Linux Distro? (don't troll plz)

Hello world4ch,
I'm new to Linux blah blah, I tried to install Ubuntu without much success (I get a "failed to load X server" error and get dumped back into command line).

Would like suggestions to alternatives to Ubuntu please, meaning, a nice beginner distro which has a good community support.

Danke.

(no "use BSD" or bullshit replies like that, it's not relevant to my interests)

PCBSD, Knoppix; or stick to windows.

I'd like you to post your hardware if possible. Ubuntu failing to install properly is pretty rare.

As for distros, try SUSE 10. Pretty damn nice desktop.

>>3
Sure,
CPU: AMD64 3000+ (yes, I did use the AMD64 release of unbuntu)

Video Card: AT1 9800 (Connect 3D X800GTO 256MB PCI-E DVI VIVO)

Motherboard: ECS K8 NVIDIA -Socket 939 (K51150) NFORCE4-A939

HDD: 2x SATA 160gb (different makes)

It all installs fine, it's just that when it comes to firing up Ubuntu I get an error message saying

"Failed to start the X server (your graphical interface) It is likely that it is not set up correctly. Would you like to view the X server output to diagnose the problem?"

Thank you very much for looking into it, most appreciated.

>>2
Can't do that unfortunately, need to install Linux because my next University project is based on OpenSG (the department only supports the Linux version, and I'm going to need all the help I can get! So I'll play by their rules). Also, I feel like trying out something new :)

>>4
Quick search on Ubuntu Forums shows that others are having the same problem. Sadly no solution seems to have been found yet (Hell you're probably one of the people in that thread for all I know). Personally I just avoid ATI cards :)

http//ubu/...

You should try to install it on a virtual machine first, like VMware. Usually the hardware that's emulated is quite standard and well supported by the linux distro.

>>5
Yup, I'm Kaif at the bottom there :)

So ATI cards are a big no no as far as Linux is concerned I take it? I'm a bit screwed there then because I just recently upgraded and don't have the money for a new card just yet (plus, it seems like such a waste to upgrade now).

I'll have a look at SUSE, heard very good things about it (and the logo is cool).

>>7
The impression I get from other ATI owners is that ATI cards are usable but flaky and perform poorly due to ATI's half-assed attempts to write Linux drivers.

MEPIS
PCLinuxOS

I've been using Gentoo and it works for me. You get quite nice control of your system, and it's really easy to use.

1.) Which display device driver are you using?
2.) Try reconfiguring X (sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg) or re-installing using APT.
3.) Does X11 actually start up? Run "startx" from the prompt, you should get a jaded background with a mouse cursor at least.

Posting the contents of your /etc/X11/xorg.conf would help as well.
There's a good chance the 64-bit ATi drivers are to blame, if nothing works it's advisable to switch to the i386 version instead.

>>11
I'm using the ATI one (that's after I used sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg to change it to that) no luck.

Haven't tried startx yet, i'll give that a go later tonight.

As for using the i386 version, is that okay to use on my AMD64? or am I going to run into problems there?

>>12
On the contrary, you're less likely to have problems because you won't have to worry about the lack of certain proprietary companies failing to port their shit; eg Macromedia Flash. If you want Flash you need a 32 bit version of Firefox to load the 32 bit Flash plugin.

AMD64 is fully backwards compatible with x86. You won't be taking full advantage of your 64 bit processor, but hey.

>>8
the easy way to put it: radeon sucks. simple as that.

ATI support for linux sucks compared to Nvidia.  I mean it is horrible.  Makes me sad as I'm an Ubuntu ATI user. I Was windows for 99% of my computing life and then one day I challenged myself to use Ubuntu until the next version of windows came out.  Ubuntu rocks.  It is buggy in places, but those are more bugs with individual programs rather than Ubuntu as a whole.  My biggest overall problem was embeded media in firefox, then someone showed me the "Media Connectivity Extension" I installed the extension and BLAM videos played better and with less buffering than windows.  Since then I've had no real complaints with ubuntu. 

As for your problem, hit up the mailing list they are good people and generally respond and help quickly. 

ubuntu is for noobs.
noobs supporting noobs... LOL

>>16 The deal was "no trolling". RTFOP?

But yes, one could say Ubuntu is for noobs. Meaning that it has documentation geared towards regular users, not uberleet administratiors. Some nice places to go, except for google, is:
http://www.ubuntuguide.org/
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/

What sucks about Ubuntu is that there is *no* documentation, absolutely none. You have to go to second parties, like ubuntuguide for that. That fucking sucks.

Oh wait, I just found some by clicking on "Community", how fucking stupid is not that?

Gentoo is superior. They also have official forums (and an unofficial wiki :/, great documentation though).

Thanks for the response so far guys. I'll let >>16 off this time :)

So here's how the situation stands. Ubuntu is not on my system at all at the moment, not only was I having issues with xserver not starting up but the GRUB loader didn't want to play with me either (it didn't recognise my up or down keys at all, meaning that I couldn't choose windows, meaning I could only boot into a broken linux, HIGH FIVE! - and before you say it, the keyboard was working fine). And because I couldn't load up an operationg system that worked, so I couldn't google my way out - which led to me having to reformat the entire disk and install windows again (which wasn't fun).

So do I risk installing the i386 version, maybe encountering the same problem? Or do I just give up and have a fap.

I think the best way out (if that GRUB thing happens again) is to set Windows to be the default OS to load up so that if I can't move about in the menu again, I can at least let it time out and boot up the default OS.

Any idea how I can change the default OS? the other keys worked in the GRUB loader, it just wouldn't let me select OS.

Thanks again (sorry for turning this into a tech support thread).

>>19

You'll need to edit the GRUB config file. You'll need to do this while under Linux. It's usually located at /boot/grub/grub.conf , but some distributions like to do it their own way.

You can open this file from the command-line by using a text editor. Try nano or pico to start:

# nano /boot/grub/grub.conf

One of the first lines in the file will say "default #" .That # points to which entry for GRUB to boot without any interaction.

The first item that GRUB will boot is labeled at "title".

so,

title=Windows XP
root (hd0,0)
....

title=Linux
root (hd0,1)
.....

Where the .... is a bunch of kernel paremeters for grub to use.

So in that case, "default 0" would boot the Windows XP entry by default, and "default 1" would boot Linux by default.

>debian% ls /boot/grub
>device.map     fat_stage1_5  menu.lst   minix_stage1_5     stage1 xfs_stage1_5
>e2fs_stage1_5  jfs_stage1_5  menu.lst~  reiserfs_stage1_5  stage2

grub.conf? don't you mean menu.lst? Anyway, >>19, if you can't find a grub.conf (or get a blank one), now you know what alternate file to look for.

>>18

http://doc.gwos.org
http://help.ubuntu.com
https://wiki.ubuntu.com
http://ubuntuforums.org

Okay, here's how it is so far. Installed Ubuntu again, thankfully the GRUB issue didn't come up (it seems to respond if I press back and down a little bit, then the menu works fine o_0). Unfortunately the xserver issue is still there.

Tried startx as >>11 suggested, but not luck, just a lot of text and then back to the command lie :(

I'm going to try "sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" later, I'll try changing it to the ATI driver again.

If that fails are there any other drivers I should give a try? there seems to be quite a few there.

Actually, how did you get it working >>15? Or did you not have any problems?