Ok, me being a linux nut I had to post this for all to see. Is linux the future of desktop users? I know it may take some time for serious gamers to adapt since modern games will not run on linux (yet).

http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?...015-26-NW-DP-HW

I have been thinking of installing Linux on my PS3....

I have been thinking of getting linux too, as I hate Windows and Microsoft's crappy products, but I am a bit too thick to know where to start.

There are tons if distro's out there but by far for desktop purposes I would suggest Ubuntu (7.10) or Fedora Core 7 (8 is due out soon lots of neat stuff).

If you have a nice video card and a good amount of memory the Ubuntu install is a nice suggestion. It has some nice desktop effects built into this release and is a very nice desktop OS. It comes with OpenOffice (Word, Aceess, Powerpoint alts) and has a nice email app as well. If all you do is research, internet and email this is a great OS for this purpose.

Ubuntu = Debian based (another OS)
Fedora Core = RedHat based (another OS)

You can try before you fly so to speak with Ubuntu as it offers a LIVE-CD which will load up in memory and run from disk/memory and give you a look at what it can do, but to get the real exp from it, you will need to laod it on a machine.

I have my kids and my wife using it on their desktops (Ubuntu 7.10) and they came from using Windows XP Pro, they love it. Fast startup times, no viruses and it just works. You will only get this thing to lock up on a labor intensive 3d app if the proper drivers are not loaded, other than that they are concrete solid.

These machines that Wal-Mart have put out has a flavor of linux that Google themselves is backing. You know if google is backing it then it has tons of money and resources thrown at it.

Hey Andrew
I would go for Suse, even though Suse sold it's soul when Novell took it over, being a very mainstream distro it it is pretty good. I would say that the two main advantages are that you could walk into almost any decent bookshop and buy a Suse 10.? Bible (try and match version to book if you can) and the second is that the distro comes with a reasonably well developed application to configure the distro with.
Something sadly lacking in many other distros.
having said that, if you become a bit of a Linux nut, you will eventually come to realize that Suse has in some ways sold out to the machine. But for ease of use, ease of support, Suse in my opinion is the best pace for a new user to start.
On a good day, Linux problems can be downright intimidating, if not impossible. You will need all the help you can get.
I would definatly steer away from some of the less popular distro's, they are great, maybe even superior if you know what you are doing, but a nightmare if you are new to Linux

Ah yeah, almost none of the distros will come with a working dvd player, or actually the dvd player will be there but give you some message about copywright and codex. I have a really simple fix for that that has worked for me on a couple of platforms and a few versions, so let me know when you need it and i will email you what you need.
Cheers

Hehe, your the man Fen, your the Man

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainm...-ps3-220918.php

Actually a good choice would be Myth TV, here is a link, but i have linked not to the main page but to the screen shots, just to tempt you. Go have a look, it is a great distro. ( Myth TV is designed for PC though)
http://www.mythtv.org/modules.php?name=MythFeatures

let me know how it goes

SUSE = YAST = Easy for sure..

But Microsoft owns them now (Novell that is) and most have steered away due to it, but Dundee is right for sure. SUSE is easy to use and with YAST it makes for easy setup and configuration of things.

Although YUM and apt-get for other distro's is working well also, it all depends on how much you are willing to learn.

I disagree on 7.10 for ubuntu, gutsy gibbon has a ton of problems (like network drops). 7.04 was much more stable.

I would also suggest that you beware of RPM distros (SUSE, red hat, fedora), but that might just be personal predjudice.

I personally like FreeBSD better than linux and PC-BSD is easier to use than any distro I have come across (only problem is the community is still small).

I have not had any issues with 7.10, I agree FreeBSD has been a nice distro as well. It really is a pref per user. Some people like to drive Ford, Chevy or Toyota's but they all lead you to the same place. Just because you know how to work on Fords; it may be the factor behind buying one. When it comes to linux there are so many flavors it is hard to really give people advice on which one to choose. Which is why I gave at least two well documented distros with large community for help.

Either way, go get a LiveCD from your fav distro and load it up.

I happen to be a Linux Sys Admin and work with RHEL3 & 4 mainly and I was only trying to help.

To drag this topic back up, I have a three year old Intel Celeron system currently running Windows XP but I don't use it for anything these days so I want to put a different operating system on it. I could probably try a few. In getting SuSE, there seem to be several types and versions. Do you mean I should download openSUSE?

