OS help

[tenniscrazy]

Hey so I just bought a laptop (a Dell Inspiron 15, 2.1Gz, 4G RAM, 250 gig HD) for $600. It works great, the only problem is, VISTA IS A PEICE OF CRAP! But im sure you all know that. Plus it didn't come with an upgrade to windows 7 or I would wait for taht. I can get a legit copy of XP for free so Im going to install that. But since I will be focusing intensely on developing my skills in C++ in the upcoming months, I was also want to install Linux on a partition.
My question is, what Linux based or open source OS should I use that would work well with a laptop?

[Insectoid]

Well, Linux works with anything really, you just have to configure it right. Which in my experience is a pain in the ass.

[saltpro15]

Ubuntu 8.10 is outstanding. Ubuntu 9.04 (the updated and current version) is awful. If you can get your hands on a copy of 8.10, I highly recommend it. And Geany is an excellent IDE for Linux, it's lightweight and has a great syntax highlighting scheme.

[Insectoid]

I got pissed off at Ubuntu (8.04 LTS) because nothing worked the way it was supposed to. So I installed Fedora 10. Still working on making it work.

[rizzix]

Try ArchLinux, it's painless.

[tenniscrazy]

lol okay, ill have to do some research into different ones I see. Would 50 gigs partition be good for it if all i want to do is program? also, is there a tutorial on how to do like two operating systems at once so you choose which one when you boot or something?

thanks for the help guys

Edit: how soon should I install it if i dont know much of C++ ? like would it be really hard to get working?

[DtY]

tenniscrazy @ Sun Aug 30, 2009 4:23 pm wrote:

lol okay, ill have to do some research into different ones I see. Would 50 gigs partition be good for it if all i want to do is program? also, is there a tutorial on how to do like two operating systems at once so you choose which one when you boot or something?

thanks for the help guys

Edit: how soon should I install it if i dont know much of C++ ? like would it be really hard to get working?

If you know how to partition, this is insanely easy, just make sure you installe Windows First or you'll have to deal with reinstalling Grub.
With my experience though, most (every?) Linux distro will install grub and it will just work right. (And if you want Windows to boot by default, it's also really easy to edit the grub config file)

[saltpro15]

rizzix @ Sun Aug 30, 2009 wrote:

Try ArchLinux, it's painless.

You're joking right? I spent 3 hours in hell setting up Arch, gave up and installed Ubuntu in 15 minutes. I recommend Ubuntu, Mint or Fedora, in that order

EDIT : Not trying to here, just re-telling my experience

[rizzix]

I'm not kidding. Perhaps you got of on the wrong foot. Arch is designed so that it may be under your full control.

If you want a gui quickly in arch, its just matter of:

code:

sudo pacman -Syu sudo pacman -S xorg sudo pacman -S gnome

If you want a GUI login manager:

code:

sudo pacman -S gdm

Then edit the /etc/inittab file. Make sure your default runlevel is 5 and you can uncomment the appropriate line that assigns gdm to runlevel 5.

Of course you do that after you setup a user account, etc. (Assuming you have installed Arch)

Additionally, Arch requires that your user is added to certain groups to access certain fearues, like your webcam, optical drive, etc.

[md]

Or add gdm to /etc/rc.conf... which works rather well...

But arch is pretty damned simple to setup and run. I think people who have trouble are the ones who don't really read; and are very bad at finding information.

[rdrake]

md @ Sun Aug 30, 2009 8:15 pm wrote:

But arch is pretty damned simple to setup and run. I think people who have trouble are the ones who don't really read; and are very bad at finding information.

Agreed, the wiki is amazing.

[zero-impact]

I have been using Arch Linux for just over 6 months now and I love it. The first time I installed it, it took me a good hour to get everything the way I wanted it, maybe more(lots of reading documentation). However since then I have done a full reinstall and since I have aquired a lot more linux know-how then the first time it was easy as pie.

If you want to use linux and learn about it in the process I would say Arch is a great starting place. You just have to be willing to read and ask questions if there isn't an answer out there already.

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners_Guide

[tenniscrazy]

okay, awesome. I will start reading up on Arch and when I have a few free hours will make the attempt.

Thanks for all the help guys! You will probably see me around soon with setup questions

[andrew.]

You may wanna try Arch in a virtual machine first. That way if you screw up the installation or something at least it's not for real. That's what I did.

[tenniscrazy]

andrew. @ Mon Aug 31, 2009 10:41 pm wrote:

You may wanna try Arch in a virtual machine first. That way if you screw up the installation or something at least it's not for real. That's what I did.

okay thanks i will