PDA

View Full Version : How many versions of Linux have YOU tried before settling down with Ubuntu?



magomago
February 25th, 2006, 03:38 AM
Just wondering. Been using Linux off an on a LOT since 8th grade (now I'm in junior in college). Never really figured it out till two years ago.
I remember seeing a copy of Mandrake 7.0 in Electronic Boutique in 8th grade that caused me to be interested. Later I saw a copy of Suse for 2.99 and that really hyped me up. Mandrake 8.0 was going to be coming out soon so I got my uncle at the university to burn it for me. I got it installed it, and had so much fun initially. But when I tried to do anything I failed miserably. Installing programs was a huge PITA (dependency hell had a REAL meaning! I remember I once looked for like thirty dependencies before I gave up because there were starting to be dependencies for the dependencies). I ended up wiping it all and sticking Win 95 back on the OEM HP.
Then here and there I did get a few more versions on my pc. Drake 8.1 didn't do much to me, I was EXTREMELY hyped about Redhat 8.0 because it was going to be the "Windows Killer" and the replacement I wanted with standardization that blue curve was going to come with (not really sure what that meant at the time but I figured some kind of standard among a diver *nix world had to be good...and I still maintain this! Imagine having fifty differet kinds of generic drivers for our video card without Xorg being the standard! We'd kiss video acceleration good bye!). I got it, and got caught again in dependency hell. I actually got mplayer and its codecs complied for the first time and that was my biggest accomplishment.
Then I really started hoping for mandrake 9.0 for it was touted as the true replacement for a lot of the media apps. I was completely :\ with it when it did come. I guess while I didn't like Gnome in Redhat 8.0 (way too limited!) KDE was starting to wear down on me. The "too many useless options", but it was kind of like windows so I stuck with it. I wend Mandrake 0.0, Redhat 9.0, Mandrake 9.1, and then in my freshman year in college I tried the brand new Fedora Core 1. I ended up installing FC2 during that summer and then tried Mandrake 10.0!!! COMPLETE disappointed, and always with the whole installing programs and just trying to use it. Also someone all the random installs nuked my windows drive and I lost so much personal info I swore never to touch Linux again.

Well two summers ago the drake 10.1 caught my interest (or was it 10.2 I don't remember? )...didn't like it again

I never understood why i tried so much, yet no matter how hard I tried it didn't work.

Last summer I tried drake again and it was okay...Then before I was about to wipe it once more and run back to my XP install I heard of this new Linux thing. "Hoary Hedge hodge Ubuntu!" I knew of it back in warthog but it did not sound very interesting, had a weird name. On top of it, it used this weird .deb system.

Well i tried it and fell it love with it. Things started to finally make sense...and to type a single "apt-get" and it would download the program and ALL dependencies was just too good to be true! In fact I waited eagerly for the October release of breezy badge while I used Hoary and have been using it every since.

Now I'm eagerly waiting for Dapper Drake and I'm sure it won't disappointed me at all (Breezy seemed to have a lot of hype and made a few last mistakes...like who sends in a different version of GCC with the distro? For me its not an issue but for those who need to compile and don't have easy net access its huge! It was also good to get my modem working! I did get it once in Mandrake 8.0 but there was quite a bit of work around

Anyways...

Basically every version of Mandrake and Red hat from 8.0 from each all the way till whatever was available last summer.
Now I am free myself from dependency hell (I remember Redhat had YUM and at the time it was clearly inferior to apt-get's cow powers...best of luck to it now) and know quite a bit more!

UBUNTU FTW!

