What is the worst Linux distro?

[NintendoTogepi]

What one have you tried and said "Ugh, this sucks, never again"?

[gjoellee]

I have not tried so many distros, but I think openSUSE is a bad distro...

[Kernel Sanders]

Borderless Linux

[dyous87]

In my opinion, the worst distros I've ever seen are Xandors and Freespire all though it all has to do with personal preference I guess

[cardinals_fan]

Freespire was the epitome of failure.

I hated Lunar too, but that's just because I wasn't competent enough to handle it.

[gilgongo]

OMG I'd totally erased the memory of Freespire until you just mentioned it. Totally the worst evar. Still, somebody has to get it wrong some times I suppose.

[Soldierboy]

I used to love Knoppix but the last release I tried left a bad taste in my mouth.

[NintendoTogepi]

What was so bad about Freespire? The website looks good...

[OutOfReach]

The website looks good...

Exactly, the website looks good. But when you get to the OS...
*Shivers* I never liked Freespire.

[gjoellee]

What was so bad about Freespire? The website looks good...

yeah I agree with the website, it looks pretty good compared to Debian's! The first Linux distro I where going to test was Debian, but because of their website I turned away from it and moved to Linux Mint, then Mandriva, then PCLinuxOS, then openSUSE (I hated that) and finally Ubuntu Intrepid which fits me nicely!

[SunnyRabbiera]

Ones I have tried that are complete junk:
Suse linux, despite its looks Suse is a joke, YAST has to be the worst package management tool I have ever used.
Yoper, GAH, what a nightmare
Mandriva prior to 2007
Ubuntu prior to Dapper
Fedora Core 5, 6 and 7
Gentoo before it got a decent installer, seriously a OS that takes days to get working is insanity... I am glad more modern Gentoo is a bit better.

[I-75]

Fluxbuntu, would not install on two computers, froze at the 5 o'clock position on the splash top on two other computers that I managed to install it on.

[SomeGuyDude]

I really really really did not like Xandros.

Sabayon also ran about as quickly as a sloth dipped in cold molasses, but that might have just been my problem.

[cardinals_fan]

I liked the idea behind Freespire (legal codecs, etc.), but the implementation was pathetic. Buggy, bloated, and downright stupid (CNR, that means you!).

Some others (with reasons this time):

* Gentoo: I realize that Gentoo has its place with some. However, waiting hour after hour for it to compile wasn't fun. And the graphical installer should be punishable by law; it crashed and was pointless overall.

* Lunar: Lunar was the one distro that was too hard for me. I got it installed, but configuration was just too much at the time. Maybe I could handle it now, but the memory is enough to scare me away from sourcemage and friends for quite some time.

* DreamLinux: I ran across tons of bugs, and the GUI installer... was not appropriate for young children or those with weak stomachs.

* gOS: The first release had some promise. I've never been big on the whole "web desktop" thing, but it had a fairly unique E17 desktop. Ever since the switch to GNOME, there's nothing left to like.

[NintendoTogepi]

What is so bad about Freespire and Xandro?

[cardinals_fan]

What is so bad about Freespire and Xandro?
I've never used Xandros, but Freespire just felt cheap and plasticy. The whole system was kind of poorly fitted together, and CNR was unquestionably atrocious.

[zmjjmz]

I actually cannot say I've ever had to use a *bad* Linux distro.
Mainly because all my distro hopping is done on old computers and you just can't expect much when they have to fit the distro on two 1.44MB floppies.

[chucky chuckaluck]

opensuse is sooooooo wtf, i can't understand its popularity. sabayon is great, until you try to install gimp (i read the encyclopedia, twice, while i waited).

[SomeGuyDude]

I hear that Sabayon is great if you do kind of a "build it yourself" concept, but I know that installing the DVD was simply slow as all get out. It might be that it's great when you make it right, but danged if my install wasn't just painful. Moving a window was slow, I started to miss Windows ME.

[loell]

IMAGICOS (http://www.imagicos.com/home.html)

see how they rebrand/rename openoffice by just changing the OOo splash screen and theme. dang!! iOffice!!

[Shippou]

First of all, nice thread!

I'm no Linux hater, but then there ARE really weird distros out there. We need to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I personally vote Mepis. Maybe because I got an outdated installer when I first tried it (version 3, I believe). And also Vixta. Promising to duplicate a Vista experience. But the OS has many problems, trying from the LiveCD alone.

I observe that Xandros and Freespire (and also maybe Linspire) are getting quite a beating here. Seems like Xandros, Inc. is the M$ of the Linux world.

Also OpenSuSe gets a beating. I must say that those collaborating with Microsoft only makes their distro beaten to the ground. As the Xandros site says,

Xandros and Microsoft
Learn how the collaboration between Xandros and Microsoft benefits Xandros customers


There's quite a pattern emerging, I guess.

[Shippou]

Hey guys, check out the iMagic OS table they posted in their site:

http://www.imagicos.com/why.html

[karellen]

opensuse 10

[handy]

Answering the threads title:

It depends on your hardware.

[ronnielsen1]

I personally vote Mepis. Maybe because I got an outdated installer when I first tried it (version 3, I believe).Mepis has evolved since version 3, and by the way I used version 3 back in 04 and it was the most stable (IMHO) OS out there at the time.
I personally vote Looking Glass (What a piece that was)
Totally agree with Yast - just click what you want to install and 5 hours later it's installed

[openBrandon]

@ KernelSanders

what exactly is so bad about Borderless Linux? Im on the dev team. if it has to do with the fact that we've changed things so many times, then thats pretty sad.. were new at this and now we've got a solid name. if you have any other issues why dont you discuss them?

[init1]

What was so bad about Freespire? The website looks good...

What is so bad about Freespire and Xandro?

I've never used Xandros, but Freespire just felt cheap and plasticy. The whole system was kind of poorly fitted together, and CNR was unquestionably atrocious.
Freespire didn't recognize my NIC, when nearly every other OS that supports NIC's does.


opensuse is sooooooo wtf, i can't understand its popularity. sabayon is great, until you try to install gimp (i read the encyclopedia, twice, while i waited).
The best part about Suse is that it looks awesome. Seriously, Ubuntu doesn't even come close. That being said, I don't use it because it's way too slow (anything with KDE or Gnome is).

[Grant A.]

Arch Linux. Their community was horrible and it wouldn't work with my monitor :/

[sheto]

The worst Linux distro I have ever seen is Bharat Operating System (BOSS). I have never used it but it copies Ubuntu horribly. And forget that. It does not even have it's own Wikipedia article. How bad can an OS get?

Even Fedora Core 5 is pretty bad.

That's about it.

[Sorivenul]

It depends on your hardware.

+1

To go with the "theoretical worst/personal worst" that pervades this thread:
Freespire is on my list, as well.
Fedora with the exception of F8, IMO.
I also have to agree with Yoper - good in theory, but the execution never quite cut it.
Add Granular to the list as well; not a positive experience for me.

[cardinals_fan]

Arch Linux. Their community was horrible and it wouldn't work with my monitor :/
What did you dislike about the Arch community? I've usually had good experiences on the Arch Forums.

[andras artois]

most distro's that use kde and I found mandriva horrible, as in 2girls1cup horrible.

[namegame]

Sabayon also ran about as quickly as a sloth dipped in cold molasses, but that might have just been my problem.


I had the same problem. My computer isn't great, 2 GB RAM, 2 Ghz dual-core processor, etc, but when I can get some distributions to fly on my hardware, the slowness of Sabayon was very disheartening.

[cardinals_fan]

I had the same problem. My computer isn't great, 2 GB RAM, 2 Ghz dual-core processor, etc, but when I can get some distributions to fly on my hardware, the slowness of Sabayon was very disheartening.
When you call that hardware "not great", I wonder. I personally think that my 1 gig RAM 2 ghz Gateway is a powerful machine - certainly more powerful than I need :)

[namegame]

When you call that hardware "not great", I wonder. I personally think that my 1 gig RAM 2 ghz Gateway is a powerful machine - certainly more powerful than I need :)

Oh yeah, the thing that limits me is my integrated intel mobile graphics card. My baseline of good hardware is a bit skewed. I base my comparisons on my universities Computer Science Lab computers. Personally, I have much more than I need. XFCE + openbox, or just openbox alone is my perfect system...

[handy]

Arch Linux. Their community was horrible and it wouldn't work with my monitor :/

What did you dislike about the Arch community? I've usually had good experiences on the Arch Forums.

Must have struck the Arch forum on a bad day. Or possibly (not saying it was so) been venting frustration at a tough install & provoked reaction.

[C!oud]

There is no worst distro but in my opinion the vote would go towards the late Freespire without a doubt.

[RedPandaFox]

Borderless Linux

Thanks there Kernel Sanders... Ill be sure to remember that...

[-grubby]

PCLinuxOS: broken audio, networking, and video drove me away quickly.. Not to mention the installer didn't seem to be working..

