On Wed, Mar 20, 2002 at 05:32:12PM +1100, John Lynch wrote: > Thanks a lot Matthew and everyone else. > > okay, here's another 2 questions. > > What is the best Linux OS to install for a newbie, and it still connects to > the net and has Windows XP as the default OS? > > and also, Would 1 gig be enough to practice installing Debian (or another > Linux OS) on? > > thanks everyone for all your help.
If you can run XP on your computer, the best distro for a newbie is Linux-Mandrake <http://www.linux-mandrake.com>. I suggest you wait for version 8.2 (currently at release candidate stage). Mandrake's autodetection is the best I've seen in a mainstream distribution. If you don't know your hardware, Debian is a royal pain to install. Yes, Mandrake is still free to download. But their download page, when I last checked, had a nag about contributing a little something to the financial health of the mother company. For a fee you can join something something like the Mandrake Users Club. Not necessary, but made you feel just a wee bit guilty. One problem you'll have with Mandrake, if you decide to pursue your Linux obsession, is that its setup is mostly point-and-click driven. This tends to hide a lot of things from the end user, okay and even good for a newbie. But when something goes wrong, you lose the benefit of Linux's human-readable config files (no need for anything like regedit). -- Humanity's future is in the stars: support a manned mission to Mars! http://www.thinkmars.net/petition/addpetition.html