Which is the best? X/K/Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, Slackware, Fedora, SUSE or any other

[Nanodaniel]

Which is the best? X/K/Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, Slackware, Fedora, SUSE or any other. Anybody with short and objective pros and/or cons of any of these please post them. Thanks!

[ajgreeny]

No possible way to answer this, I'm afraid. It's a bit like asking which is best, a Rolls Royce or a MINI, and which colour upholstery is best in the chosen car.

I suggest you have a look at Distrowatch (http://distrowatch.com/) and scout around there looking at reviews of some of those listed distros. All have their good and bad points, but it all comes down to personal preferences in the end.

[tuahaa]

Depends on what you are doing. I prefer Ubuntu (and variants) because 1) The community is very large and active, 2)It's a great desktop distro, 3) Huge documentation, 4) pwns windows, 5) is actively updated (but thats like the other popular Linux distros), and 6) Popular with normal users (this has advantages, mainly ones I listed above but there are more.

Of course, I can't say that I'm not bias because I haven't used other distros (except Fedora).

[zaksworld]

They're all really good OSs. It depends on your purpose that you eat to us your computer for and how much memory you want/have to spare. If you just want a good desktop computer, then I honk ubuntu would be the best choice (kubuntu if you don't have a lot of memory to spare) because it has great support and most programs that are written for windows and mac also make them for ubuntu, but a lot of times not for any other type of Linux. ;)

[snowpine]

Ubuntu is the best, obviously. :)

[Nanodaniel]

Does anyone else have any suggestions as I want to decide soon?

[andrew.46]

Hi Nanodaniel,

Does anyone else have any suggestions as I want to decide soon?

I would suggest that you select a primary distro and then install a copy of VirtualBox to run as many other distros as you wish to experiment with. I attach a screenshot of my own system running Slackware 13.0 host with Karmic Koala Beta guest and Windows XP guest. Not that hard to setup and a huge amount of fun as well :).

Andrew

[Jean-Danjou]

As a new user, already tested most of the flavours. I found Ubuntu the less confusing and most basic for a good start on Linux.
But like it been said before: How long is a piece of string?
Have fun & may the Force be with you!

[andrew.46]

Hi Jean-Danjou,

How long is a piece of string?

Twice as long as half of it....

Andrew

[Bigtime_Scrub]

They are all good depending on your level of Linux knowledge. I do not like Slackware though. It is easy enough to install even though installation isn't very pretty, but maintaining it and figuring out all the dependencies yourself is a nightmare. Then they have very small official repositories.

No doubt I will be flamed by Slack fanboys but I don't care, it's 2009, get a package manager that does dependencies for you. The argument for Slack is that it allows you to put what you want in exactly the way you want.

Which leads me to the next distro that brings pain, Gentoo. It takes forever to set up. Again though, if you like the pain it is fast but I don't think it is worth the effort to set up, some people feel differently I'm sure.

For advanced users I say Debian or Arch. You can build your system from the ground up without all the B.S.

Intermediate knowledge distros imho would be like Fedora or Ubuntu or SUSE.

new people I usually steer towards Mint or Mandriva.

This doesn't mean though advanced users can't use Mint or new guys can't use Arch...it just seems like the distros cater to certain users.

There is no right or wrong answer here. There is only choice. Hell if you love Slackware use Slackware, I am just the messenger giving you honest opinions. I have distro hopped a lot.

[Nanodaniel]

Hi Nanodaniel,



I would suggest that you select a primary distro and then install a copy of VirtualBox to run as many other distros as you wish to experiment with. I attach a screenshot of my own system running Slackware 13.0 host with Karmic Koala Beta guest and Windows XP guest. Not that hard to setup and a huge amount of fun as well :).

Andrew

Thanks. When I try out these other distros inside ubuntu, can I install programs in them to see if they work? (skype doesn't work for me in ubuntu)

Also I was trying out openSUSE and this message came up saying it couldn't continue the installation because: "Valid Metadata not found at specified URL". What does this mean? What do I do? Thanks! Would it have to do with me installing the 64 bit version? I think this PC supports it.

[maflynn]

I posted a similar question and someone posted this link http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major I found it quite informative to understanding the differences between the various versions of Linux

I also played with Fedora this weekend and there was a lot I like of it. It required a lot of work for me to get it up and running (issues with nvidia) and my VPN still isn't working. This lead me to believe that Ubuntu offers a great mixture of stability and performance for the desktop.

I'm not giving up on fedora yet but I am focusing back on Ubuntu.

Also I found the apt-get utility to be light years ahead of yum in terms of packages available.

[Dharmachakra]

At the end of the day, they're all the same thing.

[andrew.46]

Hi NanoDaniel,

Thanks. When I try out these other distros inside ubuntu, can I install programs in them to see if they work? (skype doesn't work for me in ubuntu)

Yes, the distros will work as normal. Various small issues exist, you will need a decent amount of ram, 3d acceleration is still new, network access is virtual rather than real etc etc. But well worth a try :).

Andrew

[maflynn]

At the end of the day, they're all the same thing.
I disagree, I think there's enough differences between each version that you can have a completely different experience between two versions of of Linux.

Am I a n00b, yes, do I know other versions indepth, no but from what I've been reading thee are can be significant differences between the various distros to alter the look, feel, performance and compatibility of Linux. Yes the kernel could be the same but little else could be.