My computer isn't great, 2 GB RAM, 2 Ghz dual-core processor, etc

...

[Hyper Tails]

for me i have to say pclinuxos 2008 minime

[namegame]

...

I explained my standards of computer hardware comparisons. Compared to the computers I use at work (I work for my University's IT department) and school (Computer Science Department workstations.) Compared to these computers, my computer is quite sub-par.

[perlluver]

On the top is Freespire, just a terrible system all together, followed by gOS, didn't even load up on my Computer, I guess a problem with the Bios, but whatever, Ubuntu which it is built off, has no problems with my Bios. Next is Kubuntu, so slow, give me Slackware with KDE any day.

[Sorivenul]

@perlluver:
Thank you for bringing up, yet again, the nightmares of gOS.

[-grubby]

I explained my standards of computer hardware comparisons. Compared to the computers I use at work (I work for my University's IT department) and school (Computer Science Department workstations.) Compared to these computers, my computer is quite sub-par.

This reminds me of something (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=575291), that's all

[kspncr]

Oh god don't even get me started on Freespire. I thought gOS Rocket was pretty awful too.

Arch Linux. Their community was horrible and it wouldn't work with my monitor :/

*gasp* how could anyone not like Arch? Like others have said, you probably caught the community on a bad day. And I'm not sure something like one monitor incompatibility could warrant calling Arch "worst Linux distro."

[duott]

Honestly, I can't get the point of this discussion... what is a linux distro anyway? The kernel is the same, the applications are the same, so the distro is, basically, the installer, the package management system and.. what else?

I've tried a number of distros (opensuse, mandriva, asplinux, altlinux and some others), and I figure that the real difference is between Linux and Windows, or at least, within the Linux world, between KDE and GNOME. Distros looked quite the same to me. Did I miss something?

[dasunst3r]

How about LinuxXP? That's a joke right there -- a lot of their special stuff was written in Java the last time I looked at it (in a virtual machine, thank Goodness).

[Lord Xeb]

8.04 in beta, Mepis e_e, FreeBSD for how much of a pain in the *** it is to get it going sometimes.

[lykwydchykyn]

Novell SLES. I didn't think even Novell could mess up linux, but I was wrong. I have about 5 SLES boxes to care for at work... ugh. Upgrading them is like upgrading windows... upgrade, reboot, upgrade again, reboot... each time hoping it actually comes back up. Not to mention the package db gets corrupted at the drop of a hat and has to be deleted and rebuilt.

Not to mention logging in the first time after install has more windows popping up in your face than a javascript kiddie's MySpace page. And why does Yast have 4 separate tools to (1) Edit installation sources, (2) configure (paid) update sources, (3) Find and install updates, (4) install software.

I won't go on any more...

[handy]

I spent 3 or 5 (maybe it just felt like 5 :-)) days attempting to install Gentoo once. No matter what I did I could not get X to install. It would seem that it was very likely due to a problem with the BIOS in that machine.

I don't blame Gentoo for it, & I learned a lot out of attempting the installation.

So, I'm not calling Gentoo the worst, it was hardware incompatibility that caused the problem. Though no other OS had the same problem with the BIOS in my machine, I have had to turn off the on board USB & install a PCI USB card due to mouse & keyboard timing problems in Ubuntu & Sabayon.

So that machines motherboard does seem to be a problem.

[colemana]

For me it is Xandros hands down.

I don't know if it's only because it was my very first attempt at using Linux or what, but I just had a terrible time with it. The only good thing I can say about it was that it picked up my sound card when I was having a fit trying to get it to work in Windows.

[Kernel Sanders]

Thanks there Kernel Sanders... Ill be sure to remember that...

Thinly Veiled threats are so entertaining :*)

Thankyou!

[lswest]

I agree with the originally named freespire...worst distro I've ever used. One power outage, one faulty shutdown, one totally corrupted hdd (both XP and Freespire partitions). Apart from that I don't think any others are "bad" they're just either to your taste or not.

[RedDwarf]

I've tried a number of distros (opensuse, mandriva, asplinux, altlinux and some others), and I figure that the real difference is between Linux and Windows, or at least, within the Linux world, between KDE and GNOME. Distros looked quite the same to me. Did I miss something?
I'm with you. But I also must admit I can think about trying Mandriva, openSUSE, Fedora, xUbuntu/Debian... and nothing more.
Part of a distro is mantaining secure packages, and that requires resources. I would not try a little distro without resources to do so correctly... neither one where I'm supposed to compile packages, even if that's done automagically.

And I would never say any of the major distros is bad.

[wolfen69]

What is the worst Linux distro?
the one that you don't like.

[Raffles10]

Sabayon is the worst for me, because of portage, two hours to resolve dependencies just to install one app'. It makes me shudder just to think about it.

I'm gonna have to try Freespire....:wink:

[lykwydchykyn]

Honestly, I can't get the point of this discussion... what is a linux distro anyway? The kernel is the same, the applications are the same, so the distro is, basically, the installer, the package management system and.. what else?

I've tried a number of distros (opensuse, mandriva, asplinux, altlinux and some others), and I figure that the real difference is between Linux and Windows, or at least, within the Linux world, between KDE and GNOME. Distros looked quite the same to me. Did I miss something?

Trying a distro is one thing. Actually having to use the beast is quite another. It's rarely a big, glaring thing that makes a distro bad; it's a combination of the little things that mount together to make a collection of otherwise good software into something next to unusable.

I mean, if you approach any distro for what it's meant to be (power-user compile-only distro, newbie-friendly no-options distro, command-line server distro, etc), then you aren't likely to see major problems within a bit of simple usage. But when you get into maintaining an installation of a distro with some mission-critical services or applications on it, you start running into some of the problems with the basic design and layout of the distro itself.

[handy]

Sabayon is the worst for me, because of portage, two hours to resolve dependencies just to install one app'. It makes me shudder just to think about it.

I'm gonna have to try Freespire....:wink:

I've been using Sabayon on one of my machines throughout the 3.4* versions currently 3.4f. The first time you run emerge --sync is the long one, though for me it takes about 20 minutes on a 1500kb adsl line, after that whenever you --sync it is a fraction of the initial time spent.

For quick software installation I use Arch.

Those versions of Sabayon are the only distro' to handle my graphic card from hell out of the box.

That said, Sabayon 3.5 won't run on the same hardware! :lolflag: Though I'm sure if I spent half to a full day I could get it to run, but I only use it to play Oblivion on under Cedega (as unfortunately Crossover Games still doesn't handle Oblivion).

[RedPandaFox]

Thinly Veiled threats are so entertaining :*)

Thankyou!

Not a threat. Not a warning. Simply saying I will remember it.
Threats, especily on the net are pointless.

e.g
z0m6 1| h4x0r y0u j00 n00b!
1m 1337 45 4nd w1| 637 y0ur d474v4535

[bloodniece]

Arch Linux. Their community was horrible and it wouldn't work with my monitor :/


Are you kidding? Arch is awesome and pacman has got to be the greatest package manager ever. All the binaries are compiled for i686, Ubuntu is compiled for i386. The Arch WIKI and IRC are they best sources of support. But hey, I love the distro and even run it on my EEE PC.

[kspncr]

Sabayon is the worst for me, because of portage, two hours to resolve dependencies just to install one app'. It makes me shudder just to think about it.

I'm gonna have to try Freespire....:wink:

I would not recommend Freespire, but I'm not going to tell you not to try it. I wish I had never tried it, but I'm nobody's boss...

[Bungo Pony]

YAST has to be the worst package management tool I have ever used.

I tried OpenSUSE, and I never did again because of YaST.

I really don't like Puppy Linux because of its lack of security, and I initially had an awful time trying to figure out how to mount a drive. (Yeah, I'm a DSL fan :) )

GeexBox was a piece of junk too. I thought it might be a nice replacement for DSL on my garage computer. But the interface was the most awful thing I've ever had to work with. I'll stick with DSL and my nice little scripts that make it a breeze to use :)

Ubuntu Gutsy needs a mention here. I had an AWFUL six months living with it. I'm so happy with Hardy, and will be sticking with it until the next LTS distro.

[rakris]

Worst - Opensuse/SLED forever.

Best - Gentoo.. (The best)

Ubuntu comes somewhere in between. Close to Best :popcorn:

[Raffles10]

I would not recommend Freespire, but I'm not going to tell you not to try it. I wish I had never tried it, but I'm nobody's boss...

Since I started using virtualbox to try diffrerent linux distro's I've tried all sorts, some of the best, and some of the worst.;-)

The bad ones can be as much fun as the good ones.:lolflag:

[Thelasko]

I tried OpenSUSE, and I never did again because of YaST.
I thought I was going to be the only person to say SUSE. It was my first try with Linux and I could never figure out how to do anything with Yast. This was back in version 9.2 and I always figured it was just me being a noob, but the comments here have proven that's not the case.

