Gotta try it!

[Spiffy1]

I've been threatening to try Linux for a few years and just never did. However, I'll have the old system from the inlaws sitting here with a cheapo but good mobo, good processor etc, a good hard drive, and a fried drive I'd like to recover.

A recovery place noted I should try Linux [rather odd one here: windows will recognize the drive in hardware, but it has too many bad sectors or something for Windows to name it a drive]: Perfect excuse!

Didn't want to threaten the FAP with a download, so $5 on Ebay and Fedora is on its way!

Oh the choices!
With Ubuntu you're not remotely a rebel anymore, but not sure if something like Slackware would be too optimized and reduce chances on the drive recovery.....
Puppy [on a stick!], was very temping, but was too lazy to check whether anything I had around here would boot from a stick....
I hoped to stumble across a plain old version of Debian [perhaps a few years old] that might be simple enough yet to really optimize my chances of it recognizing that drive, but probably didn't look in the right places.....
So RedHat or SuSE, that way I could be somewhat intelligent in casual conversations with IT guys: a disk with Fedora [RedHat] was the first bootable/installable my Ebay search turned up from a seller with plenty of good feedback, so Fedora it is!

Now let's see how long before I get around to playing with it!

[Bobcat]

There was a distribution that would boot and run from CDROM. You could play with Linux without doing anything to the hardrive until and unless you wanted to. Gotta look it up, pretty sure it was a German group...




Found it, Debian-based Knoppix.

[Spiffy1]

Not sure I could even make a WAG at the percentages, but it seemed like quite few can be used that way, Puppy comes to mind. This disk is supposed be live with optional install, so I had to try it even though I don't know that liveCD is one of Fedora's claims.

Interesting to see which you were thinking of and how many off-shoots have developed since. Thanks Bob!

[Bobcat]

I was surprised at all of the LiveCD and LiveUSB distros out there now, too! I remember when Knoppix first came out and how amazing we thought it was back then, but now it looks like just about every distro has a 'live' version.

[Spiffy1]

A quick search at Linux gives one in German that probably really fits this scenario: Fli4L

Three partial suspects, one obviously live: Knoppix
one definitely German: ERPOSS
one definitely German in name [from Austria]: Wienux