is ubuntu your favourite?

**SunSpyda** · February 15th, 2009

My favorite OSs are in my signature.

I like Ubuntu, but I prefer them =)

OpenBSD for it's solidness and security, and Debian for it's compatibility.

I use OpenBSD for 90% of things and I use Debian for when I need to use a Linux program that simply wont run under the OpenBSD's compatibility layers. That's it really. *BSDs being rubbish as desktop OSs is really a myth.....

**wolfen69** · February 15th, 2009

yes, ubuntu is my favorite. works great for me.

Originally Posted by cmay

ubuntu is based on debian. debian is a bit more old fashion but way faster and more stable.

while debian is traditionally known to be rock solid stable, sometimes i think it depends on the installation in question. (hardware, etc.) but my latest installation of Ibex has been the most solid, stable install of any OS i've ever had. not one single glitch or hesitation in 3 months. but yeah, debian is great also. i can live with either one, but i kind of prefer the newer apps that ubuntu can provide easily.

**handy** · February 16th, 2009

Originally Posted by C!oud

I think sorivenul summed it up perfectly, if you're are happy with Ubuntu then it's the best for you.

+1

Originally Posted by C!oud

Of course in certain circumstances some distros are better suited than others. For example if you've got an old computer with only 128 MB RAM there would most definitely be better choices than Ubuntu. Or if you have really specific needs, such as a Linux firewall distribution then you could consider things like IPCop.

Or if you need/desire a NAS solution; an old PII/PIII with FreeNAS installed, will give you all the horsepower you need, you will just need to find enough HDD space to satisfy you storage requirements.

Originally Posted by Fenris_rising

My main PC has 8.04 only on it but at the moment it's got a blown PSU

I don't know how it works where you live, but the cheapest easiest way out of a blown PSU problem here abouts, is to go to the rubbish dump, recyclers or whatever you have & if you can't buy just a PSU then buy just a computer box with one in it. If you need more power for your fancy graphic card, & you've got no money, then buy 2 $5- computers & use one PSU solely for your graphics card, until you can afford a more tidy solution.

Make sure you have a mains power cable for each PSU.

**tommcd** · February 16th, 2009

I started with Ubuntu; and I still like Ubuntu a lot. Out of curiosity, and a desire to learn more about linux, I started trying out other distros. Slackware is now my favorite. I like that it uses "plain vanilla" (i.e., not patched or customized) kernel and packages; and that it stays out of your way and lets you control the system yourself.

I have tried most of the popular distros, and a few of the lesser known distros. I mostly stick with Slackware, Zenwalk, Debian, and Ubuntu.

**SunnyRabbiera** · February 16th, 2009

In reality there is no best distro, just best distro for you.
If Ubuntu works for you, use it but the beauty of linux is you can try out others for free so if something else works better use it.
I have actually found some distros that are better then Ubuntu in certain terms but Ubuntu is good in terms of community.

**Bachstelze** · February 16th, 2009

Originally Posted by SunnyRabbiera

In reality there is no best distro, just best distro for you.

More than that: there is just a best distro for you in some use cases. It is a bit like food: even if your favourite food is pizza, I don't think you eat pizza in the morning. Likewise, even though my favourite OS is OpenBSD, I'm not using it when there is something that does the job better.

OpenBSD is an OS with top-notch security features, and the best firewall software out there, so I use it on my router.

For my file server, I think a Linux OS is better because Linux has much better disk management solutions (LVM and a very good software RAID). I could have chosen any Linux OS, but I went with Slackware for its extreme simplicity and lightness.

For my main web, mail and DNS server, I went with FreeBSD for its great scalability and how easy it is to manage system updates as well as third-party packages.

For desktop systems, I mostly use Ubuntu and Windows Vista (except on my laptop where I have to use XP because of a stupid device with poorly written drivers that don't work on Vista), simply because it does what I want/need it to do.

Bottom line: even though most OSes can perform pretty much any task you could think of, some are better suited than others to do a particular task, and even if they are not your "favourite", it is usually a good idea to use them.

**handy** · February 16th, 2009

Ubuntu: was my favourite, & introduced me to Linux/BSD, for which I will be forever grateful.

Following are the regular OS's/distro's that I run in my office; Arch & OSX are on an iMac, the others are on their own machines, both IPCop & FreeNAS run headless & are accessed via browser based GUI's from a client on the LAN.

IPCop: A tiny Linux based firewall/proxy/router (& some other services) installation.

FreeNAS: A tiny FreeBSD based installation, dedicated to NAS.

Arch: Main desktop distro.

Sabayon: Was my Cedega game box through two versions, the latest version is incompatible with my hardware though & needs to be replaced, probably by CrunchBang.

OSX: Is primarily used to play Guild Wars via Crossover Games, as the Linux ATi drivers are still inferior to the OSX ones. OSX is also where I do my website work as there is no equivalent substitute available on Arch at this stage.