I'll throw a me-too in for Knoppix installed to the HD for it's quick/easy sake. I haven't dug into Debian at all before though, so I honestly don't know what the differences are under the hood. If you want a 'real' installation, AND you want to learn a bit about it all, I'd definitely say go for Gentoo. It won't be point & click, but the documentation is great, and the people in the forums are very willing to help when and where they can. I had some experience prior to diving into Gentoo, but not too much, and I had only used Madrake/Redhat, so all the 'under the hood' stuff was still relatively unknown to me, so I don't think you'd have that much tougher a time. Just make sure you grab all the hardware config information you can to make any troubleshooting easier, should a device not work. Thankfully, this is a rarer and rarer occurance with more recent distros. Best of luck! > -----Original Message----- > From: tclug-list-bounces at mn-linux.org > [mailto:tclug-list-bounces at mn-linux.org] On Behalf Of Phil Crissman > Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2004 6:10 PM > To: TCLUG Mailing List > Subject: Re: [TCLUG] Distro Advice > > > Well, whether you enjoy in depth techy stuff or not, if (as > it sounds) this is really going to be your first foray into > Linux, I'd consider one of the friendlier distros: redhat (or > fedora, I guess), mandrake, or suse. I used RH for about 6-7 > months, it was good for me to start with. > > Another good one is possibly using Knoppix, and installing > directly from the Live-CD session. That is possibly the > quickest and easiest way to install linux, and you wind up > with a fully configured debian distro -- apt is certainly a > nice tool to have. > > I've been using Gentoo for a few months now, but I personally > am glad for the experience I had with other distros before I > tried it. If you're willing to read the installation guide, > ask questions in forums, etc, you could just start with Gentoo. > > Well, I've already listed 4 or 5 options: considering that > what you want is to /narrow down/ your choices, I should > probably stop there. :-) > > Have fun, > > Phil > > On Thu, 2004-01-08 at 05:13, John Ford wrote: > > I plan to replace Windows with Linux on several PCs in my > home. I know > > that if I try a few different distributions, I'll get a > feel for what > > works best for me, but it would take months/years to do this. > > > > I can handle (and enjoy) pretty in-depth techy stuff, so I wouldn't > > mind a distribution that needs some fiddling to get what I > want. What > > I want to end up with is: > > > > A few PC's for wife & kids, to handle web browsing, chatting, > > music via Yahoo/Launch, new and old printers, cameras & scanners > > (I have _no_ idea if Linux drivers are a problem area). > > > > An old PC (486) to act as a firewall between Cisco 675 and > > the rest of our network. (Cisco connects to DSL line, intranet > > is 10/100 cat-5, no wireless yet) > > > > A not-quite-as-old PC (366 Mhz Pentium II) to play with as a > > web server. > > > > After I set it up, I want the wife & kids (not as techie as > I) to be > > able to apply fixes and upgrades, at least to their PCs. So > the most > > important feature of the distribution that I select will be the > > ability to make the fixes & upgrades EASY. > > > > Thanks for any input... > > > > -jcf > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > > http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org > > https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list