Linux What is the best linux distro for a multimedia PC?

DarkAngel said:
Is that the screenshot of Linux Mint KDE. Looks cool :cool2: Will the Linux Mint support most popular audio/video formats?

I have used linux for sometime in college. Fedora and Mandriva. Liked the feel of it. But back then i didn't have continuous unlimited internet connection to download missing codecs etc... Now decided to try Open Source again and quit OS piracy...
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The screenshots posted by gaurish are not from any linux os. They are self compiled De's with custom kernels.

manu1991 said:
Dreamlinux is light and decent enough for home use.
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Dreamlinux is very good distro to begin with. Unfortunately things can turn very ugly if the configurator fails to configure things at your end. Specially the Screen resolution, add to that the old stack of software that it ship with it. http://www.techenclave.com/open-source-and-linux/dreamlinux-3-5-review-making-dream-134773.html

Rockfella said:
Which one is the lightest of all to be used in a home pc? Should be good for multimedia usage and torrenting?
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Sabayon is very good, infact one of the better distro when it comes to multimedia stuff. If you want some configuration hassle you can make any distro a multimedia hub but if you want ootb support then Sabayon, Dreamlinux and Mint wins the competition. Not to mention the pathetic frontend for entropy :|

Ryunosuke said:
^Ubuntu and Mint both are Debian based distros so u can't really differentiate much between both.
@Gaurish dood, stop the wrong infomercial, Sabayon 5 and above can be installed, there is no such thing that its live only and u can't install it. I'm using Sabayon 5.0 on my laptop and works just fine. U can check their site for more info.
OT if u want I can send u the Sabayon 5.0 disk, it contains GNOME version,KDE version and the XBMC version too.
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Ubuntu is debian based while Mint is Ubuntu based or should say say ubuntu + gimmick :P
@ Op : For the time being use Mandriva since you have already got the ISO. Just few pointers remove phonon-gstreamer as it hampers Amarok functionality and use PLF repos, for additional stuff ;) Easy Urpmi

For sabayon lovers : The 5.2 is going to be a great release, not only in terms of eye candy (courtesy KDE 4.4) but it will include BFS and 2.6.33 kernel :D Sabayon 5.2? Pulseaudio %$#* Flash amd64?
 
@Gaurish dood, stop the wrong infomercial,
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you seem to be not happy with my posts but I don't care:P

Ryunosuke said:
Sabayon 5 and above can be installed, there is no such thing that its live only and u can't install it.
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Hey, you are mistaken. I said Sabayon project is primarily meant to be Live DVD. I never said you can't install Sabayon on HDD but its were not project's main goals.

Being based on gentoo which is source based.binary package management isn't sabayon's strongest points. I can go to extent and say: Its slow, Graphical Pkg manager's UI is bad and figuring out how it works is cumbersome task.

But that's just my opinion, you are free to form your own;)
 
Dark Star said:
@ Op : For the time being use Mandriva since you have already got the ISO. Just few pointers remove phonon-gstreamer as it hampers Amarok functionality and use PLF repos, for additional stuff ;) Easy Urpmi

For sabayon lovers : The 5.2 is going to be a great release, not only in terms of eye candy (courtesy KDE 4.4) but it will include BFS and 2.6.33 kernel :D Sabayon 5.2? Pulseaudio %$#* Flash amd64?
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Currently i dont have the 2009 mandriva disk with me. I am downloading the Mandriva One 2010(50% D/L over)

Dark Star said:
Just few pointers remove phonon-gstreamer
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How to remove this? Unchecking during installation or from the terminal.:ashamed: Will post back here if i need help with the distro.

Edit: Also i have not burnt the ISO. So if any other distro is recommended for starters(multimedia PC) then i can download that and then burn a ISO DVD.

Thanks Guys :D
 
Gaurish said:
Hi,
Sabayon is meant to be a live DVD, its mainly for people who want to try Linux without installing.you can can use it to feel of Linux OS. Check the hardware support etc.
so burn the ISO to disc and try out Sabayon.If you like it, installer regular distros like Linux Mint
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Whats makes Sabayon a non "regular" distro ?
 
DarkAngel said:
Currently i dont have the 2009 mandriva disk with me. I am downloading the Mandriva One 2010(50% D/L over)

How to remove this? Unchecking during installation or from the terminal.:ashamed: Will post back here if i need help with the distro.

Edit: Also i have not burnt the ISO. So if any other distro is recommended for starters(multimedia PC) then i can download that and then burn a ISO DVD.

