Which Linux Distro do you run and why ?

Discussion in 'other software & services' started by NGRhodes, Feb 7, 2007.

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  1. NGRhodes

    NGRhodes Registered Member

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    If things goto plan I should be able to dump Windows soon, currently planning on using Caos flavour of Linux, mainly because one of my best friends uses it on all there servers he looks after (over a dozen at different locations) and is a maintainer.
    I don't really know if it is a good distro or not (I've only ever used Slackware in depth before years ago), so I thought I would see what you guys run and why ?
     
  2. Mrkvonic

    Mrkvonic Linux Systems Expert

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    Hello,

    Once you get the hang of things, it doesn't really matter what you use.
    That said, Suse and Ubuntu are my first choices:

    Both very stable, rich in applications, developed constantly.
    Strong user community, professional forums.
    Lots of reps, lots of manuals, easy access to knowledge.
    Continuous support.

    Good for both beginners and advanced users.

    Being major players, you have a good chance of finding the right stuff quickly and fast - and first - often software will be tested on these platforms.

    I'd advise staying away from Gentoo as a beginner.

    Mandriva, RedHat, Fedora are pretty much like these fellas above.

    Mrk
     
  3. malformed

    malformed Former Poster

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    My favourite is Mandriva - Large user base, active community, cutting edge if you wish to use those repos.

    But I also like and use the following:
    Debian - Great history, solid stand on 'free' (example: firefox name/logo issue), well developed and mature distro, very stable.
    Kubuntu - Large user base, foundation is Debian, lots of support and documentation, great 'starter' distro, I use Kubuntu to demo Linux to friends that are interested in trying Linux.
    Slackware - the most stable Linux distro out there, and the longest standing.
    Fedora - another quality well rooted distro

    Specialized Distros > SecureDVD - http://securedvd.org/about.html which includes both Auditor (which has now been merged with Whax and is only available afaik as Back Track) and Back Track - http://www.remote-exploit.org/backtrack.html.
     
  4. FastGame

    FastGame Registered Member

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    PCLinuxOS

    Easy, fast, stable.

    Best Control Center

    Root and User accounts.

    Don't need Command line, unless you want.

    One of the best KDE RPM builders there is, Texstar

    Top notch hardware detection, one of the few distros that automaticaly detects & configures Linux compatible dialup modems.

    Everything works out of the box, full multimedia support without using voodoo to get it.....

    Re-master your own LiveCD's with "mklivecd ISO"

    PCLinuxOS truley is "Good for both beginners and advanced users."

    I also use PC-BSD, its nice :)
     
  5. 800ster

    800ster Registered Member

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    Agree with PCLinuxOS. Also MEPIS is comparable for a new user or Kubuntu if you know a little already. These are all KDE and I tend to switch around between them as new versions come out. Found these more user friendly than the more mainstream OpenSuse, Fedora etc.
     
  6. Genady Prishnikov

    Genady Prishnikov Registered Member

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    I have to agree with the praise for PCLinuxOS. As I said in another thread, it is the easiest distro for PC users to make the transition. It auto-mounts drives, very "Windows-like" but in a safe Linux environment. The "final" release should be coming soon, it has been delayed, but I've been using the LiveCD with no problems in detecting network, printer, drives, audio/video, etc. It has a nice package of programs and everything is there to have you up and going in no time. You can use the LiveCD or install on your PC. As nice as Ubuntu is, PCLinuxOS is far easier for anybody new to Linux.

    You can give it a spin here:
    http://www.pclinuxos.com/page.php?7
     
  7. Mrkvonic

    Mrkvonic Linux Systems Expert

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    Hello,

    But you must admit that command line is 99% of fun in Linux ...

    It's all nice and well for beginners, but once they dig in, compiling, tweaking, getting drivers to work, hacking the printer, all those make for an excellent learning experience, a huge ego / confidence booster, geekage, and overall Linux knowledge.

    Once you get the hang of it, it's really the matter of taste.

    Mrk
     
  8. Alphalutra1

    Alphalutra1 Registered Member

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    Arch Linux

    1) Optimised for i686 (runs faster since it is compiled for more modern computers)

    2) KISS philosophy

    3) Great installer, that enables me to get a base system installed in about 5 minutes

    4) Install allows me to install only the "base", so no other apps that I don't need are included and I start with a very minimal system, so then I build my own custom system with no worthless junk I will never used.

