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If the GPL really strikes a chord in you then Debian will probably end up becoming your distro of choice. It's about as "purely" free as any distro you will find. You might be interested in reading the DFSG(Debian Free Software Guidelines) and Debian's Social Contract with its users. I love Debian's commitment to not letting a release out the door until it's ready rather than on a schedule--leads to a very stable bug-free system--but the DFSG and the Social Contract are really what make Debian, Debian. All the distro's built on top of Debian use it because it is so solid, and because it's not going to be corrupted by the corporations. If it is, it will be forked because of its social contract. You will find many of the Debian users to have a real understanding of the GPL and what it means to keeping Linux alive and well.

 

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Well this is the update. I installed Debian using the network install cd as you recommended freddy. Right now I am using debian as I write this, I dual booted it with windows, made sure that windows still booted after the install and it's all good.

Let the learning begin I guess!

 

Good. I see you've found one of the best kept secrets around already then. Debian isn't hard to use. If you would like to see another gui and a whole bunch more software, install KDE. Just open up a Gnome terminal, type su, hit enter, give the root password you gave at install time, type "apt-get install kde", and hit enter. Leave out the quotes of course.

This will install the entire KDE gui and software package. You will be asked somewhere along the line if you want to use gdm or kdm. They are the login managers for Gnome and KDE, respectively. Either one will work. I prefer gdm, but that's just me. I'm a Gnome guy, not a KDE guy.

Once it installs take a look around at all the new software you now have. Then, the next time you log in when you reach the point where you enter enter your user name and password you will have a chance to choose to log into KDE or Gnome. You will be able to reach that choice under the Actions or Sessions menu if you kept gdm. I've never used kdm but it will have something very similar. There are about a dozen more gui's available to look at and play with so should you get tired of Gnome and KDE you will find a whole bunch more in Debian.

When you first look around after you install KDE, it takes up around a gig of hard drive space, if you don't see a menu option under Applications named Debian go to the top panel again. In System -> Preferences -> Main Menu you should find an unchecked box named Debian. Check it and Debian will now appear in the menu under Applications. You will find a well-organized menu system for reaching all your software there now.

If the Debian option doesn't appear in the Main Menu wizard let me know and I'll tell you what to do fix that. Whether or not Debian does appear has to do with a choice made during the initial install. If a person makes it then the Debian menu option appears. If you don't, well, then installing one small software package will fix the problem.

 

One more must-have piece of software that isn't installed by default that you will "need" is k3b. It is a really nice software package for burning cds and dvds.

 

I "sense" another "Debian convert" in the making.

 

LOL. Yeah, we Debianites have to keep it quiet about how easy Debian really is to use. It makes us look much smarter if everyone else thinks it's too geeky for them....

 

I know that's my goal...to look smarter than I am.

 

lol I think it is time to learn linux well, not just a few commands. Thanks again freddy and trip for the feedback. I definitely have questions coming your way very soon.

 

I went out today and bought Linux+ by McGrawHill Osborne, a little bed time reading

I got home and popped in the Debian network installation CD. Everything seemed to go okay but once the system rebooted I got the following error

Code:

 
Failed to start X Server [your graphical interface].

View Output?

The output shows

Code:

 
[EE] No devices detected
Fatal server error:
No screens detected

I assume this is an issue with my Nvidia card. Anyway I booted from the Ubuntu LiveCD and I'll take a look on Google to try and find a solution.

 

John,

What motherboad, keyboard, mouse, and graphics card do you have? X server will choke if it has a problem detecting either your mouse or your keyboard also, so it may not be your video card. If you want to see a detailed error log take a look, as root, in the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file after a failed X server startup. That's where Debian stores the logs for Xorg.

The /var/log directory is where Debian stores probably 99% of the log files for the entire system and for any servers you might install using Debian packages.

 

I had a terrible time once setting up Debian Sarge as a VM in VMWare on a Windows XP host because I couldn't get the configuration for the wireless mouse quite right. It took input from both a Linux forum and the VMware forum to set me straight.