first Linux installation

WalterMß · Post by **WalterMß** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 3:09 am 0

Ehm... perhaps it's not the best place to post this question in....

I'm about to do my first Linux installation and currently I have MandrakeLinux 10.0 Official DVD and SuSE 9.0 Professional CDs, but I'm sure I can retrieve others, if necessary.
What I really seek is a most complete version, especially regarding scientifical tools (symbolic maths like Mathematica/MATLAB; LaTeX; diagrams/graphics utils), developing tools (C/C++) and multimedia tools (audio/video editing/mixing/postprocessing). And, preferably, the better integration with NTFS hard disks, since I'd like to share the same 200GB NTFS partition for both Windows XP Pro and Linux data.

Although it will be my first Linux installation, I'm not asking for an easy- ot self-installable distribution. Anyway if you have some suggestions regarding this topic too they're welcome as well.

My machine is a 2.4GHz Pentium-4, 1GB RAM, 80+200GB HDDs, Siluro GF4 Ti4600, etc. etc.

p.s.: Although english language is not a problem for me at all (I'll be likely installing it in english), I'd tend to discard SuSE because it has a very bad intalian translation, though I'm told it's a bit more "complete" then Mandrake itself.

failrate · Post by **failrate** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:24 am 0

It'll pretty much give you the "complete" installation if you let it. I use RedHat sometimes (prefer it over mandrake), and it automatically detected the correct hardware (including mouse and keyboard). I've installed Mandrake before and found it just as easy.

Linux isn't scary. Linux is your friend

lazerwalker · Post by **lazerwalker** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 4:23 pm 0

This isn't about linux at all, but as you mentioned matlab, you should try octave, its a very good, very compatible matlab clone, released under GPL. You can find it here: http://www.octave.org

t0ne · Post by **t0ne** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 4:34 pm 0

Best stay away from writing any data to the NTFS drive with linux though.
AFAIK, there is no reliable NTFS driver that supports writing.
If you are sharing data between the systems and need read/write access from both then it is better to create a FAT32 partition for this.
FWIW, last week I upgraded my SuSE 9.1 Professional to 9.2 and I find the SuSE distros excellent (although I'm not Italian

).

WalterMß · Post by **WalterMß** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 7:45 pm 0

Linux users!: is there any news about latest Linux distributions from you?I know SuSE 9.2 and Mandrakelinux 10.1 are out now.... which would you suggest (what offers the most complete package) ?

p.s.: A friend of mine told me that Microsoft convinced USA DoD (Department of Defense) into allowing them to code Windows XP's Service Pack 2 in order to send all the passwords input on the keyboard (email and ebanking ones' included) to Microsoft's servers (for international security's sake).

This was one of the reasons why Germany decided to use Linux as operative system for all public offices countrywide. Or at least so I was told. German llamasofties: can you confirm?

Kemper_Boyd · Post by **Kemper_Boyd** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 8:03 pm 0

WalterMÃŸ wrote: p.s.: A friend of mine told me that Microsoft convinced USA DoD (Department of Defense) into allowing them to code Windows XP's Service Pack 2 in order to send all the passwords input on the keyboard (email and ebanking ones' included) to Microsoft's servers (for international security's sake).

Are you talking about the following?
http://www.itsecurity.com/dictionary/nsakey.htm

FWIW I don't think I'd automatically trust Linux either,
even Gentoo starting from source. It's a much more
complicated issue than it may seem at first.

t0ne · Post by **t0ne** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 9:58 pm 0

FWIW, I've been using SuSE 9.2 pro for a few weeks now and it's been a good experience so far. It's been far happier on my laptop than 9.1

Can't speak for Mandrake as I haven't touched that for at least a year or more.
I doubt whether you'll be able to just download SuSE iso images though as they don't offer them (other than live distros) - you'll have to pay for a boxed set or beg/borrow/steal them.

Kemper_Boyd · Post by **Kemper_Boyd** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 9:55 pm 0

Currently installing Fedora Core 3, via FTP over my LAN having
forgotten that my Linux box only has a CD and that the DVD
iso won't be much use.

I don't use optical drives very much.

Assuming all goes well I'll report back with some opinions.

WalterMß · Post by **WalterMß** » Thu Nov 11, 2004 4:28 pm 0

Kemper_Boyd wrote:Are you talking about the following?
http://www.itsecurity.com/dictionary/nsakey.htm

Nay, I wasn't referring to that, but maybe things are changed in that direction from NT4SP5 (1999) to XPSP2 (2004).....

I have found SuSE 9.2 ISOs on a private eMule italian server, but not MandrakeLinux 10.1 PowerPack yet. Anyway thanks for suggestions.