Which linux should I use

[ashaiba]

Hello. I have a macbook 13' inch and an alright pc. I want to download linux on both but i dont know what to use. I tried mandriva and ubuntu as i have heard theyre very good. i like ubuntu a lot but its hard to use! whenever i download a program it doesnt have some sort of exe file or anything, so i dont know how to install the software. its stuff like that i dont know. and also whats a binary? this is probebly dumb questions to many of you. but i dont know it so i will ask.

i just see a lot of linux and it interests me and i want to learn, any help? tutorials? maybe i have a wierd version of ubuntu where everything is messed up, i say this because the distribution cant even play DVDs or MP3s.

 

[mammikoura]

the reason it doesn't play dvds or mp3s is that both of those are commercial formats. Not sure if this is the thing with dvds but it's like that with mp3s. So they would have to pay a lot if they wanted to include it into the OS. Just google around, it's pretty easy to get mp3s working. And google works for pretty much anything, you will probably need a tutorial or two to everything working so just use google if you are not sure what to do.

And don't download any packages, you can do that too but it's a lot easier to install stuff with the console
sudo apt-get "application name here"
and it should find that program for you, download it for you and install it for you. Can't really be easier than that. You might have to add a few new sources for it first so that it will find everything that you are looking for.

But ubuntu is about as easy as it gets. I prefer kubuntu but they are basically the same, kubuntu just uses KDE instead of gnome.

 

[dude_se]

yea you wont get easier than ubuntu. several programs have an installation file, you can use vlc and winamp to play all your music and video files, and for anything else google will tell you how to install stuff using the terminal. doing the basics is really easy to learn so i wouldnt give up on it yet.

 

[Lowndsey]

fedora core is good also..and pretty easy to use as well.