Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
There comes a time in every boy’s life when his father must answer the 2 eternal questions: • Is there life after marriage? • Which distro?
The answer to the first is beyond the scope of Full Circle so I will concentrate on the second. As a developer in the Windows world reaching retirement I was looking for an inexpensive alternative that would like allow me to keep up my interest in computers and programming. I was introduced to Ubuntu first, and this was an ideal simple introduction which enabled me to become productive quite quickly. Unfortunately Unity came along and encouraged me to look at other distros; I was also interested in exploring how Linux worked. I am not complaining about Unity, but I am a caveman, and Gnome menus worked fine for me. I subscribe to the theory “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Then I became a compulsive distro hopper.
Now listen Son, distro hopping can become addictive, so pace yourself. There are over 300 active distributions out there and they all have dedicated supporters. First, you will need a good working system, and separate partitions for experimenting with other distros; a second computer would be better but I’m not buying you one.
For your daily use, I would recommend Linux Mint; there is a reason why it is top of the DistroWatch rankings. I would suggest installing it on a 12Gb partition with your /Home folder on a separate partition. Generally, it will play nice with all video cards, Wi-Fi connections, and printer drivers, but, for me, the clincher is the Cinnamon desktop with the categorised menu system configured to open on hover.
Ubuntu with Gnome desktop is another good choice, but, personally, I do not like the desktop full of icons seemingly randomly categorised. Most distros come with a choice of desktop, but, for a beginner, we will stick with the defaults.
This is getting boring so let’s throw in a picture of my desktop:
The great thing about Linux is that desktops can be configured to any taste. I personally like light themes with an uncluttered desktop and I like to keep an eye on the status of my hardware. Mint Cinnamon has a good choice of themes and backgrounds.
Ubuntu and Mint are both based on Debian - which is a distro I always use as it is rock solid, but not for the beginner. You find a download via a html maze and then install with an outdated installer which is far from intuitive. You then have a system which will probably not recognise your network connections, video cards or printer. These can be added later but it is not for the beginner.
Most distros are based on a solid base such as Suse, Red Hat, Arch, Debian, etc. Some distros have speciality purposes, such as security or gaming, but many are just slight variations of colours, fonts and default programmes. Some, unfortunately, do not boot or do not perform in a usable manner. We have to remember they are being produced by hard-working individuals, and I always try to isolate the problems and communicate them to the developers. Almost all distros have friendly and helpful forum groups.
I have a natural preference for Debian-based distros, but Red Hat’s Fedora could be installed with Cinnamon desktop and, after a while, you would not know the difference. I also prefer smaller versions, without too many programmes included. They will take longer to download, and you may have to uninstall programmes to install your preference. I look for a basic set of tools, and I will add my applications later.
These tools should include a browser, email client, terminal, file manager, software manager, system monitor, system log, and a disk partitioner. This is enough to test the look and feel of the distro. If I am happy with it, I will install my preferred applications (listed below if you are interested). And the great Linux benefit? They are all free! But do donate if you can, then all of us distro hoppers will be happy!
Finally, what if something goes wrong? Keep some tools on USB sticks, you can boot from these and fix most problems: • Gparted – Disk partitioner can also create and restore partition images • System Rescue CD - Similar to Gparted and also recovers ‘lost’ data. • Super_Grub2_Disk Boot Loader – Essential to restore MBR.
My preferred applications: • Audacity – Audio Editing • Clementine – Music Player • Back-in-Time – Data Backup • Calibre – E-book Reader • Eclipse – Development IDE • Java – Development Environment • MariaDb – Database manager • Gimp – Image Editor • LibreOffice – Writer, Spreadsheets, Presentations etc. • Handbrake – Media converter • Openshot _ Video editor • VLC – Video Player • Games? Like Bitcoin, a complete mystery to me!
Now Son, about that first question, go ask your Mother.