[kellemes]

Borderless Linux

Apparently it's fun for kids ;-)

[grotto]

Arch Linux. Their community was horrible and it wouldn't work with my monitor :/

While I think Arch is a great distro, I was also turned off by its community.

[Hallvor]

Linux XP... The worst of both worlds.

[Twitch6000]

I think the worst of worst for me though would be Arch Linux.

I know it is meant for more advanced users and such,but I swore I was one =[.

It installed fine after three tries,but then no de/we.

Then I tried to install a de/we through terminal and it says i need a password I never got one to start with !!!

So I search through google and get that and try again and it doesn't know my wireless card(at that time I had a intel wireless).

So yeah...

[joey-elijah]

this thread just *screams* poll.

I haven't tried many - mainly Ubuntu, DSL, Knoppix, Suse and Xandros.

Guess where my vote goes...

Sorry DSL.

[notwen]

Borderless Linux

Haha. I'm going for one of the thirty others names this distro has had. =]

[Soldierboy]

I think the worst of worst for me though would be Arch Linux.

I know it is meant for more advanced users and such,but I swore I was one =[.

It installed fine after three tries,but then no de/we.

Then I tried to install a de/we through terminal and it says i need a password I never got one to start with !!!

So I search through google and get that and try again and it doesn't know my wireless card(at that time I had a intel wireless).

So yeah...


Hmm...advanced user...hmmmm...

[C!oud]

I think the worst of worst for me though would be Arch Linux.

I know it is meant for more advanced users and such,but I swore I was one =[.

It installed fine after three tries,but then no de/we.

Then I tried to install a de/we through terminal and it says i need a password I never got one to start with !!!

So I search through google and get that and try again and it doesn't know my wireless card(at that time I had a intel wireless).

So yeah...

:lolflag: somebody didn't read the beginners installer guide, try it out it helps a lot :). Hate to break it to ya mate but if you're having trouble entering a root password then you're probably not that much of an advanced user. I can't comment on wireless though because I've never used it before with linux.

[cardinals_fan]

I think the worst of worst for me though would be Arch Linux.

I know it is meant for more advanced users and such,but I swore I was one =[.

It installed fine after three tries,but then no de/we.

Then I tried to install a de/we through terminal and it says i need a password I never got one to start with !!!

So I search through google and get that and try again and it doesn't know my wireless card(at that time I had a intel wireless).

So yeah...
I mean no offense - you're completely entitled to your opinion. However, the option to set a root password was right in the configuration step during installation. You do have to select it, as is specified in the extensive documentation.

[d_skillz]

Freespire and there really is quite a lot of other junk out there.

[gabhla]

I've no idea what the worst or best distro is. I only relate to my own experience and the one that gave me fits was openSuse.

[MisfitI38]

I think the worst of worst for me though would be Arch Linux.

I know it is meant for more advanced users and such,but I swore I was one =[.

It installed fine after three tries,but then no de/we.

Then I tried to install a de/we through terminal and it says i need a password I never got one to start with !!!

So I search through google and get that and try again and it doesn't know my wireless card(at that time I had a intel wireless).

So yeah...

Wow.

[Bungo Pony]

I haven't tried many - mainly Ubuntu, DSL, Knoppix, Suse and Xandros.

Guess where my vote goes...

Sorry DSL.

I hate you :)

[Twitch6000]

I mean no offense - you're completely entitled to your opinion. However, the option to set a root password was right in the configuration step during installation. You do have to select it, as is specified in the extensive documentation.

I never seen that option :(.

[Sorivenul]

I never seen that option :(.

It's right around (I believe above) "Choose a Pacman Mirror", last I installed. Should read something like "Set Root Password".

[kellemes]

I think the worst of worst for me though would be Arch Linux.

I know it is meant for more advanced users and such,but I swore I was one =[.

It installed fine after three tries,but then no de/we.

Then I tried to install a de/we through terminal and it says i need a password I never got one to start with !!!

So I search through google and get that and try again and it doesn't know my wireless card(at that time I had a intel wireless).

So yeah...



No offense intended.. You seem to lack basic knowledge to setup a Linux system, and certainly have not read the Official Arch Linux Install Guide (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Official_Arch_Linux_Install_Guide). That's a very basic error.
Arch can be as bad as you want it to be.. and it can be as fine as you want it to be. It's pretty much up to you, the user.

[./.]

Xandros on the eeePC. Even external drives would show up as D:\ in the File Explorer. I think I'd rather use a real Windows OS ;)

[jamillikan]

SUSE. I simply cannot stand it.

[nitehawk777]

I'm still rather a "noob" (only been using/fiddlin' with linux about a year now). So a lot of distros seem to be the "worst" for me. That's due to my ineptness,....older hardware,...etc. etc.
Ubuntu seems to recognize and work with my terrible intel i815 video,...but with a sloooooooooooow dialup,...downloading the codecs can be a pain. Linux Mint has 'em,..but it won't work with my video.

Puppy Linux works ok on both my older PIIIs.
I tried Freespire,...PClinuxOS, OpenSuse, Mandriva, PCBsd, Vector, etc. etc. etc.
Ubuntu and Puppy seem to be the only two that will work for me.

[Grant A.]

No offense intended.. You seem to lack basic knowledge to setup a Linux system, and certainly have not read the Official Arch Linux Install Guide (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Official_Arch_Linux_Install_Guide). That's a very basic error.
Arch can be as bad as you want it to be.. and it can be as fine as you want it to be. It's pretty much up to you, the user.

Well, tbh, Arch doesn't have the best support for x64 Nvidia users.

[fwojciec]

Well, tbh, Arch doesn't have the best support for x64 Nvidia users.

I use Arch64 with nvidia graphics and I have absolutely no problems -- so I've no idea what you're referring to...

[loell]

Its not OO. Thats an old screenshot. common myth

tell me what office tool are they basing that in, as i sure could tell that those bunch of wannabes doesn't have the resources to build one from scratch.

[emshains]

Hardy Heron ? Well at least from the ubuntu tree.

[loell]

Hardy Heron ? Well at least from the ubuntu tree.

nope, it was really Edgy. :lolflag:

[SomeGuyDude]

No offense intended.. You seem to lack basic knowledge to setup a Linux system, and certainly have not read the Official Arch Linux Install Guide (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Official_Arch_Linux_Install_Guide). That's a very basic error.
Arch can be as bad as you want it to be.. and it can be as fine as you want it to be. It's pretty much up to you, the user.

Seconded. I'm a relative newbie (despite a year of Ubuntu) and by actually reading the damn guide I had no problems. Now I can reformat/reinstall without the thing and have my system back in roughly an hour.

[teaker1s]

redhat years ago, I followed the instructions for install and tried politely to ask where I should go it find information on an error-after googling and finding no joy. I found redhat community response very unfriendly.

Tried linspire and I don't like their cnr which in essence is charging for free software.

fedora I found okay but the community is in my opinion not a patch on ubuntu.
I use debian as well as ubuntu and find that ubuntu is far more helpful in a broad spectrum of forum activity and documentation.

[motang]

What one have you tried and said "Ugh, this sucks, never again"?
SLED 10, worst experience on my Laptop, came back to Ubuntu faster than Flash can run and never looked at another distro!

[MyBlueSkies]

No disrespect to anyone that may be using it but for me openSuSe was/is the most dreadful thing ever burned to cd =; left me experiencing blackouts,

now after some years i run kubuntu and happy

[mohitchawla]

1. OpenSUSE. YasT is supposedly a control panel. Not something that should be highlighted so much to convince people to use the distro. But those folks seem to think otherwise. So be it. The h/w configuration utilities are confusing. And the green then looks like evil green vomit out of that thing from The Exorcist.

2. XYZ variant of a PQR distro with just different WMs or Desktop Environments.

3. Dream Linux. No, its not beautiful. Not on my UMPC at least.

4. Linux distributions with broken links on their sites. Like Linpus.

[crazyfuturamanoob]

Mandriva! It has so much advertising in it.

WOHOOOO THIS IS MY #400 POST!!!!!

[cardinals_fan]

nope, it was really Edgy. :lolflag:
I loved Edgy. It's all been downhill since.

[Bungo Pony]

Hardy Heron ? Well at least from the ubuntu tree.

At least Hardy is on the tree. Gutsy fell and landed on the ground face first. :D

But in all seriousness, I'm very happy with Hardy.

[Sorivenul]

Gutsy fell and landed on the ground face first.
Really? Gutsy was a major improvement on Feisty (and Edgy), IMO. I was actually a bit let down with Hardy, and the track Intrepid is on seems to be another improvement. This is another great example of personal experience.

[fracturedmorals]

I tried the livecd of Foresight linux, and was not impressed. Nothing worked.

If I were a new user and that was my first impression of Linux, I think it would take years for me to muster up the courage to try it again.

[Mason Whitaker]

gOS is the worst thing I dared load in a Virtual Box...