Your guys experiences, previous distros, or even the distro you use now while having Used Ubuntu in the past?

plb
February 25th, 2006, 03:40 AM
debian, gentoo, freebsd, openbsd, slackware, knoppix, suse, mandrake, redhat

I think thats all of them. Been using Linux since 1999

KiwiNZ
February 25th, 2006, 03:52 AM
Mandrake, Mandriva, ...Good
Redhat,...Sound but conservative
Fedora,...Average
Slackware,...poor
Debian,...Good
Xandros,...Good
Coral,...Good
Linspire,...Good
Yoper,...Average(but fast)
Mepis,...Good
Suse,...Excellent
Novell,..Good
Ubuntu,...excellent
Kubuntu,...disappointing
PCLinixOS,...average
Turbolinux,...average
Solaris,...good
Gentoo,...hmmm(just dont have enough spare time for it)

I think thats me

briancurtin
February 25th, 2006, 04:21 AM
it took me two steps to get to ubuntu

started on SuSE and used it for a good while - great distro, but i wanted to get out and try more
fedora core 4/centOS - alright, nothing special to me (tried both of them for like a week and a half each)
ubuntu - recognized a lot of stuff, ran pretty well

now im on Arch and incredibly happy. best distro ive used, and im learning a ton from it

polo_step
February 25th, 2006, 04:42 AM
I'd say around fifteen over the past seven years or so.

None -- including Ubuntu -- has ever really worked out.

Most "sort of" work, but never fully. I've wasted an obscene amount of time on Linux.

Either the apps are unstable or buggy or my hardware isn't supported or the distro won't install. It's always something, and it's always something different on the different machines here. A/V apps were just awful with Ubuntu 5.04. I tried for months and they never worked properly, and nobody here had any solutions. :(

I'm thinking of giving the next Ubuntu version a try again and see if the "supported" wireless is actually supported this time around, along with my video.

Eventually, I'll get an adequate Linux.

Iandefor
February 25th, 2006, 04:42 AM
Before I installed Linux, I did a little playing around with Knoppix on my Windows installation, and that got me sort of familiarized with KDE, so I took the next step and found a distro based on KDE and installed it. My selection had been Xandros (Laugh all you want... :)), which wasn't that great, but I basically got my introduction to bash through it and got familiar with the CLI in Xandros. I began hearing a bunch of hullabaloo about Ubuntu right around the time Hoary was released, so I decided to give it a go. So, two distributions.

SVFUSiON
February 25th, 2006, 04:53 AM
I have tired Mandrake around version 7 a looong time ago, then Red Hat 7.2, Knoppix,DSL. Then a few years later I started getting into gaming servers using Red Hat 9.1. Then one day I wanted give it another chance with client and I saw on neowin about "Ubuntu" then I saw the light sort to speak. Now I am using Ubuntu as a Client and Fedora 4 Core for servers.

mushroom
February 25th, 2006, 05:11 AM
Mandrake 9.1 - I didn't know anything about Linux at this point, and I didn't know that Winmodems didn't work in it. So I got angry at Linux pretty quickly.

Fedora Core 2 - Destroyed my hard drive's partition tables. I didn't know what happened, I formatted over and over again and every time I reinstalled Windows it would come up corrupted. So I bought a new one, and I got even angrier at Linux.

Knoppix - Installed this, was really satsfied at the hardware detection, but kind of annoyed at all the applications. I wanted something more minimal. So I turned to...

Debian - Bare netinstalled only adding x-window-system and kdebase. I kept this for a few months and finally went to...

Ubuntu - Using it now. I've kept this longer than any other distro; it's awesome.

Qrk
February 25th, 2006, 05:23 AM
Too many. In order, I believe they are...
Mepis
Mandrake
SuSE
Fedora
Gentoo
Slackware
Vector
Progeny
FreeBSD
Debian
CentOS
Back to Mepis...
Then Ubuntu.

nickle
February 25th, 2006, 05:33 AM
Suse 7.2, 9.1, 9.3, 10 mainly
and very briefly Fedora

I liked suse, especially yast apart from the god-awful package manager. Also some of the guys on the Suse forum were pig ignorant smart asses. Not to be recommended for the technically challenged like myself. Although the Guys at Suse itself were extremely helpful,friendly and professional once when I had a wierd problem with a version I had bought.
Although I have never had windows at home, I have cursed Linux sometimes because of hardware problems. However, if you are careful, read up on whats supported in advance (and know where to find that kind of stuff) you can avoid most of the hardware issues...
The software selection is amazing though and like the Beatles song, it's getting better all the time...

