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(What's this page all about? See home page for Purpose and Scenario.)
www.geocities.com/dt2pc ~ Last updated: July 2004
Very common question: Which distribution (or "distro") of Linux should I use?
The best answer I can give is: go to www.distrowatch.com and do some research. Another good site is www.linuxforums.org (but make sure you do some reading before you just post a question that has likely be answered before). Then pick a distro and run with it. Of course, chances are you're ignoring my best advice ever and continuing to read this page. So here's my second-best answer:
First of all, you don't need to pay for one (so long as you can download big files and burn them to CDs). There's plenty of support for Linux in FAQs, forums, and so forth. But you are going to need to fend for yourself a little and be willing to do your research.
The distros that are commonly named when answering this question are:
I'm going with MandrakeLinux 10.0 Official, which I've downloaded for free from www.mandrakelinux.com (see below). Mandrake has a reputation as being easy to install, easy for newbies to use, and fairly compatible with a lot of hardware. But don't worry, there's plenty of support for all the major players out there, so just research some, pick one, and go with it.
General information about distributions can be found here: http://www.linux.org/dist/
This is a great explanation about downloading Linux that you should read: http://www.linux.org/dist/download_info.html
An .iso file is an image file. You can think of it (sort of) like a zipped-up version of a bunch of files (but that's not exactly right), or like a photograph of an entire CD (you get the idea). An ISO will normally be a large file of 600-700MB, i.e. enough to fill a CD, so understand that you'll be downloading a lot of stuff. If that's a problem, there are plenty of websites where you can buy such CDs for very cheap. (If you're paying more than $10, you're getting ripped off. Many places sell for much cheaper than that.)
There are lots of places to go to actually do the download, although you'll do yourself a favor if you can find a site that's located physically near you (these are big files, so if you're in the UK and downloading from a mirror in Australia, it only makes sense that it's going to take longer than if you use the London mirror).
In my case, I went to www.mandrakelinux.com, clicked on "download" -- I ignored the desperate pleas to purchase the boxed version with printed manual and MandrakeSoft technical support -- and found a local mirror to download from. Even with a 500MB cable connection, we're talking hours per ISO file -- and you have to download three of them. So plan for that (e.g. do it overnight).
Weird thing: Mandrake's site only has the first three CDs available for download. I've heard (but cannot confirm) that all the important stuff is on the first three, and if you need CD4 you can always get those programs online anyway. But, I did find places where you can download all four CDs. For a list of download sites, visit http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=126996.
Of those, this seems to be the best (note that you can also download the MD5 values from this directory):
You can also find pretty much any distribution at either of the following:
It's a way to check that your download completed successfully and without any corruption of the download file. It's something, apparently, that's much more common in the Unix world than in the Windows world. It's an optional verification step; if you don't feel comfortable, don't bother.
I found excellent MD5 instructions from TheOpenCD.org, a website that has Free (Open Source) software for Windows users. Go to http://theopencd.sunsite.dk/md5.php for information and to download the md5sum.exe file that you will need.
So now you have three large ISO files. You need to burn each to its own CD.
Beware: You cannot use Windows XP's native CD burning technology to burn an ISO. My wife's CD burner has included software with serious issues, so I've been using Windows XP itself for all of my CD burning needs. This works great for copying files, but burning an ISO is a different type of process.
The software that came with your burner could very well (probably can, even?) burn ISO images. But if it doesn't, you can always download and pay for some ISO-burning software.
Or, because I'm cheap, I found a freeware ISO burning tool. You can download CDBurnerXP Pro (I used version 2.2.9) at http://www.cdburnerxp.se/index.php.
After you've burned the first CD (CD1), try popping it into your CD drive and reboot your computer. You should see the Linux installation program open. (If your computer starts up as normal with Windows, then you haven't "booted the CD.")
If not, make sure that your BIOS is setup so that you can boot from a CD-ROM. This involves entering your BIOS and changing the boot order setting to something like "Try floppy first, then try CD-ROM, then try hard disk."
More details can be found at: http://www.pointandclicklinux.com/node/view/28
If it's not bootable, you may have to create a Linux floppy boot disk just to get Linux installed. I have not done this and can't speak from experience. You might want to start at www.bootdisk.com. Linux boot disk documentation can be found at http://tldp.net/HOWTO/Bootdisk-HOWTO/ and http://www.linuxdocs.org/HOWTOs/Bootdisk-HOWTO/premade.html.
We're ready to install the first operating system (OS), Windows XP.