[chris4585]

I have to agree with most of everyone else's posts here

OpenSUSE
Freespire
gOS - depends on which version
Blag


I hate KDE with a passion, anything with KDE, I don't like too often, I do think its pretty to look at.. thats about it, the best KDE distro I'd say is klikit

[Scheater5]

I have major issues with Suse and even Fedora (which I haven't seen much talk of here - apparently there are less who dislike it) mainly because of documentation. I guess I'm spoiled on Ubuntu's documentation and the forums. But I wouldn't call either of them the "worst" distro I've tried - just gets under my skin that such big names have such bad documentation.
The WORST distros I've tried are gOS and DreamLinux. Completely buggy distros trying to capitalize on OSX envy in the Linux community.

[pofigster]

OpenSUSE just caused me grief while I used it. Also, I cannot stand KDE - so any distro that uses KDE by default bugs me (don't know why, but I really cannot stand to use KDE)

[CJ Master]

And also Vixta. Promising to duplicate a Vista experience. But the OS has many problems, trying from the LiveCD alone.

Sounds like it emulates vista pretty well!


Well for me so far the worst won was Kubuntu. Slow as molasses, and confusing as everything. :confused:

[I wanted to leave]

I think I have become Ubuntufied...

I looked at other distro's that as you all know can take some time to download and install and they last all of seconds on my drive. Stupid ideas with menus etc. I started using openSUSE with kde but now I can't stand kde, and the keverything software list is a classic :KS

For me it seems Ubuntu is the only distro with some consistency and direction.

[WWSmith36]

I haven´t tried them all yet.....

I will never use openSUSE again !!!!!!!!!!
I was very disappointed that a largely circulated and commercially supported distro could be so horrible.

I was also upset when I found out the Lenovo had partner with Novell to produce SUSE laptops.

There is some potential good news for Thinkpad Owners. Lenovo had a poll asking which distro users would like to see on their Thinkpads....Ubuntu was way in front... followed by debian...... openSuKs polled abysmally.

[SomeGuyDude]

Just out of curiosity, what worked so poorly in everyone's Suse installs? I don't think it's a fabulous distro, but it worked without a hitch in 10.3 for me.

[jacobw.uk]

Gentoo. Most pointless project in the history of humanity :p

It would be like serving pigs covered in dough instead of hotdogs, "So you could be in complete control of the build process"

[rakris]

Gentoo. Most pointless project in the history of humanity :p



THat proves You are completely newbie to GNU/Linux.

Gentoo is for people with brains. :)

[Soldierboy]

It sounds like not many people know that OpenSuse has a Gnome version as well...

[rakris]

Even in Slackware we can install GNOME though not supported officially...

[Naiki Muliaina]

THat proves You are completely newbie to GNU/Linux.

Gentoo is for people with brains. :)

Afraid not, Gentoo is for those with long books to read ^^ hehe

The way Gentoo works sounds hard when you havent tried it. Its actually quite easy after the first couple of goes. It just takes so darn long to do whats easy! hehe :)

[alienprdkt]

redhat years ago, I followed the instructions for install and tried politely to ask where I should go it find information on an error-after googling and finding no joy. I found redhat community response very unfriendly.

Tried linspire and I don't like their cnr which in essence is charging for free software.

fedora I found okay but the community is in my opinion not a patch on ubuntu.
I use debian as well as ubuntu and find that ubuntu is far more helpful in a broad spectrum of forum activity and documentation.

Agreed redhat 7 right before 8

First intro to linux I had, rpm dependencies, to look for to install more dependencies, all day just to have it report a ton of dependency conflicts!!!!

Scared me away from touching anything Linux until last yr.

Now I use Gentoo for routing and bandwidth shaping, and Ubuntu for anything else...
HAve gotten rid of windows :) with linux or mac osX or mac osX86on my Gateway laptop:) with a dual boot of Ubuntu Studio.

[alienprdkt]

Afraid not, Gentoo is for those with long books to read ^^ hehe

The way Gentoo works sounds hard when you havent tried it. Its actually quite easy after the first couple of goes. It just takes so darn long to do whats easy! hehe :)

But when your finished and backup. Your done. Worx GREAT!!!!!

[alienprdkt]

Gentoo. Most pointless project in the history of humanity :p

It would be like serving pigs covered in dough instead of hotdogs, "So you could be in complete control of the build process"
Thats whats great about it complete control, total customization! Love it! Just wish I knew more bout it. <all I use it for is routing, iptables, dhcp, masqdns, along with some bandwidth shaping>

[SomeGuyDude]

THat proves You are completely newbie to GNU/Linux.

Gentoo is for people with brains. :)

Or a LOT of time on their hands. Arch gets me as close as I have any reasonable need to. It's not that I think it's a bad decision, I just have zero desire to spend that much time compiling and setting stuff up.

[poebae]

It would be like serving pigs covered in dough instead of hotdogs, "So you could be in complete control of the build process"
Actually, that's a pretty good analogy. Let's roll with it.

Sure, for some (most?) people it wouldn't be worth the time to customise their hot dog and watch the whole process from farm to abattoir to greedy little hands, because it's all going to look the same after it passes through your large intestine anyway, right?

On the other hand, there are certain hot dog connoisseurs out there who'd love to be involved all the way through, and pick and choose which bits of hoof and snout don't go into their hot dog.

Each to his own - I mean that's what Freedom is all about, right?

(btw I'm not a Gentoo user)

[rakris]

Afraid not, Gentoo is for those with long books to read ^^ hehe

The way Gentoo works sounds hard when you havent tried it. Its actually quite easy after the first couple of goes. It just takes so darn long to do whats easy! hehe :)

lol..Yeah..

But you get to learn new things daily.. :)

[athaki]

The worst Linux distro is still miles better than Windows ME.

[Thelasko]

The worst Linux distro is still miles better than Windows ME.

I don't know about that one. I switched from Windows ME to SUSE 9.2 back in the day. In between crashes ME worked great, I was never able to get SUSE to work properly.

I would call it a tie.

[jimi_hendrix]

Exactly, the website looks good. But when you get to the OS...
*Shivers* I never liked Freespire.

3 liveCD's worked when i first started with linux

PClinuxOS
Freespire
Ubuntu (picked this one because it was the only one that got working internet)

i never rememberd freespire being "bad" though...whats so wrong about it?

[Tichondrius]

Fedora and Gentoo both sucked

[davidkeithjones]

The worst is Linpus hands down! Why Acer went with such a broken distro is beyond me. They could have used Ubuntu or Puppy.

The best:

Ubuntu
Puppy
DSL

[BenAshton24]

The worst ones are the ones that you have to pay for, haven't tried them / never will :D

[jimi_hendrix]

The ones that you have to pay for, haven't tried them / never will :D

the point of linux is that its free...why would i buy a distro when i could get a good free one?

[Naiki Muliaina]

lol..Yeah..

But you get to learn new things daily.. :)

Hehe :)

Sorry dont mean to pick on ya here, but you only realy learn how to do a handfull of things, the Gentoo way. I had a phase of trying lots of different distros, Gentoo only taught me a few commands which i just repeated throughout my time with Gentoo.

Linux from scratch was better, again though once set, that was the learning done. I think i possibly learnt most from Slackware.

[LinuxGuy1234]

I think the worst was OpenSUSE. That stupid YaST. IT CRASHES DARN IT!

[por100pre1]

The first distro I tried was Linspire 5.0, I got it for free (http://freebies.about.com/b/2005/09/07/free-linspire-download.htm). After trying Linspire, it took me one year to recover of the bad experience! Then I tried Feisty Fawn, after installing it I have tried a lot of distros, but I haven't found anything as bad as that old Linspire.

[PegMonster]

I find OpenSuse to be pretty ordinary.
My PCLinuxOS cd made for a great coaster for my coffee mug.
Sadly, Kubuntu - my former fave distro, has been poisoned by kde4.1 in 8.10, making it one of my worst.

J

[jimi_hendrix]

Sadly, Kubuntu - my former fave distro, has been poisoned by kde4.1 in 8.10, making it one of my worst.

J

whats so bad about kde4.1?

[Sorivenul]

whats so bad about kde4.1?

It's still far from complete and far from stable, at least on the recent Kubuntu installs I've dealt with. However, I applaud the distributions switching to KDE4, because while it pushes KDE4 in a relatively unstable state, it is forcing users to learn what is new and adjust accordingly. I personally wouldn't touch KDE4 again until about 4.3 - a lot of work needs to be done for it to compete with the usability of 3.5.10.

[Frak]

Gentoo. Most pointless project in the history of humanity :p

It would be like serving pigs covered in dough instead of hotdogs, "So you could be in complete control of the build process"
Tell that to a person with an incredibly fast late-gen PowerPC, whereas there are no distros that are optimized for AltiVec nor the 7450 improvements.

Gentoo becomes your friend then.

Anyways, iMagicOS is the worst distribution.

[cardinals_fan]

whats so bad about kde4.1?
It's unfinished, far slower than 3.x, and adds nothing worthwhile.

