Is there anythig better than Ubuntu?

I am 100% Linux noob.
Never even seen it in real life before.
I was planning to put Ubuntu onto my system until I came across another thread that claimed that Ubuntu was basically garbage and troublesome.

Please let me know what the best free OS is so I can install that one. I plan to do as much as possible with it incuding internet, multimedia, CAD design, aud/vid production etc. Are Linux apps made specific to the Distro? Like are Ubuntu apps made for Ubuntu specifically, or are they just Linux apps that can be used on Ubuntu and other distros?

 

Being married and having a wonderful family is better than Ubantu, and as far as operating systems, 2 very knowledgeable members (The_Fiend & Janrocks) have suggested that Ubantu is not as secure as others. Based on The_Fiend's suggesstion I switched to Mandriva and have been playing with it, still a real noob, but learning.
Mandriva
Try the Live CD option first, I have been able to install it as a second operating system. Dual Boot going behind the windows operating system on my first hard drive.
I'm still learning which apps are available, but I'm afraid that the number of software titles will not be as great as that in the window$ evironment.

 

Better than ubuntu?.. just about any other distro that comes pretty bare bones. Ubuntu is drastically lacking in a few of the *nix users essentials.. Just for example, it doesn't include make, so no compiling of source released apps unless you find out what is missing, and where to get it. That really got on my nerves, and then I could go on about the things that will just not work, not for any obvious reason, they just don't... Something is very non-standard in ubuntu..

Don't download a huge bloated dvd worth of applications, just go for a net-install release (180MB) and choose what features you want when you work out what you need to do.
There are even some very small live cd iso images like feather, which seem small, but being debian based can be expanded into a more feature filled system than most windoze desktops.


Please people.. no more questions about ubuntu.. I like the improvements in the last 12 months, it's starting to become a very good distro with great promise. Unfortunately it still has some strange bugs, the package manager is a nightmare and it's all getting very top heavy with applications most people will never use.

As you wanted to see linux in action here you go.. debian sarge, in her real colours.

 

I was planning to get the 64bit DVD version. What is the net-install release?

 

You want the 64 bit one?? Didn't work for more than a week on a friends machine, and 75% of everything was missing or buggy.. OOps.. I don't have any 64bit hardware, you will have to search it out yourself.

 

Ubuntu works pretty good. I just don't understand the sofware.
I don't know how to navigate the hard drive.
How can I see all the software that is installed in my system?
There is an add/remove programs tool and there is Synapse.

I can go to Synapse, and add/remove, so why is there another add/remove programs tool?

My Echo Gina 3G is not working.
I still don't know how to network to my Windows PC.
When I go into certain menus, or open up certain tools, I have to enter a password. Is there any way to disable this?

 

Welcome to the wonderful world of *nix.

You don't really ever need to navigate the drive like you do in winblows. You have a /home folder on your desktop. That's where you keep everything (I'm not even going to explain about places like /usr/source yet). When you get the feel for how to explore the drive you will find that there are lots of things that make no apparent sense at all.. why is there a folder called /etc??, and why can you do things in some folders and not others.. If you need a password to modify a file then maybe you shouldn't be modifying it?? You only need to be root to add modify or remove software or user accounts ( I hope you made a proper user account..not the default using sudo every time!!)...insecure..warning..read the security part of the ubuntu forums.
Why should you want to see ALL the software installed??? I have over 100,000 little applications and libraries. Do you know what happens in a windoze system32 folder?.. have a look at /usr/lib..or /dev those are system parts, bits that make things work.
Just use it..and read stuff. It's easy enough, but also very different.

 

I cannto figure out how to see how much space I have in my hard drive.
I mean entire hard drive not just by partition.
How can I use the command termianl to see:
My entire hard drive total space, free space, used space.
My partitions. Total space, free space, and used space in each.

I know I can go into the "fstab" file in the etc folder, and see stuff about my partitions. I just need to know the drive space info. I have a feeling that Ubuntu actually partitions over 7GB for system files. Is this normal?

Thanks!

 

In terminal use # df -h
This will list size, used, avalable

 

~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda2 8.5G 3.6G 4.5G 44% /
tmpfs 189M 0 189M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/hdb1 76G 61G 11G 85% /home

 

Ahhh... Mine goes a bit further. But I am only 1 partition but with mount points for usb, mem cards, network devices, and such. Looks like this.
whompus-desktop:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1 37G 5.6G 29G 17% /
varrun 506M 136K 506M 1% /var/run
varlock 506M 0 506M 0% /var/lock
procbususb 10M 152K 9.9M 2% /proc/bus/usb
udev 10M 152K 9.9M 2% /dev
devshm 506M 0 506M 0% /dev/shm
lrm 506M 18M 489M 4% /lib/modules/2.6.17-11
fusesmb 37G 5.6G 29G 17% /home/whompus/Network

 

and mine is this (Mandriva)
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda5 5.8G 2.3G 3.2G 42% /
/dev/hda7 21G 5.2G 16G 25% /home
/dev/hda1 28G 24G 4.4G 85% /mnt/windows

Note:
i've tried Mandriva 2007 and found my computer freezing but working fine on a friends PC so i went back to 2006, works just fine.

 

ok, done