Linux Distro Choosing: Getting a CD Tommorow, Yes!

[PurpleMetro]

So I'm getting a CD tomorrow, and then when I do, i'll finally be able to burn a linux installer like ubuntu or any of that crap to it to install it.

The question is, which Distro should I install? I don't think i'll be able to Erase the contents on the CD afterwards, so I can probably only choose one Linux Distro.

The ones I like the most now are Crunchbang, Arch Linux and Linux Mint. Help me pick :C

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[Pacha-]

i feel like the only person who likes crunchbang

it uses openbox wm so don't be surprised when it doesn't have a nice dock and file manager to find your programs

[NalNalas]

...or you can get a usb
http://distrowatch.com/
I'd reccomend:
Mint
Debian with Xfce
Fedora
Crunchbang
Gentoo
Xubuntu
OpenSUSE

[blazerblock2]

... you don't already have CDs?

[PurpleMetro]

... you don't already have CDs?

Nope. :P

i feel like the only person who likes crunchbang

it uses openbox wm so don't be surprised when it doesn't have a nice dock and file manager to find your programs

Don't really see the difference..?

...or you can get a usb
http://distrowatch.com/
I'd reccomend:
Mint
Debian with Xfce
Fedora
Crunchbang
Gentoo
Xubuntu
OpenSUSE

I'm not buying a CD, my mom is bringing one home from work. We don't have any blank ones at home for some reason. Also I'm adding Arch Linux to ones I like :)

[Pacha-]

Don't really see the difference..?

here's what openbox looks like when you start it up



thats all you get. it has a right click access menu to get to internet and terminal and a few other programs, but besides that there's absolutely nothing. and, you can't have icons on the desktop with openbox

[PurpleMetro]

thats all you get. it has a right click access menu to get to internet and terminal and a few other programs, but besides that there's absolutely nothing. and, you can't have icons on the desktop with openbox

Oh, I thought Openbox was something for File Managers. Oh well, :P

[Kingdaro]

You're liking arch for the wrong reasons. You don't like Arch linux, you like the openbox window manager, running a separate panel program and compositing manager, which can be accomplished on pretty much any linux distro.

You shouldn't jump to a distro and hump it like a horny dog just because of a few users' screenshots.

[PurpleMetro]

You're liking arch for the wrong reasons. You don't like Arch linux, you like the openbox window manager, running a separate panel program and compositing manager, which can be accomplished on pretty much any linux distro.

You shouldn't jump to a distro and hump it like a horny dog just because of a few users' screenshots.

It's not just other people's screenshots. I like Arch Linux no matter how heavily/lightly they modified it.

[Pacha-]

you literally just reiterated what he said

[Kingdaro]

But it's not arch that makes those desktops possible. It's the desktop environments and window managers which, again, can be installed on almost every linux distro available. The only thing that makes arch special is its speed and customizability (down to the very loving kernel jesus), but is a pain in the ass to set up and work with.

[PurpleMetro]

What about Linux Mint

[Momentum]

i feel like the only person who likes crunchbang

naaaaawww

[TheBlackParrot]

What about Linux Mint

ubuntu is better.
Start out with something easy. Literally every screenshot you posted could be recreated in Ubuntu or any other distro.
Plus, again, you don't need a CD. I have a full on Arch install on my USB stick in case something goes haywire. A Live CD could be dd'd onto a USB even, or unetbootin could be used.

If you jump into something as minimalist as Arch or something that's rolling release (Gentoo or Arch, again), you might have a hard time. Use Ubuntu. Once you feel like you're used to using a terminal and can understand what you're doing, then move on to something else if you want to.

[darerd]

If you don't know what you're doing, you should stop. You're likely going to face more problems than you're willing to deal with.

Otherwise, why do you want Linux? As long as you're sure that you'll be able to do everything you currently do hassle-free on Linux and you'll be able to do something you've wanted to do but couldn't on your previous operating system, only then would I consider installing linux. Looking for linux/wine support on all the programs you use frequently will be a good start for this. Blockland, for example, has great wine support but Skype doesn't have all that great PulseAudio support.

To choose which distribution you should use, you will probably not want to look much at its presentation but rather what hoops you'll have to jump through to get it installed and what things it'll already have for you, what you'll need to install for yourself, and what you'll need to uninstall possibly to replace with something else. The beginner and basic distro would be Ubuntu, it's extremely easy to install and should have everything you'll need. Ubuntu is a modification of Debian, which is complicated to install, is very slow and has not so many features. There are plenty of reviews online for more distributions, you just have to know where to look. Blockland forums is a bit small and it may be hard to get judgement on all the distros you're looking to try out.

I second what TBP said with USBs, if you have one it's easier to use that than a disk to install things. You can wipe it and put something else on easily if you tried installing one distro but it didn't work out for you.

A final thing, you're always going to need the option to boot back into your previous OS, so keep it on its own partition. Also, do NOT delete the partition you're trying out your distro on until you're doing it while installing another. It's likely you'll have GRUB installed on it, and you don't want that breaking so you can't boot into your previous OS even if it does still exist on your system.