K.Mandla
February 25th, 2006, 06:24 AM
I tried Red Hat a long, long time ago and it was a sufficiently distasteful experience to keep me away from Linux until Ubuntu came along.

Since I picked up Ubuntu I've also worked with Slackware, Damn Small Linux and Knoppix, but I've settled on Ubuntu. I might try Arch and Gentoo in the near future, but I have a feeling Ubuntu and I will be together for a long time. :KS

andlinux21
February 25th, 2006, 06:40 AM
The first distro my nephew gave me was Red Hat 7, I played with it for a bit but never got into it. Then I tried mandrake liked it alot but still didnt do much with that one either. Then there was SuSE 8.2 Pro I really liked that distro and got me hooked into linux. I then tried Xandros 3 and after that back to SuSE 9.2 Pro I was a big SuSE fan till my nephew told me to check out Ubuntu 5.04 I have never gone anywhere else since then and dont think I will...:KS

bvc
February 25th, 2006, 06:55 AM
umm..I can't remember all the names :-k ...so many....little diff
it's over 30 though
the funnest, lightest and fastest? LFS :p

Lux Perpetua
February 25th, 2006, 09:18 AM
I haven't settled on Ubuntu. Actually, I'm in the process of trying out SuSE (dual boot with Ubuntu (more accurately, triple-boot with Ubuntu and Windows, but the latter doesn't get used much nowadays)). I face a dilemma: do I want the bleeding-edge SuSE 10.1 and the stable Ubuntu 5.10, or the bleeding-edge Ubuntu 6.04 and the stable SuSE 10.0?

(Linux user since August 2005)

TeeAhr1
February 25th, 2006, 07:34 PM
None. Here's my progression, starting at about age 7:
Apple II/IIc/IIe
MS-DOS
OS/2
Windows NT
Windows 95/98
Windows XP
Ubuntu 5.10

curtis
February 25th, 2006, 08:21 PM
I first used Redhat 7.3, was quiet good at the time.
Then used Redhat 9.0, someone told me about the CentOS project and I decided to use it.
Was quiet good but my sound card was not picked up or wireless (As it is a broadcom chipset)
Then tried Fedora core 3, was good except same issues CentOS had.
Then found out about Debian, tried that for a while quiet liked it.
After a while read about SuSe 9.2, tried it but didn't really like it really (I was used to GNOME :cool:)
I decided to try the new release of Fedora core then, core 4.
But it was quiet unstable.
For a month I tried a lot of distros, Gentoo, Slackware, Minislack (Now ZenWalk),
Mandrake (Removed straight after, hated it).
My favourite of them was Gentoo really, but it took a lot of my time, but I look forward to using it on my new computer.
I decided to then have a look at Ubuntu (Hoary then) and liked it a lot, for the first time ever my audio chipset was picked up by default (AC97 Intel one)
And the latest ndiswrapper was easy to set up.
My current laptop is running Dapper Drake, been dist-upgraded all the way up.
It's dual booted with Gentoo as well, I can only tell that it is a tiny bit faster to be honest.
Only thing is Gentoo performs a bit better with XGL for some weird reason.
I have to say though the best distro I have used is by far Ubuntu.
Bring on Dapper Drake :cool:

DigitalDuality
February 25th, 2006, 08:27 PM
Red hat 6.0 for about a month and switched back to windows
Red Hat 7.0 for about 2 weeks, and switched back again
Suse 10, terribly long long install process.. and it wouldn't recognize my video card or monitor. So i ditched it without trying b/c i was pissed.
Now i've tried out Breezy Ubuntu and Kubuntu, and Dapper Drake.

opensourcerocks
February 26th, 2006, 12:27 AM
Untill I realized that I would like a Debain based distro

lexor
February 26th, 2006, 12:40 AM
Used Red Hat for a few weeks years ago and dumped it, sometime later I messed about with Feather Linux.

