May have a go at linux. Which of the following would be best for a complete novice in this area?

uruburubuntu

Os x :p

I have a OSX but not sure how t0o get it on plus, that wouldn't be legal

i can help with that... once i am mobile again i have a solution @ the office...

Can't you drag it down over the VPN?

could do.

I would probably suggest either Ubuntu or FreeBSD

I'm current have a PC dual booting with PC Linux OS and it seems to be working fine. Had problems with Ubuntu and Kubuntu with my graphics card for some reason.

I'm current have a PC dual booting with PC Linux OS and it seems to be working fine. Had problems with Ubuntu and Kubuntu with my graphics card for some reason.

What gfx card you got, not an ATI one by any chance?

If it is just select the install mode as something like 800*600/1024x768/1280x1024 then you will probably install fine. It's something to do with the way it gets the modes the TFT supports back, but I can't work out what. I put a CRT on a box that wasn't working and it worked fine. :confused:

Once you've done that you can install the binary drivers and crank it up if you wish.

I would suggest Ubuntu to a newbie

No my gfx card is an Nvidia, but quite an old one. It was weird, it would start up ok on install but the next time the PC started up it was stuck at 640 x 480 with a maximum refresh rate of 55Hz on a CRT :confused:

With regards to ease of use, I've found PC LinuxOS to be as simple as K/Ubuntu and it uses the KDE desktop, which I prefer.

Ahh ok it would just be a case of editing the /etc/xf86/xorg.conf to add the appropriate lines but I can see why it went away.

8.04 LTS was released in the last few days so hopefully they should have fixed a lot of the oddities in earlier versions by now. Personally I hate KDE, but then I used to use cTWM and sawfish without gnome.

I mainly use Ubuntu and have PC Linux OS on another, both are very similar to use.

Go with Mandriva as i was always a fan of Mandrake

Ubuntu. You know you wuntu :P

Ubuntu. Friendly enough to get started, powerful enough to do anything, pretty much.

PCLinux for me all the way. Works OK on 4 pc`s in this house. Just use the live Cd as a taster and then install. Check out the FAQ on the forum and away you go.

I voted other

Gentoo FTW

Gentoo FTW

My thoughts on your suggestion can be generated from "fortune -o".

You may of course need to compile fortune and all it's dependencies on gentoo, so unless you have a lot of CPU Power/RAM, fast discs and are running dist CC, I'll see your answer in a week.

Seriously though, I ran gentoo to work out how the internals all work, but for a newbie, not a good plan.

Slackware? Um, no mebbe not.

I voted SuSE as I downloaded a CD recently to have a look at & it looks very slick! Version 11 KDE4 flavour.

Ubuntu is pretty good, obviously or it wouldn't be so popular.

PCLinuxOS is also supposed to be very good for a first time out but...

Mepis rocks! Great distro, awesome community at Mepislovers.org and although it works straight away once installed there is plenty of scope for tweaking things to exactly how you want it. Being based very closely on Debian Etch, there is shed loads of packages available even for the 64 bit version I'm using.

I have a PC Plus magazine with reviews of Linux distros, I'll bring it along to the Malthouse

Ubuntu is a good one though