What distribution will be the best for me?

labielecki

Hello there!

It is my first message here as you can see. I am writing here because I am looking for a Linux distribution that will be working the best on my computer. I would also like to play Diablo 2 on my PC (that is the one and only game I play)

Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 240 Processor 2.80 GHz 64-bit

Motherboard: ASUS M4A785TD V-EVO integrated with ATI Radeon HD 4200

2 GB RAM

Please consider it, I am new to this OS but if something is really good, I will learn it very fast. Thanks in advance for your opinions.

mfillpot

Your Hardware is good enough to run any distro, so that is not a factor.
And Diablo2 has been tested to work well using the wine emulator (http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=74), wine can be installed on any distro, so again this is not a factor.

So at this point pretty much any distribution would work for your needs. Can you please tell use more about how you use your computer, your experience with Linux and any other factors that you think can help us to point you in the right direction?

labielecki

mfillpot wrote:

Your Hardware is good enough to run any distro, so that is not a factor.
And Diablo2 has been tested to work well using the wine emulator (http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=74), wine can be installed on any distro, so again this is not a factor.

So at this point pretty much any distribution would work for your needs. Can you please tell use more about how you use your computer, your experience with Linux and any other factors that you think can help us to point you in the right direction?

Ok, I see. I use my computer to watch TV series/movies, listen to music, play diablo 2 sometimes, communicate with people and to browse the internet, that is all. Not sure about my experience with Linux, so I can't tell it.

pjpdev

Ubuntu (as well as Kubuntu) is a good distro to start with. It's easy to set up and to use. And if you're not completely sure about it you can boot it directly from the CD/DVD and use it without making any changes to your system. Hope this helps...

Later

labielecki

I also did this test and it told me that I should try out Linux Mint 8.0 Helena, openSUSE or Mandriva, what do you think?

http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/index.php

Goineasy9

Out of the 3 I'd try Mint first. Mandriva would be a close second. But, you might be comfortable with any of those.

mfillpot

The site you are referring to is citing out-of-date information, it is not referencing the current released of the listed distros.

Mint is a derivitive or Ubuntu just as Kubuntu is. OpenSuse and Mandriva are both commercial versions that have the option of paid support. Generally I recommend going with the latest version of Ubuntu (9.10) or a derivitive, but I have seen some issues in 9.10 that would push a user off.

So I recommend that if you want a windows like interface to try Kubuntu 9.04, if you want a mac-like interface try ubuntu 9.04 and if you want something a bit faster with windows xp like interface you can run Mint.

labielecki

mfillpot wrote:

The site you are referring to is citing out-of-date information, it is not referencing the current released of the listed distros.

Mint is a derivitive or Ubuntu just as Kubuntu is. OpenSuse and Mandriva are both commercial versions that have the option of paid support. Generally I recommend going with the latest version of Ubuntu (9.10) or a derivitive, but I have seen some issues in 9.10 that would push a user off.

So I recommend that if you want a windows like interface to try Kubuntu 9.04, if you want a mac-like interface try ubuntu 9.04 and if you want something a bit faster with windows xp like interface you can run Mint.

Hmm, I see. Could you tell me what kind of problems would push a user off from Ubuntu 9.10? It is always good to know.

Anyway, are there any problems with drivers on Linux? What drivers should I install to enable 3d mode?

mfillpot

The items that I am referring to I have seen on the web and experienced myself or my friends have experienced them; they are sound stops working, video drivers compatability, compiz stops working and forces a new dependency, and the latest is with the package manager stopping mid install and then rather than fixing the issue it halts new apps installations until the past item is manually resolved.

Since you are using an ATI card, I will say that I have had bad luck with the ATI drivers, they seem unstable to me; but most never see the issues that I have. You should get a prompt in "Hardware Drivers" to install the proprietary ATI drivers, so no searching will be necessary.

I say go with Mint, it is ubuntu based, but they appear to have stripped out most of the causes to the issues I listed above.

The only thing that I think you will have problems getting operational is your wireless card (if you are using one), some wireless cards need to have their xp drivers posted into linux using a program called ndiswrapper to get them to work. If you try the distro on a livecd and the wifi works, then it will work by default and would not need the ndiswrapper step I stated.

mfillpot

Please don't think that my negativity towards ubuntu 9.10 as a generalization, that is the only distro release that I have ever seen enough problems with to tell people to go to an older version.

mfillpot

DixieDancer, that is a great recommendation. Xubuntu can be a great option if the desktop effects are not too important to you.

labielecki

Thanks peeps for your replies, I appreciate it. I will try out Xubuntu first and we will see. If something goes wrong, I will post here again.

labielecki

Ok, I finally decided to go with Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, how can I enable 3d with ATI Radeon 4200 HD?

There is also a problem with burning discs, I can not burn any disc (nero/k3b, whatever)

mfillpot

You should be able to locate the proprietary video drivers by going to system -> administration -> hardware drivers and it should automatically find the drivers for your system, if that does not work I would recommend searching the synaptic package manager for packages with the work ATI included to find the correct drivers.

As for burning disk, in ubuntu you use brasero, and you must make sure that the user has the rights to burn disk by checking them out in the user management gui (I don't remember what it is called).

labielecki

Ok, and what I can do if my firefox suddenly quits?

mfillpot

I have never experienced firefox suddenly crashing, but if it crashed you can either restart firefox or restart your X session by pressing ctrl+alt+backspace.

labielecki

mfillpot wrote:

As for burning disk, in ubuntu you use brasero, and you must make sure that the user has the rights to burn disk by checking
them out in the user management gui (I don't remember what it is called).

Does anybody has an idea how to do it? It seems I did not do it :P

mfillpot

Is the problem that you cannot find the program to burn disks or that the program will not boot or something else?

labielecki

I tried k3b, brasero & nero... I can not burn cds/dvds... Do not know what is going on... When I had windows it worked fine...

mfillpot

What are those programs saying when they fail?

labielecki

mfillpot wrote:

What are those programs saying when they fail?

cdrecord has no permission to open the device

There is a problem with priviliges I think, what I have to do?

mfillpot

In that case, I am unfamiliar with ubuntu permissions, but I can install a virtual machine of ubuntu tonight to get an answer.

However I think it would be easier for a casual ubuntu user to chime in here since the answer should be in hanad.