/opinion

[EnGorDiaz]

Really? Gutsy was a major improvement on Feisty (and Edgy), IMO. I was actually a bit let down with Hardy, and the track Intrepid is on seems to be another improvement. This is another great example of personal experience.

ur a fan of the .10 releases anyway to answer the questions my worst distro experience was mandriva 2008 spring edition it looked like 8girlsnocup i could believe how bad the interface looked to me and the settings and control centre was a joke i searched on google for hours and then i was just like **** this im going ubuntu again but before mandriva i had ubuntu ultimate on my computer that was horrible worst ubuntu to date

[markp1989]

I have tried quite a few, the main ones i remember, are linuxxp, freespire, linspire, xandros.

any other distros i had trouble with were my fault, becuase i was new.

I saw a few pages back that someone said that geexbox was there worsed distro, but i think that it is brilliant

[Phreaker]

Slackware...

I just don't get it.No dependency checks made on purpose.
Very-freaky.
I prefer gentoo, also a distro with a minimalistic approach, but with a very-good package management system.

[hessiess]

Ubuntu... its too bloated by default...

[Yownanymous]

I have to say my pet peeves when it comes to linux are Xandros and Linux XP...

Partially because you have to pay for them.

[jimi_hendrix]

I prefer gentoo, also a distro with a minimalistic approach, but with a very-good package management system.

ive heard gentoo was bad because you need to learn "gentoo only" skills

[Frak]

ive heard gentoo was bad because you need to learn "gentoo only" skills
Find the person that said that, and tell them that their distribution is bad because they have to learn distribution-specific skills.

Gentoo taught me an incredible amount about GNU and Linux as a whole.

[R00KIE]

OpenSuse and fedora for sure.
Whats with opensuse package manager, it takes forever to do anything and you cant make too installs look the same. It randomly selects how many and which repos you are entitled to use ..... useless. Oh and don't get me started with the eula.
Fedora .... a bit better but still leaves a strange aftertaste.
Oh and gentoo goes on the list too, it might be better now but when I tried to try it a couple of years ago I couldn't even get to the part where I would have to wait a few days to compile everything (even reading the tutorial and doing copy paste). I get the "you can control every part of the process" thing but thats too hardcore for most people.

[Frak]

OpenSuse and fedora for sure.
Whats with opensuse package manager, it takes forever to do anything and you cant make too installs look the same. It randomly selects how many and which repos you are entitled to use ..... useless. Oh and don't get me started with the eula.
Fedora .... a bit better but still leaves a strange aftertaste.
Oh and gentoo goes on the list too, it might be better now but when I tried to try it a couple of years ago I couldn't even get to the part where I would have to wait a few days to compile everything (even reading the tutorial and doing copy paste). I get the "you can control every part of the process" thing but thats too hardcore for most people.
*cough* overexaggeration *cough*

I don't remember the last time it took me more than 1 day to fully compile everything I needed to get started. I hear many users praise Gentoo, but the vast majority of Ubuntu users condemn it.

[PegMonster]

I don't remember the last time it took me more than 1 day to fully compile everything I needed to get started. I hear many users praise Gentoo, but the vast majority of Ubuntu users condemn it

That's a big statement.

The two are aimed at different user groups so of course you are going to get some:

Ubuntu user- Gentoo takes too long and is far too complex to install and maintain.

Gentoo user- Ubuntu is too simple and gives me less control than I want/need.

And so forth.


J

[SomeGuyDude]

What, from a "control" standpoint, does compiling vs binary offer you, though?

I say this as someone who's half tempted to wiggle his way on over toward Gentoo someday. I'll be inheriting a moderate-spec laptop and using it for my "test stuff out with reckless abandon" desires, and Gentoo is near the top of my list along with a BSD variant and Slack.

[Frak]

What, from a "control" standpoint, does compiling vs binary offer you, though?

I say this as someone who's half tempted to wiggle his way on over toward Gentoo someday. I'll be inheriting a moderate-spec laptop and using it for my "test stuff out with reckless abandon" desires, and Gentoo is near the top of my list along with a BSD variant and Slack.
I got Gnome to run around 2x faster than on an Ubuntu system with Pentium 4 optimization (when it was still alive).

Run's pretty well, but requires patience.

[SomeGuyDude]

I'm an Arch user currently (with OB, admittedly, not GNOME). Would I notice much of anything there?

[Naiki Muliaina]

Find the person that said that, and tell them that their distribution is bad because they have to learn distribution-specific skills.

Gentoo taught me an incredible amount about GNU and Linux as a whole.

Me! :p and ya can say what ya like to me, i learned barely anything from Gentoo i was able to take to other distro's. As i said a few posts up, Linux from scratch and Slackware taught me more than Gentoo ever did.

the vast majority of Ubuntu users condemn it.

Vast generalization's suck. I had fun with Gentoo when i tried it. I dont have the patience to use it long term. I don't condemn it, i just dont like it. To be honest, i made a post asking what was great about Gentoo a while ago. Most reply's had respect for Gentoo, just not the time or patience for it.

[kellemes]

I think Ubuntu is the worst Linux distro.
It's ugly, slow and generally feels like Windows too much.

[factotum218]

What one have you tried and said "Ugh, this sucks, never again"?

The worst for me was verion 8 of Redhat.

[rakris]

Fedora 6 and lesser versions..

[rakris]

DreamLinux

FreeSpire

VectorLinux

ArchLinux

Mandrake (previous versions of mandriva)

[dldev]

@ KernelSanders

what exactly is so bad about Borderless Linux? Im on the dev team. if it has to do with the fact that we've changed things so many times, then thats pretty sad.. were new at this and now we've got a solid name. if you have any other issues why dont you discuss them?

I must admit that this thread has saddened me. I expected more from Ubuntu users.

Linux developers do what they can (spending many hours of their freetime) to produce an alternative to Windows, Mac, for free.

95% of complaints and FUD that I read every day are from users who have not chosen Linux-compatible hardware, have not followed instructions and Howto guides, or are complaining about a third-party application which we, the devs, have to put up with, and struggle to find solutions for users. Xorg, Nvidia, Ati, webcam drivers, Flash, Java, Firefox/Iceweasel, Wireless drivers.... the list goes on.

A distro is mainly the kernel, then customizations to the look of an already provided Desktop. Gnome, Kde, Xfce etc. Next there will probably be a few scripts and some Guis.

So when something doesn't work for you, think about whether Youtube not working on Firefox is the Ubuntu developer's fault, or use some common sense and realise that Flash, Firefox, your network card driver, your graphics card driver, are nothing to do with them whatsoever.

Finally, Google LFS (Linux From Scratch) and have a go at building your own distro, or even easier, just open up your Ubuntu iso, chroot in and make your own customisations, then you will truly appreciate what goes into these free desktop environments you so easily criticize.

dldev

[deep-z]

A distro is mainly the kernel, then customizations to the look of an already provided Desktop. Gnome, Kde, Xfce etc. Next there will probably be a few scripts and some Guis.

dldev

I disagree on that. I think a distro mainly is support and community around it.

[dldev]

No, the distro is what you burn to an iso. The Community provides support for the distro. No distro, no community.

Although I do understand you. You are saying that you choose a specific distro for it's support. Well, in that respect, you have chosen well with Ubuntu. I do believe it has the largest support forum for any major distro.

The support provided by Dreamlinux Forums has certainly helped the development process.

[cardinals_fan]

A distro provides a prepackaged system for the user with the devs' choice of applications.

[dldev]

A distro provides a prepackaged system for the user with the devs' choice of applications.

Yes. Or in the case of Dreamlinux, what the users have shown to be favored and also tested and proven to work better.

For example, nmapplet (network-manager) has been replaced with Wicd. There have been many changes due to user demand/feedback/request.

There are no good or bad Linux distros. There is only badly chosen hardware and poor Linux knowledge mixed with a compulsion to whine.

[lykwydchykyn]

There are no good or bad Linux distros. There is only badly chosen hardware and poor Linux knowledge mixed with a compulsion to whine.

While I will heartily agree that 9/10 of people's complaints about software and distros are generally nonsense (in accordance with Sturgeon's Law), usually due to ignorance and bad hardware -- I have to disagree that there are no bad or good Linux distros. There are, in fact, bad distros.

Every distro sets out to accomplish goals -- maybe it's to be the most secure server distro, maybe to be the friendliest desktop distro, being the simplest router to set up, etc. To the extent that a distro accomplishes these goals, it's a good distro. To the extent that the original goals were clearly defined and genuinely worthwhile, it's a good distro. To the extent that it fails, it's not good. One might even dare to say 'bad'.

It's great that people do lots of work and give it away. Doesn't instantly make your work good. I have about 4 years worth of home-recorded music that I give away for free. Does that make me a great singer, because it's free? Am I an awesome songwriter because I use creative commons licensing? If only.

Whining stinks. Especially from ignorant people who haven't bothered to understand the issues. What stinks worse than ignorant whining is promoting a politically correct, everyone's a winner, you-get-a-gold-star-for-showing-up meme that discourages genuine criticism and honest appraisals.

