnt my top window manager

 

but its not really about issues what else i should try, the only issue i can think of is my dvd drive wont properly read linux discs at times.

 

thanks for the replies

[jimf43 0]

Originally posted by danleff:

Quote:

The issue that I ran into, is that Mepis insisted on installing lilo or grub without an option to install on a floppy,

This is currently impossible (too big) to implement. There is currently some talk of slimming down the kernel for those who must have a boot floppy.

[danleff 0]

Originally posted by SoulNothing:

Quote:

thanks for the responses

 

danleff there really is no issue right now i just havent had much success reconfiguring either grub or lilo despite reading manuals i looked around some more and i got some more isos i think im going to set core as the main and the others as ones to learn with

 

since im still a basic user/noob i do not know how to reconfigure the boot loader.

 

The point I was trying to make is that you need to be prepared for the possibility of needing to reconfigure your main bootloader if you plan on install multiple distros. It is easy to make the mistake of overwriting your main bootloader if you are not careful. Been there!

 

So, having a boot disk or CD for each distro (or knowing how to use rescue mode) would assure that if you loose your main distro's bootloader, you can always recover it easily.

 

One thing that I like about Grub, is that you can edit any mistakes that you made to the menu.list at the boot menu. So, if you make a small syntax error with a subsequent kernel or distro that you install, it can be corrected easily. You can then correct your mistake by writing to menu.list, once the system boots. Correcting "on the fly" - nice!

 

Jim, I wondered what the issue was. Makes sense when I think about it now. Mepis 2004 final looks real nice and is great for easily browsing all my partitions, as it detected all of them. This makes it easy to trade data between eash partition (distro) without manually mounting each one.

 

One issue I found (probably connected to my install) is that I used kernel 2.6 and K3b locks up solid, to the point that the whole system locks (mouse and keyboard)- no reboot or kill is possible. Anyone else been having this problem?

 

 

[jimf43 0]

Originally posted by danleff:

Quote:

One issue I found (probably connected to my install) is that I used kernel 2.6 and K3b locks up solid, to the point that the whole system locks (mouse and keyboard)- no reboot or kill is possible. Anyone else been having this problem?

Haven't seen that one.

 

Currently I'm running RC4 with the 2.6.7 kernel which has a little leaner kernel and still has the boot option. I've had no problems with it, and, other than the lack of some very specific hardware support (which i wouldn't use anyway) and eycandy like the bootscreen it's identical to the final. You might want to try that version. IMO it's a sweetheart.

 

One problem on any of the recent ones, don't try to upgrade to any of the kde 3.3 apps or librarys yet. Still a lot of problems with those.