Linux Fedora

[crazyfool]

I prefer fedora also as for me anywayz it was the most comopatible with my hardware but also i just like the OS over ubuntu... no particular reason cept i like the blue lol ... also getting used to using it is as it has been said a steep learning curve but after getting reaquainted and learning a few terminal commands you should be set

[lodore]

for a newbie friendly distro try Mandriva.
KDE is the default window manager but if you get the dvd installer you can install Gnome and others.
it has gotta be the easiest and best looking distro out there. 2009 version will be out soon.

also try openSuse. it has alot of one click installers. if you want multimedia codecs for opensuse, once installed search for opensuse multimedia on google and click on the link for eiether kde or Gnome to have a one click install for codecs and java.

i quite like fedora and it is getting more newbie friendly each version.

ive never really liked ubuntu tbh.
i like to have both KDE and Gnome.

[directhex]

Opinions are like arseholes.

And lots of people have opinions about the "best" Linux distribution for a given task.

In answer to your first question, in case it wasn't clear enough:

ARCHITECTURE:
* i386 are 32-bit processors such as most Pentium series, older Celerons, Core (but not Core 2), Athlon, Athlon XP, or Via C7
* x86_64 are 64-bit versions of i386, such as Core 2, Pentium D, the latest Celerons, Athlon 64, Opteron, most Sempron, all Phenom
* ppc are PowerPC processors, most commonly found in Macs ('G3', 'G4' and 'G5' are PowerPC chips) or the PS3

MEDIA:
*Install Media is a disc with the installer on it, like a Windows install disc - but it includes a bunch of the most popular software selections
*Fedora Desktop Live Media is a disc which you can boot to go straight to a desktop, and try out Fedora non-destructively. It also includes support for installing the system in front of you. The default desktop in Fedora is GNOME (probably the most popular desktop environment these days), which looks like this:

*Fedora KDE Live Media is a disc which you can boot to go straight to a desktop, and try out Fedora non-destructively. It also includes support for installing the system in front of you. The secondary choice of desktop in Fedora is KDE (more Windows-like and customizable, but often overwhelming), which looks like this:

[akaneria]

Thanks for clearing that up,

[0iD]

When it comes to all things Linux, Hex is the bible

[akaneria]

Im having some trouble connecting my wireless card to the network. I have just started using PClinux os for the very first time, and i quite like it. However this problem is stopping me from connecting to the internet:
the card is a 3com details below

3com 3crwe154g72

not really sure what to do. Its identified the card in the wireless settings, but the lights blink but don't connect. I earlier tried installing ubuntu (latest one) and this worked fine (dont like the os). connected first time.

I even tried turing the encryption of on the router, but this didn't help. It identifiys the network ie the SSID but just doesnt connect.

any help appreciated

[alsenior]

could you post the output of the following commands for me please

lspci | grep 3com

and

lsusb | grep 3com

and

ifconfig

[akaneria]

here is the file i iploaded for the commands
its in pdf format

http://rapidshare.com/files/151070740/print.pdf.html

thanks

[b0redom]

Erm, you missed the | symbol out. Generally anything starting with the output 'Usage' means you've screwed up the syntax.

What the | (pipe) symbol means is, take the output of the 1st command and stick it into the 2nd command.

Looking at the output of ifconfig, it appears that the Operating system is only aware of a single network interface. I guess that's your wired one. It does have onboard LAN as well as wireless right?

Wireless support (or lack thereof) in Linux is one of the major problems it has. It's possible that you can make it work, but if it doesn't work 'out of the box' I've never had much success and getting it working with NDISWrapper etc.

[directhex]

prism54 card. prism54 driver should be in any kernel - but not every distro will include the required binary firmware ("isl3886", should be in /lib/firmware)

[akaneria]

thanks for the info guys.
I tried it with an older 54meg card (MSI), which works perfectly, however this card is rubbish in terms of receiving signal strength.
I guess its the drivers for the 3com.

I think i will have to stick with xp again

[directhex]

fedora's a bit crap for including firmware files. you can either put it in place yourself (http://daemonizer.de/prism54/prism54...ac_2.7.0.0.arm, should be saved as "isl3886" in the most obvious-looking location in /lib/firmware), or use a distro which includes it out of the box (e.g. ubuntu, opensuse)

[akaneria]

infact ubuntu worked out of the box with the wireless card, however the laptop was struggling to run ubuntu.
I havn't tried open suse yet, but will certinly try that!

Also in the mean time i will try and install the prism 54 files on fedora and desktop linux os

thanks

[directhex]

if ubuntu worked out of the box, the box i'm pretty certain it's just a missing firmware - as it's included in ubuntu:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 29K 2008-06-18 19:54 /lib/firmware/2.6.24-19-generic/isl3886

but missing from http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/FirmWare

[akaneria]

i'm sure it will be on opensuse. There is only one way to find out.

[directhex]

suse always had a strong reputation for wireless support, so i assume it includes the firmware files.