And the best distro of 2012 is ...

Here's the most exciting article of this year, the one reviewing the best Linux distribution of 2012, with focus on aesthetics, ease of use, stability, and long-term support. So please, do take a look. The summary of 2012, Linux, Dedoimedo style.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/best-distro-2012.html


Cheers,
Mrk

 

Interesting list, thank you for posting it. I think that if the Fedora 17 Xfce spin included Xfce 4.10, it could have been higher on the list.

(Disclosure: F17 is my favorite desktop GNU/Linux distribution right now, and Xfce is my favorite DE.)

 

Another vote for F17. It is as solid as rock. Have been using it as lone OS for past 2 months. I am very impresssed. To say this as Beta would be like claiming Ubuntu and mints as alphas.

 

Ubuntu 12.04LTS for me, unfortunately Canonical have turned it into a home shopping OS

 

fedora is shocking yes indeed

but yes linux mint is no doubt best distro after that i follow ubuntu LTS and xubuntu LTS or newone (in ubuntu base system)

but as old and gold i see centos and SL best distro for stability and LTS but stella is new look good from review )

just i one thing Linux mint 14(nadia) can be backport in linux mint 13 LTS(maya)

some say its best of both so i guess if you may have free time and put more light on it as well.

 

also like to add 2 fresh distro which lot of people like to be tested by none other that great mrk

Qubes OS

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=qubes

and

ROSA 2012 "Desktop.Fresh 2012 (non-free edition)

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=338221

 

I really do like Linux Mint 14. It is installed on my own computer, mothers computer who is computer illiterate and also just a casual game server for me and some friends. It's stable, reliable and easy to use

 

Linux mint is its own class. Solus OS is excellent and is a comfy lay-z-boy chair aka gnome 2. I like Voyager the classy xfce distro too.

Linux mint desperately needs to pimp their KDE iteration, Chakra and Manjaro are better IMHO.

 

I tried breaking free of SalixOS for a while... It doesn't work. Nothing else has all of:
- Stable software
- A sane release cycle
- Decent package management with dependency resolution
- Non-split packages
- A preconfigured desktop

Some (mind, only some) of the major distros show the same level of stability. None of them match the level of convenience.

 

Manjaro has to be up there, class distro!

 

i never tried Manjaro so goona check that too

but when it comes to stability, and long-term support nothing can beat redhat clones

the only pain in @$$ is tweaking it and multiple repository instead of one i wish there is only one like rpm fusion in fedora

which i guess pretty much resolved in stella for those who dont want to do that even

 

i agree with Mint for top spot.
thought i like the XFCE version the best.

tried Ubuntu but i did not care one bit for the gadget that runs along the left side of the screen.
worst than Metro i thought.
much worst.

 

I have to admit that I'm very new to Linux, apart from the occasional test here and there, but after using Windows 8 and thinking it's just the most clunky, disorganised, awkward, slow, ugly OS I've ever used, I've switched to Mint 14 Cinnamon and I think it's absolutely fantastic. Everything just works, it's simple, it's logically set out - I just love it.

The big test will be if I'm still using it in a week or two - will there be things I miss from Windows? I hope not. It really is impressive.

Oh, and Mrkvonic, your tutorials and information have been invaluable .

 

It gets my vote too

 

Yes, and that's of paramount importance if one uses the OS for serious work and not just for fun only to distro hop a few days later because something is not quite right.
That is the case with me right now, with all the 'Buntus there are some things that are 'not quite right' so I use them for anything but banking, stock trading, keeping important documents etc.
I tried Mint Xfce as well, it is quite nice but watch the flashplugin in the default install after upgrades - it's very old - better change to the plugin from canonical servers. The download mirrors were too slow for me, all of them, about ¼ of my usual speed, obviously a country specific thing and not Mint Xfce's doing.

 

Mrk voting Mint number one...now there's a surprise. . It use to be Suse a long time ago...in a land far, far away. . I disagreed with him back then just as I do today. My vote would be Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (after a bunch of deleting and tweaking). It's rock solid, beautiful, and it's good for another 4+ years. It's a keeper.

Speaking of distro hopping, for the past number of days I've been trying out Cinnarch (based on Cinnamon and Arch Linux, obviously). It's quite nice really after you learn your way around. You practically have to "systemctl enable" everything to get it to run right. It's a pain but it does leave you with a feeling of satisfaction once you've licked a problem. But I can't decide whether I love it or hate it. . I have concluded that "Archies" must have strong sense of masochism running through them to put up with the BS. .

Later...

 

i guess best distro is what you use day to day work on

it maybe kubuntu ubuntu xubuntu linux mint scientific linux....etc

perfect is what you use daily + it work stable and more if its LTS

but mrk see overall for his sexy fan's followings point of view as well

Form all sides including that it should be easy and little or no confusing in this case yes linux mint clear winner.

this one for Mrk

source: http://alexiuss.deviantart.com/art/...7-157728008?q=gallery:alexiuss/26168220&qo=29

 

That must be Mrk on the right (and mack_guy911 on the left.. ). The resemblance is uncanny. Wonder if he's listening to "Shock the Monkey" by Peter Gabriel? Do to know how old that song is? Mrk must be ancient. . I did like Sledge Hammer, though.

Later..

P.S.
Listen to some Beatles, Mrk. I get the feeling that you haven't.

 

I listened to Beatles a long time ago.
Now it's time for Frankie and Rush to reign supreme.
Mrk

 

I don't know why, but Cinnamon always felt laggy to me. In fact, now that I'm thinking about it, Unity has the same problem.

I once ran Linux Mint with Cinnamon on my computer with 12GB of RAM and a quad-core 3.2ghz processor and still felt a noticeable delay in opening menus. Am I alone in this or what?

 

LOL i like some beatles too but more like abba and scorpions old as gold i guess they are before even i born

did you check compiz and desktop effect in mint by default they enable you have to close them and check again strange problem you are facing

 

On my Intel i5 laptop with Intel 3000 HD video, Unity is blazing fast, I do use latest Intel drivers from oibaf ppa.

@mack_guy911 ditto on your music choice.

 

^This. Cinnamon's effects settings are too lazy out of the box. They can be easily changed in the Cinnamon Settings menu.

I recently installed a stripped down Gnome 3.4 shell into an Xubuntu base to see what would happen. My world is now upside down. This was on a 13" laptop and I REALLY liked it, enough to spend a few hours getting it to do and look exactly as I wanted.

I didn't want to give the computer back and now I'm considering setting up my own like this. It had xfce as a fallback but with Gnome for fancy time and was still lighter than a default Ubuntu & Mint install. In Greybird instead of the eye-searing Adwaita, I was very impressed.

Anyway, I vote Xubuntu because it starts minimal and you can build a lot for yourself from there but it's still basic enough for beginners.

 

Out of the distros I tried 2012 was not a good year for me for Linux distros.

I really wanted to like Fedora 17, but I still got a few crashes and some dependency issues with apps needing gtk2 but only gtk3 was selected/installed.

Linux Mint is still quite nice, but still does daft things when it comes to package management and reliance on desktop only tools. Debian edition still looks very promising but still a beta product IMHO.

Ubuntu finally got a usable version of Unity, but make some back steps with its online services. Ubuntu is still my personal choice of distro as its still the most stable and the default package selection is closest to what I need/use and I already use it.

If I have to pick a favourite though it will be Xubuntu. A great Mid-weight XFCE setup, that I find hits a real good sweet spot between usability and performance. If Ubuntu failed for some reason on my main machine, Xubuntu is what I would choose to install.