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i am building a new computer that is going to dual boot with xp (gaming) and some Linux distro.

I have experience with Fedora, OpenSuse, Ubuntu (not much experience), and sabayon.

 

I'm pondering which distro has the best compatibility for new hardware.

my computer will have the following specs.

 

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400

EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI Motherboard

Galaxy GeForce 9600 GT Video Card - 1024MB GDDR2, PCI Express 2.0, DVI, HDMI, VGA X2 (has anyone used this i cant find many reviews)

OCZ Dual Channel Platinum 4GB PC8800 DDR2 1100MHz Memory - 2x2048MB

 

how will this work out in Linux and what is the best distro for these components. Thanks for the input.

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Hardware is hooked into an OS via drivers, drivers are part of the Linux kernel so it doesn't matter what distro you use, it depends more upon your kernel.

 

Of course some distros might not provide up to date kernels by default, but you can install whatever kernel you want manually.

 

Theres nothing in that hardware lineup that I can see as being an issue. nvidia cards are (as are many others) not fully supported by open source drivers (not all features will work) though nvidia are kind enough to provide us with a driver we can tarnish our kernel with. You'll probably need to just through a few hoops but you'll get there.

 

Out of the box, Ubuntu is probably going to be the most up to date distro.

 

If you want to go the route of building your own kernel though, it shouldn't really matter.

  • 3 weeks later...

As thorpe said, Ubuntu is probably your best bet.

 

I have an nvidia card (768mb 8800 gtx), and while yes, the drivers are not open source, they work just fine and they are virtually painless to install. 

 

Ubuntu has a "restricted drivers manager" that handles non-open source drivers.  You basically just click on your hardware , and click install and it takes care of it for you.

 

Also the debian-based package management system is IMHO superior to anything else I have used as far as simplicity and dependency management.

 

 

 

You're also going to want to run a 64-bit OS to take advantage of the 4GB of rame you have.

Hi

 

Gnone - Mint is way more complete than Ubuntu out of the box and the Mint guys spend a good while debugging Ubuntu.

 

KDE - Mandriva 2010 when that comes out in a couple of weeks (I use the RC2 at the moment and it works great).

 

Will you use onboard sound? If you think about buying a sound card, just check on ALSA support before you buy.

 

 

Hi

 

Gnone - Mint is way more complete than Ubuntu out of the box and the Mint guys spend a good while debugging Ubuntu.

 

KDE - Mandriva 2010 when that comes out in a couple of weeks (I use the RC2 at the moment and it works great).

 

Will you use onboard sound? If you think about buying a sound card, just check on ALSA support before you buy.

 

Gnome and KDE have nothing to do with Ubuntu or Mandriva. They will both work on either and/or any distro. Some distros favour one over the other but you can swap and change or have both.

 

I tend to favour fedora but thats mainly because where I work use redhat/fedora so made sense. I am looking forward to giving unbuntu a go when I get a new laptop

Hi

 

Gnone - Mint is way more complete than Ubuntu out of the box and the Mint guys spend a good while debugging Ubuntu.

 

KDE - Mandriva 2010 when that comes out in a couple of weeks (I use the RC2 at the moment and it works great).

 

Will you use onboard sound? If you think about buying a sound card, just check on ALSA support before you buy.

I think Mint is aimed more at ease of use for new users.  I don't know about debugging Ubuntu - why don't they just create their own Debian derivative if they are so good at debugging?

 

Ubuntu is a derivative of Debian, aimed at being more up to the minute, and easier to use.  Mint is a derivative of Ubuntu.  Personally, I worry about derivatives of derivatives losing something along the way.  Debian makes certain decisions, then Ubuntu makes certain other decisions based on that, then Mint comes along and second-guesses Ubuntu's decisions. 

 

Ubuntu just came out with a release candidate for 9.10, suitable, they say, for any user.  That might be a good one to try, if you like cutting edge.

 

  • 5 weeks later...

Ubuntu is the best.  There are a few reason why people say they aren't.

 

[*]Is they don't use only open source software/drivers.  Which is stupid because some companies don't release the driver code or data structure so it is obvious they would design a better driver.

[*]Ubuntu isn't the most "bleeding edge"(whatever that means) which isn't really true you can install anything you like in Ubuntu it just will work out of the box in most cases.  Which is helpful if you like to work on things rather than make your OS work.  Which is why most people leave Windows behind I would imagine.

Ubuntu is the best.

 

In your opinion. But does your opinion count for much?

 

Depends who you ask.  If I ask you then it should.  Since I am your god.  :D

 

God is a myth.

 

Maybe in the traditional sense, but you can't honestly believe there is no intelligent design.

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