Linux Distros (Flavours)

Go to the excellent DistroWatch for the latest news on Linux Distributions and Package (Software) releases. There you will get a summary of all the distros, a link to their download page and an indication of its popularity with the Page Hit Rankings - how many hits that the distro's download page recieved.

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computing!!

Puppy Linux

OK, maybe too much info, so to ease our way into this land of Linux Distros lets start with Puppy Linux a tiny distro that fits onto a CD or USB key.

There's a couple of steps, first visit their website and download a 126MB ISO, not too big, and a matching Checksum file which is used to make sure that the download was successful. Then burn that image onto a CD or USB Stick and Tweak your computer so that you can choose to boot from that CD or USB Stick instead of its hard drive, easy PC or should I say "Woof, Woof" more ».

What are you waiting for, that puppy needs to go for a walk...

Prepare

After playing with Puppy for a while you may want to install a Linux Operating System onto a PC, Puppy can help with that: use Gparted Partition Manager to prepare the PC's hard drive, mount and download an ISO onto it, check that the ISO downloaded correctly and then burn the ISO onto a USB Drive. Then you are ready to Install »

Debian

I installed Debian on a laptop that originally ran Windows Vista, taking screen shots along the way. The installer is old school but gives a good overview of the installation process and choices that need to be made more ».

Debian old skool installer

Don't be put off by the steps listed... more ».