Newbie to Linux OS

[retluopekaj]

Hi, I thought I would try out Ubuntu so I dual booted it on my 250gb HD with windows 7. I ended up also trying fedora and Linux Mint and somehow wiped windows 7 from my HD and had to reinstall Windows 7 :/

Now that I've had a look at Linux I have a few questions that I would like answered, These may have been asked before or may be asked an annoying amount of times but I am interested in linux for the time being.

Q1, What is The best Linux OS for gaming? Or do I stick to Windows 7

Q2, I had troubles with internet on all the Linux OS's. I tried searching up and apparently need ndiswrapper to install the driver for my Wireless USB connector.
Ndiswrapper was pre-installed on Linux Mint and I tried installing My D-Link DWA-125 with it using the cd but it still didnt work. Is there a way around this,

Q3, What is the fastest Linux OS?

Q4, What is the most universal and easy to use, Such as which has the most program compatibility, Any that can run windows programs or games?


These are all the questions I have so far. I have to reinstall a Linux OS if yous would like to help me. So first of all just need to know what OS I should Install, Then we can go from there to help install the drivers and stuff,,

Thanks in advance

[oz]

Now that I've had a look at Linux I have a few questions that I would like answered, These may have been asked before or may be asked an annoying amount of times but I am interested in linux for the time being.

Q1, What is The best Linux OS for gaming? Or do I stick to Windows 7

Q2, I had troubles with internet on all the Linux OS's. I tried searching up and apparently need ndiswrapper to install the driver for my Wireless USB connector.
Ndiswrapper was pre-installed on Linux Mint and I tried installing My D-Link DWA-125 with it using the cd but it still didnt work. Is there a way around this,

Q3, What is the fastest Linux OS?

Q4, What is the most universal and easy to use, Such as which has the most program compatibility, Any that can run windows programs or games?

Hello and welcome to the forums!

Yes, these questions have all been asked countless times so a forum search will reveal additional information. Also, check the link in my signature for lots of good information on getting started with Linux.

Q1) Windows games will run better on Windows most of the time. Dual-boot if you want the best of both Linux and Windows.

Q2) I don't do any wireless so can't help with that but you can start here with your wireless troubleshooting:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/wir...tart-here.html

Q3) Theoretically, all Linux distributions should run about the same speed on any given hardware if they are configured exactly the same. It all depends on what services and apps are running. That said, CRUX felt faster than any other distro that I've run.

Q4) Easy to use depends on the user. Some new Linux users don't find any Linux distribution very easy, while others seem to feel comfortable with pretty much any distro that they load up. Application compatibility (not package compatibility) should be the same for all Linux distros. See Q1 above for running Windows apps on Linux, or you can try running Windows apps with WINE on Linux.

Best of luck to you with your efforts and venture into the world of Linux.

[hazel]

There's usually a trade-off between "fast" and "easy to use". Newbies tend to find Linux easiest to use when they have a distro that does as much as possible for them automatically. They don't want to get their hands dirty fiddling about under the hood.

Their's nothing intrinsically wrong with that attitude, but it requires quite complex software to make it work. And that inevitably means heavy memory use and a slow system. What makes distros like Crux so fast is that they strip out all that complexity. I adore Crux but I wouldn't recommend it to a newbie for that reason.

You could try Puppy, which runs entirely in RAM and is quite newbie-friendly.

[Charles4809]

If you want a distro that works out of the box with almost all hardware I would recommend Pinguy, it has Ubuntu as base, added a lot of Mint goodies and incorporated Wine software which allows to play with Windows apps. And IMO it's pretty fast, even on my low spec computer.
If even with Pinguy your wireless still doesn't work I suggest you follow Ozars advice about that.
Happy hunting