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Not at home, but I manage 5 Linux servers at work. We used to use RH, but have migrated to CentOS.

SK

OpenSUSE 13.2 is released, I run it for 3 weeks now on a Toshiba laptop with Intel Core i7, 8 gb ram. It is rock solid and faster than anything I have seen before.

http://software.opensuse.org/132/en" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'd like to try it out but I don't have an extra computer to run it on and wouldn't know which version to try out.

LDB415 wrote:I'd like to try it out but I don't have an extra computer to run it on and wouldn't know which version to try out.

I think that these days, Ubuntu is "the one" for people who are just getting started with linux/unix. I think...

Can't help with the "no spare machine" issue, though.

LDB415 wrote:I'd like to try it out but I don't have an extra computer to run it on and wouldn't know which version to try out.

You don't really need an extra spare PC. If you already have a Windows machine you can download Virtual Box from Oracle and use it to install a virtual PC on your existing machine.
To pick a Linux derivate is up to you, Ubuntu is a great choice. The link for virtual box is below and it is for free.

https://www.virtualbox.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ubuntu is here http://www.ubuntu.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've thought about that but always figure if there's a one in 17.49 million chance of screwing things up Murphy would bring that to me and my pc would become an expensive paperweight.

LDB415 wrote:I've thought about that but always figure if there's a one in 17.49 million chance of screwing things up Murphy would bring that to me and my pc would become an expensive paperweight.

Well, Virtual Box is a software only solution to emulate an OS on an existing platform. I haven't been able to crash a host OS with it and I don't think you will

At the risk of being a Necromancer ... I am a sometime user and very familiar with it. :)

I mostly use Windows 7, though, for various reasons.

Gaidheal wrote:At the risk of being a Necromancer ... I am a sometime user and very familiar with it. :)

I mostly use Windows 7, though, for various reasons.

You are not alone. Most of us are more or less forced to use a Windows system

I own about 100 Linux servers at work not including virtual machines, 4 Linux servers at home, and 3 Linux laptops. I haven't even had Windows workstation at home or the office in years, although my wife's laptop is Windows 8. She and I both detest it. Pure garbage.

At home, I run Fedora, CentOS and Raspbian. At work I run RHEL for production and lab, and CentOS on my workstations.

Started with Red Hat 5.2, loved 7.3 and 8.1, then switched from RH8.1 to Fedora Core 3, and used Fedora up until version 19, After Fedora 19, I got sick of all the stability problems with Fedora, and I jumped ship to avoid the stability issues, systemd , and Gnome 3. Kicked the tires on Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Arch, Debian, and Gentoo. Either disagreed with them politically (Ubuntu) or didn't have that kind of time to waste on a workstation, and ended up with CentOS 6.

Just switched my laptop from CentOS 6.7 to Fedora 23 MATE spin two days ago because I was sick of having to custom-compile updates on CentOS in a laptop/workstation environment just to have modern versions of common software (OpenSSH, PHP, Apache, Postfix, MariaDB, etc., etc., etc.). Who has time for maintaining that? Still running CentOS for all my home servers with add-on repos though as that's definitely its wheel house.

So far Fedora 23 MATE spin is rock solid. Fedora has definitely dealt with all the stability problems that was plaguing Fedora 18-20, although the new installer is still lousy in comparison to the previous Anaconda. It has been improved from its original release though. I am not a fan of user-space firewall , so I ripped firewalld out and replaced it with netfliters' iptables, made some other tweaks, and thus far I'm very impressed.

Curious about your political problems with Ubuntu.

I'm still stuck with Windows but have Ubuntu on a pen drive and can boot it on my laptop.

Haven't installed it alongside windows yet, mostly because I'm not well-versed enough to be confident the Ubuntu installer will partition the drive and install without wiping windows entirely. This is my problem (ignorance - I know it is curable by study, different story).

But I'm real interested to know more about the "politics" issues with Ubuntu.

Thanks in advance for any enlightenment.

BobCat wrote:Curious about your political problems with Ubuntu.

I'm still stuck with Windows but have Ubuntu on a pen drive and can boot it on my laptop.

Haven't installed it alongside windows yet, mostly because I'm not well-versed enough to be confident the Ubuntu installer will partition the drive and install without wiping windows entirely. This is my problem (ignorance - I know it is curable by study, different story).

But I'm real interested to know more about the "politics" issues with Ubuntu.

Thanks in advance for any enlightenment.

You could download "Virtual Box" from the Oracle website and run any Linux version in a virtual machine on your Windows PC. Virtual Box is stable and for free. Documentation and the download link is herehttps://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads .

Thanks! I'm actually ready to install Linux on my laptop as a dual-boot with windows 8.1, just 1) wondering about how "politics" relates to Ubuntu, and 2) not sure whether to manually re-partition the disc or go along with (trust) the Ubuntu installer.

I have run Ubuntu from the pen drive and it seemed fine and workable, but I have a lot to learn.

BobCat wrote:Thanks! I'm actually ready to install Linux on my laptop as a dual-boot with windows 8.1, just 1) wondering about how "politics" relates to Ubuntu, and 2) not sure whether to manually re-partition the disc or go along with (trust) the Ubuntu installer.

I have run Ubuntu from the pen drive and it seemed fine and workable, but I have a lot to learn.

1. Politics are useless if you deal with a Linux distro.
2. The idea of running it in a virtual machine eliminates the requirement for repartitioning your hard drive. If you do so make sure you know how to recover Windows. I run OpenSUSE on my private PC and I have a Windows Server 2008 in a VM un case I have to run a program which wouldn't run on Linux. On my Work PC I have Windows 10 now and I am not complaining about it but it is there only because I have to. I had dual boot installations in the past but at this point in time it is senseless because I can run both OS's at the same time with Virtual Box. Should you still try to opt for dual boot I'd suggest tu use GRUB because it is better documented than the MS bootloader shipped with Windows 8 and later.

I hope this helps making a decision.