With regards to FreeBSD and PC-BSD, which one should I get? Does either one come in a "Live CD" version?

I don't understand all the jargon, and I have five recommendations here and no experience using Linux or Unix.

For suse you will want to grab one of the live cds here. You have a choice between KDE or Gnome for the desktop manager, KDE is more Windows like but Gnome is slightly less bloated. Either will work fine (and you can always switch after installing).

If it is your first time using a BSD I would suggest PC-BSD, you can grab the install cd here. Unfortunatly they only have an install CD and not a live one (it only boots up the graphical installer, not the whole system).

If you have the time I would suggest trying both out.

Hehe, Itis a bit like what football team is best insnt it. Well for what it is worth I would definitly go for Suse, it is the only one that I know of that has yast, and unless you want to do a crash course in Linux I recomend steering away from anything else. Pred suggested to keep aweay from RPMs and that is fair enough I guess, each to there own. But if you have never been into Linux, i personnally think rpms ar the go. The analogy is this, an RPM theoretically will install all you need, including a binary, (your executable file) if all goes well a(and it often doesnt) it will just work. The alternative is to use a tarball. these are an application that will install a source tree and you have to compile the installer, and the executable on your PC, this can sometimes be a nightmare in finding dependencies and so on. Ultimately if you are a purist, you probably have a better install as it really looks at your system and compiles it to suit what you have, whereas the RPM option is more generic. But, RPMS, usually just work.
As far as getting SUSE, you could download it, but if where you live is like OZ, you could walk into any decent magazine shop and buy a magazine with a distro on it. Either way, when you get it installed, you will almost be garenteed to find the DVD playing facility crippled. this is because although linux is theoretically open source, the codecs used to play DVDs are subject to copy write, so you chuck in a DVD, and up comes Xine, and bang it wont play. when this happens give me a yell and I will send you what you need to fix it. It is easy when you know how, but as tricky as hell if you try to do it the long way via forums and so on. My fix is yet to fail me but there is always a first time

So in my opinion, pred is right, there is definitly other distros than SUSE that are functionally better, but they do require a bit more knowledge, not so much in the install, but to keep them running, and adding other stuff.
For the absolute newbe, IMHO you cant beat SUSE, most times it works perfectly out of the box, and Yast (most times) will save you from manually editing configuration files, and getting lost in the quicksand.

I've downloaded both live CD versions of openSUSE. All that remains is for me to burn them onto CDs which I will do later today. Then I will see which one I prefer. What do RPM and YAST stand for?

RPM stands for Red Hat Package Manager. Traditionally applications in Linux were distributed as Source code, archived up in a TAR file (Tars are like zip or arj)

You would unarchive them from a linux console (like a dos prompt) this would create the whole directory structure with source files and so on.
From a command line you would then configure and compile the source code into an executable that would run on your system. A purist will say this is better, and they are right. Bet hell there is a lot of places that it can catch out a new user to linux. Usually with dependencies. many times i could not even get an executable for some obscure reason.
AN RPM however is a little like using a windows installer. The RPM contains (usually) all you need to run the ap including an executable. You will still find they sometimes wont work, but they are much much easier for the non expert i think.

As far as Yast goes it is a bit like say the windows control panel. It creates a GUI that helps to configure Suse. It is far from foolproof and to be honest, i thing as time goes by, Suse are making it worse. But it is still better than trying to learn all the interdependent configurations needed in a bunch of text files that you have to edit manually. If you dont use it, you will often find yourself editing some pretty scary text\script files trying to configure things. And let me say that can often be a little intimidating.
But expect to install it many times before you are happy. If you have a seconf machine that is not going to cause you problems if you crash the OS, try them all, Ubuntu, Suse, Mandriva. Anyway, I am no guru but if you get stuck, start a thread somewhere, there seems to be a few linux people here that can probably help.
Cheers

Debian's (and Ubuntu's) apt-get is generally better at avoiding dependency hell, only problem is Debian is a bit more advanced and Ubuntu is bloated.

I agree, i remember battling away at uni one day trying to install some package...I think it might have been DVD::SHRINK or something like that.
Anyway I was stuck in dependency hell, each time i would install a package, I would get errors about another. Anyway after a few hours, another student came into the honors room and was watching what I was doing. He leaned forward and said "May I" I told him go for it. Anyway it only took him a minute or two to set up aptget and then he run it. One bloody command line and it found every dependency issue and resolved it. The app worked immediately after. So yes it is a great little tool thats for sure.