[SomeGuyDude]

Yes. Or in the case of Dreamlinux, what the users have shown to be favored and also tested and proven to work better.

For example, nmapplet (network-manager) has been replaced with Wicd. There have been many changes due to user demand/feedback/request.

True, but the dev still gets final say in what goes on the ISO. So a "distro" is the installation system, package manager, default appearance, and the default list of applications. ISO or no, really, since there's always network installation.

There are no good or bad Linux distros. There is only badly chosen hardware and poor Linux knowledge mixed with a compulsion to whine.

I gotta disagree. Some have just plain poor aims, are maintained terribly, implement things badly, etc.

[WaeV]

The ones I've tried are really all the same, except in their selection of window manager.

I prefer Gnome to KDE, and that's about as far as I'll bash a linux distro.

[jrothwell97]

Xandros is horrific and poorly put together. gOS is also the pits: it tries to be Mac OS X instead of finding its own niche.

[MisfitI38]

Yes. Or in the case of Dreamlinux, what the users have shown to be favored and also tested and proven to work better.

For example, nmapplet (network-manager) has been replaced with Wicd. There have been many changes due to user demand/feedback/request.

There are no good or bad Linux distros. There is only badly chosen hardware and poor Linux knowledge mixed with a compulsion to whine.

There are plenty of bad distros that are lacking quality for many reasons. In fact, there are about 300 of them listed on Distrowatch.
There are a handful of high quality distros.

[magikx21]

I gotta agree with the Xandros hate here. But also have to say SuSE 9 because when I tried to install it on a PC that ran the then current versions of Redhat, Mandrake and Slackware fine; it completely failed.

[teaker1s]

any lacking support, basically if the support is poor then when it breaks you have issues.

please note I understand community support is not paid support.

but desert island of an issue with no suggestions or RTFM suggestions-poor distro

[rakris]

Last year i installed DreamLinux and it lacked VIM editor. I used to open in mousepad..Can you believe this.?

[Tux Aubrey]

Foresight - a rolling release that totally gives up as soon as you update.

Linpus (especially "Lite", as on the Acer One) - a bad distro, further crippled.

gOS Rocket - but the "community e17" version was so bad it was funny.

....but my all time worst experience was Musix - it had dozens of WMs and language versions, all badly integrated and poorly set-up - and a different one seemed to start every time I logged on. It was like Linux Russian Roulette.

I would have added Hardy Heron, but it was redeemed by 8.04.1

And I have a love/hate relationship with several others - like eLive

[markbuntu]

Worst distro?
I don't really remember which one it was but it was definitely not slackware. Slackware I never got to work at all. Anyway this distro caused my monitor to burst into flames configuring X. This was about 1996.

It was very difficult and time consuming to jump distros back then when your only link to the world was a "fast" 13.3k modem that glitched out anytime someone called.

[Soldierboy]

It was very difficult and time consuming to jump distros back then when your only link to the world was a "fast" 13.3k modem that glitched out anytime someone called.

Ouch. I thought 14.4 was bad enough.

[Tyan]

Oh yea. Those distros that showed up in the mid 90's were really bad. Most were one shot wonders. I can't even remember the names of them. There was this one that would pop up little pop up ballons every time you clicked the mouse button, and it would say, "You have just clicked on whatever" You couldn't turn those little ballons off. Does any one remember the name of that distro? It's gonna bug me all day,because I can't remember what it was called.

[Sealbhach]

I haven't tried many - but Opensuse was the worst one for me.

Yast made me feel ill. Horrible thing.

I'm sure KDE is fine but personally I don't like it.


.

[kelvin spratt]

The worst Distros for me were the 100 or so that I tried over 2 years, The best are the two I have used the longest thats Arch/Parsix

[ingvildr]

The worst i ever tried personally was alinux, it was just a cobble together of parts, had an awful installer and a default look that was similar to rainbow sick.

[gnrathon]

Let me tell you all a story:

1. "ooooo!!!! ubuntu so cool!!! ..... wait it wont work!!!!! ahhhhhh
arrgggg!!! I hate linux !!!!..... oh wait it was just my sata drive!
Yay lilo worked! ubuntu is fun and easy and yay COMPIZ!!!! WOOOO!"

2. "ehhhh.. getting bored of ubuntu.... let me try......oh!.. OpenSUSE!
WHAT! Internet wont even work on LiveCD and it is so slow!!!!!!! ARRG!!
Bye bye! Lilo wont even install on this ****!!"

3. "Back to ubuntu again! Hardy is wonderful! so sturdy and ... Hardy!
Ohh this forum says that Mandriva is awesome! Let me try 2009 version!
Ooo so pretty!! Gonna install! EVERY THING WORKS!! EVEN USPLASH w/
LILO!!! Booting.... yay!! .......WHAT!!!!!!!!!! keeps freezing every 5
seconds. ****!!!!! MOVE STUPID CURSOR!!! ARG!!!!! Back to ubuntu!!!!"

4. "Ugh... updating to Ibex! need new gnome sounds!!!!!!!!
Intalled!!!yay no problems (like always!). Wait what!!! SOUNDS DONT
EVEN WORK!!!!!!! LOTS OF THINGS BROKEN!!!! NO NEW THEME!!!!!!!!!!!!
WTF UBUNTU!!!! 1st time you let me down!"

5. "Whats Fedora? COOL screenshots! no more **** brown and orange colors
for me!!! Yeah! got the CD lets put it in!......................ugh.
...........THIS IS TAKING FOR EVER!!!..............FINALLY!!!! A
CURSOR!!!......WTF are these green a black bars!!! Did my computer
get sick?!!!! ARGG!!! Let me wait and go out somewhere............
.................................................. ................
.................................................. ................
.......AHHHH THEY ARE STILL THERE!!!!!!! BYE BYE Fedora!!!!!!

6. "That ibex cd is still there.....hmmmm......What the heck! let me
give it another chance...Intall......Done! Booting!......Done!
Searching forum for fixes............DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everything
works again!!! SOUND EFFECTS TOO! *woosh* MINIMIZE!! YAY ubuntu!!!
If it were not for your forums....U WOULD BE NOTHING!!!!!!"

Moral of the story is.....
Almost every distro will be a horribe experience w/out a supportive forum!

If you dont know where to even START with Linux....
Use ubuntu and ask
THE FORUMS!!!

[cardinals_fan]

That mix of capitalization, exclamation points, and sound effects is truly frightening :D

[scottuss]

Jeez that guy seems crazy! :lolflag:

Anyway just thought I'd share my thoughts:

Suse Enterprise Desktop 10.1 WORST DISTRO EVER!

If I ever have to deal with Yast again I think I'll do something drastic... it caused me no end of headaches. Plus the "no repos for you until you register the product" attitude annoyed the hell out of me. Not to mention the dependency can of worms that openend from upgrading a couple of packages. It was mental! Never again....

gOs feels like Ubuntu that has had the you-know-what kicked out of it, just thought I'd add that! :)

[gnrathon]

lol
i know it was crazy but i was bored and i like ALL CAPS!
:lolflag:

[Simian Man]

Worst for me is Gentoo. Made for people who like to brag about being "in control" and who think that by compiling every package their system is "optimized". What a waste of time and energy.

The rest are at least bearable - especially if they are Gnome-based.

[RealG187]

I don't find Damn Small Linux too useable except for internet browsing on a slow computer

[eldragon]

i dont have much experience testing distros, ive got initiated with ubuntu, passed from dapper to edgy, and from edgy to hardy going through gutsy first. in the end, i jupmed to ibex, and right now, as how thigs stand with II and my notebook, id say ubuntu is the slowest, regressionist, glitchiest one of em all.




decided to go for arch, and im having a blast... im skiping these 6 monthes.. see you next year.

[Phreaker]

Slackware.
No dependency check made me format the partition instantly

[cardinals_fan]

Slackware.
No dependency check made me format the partition instantly
I usually install slackpkg or slapt-get to handle dependencies, but I will say that I have never experienced dependency hell or update breakage when I do it myself, something I can't say for any other system.

[CandyKiller]

Windows Vista

lol

[rakris]

Windows Vista

lol

Now please. Thats sort of a given :lolflag:

[lisati]

Windows Vista

lol

Windows Virus is worse

[halovivek]

i tried with suse and i find it worse.

[RealG187]

Windows Vista

lol

Windows Vista isn't a Linux Distro!

[Guilden_NL]

I started with Linux back in '97 with Red Hat and it worked. I've used OpenSuse and it has always installed and worked right off of the ISO with no fiddling around required - much better HW support than any Ubuntu version from Feisty on IMHO.

Those are the three I've used for more than a couple of days, and they all work. No bashing of any of them from me. They all have their quirks, but nothing for me to label them as a "Worst Distro".

[Thelasko]

No bashing of any of them from me. They all have their quirks, but nothing for me to label them as a "Worst Distro".
Just out of curiosity, what do you use them for?

