Recommendations on variants of Linux

[Yago16]

I have actually required some information or some suggestion concerning distributions of Linux. I asked on man about a Linux word processor at work and was being pressed towards a complete document management system. I have far above the ground hopes of superior help here! I have fresh Windows 7 laptop I am not a supporter of Windows 7 but I require that in place. So I have two other computers to put Linux on. The first is a 3 year old Athlon XP shuttle box; which has been outstanding with 60GB HD in two partitions and 256MB RAM. Another computer I hope to obtain and running is a P75 with 500MB of hard disk and 8MB RAM. Linux on earliest machines is not unintelligent out where a computer costs 3 years salary. One WP for the XP drive and one for the P75. Any advice or any information or any tips please provide……

[Zhankana_n]

8Mb is just not sufficient. 32Mb is barely enough. I have an Athlon XP which has 3 GB. With just 256Mb you are looking at Xfce (lightweight desktop environment), not Gnome or KDE, incredible like Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Sam Linux, Dreamlinux or Zenwalk. Something a lot of people don't understand is that you cannot have a frivolous or lightweight distort and then mound heavyweight apps on top. That uses memory.

[teena_pansare]

What about starting with a live CD/DVD; you don’t have to install something on the hard disk. I would suggest KNOPPIX DVD I believe and after that there is eventual distro (distribution). It is something you would require if you are wedged with Linux CLI. One more choice is installing Ubuntu as a program in windows7. You can select YALI and install it. While you wish to uninstall it would be there in add or remove programs. I wish this is must helps you.

[Ekpah]

Linux may be obtained in two dissimilar ways. All the essential components can be downloaded free of accuse from the Internet. This means that an individual OS can be accumulated for approximately nothing. A substitute is to use a Distribution, offered by a variety of companies and including a broad range of applications and installation programs which appreciably make simpler the installation of Linux. Currently, Linux is productively being used by numerous millions of users worldwide. The composition of user groups differs from confidential users, training companies, universities, investigate centers right through to commercial users and companies, who see Linux as an actual substitute to other OS.

[windows_user]

Actually I have some VARIANTS of Linux and UNIX which may be helpful to you.

• Linux VARIANTS

1. Caldera Linux
2. Corel Linux
3. Red Hat Linux
4. Mandrake Linux
5. SuSE Linux
6. Turbo Linux

• UNIX VARIANTS

1. AIX / AIXL
2. BSD
3. HP-UX
4. IRIX
5. OSF/1
6. QNX
7. SCO
8. System V
9. Ultrix
10. Unisys
11. UnixWare

[Luis234]

The stock Linux kernel on its own was not specially designed for any real time applications. Even though the kernel presents high throughput and low system overhead on average, no latency bounds or throughput can be definite. Linux tasks are only detectable while running in user space, while kernel control threads running on behalf of user space programs cannot. This might because unpredictable scheduling delays, as pending task switches are only executed on kernel exit. In order to overcome these limitations, a number of solutions have been proposed, which can generally be divided into the classes of hard and soft real-time approaches. While soft real time patches normally try to minimize the quantity of time exhausted in critical kernel functions, a more regular way has been developed in order to execute hard real time facilities.

[3Bdot]

Yes, computers are known to cost a few bucks and it isn't always easy to get the whole view when buying them or people doesn't have the time in explain what kind of software/OS etc. that might be best to use.
For example when start get used to Windows systems it is not selfexplenatory that users get much info when asking about all the good stuff from using different Linux distros (Live CD's) as a great help when Windows can't boot in one or another way and Microsoft says nothing.

On your issue, I'm familiar with running Windows XP, Vista, W7 and some Linux distros. If looking for comparison between all these, there are a few.
One main difference are the license and where it can be installed.
Windows must be installed on a primary partition only, that's nothing users have to consider when install Linux as they are free to install on both primary as logical partitions. Another important difference is all this talk about OEM and so forth when install Windows on machines. They need OEM in the bottom on the machine when make further upgrades. This has to been installed preinstalled before the computer was bought or by the user if made the whole computer from scratch by own hands. Linux are wonderful in that way that it is free in general.

If interested in look closer on different types of distros I recommend to download installers (iso) from those that seems interesting and then run them one at the time inside VirtualBox which support both Linux and Windows in both host and guest machines. That's a terrific way in check them out further in a virtual emvironment for make correct choice.

My own favorites belongs to a few of those that's been developed from and are based on Debian.

Following perhaps can't guarrantie all that exist or has existed in the past but think it might give a great overview in how it looks like in the Linux world

[3Bdot]

gldt102-full.png Another try

[3Bdot]

Please enjoy!
Update my post with the Swedish source were these listed maps of Linux variants can be found and downloaded. (My earlier image is little bit outdated I recognized now afterwords )

It's a on going project which still is active with new published updates until this date Nov 2010.
Note: Distros provided on the page are just the most used and doesn't show everyone existing out in the wild.

[Elieis]

The vital idea is to run the Linux base kernel as the lowest priority thread within a minimalistic real time kernel. This real time kernel mostly takes control more than the interrupt controller and leaves the base kernel with software emulation, a virtual interrupt controller. At any time an IRQ is raised by the hardware, it is currently probable for the real time executive to run whichever necessary real time task close to the least probable interrupt latency. Later than all real time processes are over, the interrupt is handed down to the Linux base kernel, if essential. In case Linux has immobilized the interrupt, the request is queued and raised again, after Linux re enables it. While hardware virtualization has been a lengthy convention in the UNIX world, Real Time Linux seems to have been the first execution, which only virtualizes the one particular hardware component essential to take over control, the interrupt controller.

[windows_user]

A Linux allotment is as well called GNU distribution by a few sellers and users is a member of the family of UNIX akin to software distributions constructed on top of the Linux kernel. Such distributions frequently called distro for small consist of a great collection of software applications similar to as word processors, spreadsheets, media players, and database applications. The operating system will consist of the Linux kernel and frequently, a set of libraries and utilities from the GNU project, with graphics preserve from the X Window System. Distributions optimized for size may not include X and be inclined to utilize more dense option to the GNU utilities, such as Busybox, uClibc, or dietlibc. There are at present approximately over seven hundred Linux distributions. More than four hundred of those are in active development, frequently being modified and improved.

[SalVatore]

To help users find out the Linux sharing that is finest for them, this resource will sourly list the finest applicants for the range of types of Linux users to try. The Best use case categories are:

1. Desktop Distribution
2. Laptop Distribution
3. Enterprise Server
4. LiveCD
5. Security-Enhanced Distribution
6. Multimedia Distribution