A good, solid Linux distro to try out for 6 months

[3Miro]

No, I mean that Mint uses the Ubuntu repositories.

Oh, I forgot about that ... yes, that does make Mint a *buntu distribution.

[boydrice]

So I've been an Ubuntu user for two years now, and I've loved Ubuntu. But this release, Natty Narwhal is not running well with my ATI video card, and so I figured instead of installing another *buntu based distro, this could be a good learning experience! I've been looking specifically at Fedora Beta 15 and Arch, are they solid? Suggestions are welcome, and I hope to be back for 11.10.

I think this thread belongs in other distro talk. Anyway I think the answer to your questions depends on what you mean by a good learning experience. If you want something that just works better with your ATI card then just start trying live CDs of Fedora, openSUSE, PCLinuxOS, etc. If you want to learn more about linux in general try Slackware, Arch, Debian, or Gentoo and I would say of those four Slackware will give you a working desktop right out of the box that will be different from a Debian-derived distro. Keep in mind Debian and Fedora are much more free in the FSF sense so if you have a great reliance on restricted drivers, proprietary drivers these are not going to be as easy to have working out of the box. For example a default Debian install doesn't include firmware for my Intel 5100 wireless card even though it is in the mainline kernel. Personally I think you shoud try Slackware but that is because no distro has ever taught me as much as Slackware.

[krapp]

If you are looking to leave Ubuntu, why not leave for Debian. Bring some downstream ideas back upstream. Debian is rock solid and stable and it's time to work on the next release. Giving back to Debian helps contribute back to Ubuntu. If you debug something with the ATI drivers under Debian, the change will filter back to Ubuntu. It's a win-win situation.

Only if Ubuntu does its part! My Radeon HD 5730's performance is much more satisfactory under Debian than Ubuntu.

As for the OP, Debian is the next logical step. It's just a little less user-friendly, apt-get and aptitude still work, and the repositories have similar holdings to those of Ubuntu. Be warned however that you might fall in love with Debian and want to stay on Debian 6 Stable until 7 comes out (could be as much as 2 years from now!).

[snowpine]

Debian is only tricky to install if you go for the minimal "netinstall" CD. If you install from CD 1 and choose "Desktop Environment" you get the full Gnome desktop and basic suite of necessary applications, just like (classic) Ubuntu.

[NightwishFan]

It is a bit tricky if you do not install with a net connection. I see nothing fairly difficult about using Debian. It is much easier to modularize the system though. (No forced plymouth, no buggy make-kpkg). Apt tools such as apt-get souce/dpkg-buildpackage and -dev packages for everything make playing with source code such a breeze.

[RoflHaxBbq]

Debian.

It's really not that hard.

[ade234uk]

Alright everyone so I'm currently installing Debian Testing If that doesn't go too well, I'll go to Fedora, and if that goes sour, Arch is in order. Linux Minto is a bit too sinilar too Ubuntu for my taste, and as for the others, I'm planning to give them a run in a virtual machine.

I actually installed Fedora 14 as I could not get on with Unity. I will be back to Ubuntu in a couple of months once things sort themself out.

Really impressed with Fedora 14 so far and not noticing any difference between this and Ubuntu. I think you will like it.

If you need to install everything at once use a package called easylife on Fedora. I had a running desktop in less than an hour.
http://easylifeproject.org/

The only thing that is a pain is getting sopcast installed. The only downside to Fedora is the community feels a lot smaller.

[blueturtl]

Deeee beee aaannnn!

[keithpeter]

Hello All

Hum... solid... how about the current stable CentOS (5.6) or Scientific Linux (6.0)? These are both RHEL clones/recompiles with slightly different goals. Would enable you to learn about the RHEL world. Both have updates for ages...

[madhi19]

Debian stable! Maybe boring but it rock solid otherwise Mint.