My mian machine is Ubuntu and I have been useing it for over 8 months now nearly every day, so that must say something for Ubuntu.

I have a windows laptop that I need to use for work as the software will only run on windows, apart from that I wouldnt use it at all.

Quite happy with Linux now, but I tend not to use the computer at home for many things nowadays just reading forums and sending email.

The only thing I see bad about Linux is the lack of new hardware support and software support, but that isnt really the fault of Linux but the makers of software and hardware that are driven by a microsoft market.

The best thing to do about that is if it dont support Linux dont buy it thats the way me and my cash see it.

bonzodog
February 26th, 2006, 01:50 AM
heh..I discovered BSD and Linux in 1996 with SLES linux, which later became Slackware.
In 1999, After GPFing a win98se install an HOUR after I installed it, I decided to try Caldera 1.3, which i stuck with for 6 months, no net access, just me, caldera with KDE 1 and a good book.

Shortly after, in 2000, I discovered RedHat 6 on a magazine cover, and used that until I found Userfriendly.org, and the IRC channel they have. On discussing linux with them they told me all about Slackware, and I went to see one of the group, and he Introduced me to Slackware 7.0.
I briefly had a go at Mandrake, but boy, was it ugly, so, I went Back to slackware at 9.0's release, and was a solid slackware user until dec 2005, when I decided my recently bought 64 bit machine needed a 64 bit OS.
I experimented with Suse, but ugh! it used kde as a base for YaST??? That was an insane manoeuver IMO, as KDE has always equalled bloatage, and Suse proved it with a 4GB install.

I left slackware for two reasons: 1) kde is the standard desktop, and 2) it's 32 Bit...
So I decided to try Ubuntu Breezy, and I have to say it is good, as I'm a power user and like the CLI and manually hacking config files which Ubuntu allows me to do without much breakage. (try doing that in mdk - it breaks the GUI tools!).
So, here I am, with Xubuntu Dapper 64. (which is cool....)

hovmod
February 26th, 2006, 02:43 AM
I tried to install suse a couple of years ago, but it never worked. I don't mean it didn't work out for me; it plain didn't boot up.
So after a few failed attempts I dropped it altogether.

Now I'm on my first day of my first Linux experience.

I'm running some kind of script at the moment, and apparently I'm compiling the kernel - it's taking forever.
My goal is to use Ubuntu for audio, now that energyXT for Linux is arriving...
Wish me luck...

eriqk
February 26th, 2006, 03:59 AM
I tried to install suse a couple of years ago, but it never worked. I don't mean it didn't work out for me; it plain didn't boot up.
So after a few failed attempts I dropped it altogether.

Now I'm on my first day of my first Linux experience.

I'm running some kind of script at the moment, and apparently I'm compiling the kernel - it's taking forever.
My goal is to use Ubuntu for audio, now that energyXT for Linux is arriving...
Wish me luck...


Good luck, and welcome!

Groet, Erik

MethodOne
February 26th, 2006, 04:31 AM
I have first heard of Linux when I saw a box with the word "Mandrake" on it at Wal-Mart for $20.