[Zaraphrax]

Linspire, Freespire, Lycoris Desktop (or whatever they call themselves now). Any of those "Windows poser" distros. Hate the bloody things with a passion.

I also really hate openSUSE. It's awful.

[LinuxGuy1234]

Another distro I hate is Arch. Arch wanted me to upgrade (almost) all of the core system when I tried to install Xfce on a virtual machine! (It had outdated packages, no wonder WHY IT UPGRADES EVERYTHING! Not on Ubuntu or Gentoo, they only upgrade packages THAT need to be upgraded for that package.)

[chrisinspace]

gOS: The first release had some promise. I've never been big on the whole "web desktop" thing, but it had a fairly unique E17 desktop. Ever since the switch to GNOME, there's nothing left to like.

I agree with cardinals_fan. I was really excited about gOS when it first came out. I had been looking for a good implementation of E17 and a Debian-based distro. I tried eLive, but had some problems with it (I have since tried eLive again and it has improved quite a bit).

I wasn't crazy about the default look/feel so I customized the hell out of gOS, but it was a great starting point to get Enlightenment running in Ubuntu without starting from scratch. It worked well on an older laptop (900 MHz/256 MB RAM) that I was using a sandbox. It was light enough to move pretty fast, but still looked nice. I was really disappointed to hear that they jumped ship and switched to Gnome. I like Gnome, but if I want Gnome on Ubuntu, I'll just load up the most recent Ubuntu release.

I recently heard about OpenGEU. That sounds like it could be fun!

I've been using Linux for a few years now, but have only really played around with Ubuntu, gOS (1st version), eLive, and Fedora. I thought they were all pretty solid. I started on Fedora Core 4 and stayed with it through 5, but the dependency and repository issues drove me nuts. I'm currently test-driving 10 in VirtualBox, but it doesn't seem like they've resolved those problems yet.

[Raval]

I have not tried so many distros, but I think openSUSE is a bad distro...

I second that, but I do look forward to a day when I think the opposite of openSUSE.

[Naiki Muliaina]

@ chrisinspace - Try OzOS for a realy good implementation of E17 and Ubuntu. Its an absolutely cracking distro! http://cafelinux.org/home/


Not worst distro, but for me a bad implementation of E17 was openGEU. Felt to clunky for what the E17 desktop should feel like. Did look very pretty though.

[tcoffeep]

The only distro I've tried, thus far, that I didn't like was Fedora Core.

[chachawpi]

I've never had good luck with openSUSE or Fedora. It's a shame too, because RHEL and SLES are both rock solid. It's impossible to recommend Fedora over CentOS.

[chrisinspace]

@ chrisinspace - Try OzOS for a realy good implementation of E17 and Ubuntu. Its an absolutely cracking distro! http://cafelinux.org/home/


Not worst distro, but for me a bad implementation of E17 was openGEU. Felt to clunky for what the E17 desktop should feel like. Did look very pretty though.

Thanks for the advice. I'll be sure to check it out.

[brainac0cult]

suse is the worst its slow and boring

[C!oud]

Another distro I hate is Arch. Arch wanted me to upgrade (almost) all of the core system when I tried to install Xfce on a virtual machine! (It had outdated packages, no wonder WHY IT UPGRADES EVERYTHING! Not on Ubuntu or Gentoo, they only upgrade packages THAT need to be upgraded for that package.)

You must have been using an old cd image so of course it would have old packages that needed updating and Ubuntu tends to have a lot of updates after a fresh install depending when the last release was.

[bgs100]

Kubuntu: Good system, I just don't like certain parts of KDE.
Linspire: $$$ version of Freespire. *shivers* Ugg, terrible.

[fonville]

This is my first posting here. I'm an old HP-UX user and decided to give Linux a try over the Thanksgiving break. So I got a couple of removable racks so that I could swap drives in my old PII300, which I use for removable storage (hey, I still have 5.25s), NAS and Bittorrent.

Started with Foresight 2.06 Lite, no LiveCD, after installing it the updates caused about 70% of the icons to vanish. Even the Foresight logo turned to a red X.
Next was PCLinuxOS 2008, first it didn't like my hardware, then it would't install the LiveCD. Switched to PCLinuxOS Mini, LiveCD worked, installed that to my HD, the system wouldn't boot. I waisted 3 CDs on that PCLOS(er).
Frespire 2.0.8 was next. It had display size and application installation issues. Did not setup access to the other drives.

Finally tried UBUNTU 8.10, it worked, it even setup the SCSI Zip100 drive, nuff said. :KS

While the other three were basically crap and had me looking for a different OS within an hour. PCLinuxOS was the worst. :confused:

After reading the comments in this thread I see that I had a couple of other losers on my list to try, but for now I'll pass. :)

[silkstone]

I recently bought an Asus eee PC 901 with Xandros. If I hadn't been using Ubuntu for a couple of years on other machines, I'd have had a really bad impression of Linux. Xandros may be OK if you don't want to change or add anything, but most of the software is out of date and the GUI is difficult to configure.

I lived with it for two weeks and then installed Ubuntu-eee which is hugely better. It's a shame that this isn't the default OS on the eee PC - it would be a much beter advert for Linux. As it is, many people buying Linux eee PCs want to install XP instead. :(

[cmay]

i was just about to say that xandrox is the only linux i can say is simply not worth any effort at all. there is little packages for it. they are bot compatible with the debian resopoties and there is commercial trial ware with it (i got a free cd from linux magazine) if one want to have grossover office and try to run microsoft products instead of linux then xandrox maybe good enough. i had it up and runnning but it was simply not worth it. it could not even proper shutdown the computer and there was no sound eihter. i noticed that there is not all sources available for it and some of their drivers is obfuscated and one can not redristibute the cd. since there is this trial-ware on it. they in fact sell and do not permit resale of linux as i see from the wikipedia on it. so to install eeebuntu that is the first thing i am going to do by tomorrow when i get my new asus eeepc . other than that there is no such thing as a worst linux distro but there are many worst user experiences with a specific distro.

[Tamalin]

I can say that even though I would rather use it over Windows, Knoppix was really annoying (Especially because it ran in German by defualt).

[|{urse]

my 2 least fav distros

1. OpenSuse
2. PCLinuxOS

Dear god stop these distributions before they ruin linux for everyone.

[nachomania]

It took me four hours to update OpenSuse. Not upgrade. Not months after the release.

[silkstone]

@ cmay - I'd go for Ubuntu-eee rather than eeebuntu. Ubuntu-eee has the Array kernel built in, so wi-fi etc works out-of-the-box. Then run the elmurato scripts for improved function key support.

[drbongo]

Has to be OpenSuse, clearly the worst of the top ten distros. It is incredibly disappointing considering it is supposed to be one of the top three distros! They have a very poor package selection and I have always found their hardware detection very poor and it just looks awful...

drbongo

[mentallaxative]

Another distro I hate is Arch. Arch wanted me to upgrade (almost) all of the core system when I tried to install Xfce on a virtual machine! (It had outdated packages, no wonder WHY IT UPGRADES EVERYTHING! Not on Ubuntu or Gentoo, they only upgrade packages THAT need to be upgraded for that package.)

If you don't want a full upgrade, don't do pacman -Syu or -Su?

I see a lot of dislike for OpenSUSE here. I wanted to install it on my desktop at one point. It's a shame since it looks so good--website, distro and all. If I had a better laptop I would probably be using it.

Fonville: Foresight is a bit of a funny one to me. Intriguing package manager, average Gnome build. I want to like Foresight, but currently the support and packages it has is a bit too lacking for my taste. Conary has so much potential.

[NintendoTogepi]

I didn't realize this thread would be so popular! Thanks guys! :)

I'm still noticing a lot of OpenSUSE hate. I'm going to have to try it out.

[OrbJinzo]

Open Suse is defenilty on top of my list.
Mandriva is next Then prolly PClinuxOS

[LateNiteTV]

opensuse and mandriva.

[ingvildr]

Just out of interest are all the people hating on opensuse, mandriva and pclinuxos gnome fans?, since they are all primarily kde distros.

[scorp123]

Just out of interest are all the people hating on opensuse, mandriva and pclinuxos gnome fans? I personally dislike OpenSUSE because it does several things in crappy ways. The GUI is not important at all, e.g. it's no big deal to install GNOME on top of OpenSUSE, and I guess this is also true about the other distros you mentioned. Just as you can easily install KDE on top of Ubuntu if you want to.

[icecruncher]

I had a horrible experience with kubuntu.
just couldnt get used to their implementation of kde.

[Hallvor]

I had a horrible experience with kubuntu.
just couldnt get used to their implementation of kde.

Kubuntu was my first experience with KDE and it made me think I`d never use KDE again.

[Bachstelze]

Linux is Linux is Linux.

I'm not a big fan of Mandriva, OpenSuse and all other RH-based distros, but that's most likely just because I've always been on the Debian side as far as Linux is concerned.