    5) Pacman - Great package manager, it just works

    6) Great community - excellent forums, IRC group, and wiki

    7) AUR - Basically, anyone can make a package and upload it there, so weird and arcane packages are simple to install since someone has already done all of the hard work involved

    :cool: ABS - Arch Build System, brings the freebsd style of ports to linux, along with allowing me to rebuild applications already on my pc with different options

    9) Did I say fast, like lightning speed

    10) Command line orientated, so it is simple and quick

    11) Umm, a lot more, just let me think for a little while

    Also, you shouldn't restrict your choices to just linux, freebsd is also excellent for the desktop.

    Secondly, don't be scared of gentoo, if you can read documentation, you can install it which is the hardest part (it holds your hand), and they have an excellent community. I don't run it because of the compile times mainly, since I have an older computer, and upgrading my system would render it useless for a day or two (but it does provide an excellent space heater).

    Cheers,

    Alphalutra1
     
  9. NGRhodes

    NGRhodes Registered Member

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    True, my webserver runs Linux and I know enough commands to manage mysql and apache and php (edit config files, restart the services etc), infact when I was at uni all the Minix/Linux I did (and programming) was all command line as well, so I am quite happy to jump into the deep end... conversely though it would have to be also an OS which is as easy as XP to use for my Wife (which all she does is email and surf the web)!

    :)
     
  10. tlu

    tlu Guest

    I recommend Ubuntu (one important reason can be found here), especially the version with the KDE GUI called Kubuntu which is probably more familiar for users coming from Windows.
     
  11. Old Monk

    Old Monk Registered Member

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    Genady and all on this thread.

    Thank you soooo much :D

    I've read Mrkvonic (and others I hasten to add) many, many threads on Linux and never really had the courage to dive in :oops:

    I did try a live CD of Ubunto a couple of years ago but my laptop monitor wasn't compatible.

    Having come across this thread this morning - I'VE DONE IT :D :D

    I'm sitting here looking at my laptop with what appears to a successful live CD running of PCLinux OS and can't quite believe it :blink:

    Boy, am I going to have a play now ! The tutorial looks very user friendly.This may just be the start of something I'm really going to enjoy.

    Thanks again for this thread
     
  12. djg05

    djg05 Registered Member

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    Horses for courses Mrk. Please bear in mind that some don't want to see the command line, instead just want it to work.
     
  13. Mrkvonic

    Mrkvonic Linux Systems Expert

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    Hello,
    No worries. Whatever rocks your boat. But in that case, you will only have about 1% of fun. Not that it isn't much. It's quite all right. Most people don't even have that. Windows users are somewhere around 0.1%.
    Mrk
     
  14. tansu

    tansu Registered Member

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    I was pretty ok with XP x64, but after vista I decided to make a complete move to Kubuntu, which was my second OS for a long time.
    Now I only use Kubuntu.
    The main reason is, enough for Windows.. I thought I must go minimalist. A friend gave me a vista ultimate as a present, I tried for a week and saw that it is a joke. All new stuff, especially security stuff was a joke.
    There are two videos in this page. The first one, installing opera in a common way in Ubuntu (apt-get) the second video is like we all know installing to windows. there were some people who think, installing software is a hard work in linux, so I made these. Which one looks easy?
     
  15. Mr2cents

    Mr2cents Registered Member

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    I'm dual booting Windows Me and Xubuntu. I tried several live cd distros before choosing Xubuntu. I have an older computer with a 700 mhz intel celeron processor, and only 192 mb of ramm. So I needed a lite running linux, and Xubuntu was the one I chose. As others have stated, Ubuntu, Kbuntu, Ebuntu, Xbuntu have a huge forum. If you have any question. Someone can answer you pretty quick.

    Most of the time you can find your answer just by doing a search on their forum. Someones probably already had the same problem as you, and it has already been answered. I really like the synapitic library that ubuntu has. If your looking for any kind of program. It's probably in there. There are hundreds of programs in their. Possibly thousands. Just get what you want, and it's free, and you don't even have to take it back. LOL.