Thanks Guys :D
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Hi,
Changing phone backend should be easy. just install phonon-xine package. regarding, distro - its your choice what you want to use. we all can only give suggestions:)
 
Instead of burning to cd/dvd create bootable usb disk from the iso images. Its much faster and easy to play around with :)

try playing around with one distro and the different DE. Once you find the sweet spot then there are basically three cat of distro apt-get or rpm or compile from source :D
 
A "multimedia" PC would also require a distro that can do a good job at integrating video drivers that offload video encoding/decoding to the GPU instead of taxing the CPU. Is there a preferred option in this regard or most big guns (Ubuntu/fedora/Mandriva etc) are equally good (or equally bad? I am not very sure how good the linux video drivers (open source or proprietary) are in this. I've heard that nvidia drivers help decoding but not encoding. No idea about Ati or intel drivers).
If someone has any experiences about this, please share.
 
H2O said:
Just one question...Why ?

Anyways...I think Ubuntu or Linux Mint is much better than Mandriva.
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Ubuntu is a great distro, no doubt about that.infact I originally suggested Linux mint to OP. Since he mentions he has used mandriva before, i thought switching to mandriva might be bit easy.
 
Hi guys. I am currently using the Sabayon Gnome Live DVD. Can all the open windows be closed in linux wit a shorcut? Is there an shortcut equivalent of windows key+ D in linux?

Can Sabayon 5.1 GNOME be used in a P4 2.4GHz system with 512MB RAM without any difficulty?? My friend is also looking for a linux distro with needs same as mine.
 
DarkAngel said:
Edit: Enabled it guys after fiddling with the settings :D

Can Sabayon 5.1 GNOME be used in a P4 2.4GHz system with 512MB RAM without any difficulty?? My friend is also looking for a linux distro with needs same as mine.
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Yes, 512MB is enough for Gnome

Can all the open windows be closed in linux? Is there an shortcut equivalent of windows key+ D in linux?
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No idea, I never close windows. when workspace gets cluttered, I shift to alternate desktop. this is a joy of having multiple desktops at your disposal:ohyeah:

Btw, check this:

http://www.ghacks.net/2009/03/18/handy-gnome-keyboard-shortcuts/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_keyboard_shortcuts
 
Ya. Got that shorcut. It was in the left bottom corner only :ashamed:
But it is difficult to get chrome and other s/w's for this. Also installation guides for s/w seems difficult to find.
Thinking of shifting to Ubuntu 9.10. Or should i go for the 10.04 Beta version. Is it good for my usage ??
While installing this Sabayon i formatted my windows drive and alloted 16.5GB for Sabayon (ext4), 2.5GB swap and 100MB for boot.
But still i get Windows option while booting. Dunno how come Windows 7 boot loader is still there :S So now by installing Ubuntu will i lose data? Thats the only reason i am always scared to try various Linux distro :ashamed:
 
DarkAngel said:
But it is difficult to get chrome and other s/w's for this. Also installation guides for s/w seems difficult to find.

Thinking of shifting to Ubuntu 9.10. Or should i go for the 10.04 Beta version. Is it good for my usage ??
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see this exactly what i said, sabayon is good as Only as LIVE DVD. installing fresh packages or upgrading is not easy task. sulphur has the crapiest UI I have ever seen. sure, it does work but the experience not great.

While installing this Sabayon i formatted my windows drive and alloted 16.5GB for Sabayon (ext4), 2.5GB swap and 100MB for boot.

But still i get Windows option while booting. Dunno how come Windows 7 boot loader is still there :S So now by installing Ubuntu will i lose data? Thats the only reason i am always scared to try various Linux distro :ashamed:
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Unless you do something silly, You won't lose any data.just format & keep the current partition scheme. While installing, choose manual mode. and set mount point as follows

* mount 16.5GB partiton to /

* mount 100mb partion to /boot

* mount 2.5GB to SWAP

btw, you might wanna get used to Linux way of naming disk drives which little different.

In windows, we have C drive.D Drive and so on

In Linux we have SDxy naming scheme

where,

x = number of hardrive in your system(a-z). if you have only one hdd, linux will name it as sda.

y = Number of pertion(1,2,3,4,5) and so on... so iyou have four partitions. you see your drivers

sda1

sda2

sda3

sda4

PS: you mint wanna try Linux mint instead of Ubuntu. Its Ubuntu + Codecs in very crude sense.

Hope it helps
 
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