The first distro I used was Damn Small Linux. I got this one because of its small size. I spent some time getting familiar with the shell commands. I'm also glad that they have at least XMMS and Firefox. I also used dpkg for the first time. I tried to get my Winmodem to work until version 2.0 included support for Lucent/Agere modems. -Excellent

Next I got some Linux CDs from my teacher, labeled "Red Hat Linux 7.3." They were actually ones of RH9. She also labeled disc 2 as disc 3 and vice-versa. When I got the chance to install it on my old Compaq laptop, I was presented with all the stuff for Red Hat certification and Red Hat Network. After booting, the system was horribly slow and I decided to go back to Damn Small. I finally realized when I was running it in a VMware machine, it wasn't as good as I thought it was. -Poor

Now it's time for my experience with other live CDs. The next one is KNOPPIX 3.8. It had some of the apps that I would use on a daily basis. After losing interest in the novelty of some remasters, I got the 4.0.1 DVD, which came with a crapload of apps. The only bad thing is that it doesn't support the Mobility Radeon X600 at 1680x1050 on my current laptop. -Good

When I was researching distros, I decided to order some Ubuntu Hoary CDs from shipit, 7 i386 and 3 AMD64. It was fine, but the omission of the menu editor prevented me from using it that much. Since I had a failed installation, I decided to move on to other distros.

With Fedora Core 4, I had a slightly better experience than RH9, but the package selection was mediocre. -Fair

Since I couldn't get my Winmodem to work, someone from my local Freecycle mailing list sent me a Xandros CD. That led me to disable ACPI in my BIOS. It allowed me to access a stripped-down Debian repository, but installing anything with kde in its name will break the system. The bad things are that my Winmodem didn't work and Xandros was slow on putting out updates. -Fair

Now here's the good part. I finally got Ubuntu to work on my system, with one of my Hoary CDs. When I got my Breezy CDs, I immediately installed it, but I had to edit my xorg.conf file to remove any instances of 1600x1200, since my monitor didn't support it. I got my system running, but I had to reinstall it twice. After many kernel upgrades and a KDE installation, I'm really enjoying this distro because I am able to access all the programs I use on a daily basis. I managed to give out some CDs to people in my Linux class at my college. -Excellent

A live CD that I liked even more than KNOPPIX was KANOTIX. It supported almost everything on my laptop, including my resolution and Winmodem. Also included was some of the apps I frequently use, except games. -Excellent

After using Ubuntu for a while, I decided to experiment with other distros. One that really caught my interest was Linspire 5.0. I decided to try out the live CD and I was impressed that it included the multimedia codecs that most other distros wouldn't touch. Once I bought a copy of it, I installed it on a VMware machine because I had problems with the resolution on my laptop. I decided to get a subscription to the CNR service and I really liked how I can install programs quickly. I hope they come with a fix for my resolution and my Radeon. -Excellent

I had a similar experience with SUSE 10.0 as with FC4, but it gave me less problems and offered more packages. -Excellent

That resulted in me sticking with three distros: Ubuntu, Linspire, and SUSE. Ubuntu will always be my main one, until something better comes along.

benplaut
February 26th, 2006, 08:22 AM
lets see...

SuSE
DSL (wtf was i thinking?)
Ubuntu
Gentoo (again...)
Debian
Ubuntu
Ebuntu!!!

towsonu2003
February 26th, 2006, 09:29 AM
about 6-8 distros, incld. suse slackware novell knoppix and so on... this winmodem did not work with anything else.

bigken
February 26th, 2006, 09:48 AM
none started with ubuntu but since the i have tried
manadrive
kubuntu
gentoo
suse 10.0

ubuntu comes out tops with me one of the main reasons is its ease of use and this forum ;)

GreyFox503
February 26th, 2006, 11:29 AM
Mandrake, Mandriva, ...Good
Redhat,...Sound but conservative
Fedora,...Average
Slackware,...poor
Debian,...Good
Xandros,...Good
Coral,...Good
Linspire,...Good
Yoper,...Average(but fast)
Mepis,...Good
Suse,...Excellent
Novell,..Good
Ubuntu,...excellent
Kubuntu,...disappointing
PCLinixOS,...average
Turbolinux,...average
Solaris,...good
Gentoo,...hmmm(just dont have enough spare time for it)


O_o

<Neo> whoa... </Neo>

I especially like the part about not having enough spare time for Gentoo. :)


Ahem. Anyways, Mandrake was my first distro. Didn't use it hardly at all.