    Among some of the other distros I tried were Puppy, which also has a huge following. DSL, or Damn small linux, Feather Linux, I couldn't get feather to work because it couldn't detect my wireless mouse. I liked puppy, dsl, However, they weren't as good as detecting my hardware. So, I chose Xubuntu.

    After hearing about pclinuxos. I downloaded it last night, and ran it as a live cd. I'm very impressed with pclinuxos. :) It detected all my hardware, even my printer. However, I couldn't get the printer to print. Maybe it was because I was running a live cd. I don't know. I'm completely new to linux so stuff like that is to be expected. I'm surprised that I was even able to run pclinuxos on a live cd. Because the website states you need a minimum of 256 mb of ramm. More would be better.

    Actually, it ran pretty good with 192 mb. Not as fast as Xubuntu, but that's to be expected with the little ramm I'm running. So, to answer your question. I run Xubuntu.
     
  16. FastGame

    FastGame Registered Member

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    Hardware detection is the biggest battle in Linux, your printer was detected so you won that battle :)

    I take it you DL the 2007 Test ? if so remember its a test and not a full release. I'm sure what ever you need for your printer to print will be in the full release or its in the repository.

    With your PC and seeing how you like Xubuntu maybe you'd like to try SAM, its the XFce version of PClinuxOS.
     
  17. Pedro

    Pedro Registered Member

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    When i get the HD to backup my files, etc. I will go for GNU/Linux
    I'm thinking about Debian, Kubuntu, Arch Linux (is it too hard Alphalutra? or is it the best to learn?), and another one i don't remember.
    Debian seems more appealing for the moment.:)
     
  18. Lamehand

    Lamehand Registered Member

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    I use Ubuntu, but after reading this thread i downloaded the liveCD from PClinuxOS.
    I liked that KDE-desktop, it looks good.

    Lamehand
     
  19. lodore

    lodore Registered Member

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    i just viewed the videos and it does look quite easy.
    is the command the same for all installs except you change opera to e.g. firefox?
    lodore
     
  20. farmerlee

    farmerlee Registered Member

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    I'm currently messing around with Slax, running it from a usb flashdrive. I'm a complete linux newb so this way if i screw anything up a reboot fixes everything.
     
  21. LockBox

    LockBox Registered Member

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    Thanks Genady and others!!! I downloaded PCLinuxOS last night and WOW! It detected everything on my system with the live cd. Color me impressed!
     
  22. NGRhodes

    NGRhodes Registered Member

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    Well my master plan to get a non-windows only printer has fallen through, looks like im stuck with XP for a while yet... (unfortunatly I need professional print quality and the linux drivers have half-toning problems).
     
  23. Alphalutra1

    Alphalutra1 Registered Member

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    You can try it, and make sure you look at all of the documentation and stuff, but it may be over your head, and cause you to despise linux until you learn the beauty of arch linux. For starters, go with kubuntu, get a working system up and running, start experimenting with what you like (which WM or DE like kde, ubuntu, dwm, wmii, ratpoison, enlightenment, etc., which browser, which e-mail client), and get comfortable. Then, start delving into the command line. Use apt-get instead of synaptic, move around the file system via the command line, edit configuration files, pick and get really adept with either nano, vim, or emacs, etc.

    Read up on the arch linux documentation, the beginner's guide is excellent from what I heard. Also, join the forums and get aquainted with the people and pick up some good info. Then, install it in a virtual machine. That way, you will have a working internet access and can switch back and forth getting it set up, and messing around with it.

    Cheers,

    Alphalutra1
     
  24. herbalist

    herbalist Guest

    At the moment, I'm using and old copy of Knoppix, version 3.6. Running a Poor Mans install. The newer version didn't recognize my hardware properly, but with this version, everything works properly.
    As much as I'd like to, I haven't found the time to work with a real installed version. The ones I've tried have all had problems working with my old hardware. I don't know enough about Linux to fix the problems. Besides, can't get much more secure than a Live CD.
    Rick
     
  25. tansu

    tansu Registered Member

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    If you have it in the repositories, yes, just change the word..
    And there are lots of applications in the repositories such as:
    apt-get install vmware-player
     
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