Which Linux Distro do you run and why ?

I did have PCLinuxOS installed at one time and then moved to Ubuntu. While the Ubuntu forums have more members, I missed the "personal" touches a small forum such as PCLinuxOS has. On Ubuntu's forums I felt like a faceless entity among thousands of others. Not really knocking Ub's forums since it is excellent for searching for solutions to your problems but it just didn't feel right for me.

 

lol i'll leave you all to it then, i really don't care what you do, you can use an abacus for all i care.

 

I like that....

PCLOS (abacus) vs ubuntu (calculator)

 

Just to let you know, things are running great, been partitioning and formating and copying data from NTFS and repartitioning and growing etc and after a bit of juggling I now have all 4 hdds converted to linux filesystems (ext3 for boot and XFS for main partitions + swap partitions).

Infact I just finished things off from work via putty/ssh in my lunch break.

Of course I am now starting to loath working on Windows at work

 

Hello,
Another convert!!!
BTW, I cannot imagine how anyone can compile in C under Windows. An abomination unto kernel.
Mrk

 

I cant stand the crappy windows server at college and the crappy computers.
last year aka the year before i went to my college they used to use a novel server but this year they converted to a crappy windows server and have had nothing but problems. do you want to know why they went to a windows server?
the stupid technicians didnt want to learn linux
the profiles used to be in kb but now they mega MB per profile and take ages to login.
why cant they go back to a linux server!
my home pc is working better atm thou so thats a good thing.
lodore

 

MinGW

But as to ubuntu linux, it has a HUGE userbase, great forums, and excellent IRC channel in addition to pretty darn good documentation. Documentation is an essential point I look for in a distribution. Arch Linux is improving their wiki and it is continually growing, gentoo has the handbook and excellent wiki, and freebsd has one of the best handbooks ever created.

BTW lodore, I run windows on one of my boxes, but I bet you can't tell it is windows (you would probably think it is fluxbox or blackbox). There are alternate shells you can use in windows, such as litestep or bblean).

Great to here you have the system going nickr . However, I don't think you will need ext3 for the boot partition, since ext3 adds journaling which is great if the partition needs to be constantly mounted and used in case of a crash, but it also takes up a lot more space. Since the kernel is loaded into memory, boot does not need to be mounted, so you can save space (and have more kernels ), if you just use ext2. But, ext3 is fine if you only have two or three (not the crazy amount I have and screw around with )

Cheers,

Alphalutra1

 

Hi, Alphalutra1

I have an Abacus that I was given as a child [well over 60 yearscul ago] and I see no wrone in using it, I can calculate faster that most moden Calculators and some people probably can use one much faster then I.

So why Ridicule the Abacus, which is nothing to with any OS.

Take Care,
TheQuest

PS: This is said light-hearty and not as a flame.

 

For a boot partition, what you say is true about ext3, but also it wont harm either...

 

I use Gentoo because I feel like I have control over packages installed. I also use OpenSUSE 10.2, for no particular reason.

 

Recently switched from PCLinuxOS to Zenwalk. PCLOS is great but sluggish on my computer; Zenwalk is faster and smoother.

 

Ubuntu is nothing fancy, but it works and right out of the box, also whatever little app or tweaking thats needed is covered up adequately by its excellent support system, take for instance installing nvidia drivers, every other distro I tried out had problems, in Ubuntu, one of the support members Alberto Milone wrote an excellent program called Envy, just install it, get out of the X server, type Envy and select option and you have a working 3D system with latest nvidia drivers downloaded from nvidia's site. There may be other fast, attractive and multi featured Linux distros out there, but very few achieve Ubuntu's functionality.

 

Interesting, speaking of "functionality"

What do you need to do to get dialup modems working ? (this is easier in Kubuntu but still need the CL)

Auto mount drives, USB sticks, Windows shares ?

Full multimedia support ?

You need to hang out in forums, read tutorials and learn the CL right from the start. So much for that "but it works and right out of the box" stuff

Of the Ubuntu's types, LinuxMint & MEPIS are better choices for functionality and works right out of the box.

Of coarse all I've said means little to those experienced in Linux, but, to those new to Linux this could be the difference between sticking with it or running fast back to M$.

 

Hello,
The best support for hardware I had was SUSE 10.1, btw. Very little tweaking. Also it depends on your hardware and vendors' support. Imagine you had no drivers for your mobo in Windows. You'd be doomed.
Mrk

 

For those that had mentioned PCLinuxOS 2007 - Thanks. I had previously tried/used PCLInuxOS because it was based on Mandriva (my favourite distro - as well as Slackware, Debian, and Fedora), the last release I used was 'Big Daddy' 0.94 - the last stable release. I'm currently installing 2007 on one of my PCs, it looks good, I'm impressed so far.

 

Don't all distro's have the same hardware support, since they all share the same linux kernel (actually, some may be better then others since they use a later kernel, but very few continually upgrade the kernel). If you mean automatic detection with no user intervention, then of course suse or *buntu is going to win.

Cheers

Alphalutra1

 

Hello,
That was the idea, in regard to the one post above mine
I had more trouble with SUSE 10.2 or Ubuntu 6.10, but mainly due to via drivers for a very tricky mobo.
Mrk

 

Where does Debian fit in those descriptions? Do it yourself, or if it's supported, auto?

 

Do it yourself. Ubuntu is ancient African for "can't install debian"

Cheers,

Alphalutra1

 

It depends on what you're talking about, Debain the disto or Distributions based on Debian

Good one

 

I see . Very pratical language. One short word

 

I was aware of that, but that's why i'm so interested in Debian, AKA, the original . I'll see if i can cope with it first. If not, Ubuntu.

 

I see that the debian-installer doesn't come with the X Window System. It's command line. It's ok, but i wish there was one manual that handles all of this, not like:

Buu.
Where do i find info about installing the X Window System on Debian? Are the comands and procedure the same in every distribution?
BTW, Debian's page could be simpler. I like to learn, but not spend most of the time looking for the info. This is not bad criticism, just an opinion.

EDIT: i found the info. Not easy to find. Information is all over the place i'm afraid. It doesn't put me off, but it is annoying.
Best all in one info-> books, copyrighted books... I'll ignore them for now.
I just need another method to look for info. It's not Windows world, i have to adjust

edit2: it seems all there is to know is in Debian's site. I was just lost in there... i have newbie written in my forehead

 

I went to Linux about 5 months ago and have tried a dozen or more distros and find that I now get the best performance on this old PC with Ubuntu. Also like PCLinuxOS quite a bit. Both are easy to use and nearly perfect out of the box. At the moment it's Ubuntu...

 

I just configured Debian from a "Debian 3.1 (Sarge), minimal install" VM appliance, and it looks exactly like Ubuntu. I forgot to configure a user account, so i logged in as root...
Debian with GNOME is basically the same as Ubuntu, except for packaging sys. etc.??