Move from windows to ... what Linux?

Hi there,
Like many millions pc zombies in the world I've been running windows for years, 98, 2K and now XP. I've lost the account of crashes that I've suffered, data lost and reloading windows again and again.
I always wanted to moved to Linux and have used Mandrake in the early days (always that X server problem!), ReadHat and now use Suse in a laptop. However I stil use windows as my main desktop and are scare of moving to linux for the following:
1. What 'flavour' shall I use? I know is a silly question but I have no idea what label of linux provided the most stable kernel as a whole.
My other main ghost about linux is: how do i recover data is case of system failure? After the years I've learnt in windows that you install in C:\ only the OS, put all your stuff in D:\ and let it go; when it crashes (that it will) just wipe C:\ and you keep you data intact. But how do you do that in linux? the /home partition always need to be formatted when you do a new instalation, right?

Not at all. If the /home directory is on another partition, when installing any distribution of Linux /home is never set to be formatted by default. You have to manually ask for it.

Try downloading the Ubuntu distribution (7.10 available right now) & you can run it as a Live CD at first, eventually installing it if you like it.

I'd give ubuntu linux a try. Beryl looks good as

Ubuntu? that's a new one. I just download it and I'm surprise it fits on a CD only, bet OpenOffice is not include. I'll give it a try on my laptop.
Thank you very much guys for your suggestions.

Actually OpenOffice is included with Ubuntu.

Yes, I used/will use Ubuntu and love it. The only thing I have against Linux is the fact that if you have Dial up you have to go through a bit of trouble to get connected.

Mostly because the modems you can purchase or the ones included with computers are winmodems nowadays. It's still impressive that Linux managed to get them working as they've really had no help from manufacturers.

i like ubuntu personally

I have tried Ubuntu and Xubuntu, to me, they are both just great, but I thinkj they are more "looks" then functionality. I could only live with Ububtu for about a week, then it started driving me crazy, so I tried openSUSE, and I LOVE it, it does not look as "cool" as the Ubuntu os, but the functionality and ease of use makes up for it all.



--Daniel L

no.

The naive approach to installing Linux is just two filesystems (in widows terms, partitions): the / (root) and /swap for paging.

Just like you did with C:\ and D:\, you can place user data in its own filesystem and
automount it at boot time. This also allows dual boot Linux and to mount the user data on whatever system you boot.

the /etc/fstab in the / (root) filesystem controls mounting and you just add a line
to mount /home

Thank you jobeard for the tip!
I never tried to mount the home partition and will do that in the next installation.
I am currently using Ubuntu and is very user friendly, let's see when the problems arise

remember, you have to mkfs first, mkdir /home, then add the row to fstab

I'd go for Suse, much easier to use than Ubunto or Redhat.

Oh, Yes - Open Office is there; I've been using Ubuntu for a very long time and to date it has NEVER crashed nor given me any problem. It does all my banking and office work and I see no reason to line Microsoft's bank balance for an OS that is NOT AS GOOD AS UBUNTU! My Toshiba laptop has been dual booting Ubuntu and Xp ever since I can remember. I've had to reinstall XP twice but Ubuntu not at all. There must be a moral in this.
Regrds and all the very best.

There's a recent review of openSUSE 10.3 here, if you want further info on it...

http://www.itreviews.co.uk/software/s575.htm

I have used many versions of Linux (Ubuntu, RedHat, YellowDog, Linspire)
My favorite was YellowDog but everybody has their own taste.

Linspire/freespire are currently the only distributions that we have tried that pass all of our requirements for operating system user-friendliness. I myself am using Linspire and freespire on all of my systems (no Microsoft anything on my systems).

I agree entirely. I tried PCLinuxOS 2007, Fedora Core 8, Ubuntu 7.10, Kubuntu 7.10 and even Solaris 10. None of them kept my interest and they all had their share of problems.

Once I tried OpenSUSE 10.3 I settled down and really enjoy using a Linux distro over Windows for once.

Ubuntu has a large user base so the illusion is that you get better support. But I just didn't like it and I do not like Gnome at all either. OpenSUSE offers great support as well through it's Wiki and forums.

I disagree, ubuntu's community and support is second to none. And this is not due to it's large userbase but down to the support and community ethic they have. Also if you don't like gnome then there's kubuntu.

You have an Ubuntu avatar, I wouldn't expect you to agree. It's just what I noticed, not being a fan of anything really myself. As I said, I gave a lot of distros a try and I'm coming directly from Windows.

Kubuntu isn't the answer. After a fresh install I'd try to run updates and it would always mess up in the middle of installing them. That was Kubuntu 7.10 by the way. It's just Ubuntu with KDE. So I still don't like Ubuntu and why would I want to try Kubuntu again over OpenSUSE?