Which is the best Linux??

maxpi · Feb 20, 2004

My trading computer got hit with something the other day, it got past the hardware firewall and messed with Zone Alarm and who knows what all. It was inevitable. I want to buy a new computer and put Linux on it and use it for web surfing, downloading and playing music, office documents, etc.

Which Linux is stable and easy to install and maintain?? Mozilla should be a good browser but maybe somebody knows of a better one. Is Star office the best for working with MS Office docs?

Max

nononsense · Feb 20, 2004

Quote from maxpi:

My trading computer got hit with something the other day, it got past the hardware firewall and messed with Zone Alarm and who knows what all. It was inevitable. I want to buy a new computer and put Linux on it and use it for web surfing, downloading and playing music, office documents, etc.

Which Linux is stable and easy to install and maintain?? Mozilla should be a good browser but maybe somebody knows of a better one. Is Star office the best for working with MS Office docs?

Max

Good question maxpi,

You could look at Redhat/Fedora, Mandrake for example. They install easily on practically all hardware. Many other choiced exist.

StarOffice works very, very well with MS Office docs.

You could also have a quick look at Linux on self booting CD. These do not require installation on harddisk. This is not recommended for a permanent job though. (See Knoppix and Mandrake). This might help you to quickly get a feel for it, even on your present Windoz based machine.

nononsense

Kingvest · Feb 20, 2004

I like Gentoo though it's probably not perfect for beginners.
Instead of StarOffice use OpenOffice which is the open source pendant.

However, I think you won't have much fun switching to linux for these reasons.

Good beginner linuxes are Red Hat, SuSe, Mandrake

fxtrading · Feb 20, 2004

Quote from maxpi:

My trading computer got hit with something the other day, it got past the hardware firewall and messed with Zone Alarm and who knows what all. It was inevitable. I want to buy a new computer and put Linux on it and use it for web surfing, downloading and playing music, office documents, etc.

Which Linux is stable and easy to install and maintain?? Mozilla should be a good browser but maybe somebody knows of a better one. Is Star office the best for working with MS Office docs?

Max

i prefer mandrake. if something is getting by your hardware firewall you might also want to use the new linux box as a firewall for your network. install shorewall(firewall), webmin(web admin interface) and add a 2nd nic to your box. i use a dedicated mandrake firewall pc at my house - 300mhz celeron is more than enough to be a firewall.

mtwokay · Feb 20, 2004

Is Debian any good?

Kingvest · Feb 20, 2004

Debian is good but it's more of the rockstable server linux than an up to date desktop linux

StillTrading · Feb 20, 2004

Quote from maxpi:

Mozilla should be a good browser but maybe somebody knows of a better one.
Max

Id recommend Galeon as a web browser.

corvus · Feb 20, 2004

FYI, I have had some success getting trading apps to work under Mandrake using the Crossover plugin tool. Esignal & Ensign work decently...

wavetrader · Feb 20, 2004

Quote from corvus:

FYI, I have had some success getting trading apps to work under Mandrake using the Crossover plugin tool. Esignal & Ensign work decently...

Can you give a little more detail about your Linux system (ie., which flavor/version, desktop, software, plug-ins, even hardware, do you have it on a different computer or just a different partition)?

Can you also show screenshots?

I am looking into setting up my trading platform on a Linux box, but I am new to all this and not very tech-savvy, so I'm a bit apprehensive.

Much thanks,
wt

corvus · Feb 20, 2004

Quote from wavetrader:

Can you give a little more detail about your Linux system (ie., which flavor/version, desktop, software, plug-ins, even hardware, do you have it on a different computer or just a different partition)?

Can you also show screenshots?

I am looking into setting up my trading platform on a Linux box, but I am new to all this and not very tech-savvy, so I'm a bit apprehensive.

Much thanks,
wt

I've done this now on two seperate systems, and under both Mandrake and Redhat 9. Both machines have pretty dramatic hardware differences...one is a 2+ GHz P4 with 768 MB RAM and the other is a 700MHz Athlon with 320 MB RAM. One machine is a dual desktop, one is single. I used the Crossover Office tool, which is essentially a user-friendly Wine front-end, to install the applications from the install.exe files. The process was remarkably painless...

Certainly running Esignal or Ensign this way isn't nearly as friendly as running it under windows...in general, UI elements have little quirks. For instance under Ensign you cannot minimize a window without getting some odd rendering problems. That's going to force me to rework how I lay out my workspace. But I was most interested in getting some sort of inexpensive retail data feed to work under a UNIX environment...and Esignal does appear to work. I will be trying IQFeed soon.

See these threads for more info and some screenshots:

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=418867#post418867
http://forum.esignalcentral.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=35292#post35292