Running off a flash drive and being fast is going to be a problem.

Normally, Ubuntu, OpenSuse, and Fedora are recommended for beginners. Ubuntu being the most recommended due to the friendly community.

 

I would have to say Ubuntu for beginners. Of course, you might never leave it. Or you might hate it and find that Windows is what you love.

 

Xubuntu is probably the fastest, easiest to use one there is. There's DSL, which would run off a flash drive, but it's not too user friendly. Ubuntu is user-friendly, but too feature-rich to be fast off of a thumb drive.

So, Xubuntu gets my vote.

 

Checkout http://distrowatch.com/ which has info on popularity of the various distros and other info. I'd say look at ubuntu or Mint for getting started with linux. Tho i have not run minto off a usb drive.

 

Ubuntu or Mint probably.

 

I would say try Mint. It's Ubuntu but even more user friendly since it comes with all the basics. It runs great off a flashdrive, used it off of one for quite some time until I got my netbook now that's all I use on it.

 

I vote for Linux Mint or Mandriva.

 

soo mint or xubuntu?

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Argorn5757 soo mint or xubuntu?

If your planning on running anything off of a flash drive, I suggest you look into something FAR more lightweight than Xubuntu or Linux Mint, unless you like having a VERY slow OS.

Personally, I'd go with something you can run entirely on the RAM of a pc, like DSL or Puppy Linux, the latter being more user friendly from what I've heard.

 

Linux Mint is the easiest transition from a windows user.

Also, Ubuntu is pretty easy to use even for a linux noob like me.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Argorn5757 soo mint or xubuntu?

Pretty much. however, I, personally (this is what I did), would start with *buntu (depends on the desktop environment you want), then once you are comfortable with repo's and working with *nix in general, go for one of the more technical distro's. Ubuntu is, IMHO, just too basic.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by hooah212002 Pretty much. however, I, personally (this is what I did), would start with *buntu (depends on the desktop environment you want), then once you are comfortable with repo's and working with *nix in general, go for one of the more technical distro's. Ubuntu is, IMHO, just too basic.

but would either of those run well off of a flash drive?

 

Yeah, flash drive and fast are definitely NOT gonna work.

Why is your Vista bloated?? When my Ubuntu distro was at it's height... it was more bloated than Windows - and took longer to boot..

It's all in what you load and use. Typically, the more bigger and better things you want - the slower and more resources it will need.

Linux and flash drives will not help you to this end..you can't have your cake and eat it too.

Double your RAM and get a new video card and you'd see world's of improvement in Vista (set superfetch properly)..

If you do want to try Linux (Ubuntu is my suggestion, I ALWAYS have trouble installing Mint) - I would do it on a new hard drive so you don't have to blow away your Windows instance...

But if you're looking to make it a Live USB - just download an ISO - Live boot into the CD - then create your Boot USB from within Ubuntu with all the programs you want - and Bob's your uncle - RED DRAGONS!

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Argorn5757 but would either of those run well off of a flash drive?

For that, I hear Puppy Linux or PCLinuxOS is good. It really depends on what you want, program wise, to enable thumb drive usage. If you have a large thumb drive, sure, almost any distro would work.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Argorn5757 but would either of those run well off of a flash drive?

Not really. You'll need a really light weight distro to run fast off a usb.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gill.. If you do want to try Linux (Ubuntu is my suggestion, I ALWAYS have trouble installing Mint) - I would do it on a new hard drive so you don't have to blow away your Windows instance...

Just create a new partition.....(Linux is far more friendly to Windows than the other way around).

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by GodofGrunts Not really. You'll need a really light weight distro to run fast off a usb.

CentOS go! I went to school with a guy that set up CentOS with an apache server off his flash drive. It worked quite well in a lab but I bet you would want to wack yourself running it like that on a daily basis.

 

running off flash drive and fast is really not possible especially in a user friendly distro. Id create a small 10GB partition and install mint or ubuntu.

 

I always had good hardware support coming straight off the gui install with Fedora Core and Mandrake back in the day which I believe now is called mandriva. Just try a few of the more popular ones on that distrowatch site, or if you're really daring make your own from scratch www.linuxfromscratch.org. don't forget to try out compiz desktop effects might be called something different now really neat stuff windows aero doesn't even come near to what compiz does. well with ati i'm not sure how hard it is going to be to get compiz to work i had a hell of a time getting it to work on my ati card, but finally was able to with help from the forums for fedora. youtube compiz to see what i'm talking about

 

I ran ubuntu off DVD and it worked quite fast.

But try Mint. Make a partition.

Quote:

Originally Posted by goonies I always had good hardware support coming straight off the gui install with Fedora Core and Mandrake back in the day which I believe now is called mandriva. Just try a few of the more popular ones on that distrowatch site, or if you're really daring make your own from scratch www.linuxfromscratch.org. don't forget to try out compiz desktop effects might be called something different now really neat stuff windows aero doesn't even come near to what compiz does. well with ati i'm not sure how hard it is going to be to get compiz to work i had a hell of a time getting it to work on my ati card, but finally was able to with help from the forums for fedora.

Yes, if you haven't tried linux distro before, then build one lol.
But wow.. this compiz thing is awesome +rep for that

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by hooah212002 Just create a new partition.....(Linux is far more friendly to Windows than the other way around).

I'd agree with you, if I didn't feel GRUB is the real issue here. This is fine as long as you
a.)have your Windows OEM disk
b.)are familiar with the fixboot and other commands you'll need to rid yourself of GRUB once you've run your experiment with a new OS..

Hence my suggestion, just use another drive or a live USB (OP's OG intention)...

Fixboot and fixmbr doesn't always work as planned...

Now another thing to consider... set your BIOS to boot from the USB... you pop that in - boot from it when you want Linux.... take it out and it goes to windows

OR - same as the above but put the USB in one of your back ports so it won't annoy you -

then GRUB will kick in - and you'll have the choice to boot from USB - OR Windows..

everyone wins.

So who's a troll again(to Error10)? Your large amount of posts and rep don't shield you from throwing around that garbage term without backing it up.

Calling people a troll without reason is just as crappy - and should be reported just as frequently as "trolling" (aka, people who don't agree with your happy world view).

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by GodofGrunts Running off a flash drive and being fast is going to be a problem. Normally, Ubuntu, OpenSuse, and Fedora are recommended for beginners. Ubuntu being the most recommended due to the friendly community.

Fedora is NOT for beginners!!! Ubuntu is good and I hear Mint is good easy starter distro through I've never used it.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gill.. Yeah, flash drive and fast are definitely NOT gonna work. Why is your Vista bloated?? When my Ubuntu distro was at it's height... it was more bloated than Windows - and took longer to boot..

I find that really hard to believe since Vista + updates is like 15 gigs while Ubuntu + updates is like 1 gig.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hephasteus Fedora is NOT for beginners!!! Ubuntu is good and I hear Mint is good easy starter distro through I've never used it.

Why not? Works pretty fine to me.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gill.. I'd agree with you, if I didn't feel GRUB is the real issue here. This is fine as long as you a.)have your Windows OEM disk b.)are familiar with the fixboot and other commands you'll need to rid yourself of GRUB once you've run your experiment with a new OS.. Hence my suggestion, just use another drive or a live USB (OP's OG intention)... Fixboot and fixmbr doesn't always work as planned...

My Super GRUB disk has helped me more than once

, even when my Windows OEM disk couldn't fix...the Windows install.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hephasteus Fedora is NOT for beginners!!! Ubuntu is good and I hear Mint is good easy starter distro through I've never used it.

What exactly makes Fedora not suitable for beginners? It's one of the easiest distros to use.