What should I try after Ubuntu...

[Nils Olav]

Do something more useful like: reading, learning stuff that's not trivial, homework, or sleeping. You're really not going to learn much. Any way, I like gobolinux (you might want to wait for 014) and Frugalware.

[plb]

Another vote for debian. KDE on debian (sid) is always to up to date.

[goumples]

Linux Mint 2.2

[VCSkier]

I'm downloading Arch Linux right now. Basically, I had narrowed it down to Arch and Frugalware, as they both appear to be rather minimalistic advanced-intermediate distributions, and then went w/ Arch simply because it's website seemed quite a bit more polished, and there was a beginners guide that seemed pretty comprehensive, yet easy to follow. Hopefully I'll get some time to give an installation a shot soon. I'll keep you posted. And please, don't stop with the suggestions; I apparently like downloading iso's and messing with this stuff when I should be studying...

Thanks everyone.

[RAV TUX]

I've very happy and comfortable with Ubuntu; I've been using it consistently for over a year now, and I feel like my learning rate is slowing down, so I'd like to install a second distribution so I can keep learning. I'm setting 2 partition, one will always be for my stable installation (of Ubuntu), and the other will be for testing and playing. Once Gutsy gets alittle further on in development, it will be on my testing partition, but until then, what would you recommend I try.

I'm totally up to suggestions, but here is a description of something I think I might be looking for.

I'd like it to be using KDE by default, because I'm already very familiar with Gnome. Also, I'd prefer it to be a very up-to-date distribution, because that will make it more fun, and I need to be using either a very current kernel, or an older one, because the 2.6.20 kernels wouldn't boot on my system until our 2.6.20-14.23 was released. Some instability would be fine, because this will just be a learning experience for me; I will have my stable Ubuntu install for school/work. Oh, and it must be installable from cd, because I don't have a dvd burner.

If you think I should try something that doesn't match the above, suggest it anyway, I'm open to ideas.

I thought Sayabon might be interesting, but the kernel on the latest mini release wouldn't work for me. Fedora 7's development seems to be coming along well, so I was looking at it. On the other end of the spectrum, I was looking at Frugalware, but I don't know if I could swing it, what do you think? Another that caught my eye was VLOS, but there hasn't been a very current release, as far as I could tell.

So, what are your recommendations?

CentOS

[VCSkier]

The current release of Arch Linux isn't accessing my hdd... I had the same problem during the development of feisty, but two weeks before the final release, there was a kernel patch released that fixed it. I liked the idea of trying something that wasn't Debian based, but Sidux is looking nice as well so I'm downloading it, and I'll give it a shot. Distrowatch is reporting their kernel as 2.6.20.1. Hopefully this includes that kernel fix that I need. We'll see.

[floke]

I can highly recommend Pardus.
Very easy to run and install though, so not sure how much you'll learn, but its certainly different

[at0mic]

live cd's are fun. Puppy linux is my favorite. [one click hd mounts, ethernet init, etc] . not to mention you can burn from the same cd/dvd drive you loaded from!!!

[ThinkBuntu]

I don't feel like clogging up the forum so I'll add this as a reply. Since this seems to be a distro free-for-all.

I've decided I need to settle on one distro and stick with it...I though I would settle on Ubuntu, but I've experienced some bugginess that makes me wonder whether it hit the top of its arc at 6.10, but I have an install disc if I decide it's the best for me. I'll be trying Dreamlinux, PCLOS, SAM, Sidux, Mandriva (very curious about Metisse), and the Sabayon mini cd. The Sabayon DVD was a disaster on my computer which isn't all that slow, but I've heard so much good stuff about it that I have to give the "min" a try. I've also used Etch, MEPIS, Mint, Arch, Zenwalk (a ton), and of course Feisty and Edgy.

It can be very hard to choose sometimes! Once I choose one, I'll be with it for a while, so I'll be weighing many, many factors. I'm leaving out OpenSUSE because I'm suspicious about the deal (I know, I know, it's different from SUSE. But it is SUSE's base, and joining/supporting the userbase supports development), Fedora because I've heard bad things about it, and many others because I don't have all the time in the world.

Anyway, I have a stack of blank discs (not just for distro-testing, believe me!), and a little time to burn. Any other recommendations? I need a system that really handles itself in every way, although for small things I'm willing to get my hands dirty. I've found that updates tend to not play nice when I've gotten my hands *very* dirty to get my system just right, so I'm probably not going to go with Zenwalk, Arch, or a similar distro that lacks many common features.

[ezsit]

Why not try something different, but not so hard...

PC-BSD
http://www.pcbsd.org/

Desktop BSD
http://www.desktopbsd.net/

Both systems are based on FreeBSD, come with KDE as default, and are relatively easy to install. These will be a nice change from the Linux world.

Also, give Belenix a try, it is an OpenSolaris based single live/installable CD or DVD from the Solaris research folks in India, at http://www.genunix.org/distributions/belenix_site/

If you want slightly different Linux experiences, try these:

GNUSTEP
http://www.linuks.mine.nu/gnustep/

GoboLinux
http://www.gobolinux.org/

Dynebolic
http://www.dynebolic.org/

Kwort
http://kwort.org/

Paldo
http://www.paldo.org/

PLD Linux
http://pld-linux.org/

Saxen Linux
http://saxenos.de/

Wolvix
http://wolvix.org/