[fistfullofroses]

Why don't I just phrase this this way... these are the distro's I have tried that didn't suck:

Slackware, Ubuntu, Debian, Gentoo, Arch, GoboLinux, Absolute, Damn Small, CentOS, Red Hat (before enterprise and fedora), SuSE (when it was still spelled that way), HAL91, and Mandriva 2009 (though I hated previous Mandrake/Mandriva releases due to bugs with random utilities)... I have tried quite a few more, and hated nearly all of them. Mainly, if a distribution either offers absolutely nothing new, or tries to do something new and fails miserably... I will loathe and detest it. Also, if it too closely follows the Linux Standard Base, or the Linux Filehierarchy standard, I will also loathe and detest it. If the system breaks on update, has conflicts because I did a config manually instead of with some stupid GUI tool or some other such awful mess... I will hate it. I am hard to please, but only because I am used to doing things in a slightly more old-school way. If you take away too many legacy options I am going to have a problem... unless of course your new thing is something off the beaten path aka-non GNU.

[MilesRdz]

Let me tell you all a story:

1. "ooooo!!!! ubuntu so cool!!! ..... wait it wont work!!!!! ahhhhhh
arrgggg!!! I hate linux !!!!..... oh wait it was just my sata drive!
Yay lilo worked! ubuntu is fun and easy and yay COMPIZ!!!! WOOOO!"

2. "ehhhh.. getting bored of ubuntu.... let me try......oh!.. OpenSUSE!
WHAT! Internet wont even work on LiveCD and it is so slow!!!!!!! ARRG!!
Bye bye! Lilo wont even install on this ****!!"

3. "Back to ubuntu again! Hardy is wonderful! so sturdy and ... Hardy!
Ohh this forum says that Mandriva is awesome! Let me try 2009 version!
Ooo so pretty!! Gonna install! EVERY THING WORKS!! EVEN USPLASH w/
LILO!!! Booting.... yay!! .......WHAT!!!!!!!!!! keeps freezing every 5
seconds. ****!!!!! MOVE STUPID CURSOR!!! ARG!!!!! Back to ubuntu!!!!"

4. "Ugh... updating to Ibex! need new gnome sounds!!!!!!!!
Intalled!!!yay no problems (like always!). Wait what!!! SOUNDS DONT
EVEN WORK!!!!!!! LOTS OF THINGS BROKEN!!!! NO NEW THEME!!!!!!!!!!!!
WTF UBUNTU!!!! 1st time you let me down!"

5. "Whats Fedora? COOL screenshots! no more **** brown and orange colors
for me!!! Yeah! got the CD lets put it in!......................ugh.
...........THIS IS TAKING FOR EVER!!!..............FINALLY!!!! A
CURSOR!!!......WTF are these green a black bars!!! Did my computer
get sick?!!!! ARGG!!! Let me wait and go out somewhere............
.................................................. ................
.................................................. ................
.......AHHHH THEY ARE STILL THERE!!!!!!! BYE BYE Fedora!!!!!!

6. "That ibex cd is still there.....hmmmm......What the heck! let me
give it another chance...Intall......Done! Booting!......Done!
Searching forum for fixes............DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everything
works again!!! SOUND EFFECTS TOO! *woosh* MINIMIZE!! YAY ubuntu!!!
If it were not for your forums....U WOULD BE NOTHING!!!!!!"

Moral of the story is.....
Almost every distro will be a horribe experience w/out a supportive forum!

If you dont know where to even START with Linux....
Use ubuntu and ask
THE FORUMS!!!
That is me right there!
Ubuntu is the only distro that is usable for me.
Fedora is in 2nd place.

PS: OpenSuse sucks.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Gentoo, at least the 2008 live CD.

I did what I could to install stuff. I choose options that looked fine and on reboot,
I get an error about the network service failing to start and the ethernet communication is dead. :-({|=

It looked as if the ISO was bad, I gotten an error for no apparent reason. And folks at the Gentoo message board seemed to blame me! :evil:

Thank you Gentoo for NOT telling me what the MD5 sum is! :evil:

Looks like Gentoo needs a spankin, because my ADSL 2 internet connnection is super stable and still got what looks like a corrupted ISO!

Also, when I typed "startx", I just gotten a window environment with terminals! WTF!


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also, Mepis, their EULA looks bad. Reguarding distribution, it mentions "Theft of goods" in a section of the EULA!

WTF! It's not hardware, thus what that EULA is talking about is called copyright infringement NOT called "Theft of goods", at least for the usual term.

Mepis appears to be NOT friendly for a F/OSS-based distro!

[Sorivenul]

Gentoo, at least the 2008 live CD.
With all the changes and issues with changes that Gentoo has undergone in recent times, I have not used it except to test it since about 2007. The LiveCD installer is mostly useless, IMO. Anymore, I believe they are pushing minimal install CDs and stage 3 tarballs as the preferred modes of installation.

Also, when I typed "startx", I just gotten a window environment with terminals! WTF!
This is the Xorg default. Not pretty. I blame this mostly on the LiveCD installer as 2 of my Gentoo 2008 test installs from the LiveCD had similar issues. To actually start a window manager, which should be Xfce by default if you used the LiveCD, you may need to create a .xinitrc file in your /home folder. The following command should hopefully work:
echo "exec startxfce4" > ~/.xinitrc
After that try "startx".

[som1special2]

definitely freespire

[exploder]

Scopr123 Wrote:

I personally dislike OpenSUSE because it does several things in crappy ways.

I have to agree with this completely. OpenSuse always looks promising but never does hit the mark.

[jrusso2]

There really are not any bad ones, maybe Linux-XP. Freespire would not be so bad but its still based on Feisty and its not being updated so I would not recommend that.

[SomeGuyDude]

Another distro I hate is Arch. Arch wanted me to upgrade (almost) all of the core system when I tried to install Xfce on a virtual machine! (It had outdated packages, no wonder WHY IT UPGRADES EVERYTHING! Not on Ubuntu or Gentoo, they only upgrade packages THAT need to be upgraded for that package.)

Can someone translate this mess for me? It sounds to me like this guy just installed Arch and hit the upgrade step and got mad for some reason. :confused:

[JDorfler]

I've tried a lot of distros, and most have their uses. However, the only distro I absolutely received nothing from was Freespire. Heck, Xandros on the EEEpc was okay. Right now I'm triple booting with Vista, Ubuntu, and Fedora. I suppose my next step will be to try a quad boot.

On a personal note, by far my favorite distro is Ubuntu due to ease of use, the community, and the way it lets you learn more quickly with less headaches than something that has a steeper learning curve.

[MisfitI38]

Another distro I hate is Arch. Arch wanted me to upgrade (almost) all of the core system when I tried to install Xfce on a virtual machine! (It had outdated packages, no wonder WHY IT UPGRADES EVERYTHING! Not on Ubuntu or Gentoo, they only upgrade packages THAT need to be upgraded for that package.)

Wow.

[LinuxGuy1234]

Gentoo. Most pointless project in the history of humanity :p

It would be like serving pigs covered in dough instead of hotdogs, "So you could be in complete control of the build process"

UUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!

1. Gentoo is meant for gurus, not pointless people like you (jaconk.uk).
2. Not complete, though.

Linux from Scratch. For gurus. I had no time to install X11 on LFS.

[LinuxGuy1234]

Wow.

Not so wow.

I can translate my mess...

First, I installed Arch from a 2007.0 CD.
Then I ran "pacman -S xfce4" (or something).
Finally, I took a look at what it would install/remove/upgrade.
Most of the base system was upgraded. I got angry and posted here.

[durand]

@LinuxGuy1234 - Different distros work in different ways..Ubuntu might only upgrade what's required in the short term while Arch might upgrade everything so it's all up to date and new and perfect... Gentoo will only upgrade if you tell it to and you can even choose the level to upgrade to... There is a reason why there are so many distros, different people want to do different things.

[MisfitI38]

Not so wow.

I can translate my mess...

First, I installed Arch from a 2007.0 CD.
Then I ran "pacman -S xfce4" (or something).
Finally, I took a look at what it would install/remove/upgrade.
Most of the base system was upgraded. I got angry and posted here.


Next time, instead of getting mad at Arch for upgrading a 2 year old install, maybe simply use a current Core iso.
Or, better still, an ftp iso.

?

[DeadSuperHero]

FreeBSD. Now THERE was a bad Linux distro.

Dun-dun-TAP!

:lolflag:

[albinootje]

yeah I agree with the website, it looks pretty good compared to Debian's! The first Linux distro I where going to test was Debian, but because of their website I turned away from it and moved to Linux Mint, then Mandriva, then PCLinuxOS, then openSUSE (I hated that) and finally Ubuntu Intrepid which fits me nicely!

You don't like the Debian website ? I like the simple approach and the colors.
And i like the design of the Debian Etch installer very much!

I dislike Yast a lot... and therefore I don't like OpenSUSE at all.

But.. have a lot of fun!
:| :)