Then Ubuntu, which I've used a lot. I've also installed Gentoo and am prepping for slackware. I've run Linspire, SuSE, freeBSD (well, tried), DSL, and Xandros inside a virtual machine, but no real install.

I wouldn't say I've settled yet.

ygarl
February 26th, 2006, 12:16 PM
Fedora Core 3 - Started out ok, until I started using Yum - and tried to compile code <shudder!>
Mandrake 9.1 (free v.) - Started out ok, but LOUSY community to sort probs. No support unless you pay...
Mandrake 9.2 (free v.) - Good again at start, same support structure
Mandrake 10.1 (free) - decent, but slightly trashed my MBR on install
Ubuntu Hoary - Excellent support - no wireless for my Broadcom yet.
Ubuntu Breezy - Much better distro, ditty for the wireless
Ubuntu Dapper - Best so far. I use Windowmaker and Gnome and they work brilliantly. Still no wireless however!
Dynebolix Live CD - use it for my multi-track recording studio needs. Works with VERY low resources, yet has wonderful programs which Ubuntu doesn't even HAVE let alone them working properly (in realtime mode)
FreeBSD - just too wierd.
Knoppix Live CD - works fine, but doesn't really do much more than the Dynebolic live CD except OpenOffice, to be frank. Useful for recovery purposes I guess.

Bandit
February 26th, 2006, 12:18 PM
1 ) Slackware = to much for me at the time, First distro I tried.
2 ) Redhat = Ok back then..
3 ) Mandrake = Good at the time.
4 ) Suse = Very good, used it more then any other distro.
5 ) Mandriva = Heh.. distro went to hell...
6 ) Ubuntu = Excelent!!!
7 ) Kubuntu = Almost Excelent, but getting there..
8 ) Debian = Tried it, just wasnt up to par as K/Ubuntu.
9 ) Fedora = F'd up redhat..
10 ) Gentoo = I am really to impatient for this distro.. Nothing wrong with it, its just me..

dosed150
February 26th, 2006, 12:25 PM
ubuntu is the only linux ive used i first started using it in november and i dont really see the point using another distro because i really like ubuntu

Bandit
February 26th, 2006, 12:32 PM
ubuntu is the only linux ive used i first started using it in november and i dont really see the point using another distro because i really like ubuntu
Other distros are fun, they make you realize how good Ubuntu really is.. :D

prox2far
February 26th, 2006, 05:16 PM
I've been through most of the distros linuxiso.org is offering

Red Hat 6.something ( my first Linux experience )
Didn't really use it, I got it bundled with a book and installed it on a old wreck, was damn fast compared to windows.

Didn't use Linux for a long time after that short experience, About a year and a half ago I started again.

I have gone through all the following distro on a Znote 1800C laptop.
The features are rather office like.
1.5 GHz celeron M, 750+ MB ram, 30 GB HDD, intel 855GME W/onboard gfx and running Windows XP on the side

Mandrake - well it did work but my laptop was flooded with apps all doing the same thing, the ACPI part was screwed up making the fan buzz sound part of the Mandrake experience. Threw this thing out when a kernel update and Lilo messed up WinXP :(

Lycoris - I tried the free version and I could not do anything except use a bunch of useless apps that was supposed to demonstrate the power off Lycoris, I used this one for one night.

College Linux - this one was a great experience except everything was extremely outdated and almost nothing worked out of the box, kept this one for 2 weeks, just couldn't stand updating all those aging packages.

Tried the old 4.something Ubuntu after this and stuck with it until 5.10 Breezy badger came out and switched Ubuntu with Kubuntu ( Got tired of the VERY ugly brown look you get with Ubuntu )

Other distros I have tried since then
SOL ( Server On Linux ) - most of this one was outdated and i didn't want to update everything like i had tried with College Linux

Gentoo - I got a wotking system up and running, but it wasn't worth the time.

