Which of these is better?

[ratcheer]

I've been running Debian a little over 6 months and it runs rock solid and stable!

Yep. With all other distros I've used I felt like a hamster running on one of those circular wheels just trying to keep up with all the changes and foul-ups caused by the changes. Debian is so stable it is almost boring, but that is good. I think.

Note that this is true even though I am on sid. I do a dist-upgrade every day and I'm on the latest kernel (currently 3.6.6, but expecting 3.7 any day now) and packages. But everything works and it just keeps on working.

Tim

[cwsnyder]

@ratcheer: Wait until Debian releases Wheezy, then Sid will start updating again, probably with a backlog in the first few weeks.

[zombifier25]

Hands up everybody who has used the fabulous Arch documentation? My most recent usage was the definitive wiki page on the state of play with Bluray and Linux:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/BluRay

Can't be matched by any other distro, but I will stick with Slackware all the same

Even I have to agree about Arch's awesome documentation. It's not just the Arch wiki, it's the everything-Linux-related wiki.

[ratcheer]

@ratcheer: Wait until Debian releases Wheezy, then Sid will start updating again, probably with a backlog in the first few weeks.

Yes, that's what I hear.

Tim

[Cope57]

There is no distribution better than the other, it is a subjective statement, and it is best resolved by trying them all out and deciding for oneself which best suits you.

Go check out distrowatch.com and try out the top fifty, eventually make a decision and settle down with a distribution you like, until you have the urge to start hopping around again. Maybe by then you will have figured out virtualbox, or gnome-boxes to try all distributions out in a virtual environment so one does not have to reinstall constantly.

Strange how distribution hopping does not occur with Windows users, maybe it is the lack of choice?

[blackbird34]

Strange how distribution hopping does not occur with Windows users, maybe it is the lack of choice?

This

[joco1500]

gentoo fo-sho

[Aaron Christianson]

I'm a very satisfied Arch user, but my experience with Gentoo is limited and with Slackware not at all.

[kwacka]

I agree. I gave up on Arch and switched to Debian sid (Siduction Linux, actually) because of systemd. If Debian gets to the point of requiring systemd, I will find something else.

Tim

bad news for you - systemd is in Debian testing

Installation

To install systemd run:

# apt-get update
# apt-get install systemd

Its also likely to be a dependency of Gnome 3.*, so forget that, as well as Fedora, SuSE, Mandriva.

[kwacka]

Looking through this thread I haven't seen one actural criticism of systemd - is anybody aware of ways it is inferior to sysvinit or upstart for a home or small business environment?

I've been using Arch for the past year, on network standard but using testing on a netbook. No problems at all with main system, but a couple of glitches with testing - but advice regarding problem/solution by the time I've gone to their website.