I Am Planning To Use Linux What Should I Do First? What kind of linux to start with?

I am planning to install linux on my pc. I have tried once but I had hard times installing. Could someone help me and suggest what should I do first? Or is there a tutorial on how can I start linux on my pc? Thanks...

The first thing you need to do is decide on a distribution.
have a look at http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ they have information and reviews on every linux distro you could possably think of. you will also find there links to the distro's home pages.

the usual distro's for newbies are mandrake, suse, ubuntu and fedora.

then you need to either download a free copy of the cd's and burn them yourself, or order a boxed prodct from their websites.

Then make sure your PC is set to boot from CD rom, insert the cdrom, and power on.

follow the on screen instrutions.

for each distro its slightly different.

if you are new to liux then you must find a lil problem in installing it else it is very user friendly, the partation is simple, but remember the following things...1- select manual partation which disk druid when it give u option2- there shud be two type of partitions SWAP & EXT3 the size of SWAP partition must be more then your ram size and ext3 must be round about 2GB, the mount point of EXT# is /, rest is very simple.....if you find any problem agian, you can ask hereonce installed you can have some book or if you dont find one, you can ask me by sending me a PM, i will send youbest of luck

I disagree, The automatic partiton does a very good job at automatically setting partitons up.The only reason you would need to manually partiton is if you want to dual boot, and the distro you are using doesnt do that automatically.make you root partiton as big as possible, this is where everything goes ( root in linux is like C:/ in windows)

Well, if it's the first time you install linux you should choose your distro, as posted before.Then the hard part of installing linux (for the ones who has never installed it) is the partitions.If you plan two have two OS's(Windows and Linux, very common) then you have to do a partition for each OS. A way is to format your hard disk loosing everything (at least you backup it before). Then with a windows installation disk make the two partitions. If installing Win 9x/Me, use a boot disk to start from shell (MS DOS) and use fdisk command to make partitionsYou should delete the disk, and create:one primary partition (where your going to install windows)one extended partition (here are all logical partitions, needed for logical partition)one logical partition (where your going to install linux)Then just install linux on the primaty partition as usual, and left the other partition unformatted (we will format it using linux)The easy way, is using the partition magic. Instead of formatting, just resize your windows partition, so you leave sapce to linux OS.As before you should have this:one primary partition (where windows is installed)one extended partition (here are all logical partitions, needed for logical partition)one logical partition (where your going to install linux)Once we have the space of the linux partition, and windows installed on the primary partition (if using both OS's) use the linux disk to boot from CD, and follow the instructions.When it ask you where to install it. We will need two partitions (at least) for the linux OS: -Linux Partition (Where files are)-Linux Swap Partition (Like the virtual memory of windows)Use the partition not formatted, and create the Linux Partition (there it should be at least 3GB so you don't have sapce problems), remeber to leave space to create the other partition.Then in the sapce left create the Swap Partition (this should be more less 2.5 times the RAM size ej: RAM:256MB, then SWAP:640MB(256*2.5))So that's the complicated part, everything else is just to select options like packages, time zone, countryAny doubts?? just ask.....I recommend you to choose a distro, and tell us which, so we can give you more precisley info

Yea if you read all those posts you should be well on your way. I'd agree with the reccomendation to goto distrowatch and spend some time reading reviews and info on different distros. Its worth it to spend some time researching before rushing in and getting stuck with one that doesn't fit your needs. I know when I first tried a distro I just asked a friend which to use, he said gentoo... yea so that didn't go too well haha. I hope to try it again someday but as an introduction to the whole lninux process and not knowing that reading a few "how to install" guides is a good idea beforehand...well...that kinda floored me and made me back away from linux for awhile.I would also say DO dual boot at first unless you have multiple comps. While having the option to use windows may make you learn linux a bit slower, it'll make you have a sense of security so if you get stuck and frustrated at any point you don't need to worry about having your comps functionality completely killed until you figure out the problem. Its nice to be able to explore linux without any worries.Good luck no matter what, and enjoy the linux experience. You won't regret it (Oh and do post which distro you choose or any other Q's you have, we're here to help)

well, I recommend SuSE Linux. It has a great setup tool: YaST2, you can download it thru torrents (totally legal, granted by their license; you don't get support)xboxrulz

first just get the latest KNOPPIX image from internet and burn it on CD. And then boot from CD and test drive it..if you havent done that already....meanwhile snoop around for major distributions of Linux on distrowatch. I would recomend Ubuntu or SuSe.

Oh yea I never even thought to reccomend using knoppix as a bit of a test drive for linux...I always think of it as more of a "HOLY POO I BROKE EVERYTHING" recovery tool then a way to explore the linux environs, good stuff.

well, I recommend SuSE Linux. It has a great setup tool: YaST2, you can download it thru torrents (totally legal, granted by their license; you don't get support)

Really? I didn't know that. I've wanted to try SuSE for a long time. Guess I'll do it now .

Kenjvalip:
It's not difficult at all to install Linux. If you are using LInux for the first time, you had better use Knoppix and see how it feels. That way you don't have to partition your harddisk and run the risk of losing all your data.

Well, if you do like me, buy yourself a pack of 50 cdr and prepare to burn. It, personally, took me around 30 cd's and going through 6/7 distros to find one that suited me best. One thing you can do if you don't want to install Linux to your HD is try a Live CD. Live CD's have the OS on the cdrom, and run completely off of it, without having to install anything. This way, you can "try before you buy" idea. I went from Mandrake (user friendly) to Fedora (yum) knoppix, mepis, before Ubuntu, back to Fedora (FC4 just came out) and finally stuck with Ubuntu as my Linux OS.Another thing to look for is a good user community, where you can get lots of help and friendly advice as well.

Kenjvalip:It's not difficult at all to install Linux. If you are using LInux for the first time, you had better use Knoppix and see how it feels. That way you don't have to partition your harddisk and run the risk of losing all your data.

Kenjvalip, I'm not new to Linux . This is the first time I heard that SuSE is legal to download from Bittorrent. I thought that the only way to get linux was to purchase it. I've been using Linux for a over a year now.

I thought that the only way to get linux was to purchase it

* I mean SuSE Linux. (dam... where's the edit button?)

SuSE Linux is released under the GPL code since sometime 2004 or this year, I forgot.Wikipedia has listed its license under GPL, which is true because YaST2, SaX2 and most of SuSE Linux is 100% noted as GPL.xboxrulz