DSL - It is damn small and great with small/old system I still like to use it

Knoppix - I sometimes use this for system rescue/diagnostics

PatrickMay16
February 26th, 2006, 05:47 PM
I first tried Mandrake back in April 2005, which I didn't like so much at the time since I didn't know enough to use it properly.

My next experience was with Ubuntu. I registered on this forum in July 2005 and just hung around for a while, reading posts and manuals and stuff about Ubuntu until finally in September I installed a new hard disk and put Ubuntu on it.
That second time, after hanging around and reading up on stuff, I knew enough to get along OK. About a month after installing Ubuntu, I barely used Windows any more.

Paloseco
March 2nd, 2006, 07:59 PM
red hat 9, slackware 10, suse 9.3, suse 10, gentoo 2005.1-r1, slax, mandriva 2006, elive 0.4, fedora core 3, source mage, suse 10.1beta4, knoppix, debian 3.0r2, PCBSD 0.85, dyne:bolic 2.0beta, big linux and many other that sure I forgot.

I love nearly everything from ubuntu except the services management. What I really really love is the system that gentoo has to sort the services by priorities. I really love too the rc-update & rc commands from gentoo, since you can also send the arguments status and which services depend and reverse-depend. With ubuntu you only can start, restart and stop. update-rc.d is not that intuitive and I always get confused. Gentoo has really worked in the services management and I love it.

fkamp
March 4th, 2006, 05:03 PM
RedHat 8
Mandrake 9
Mandriva le 2005
Slackware 9
Slackware 10
Slackware 10.2
ubuntu breezy on compaq laptop
kubuntu breezy on compaq laptop in expert mode

I'm Not a fan of grub, gnome or sudo but I have heard great things about apt. Tried kubuntu and I like it much better. Using it with lilo. My favorite though is
Slackware 10.2. There's alot to be said for the ability to have fine-grained control over your system without having default assumptions made for you. I am aware that that's why ubuntu is very popular though. And it DID identify and setup my hardware just about perfectly. Except for the broadcom wireless, but that's not ubuntu's fault.

knalle
March 4th, 2006, 05:11 PM
redhat, mandrake, slackware and debian sarge

WelterPelter
March 4th, 2006, 05:18 PM
I used Mandrake for several years, and was OK with it. When they switched to Mandriva, it wouldn't install right on my computer, and it was impossible to get any answers from the Mandriva forums/website.

So I decided to try ubuntu. It's been a much better experience, especially the responsiveness and atmosphere of these forums.

nblythin
March 4th, 2006, 08:12 PM
Well, personally I haven't settled down with Ubuntu.

I primarilly use Xandros as my preferred Linux distro. The only things that are "less than ideal" about it are:
1. No Live CD and
2. Its a commercial distrobution.

Now, these are not a problem for my own personal and business use, but do become a problem when I'm preaching Linux to friends / co-workers. I know I am more likely to convince them to try out a live CD, than to do a full install. So, I needed to install (on one of my systems) and learn a different distro that does have a live CD - and the one I settled on for that purpose was Ubuntu.

It just seemed to me, from a lot of reading, and from some test-driving, that Ubuntu was on its way to becoming one of the leading Linux distros. I also like the level of support for it, which is again really good for a non-commercial linux.

As for which ones I've tried? Too many to remember them all! Xandros, Ubuntu (including Kubuntu, Edubuntu), Mepis, Yellow Dog, Knoppix, Gnoppix, Yoper, Gentoo, Slackware, Mandriva, SUSE, Linspire, Black Rhino, Morphix, Fedora, Red Hat (enterprise), Debian, PCLinuxOS, Zen, Puppy, Damn Small, BBC ... plus another 1/2 dozen obscure ones that I can't even recall the names of.

FizDev
March 5th, 2006, 03:37 AM
Mandrake
Red Hat
Slackware
Gentoo
Ubuntu

fahad
March 7th, 2006, 03:47 PM
Mandrake
RedHat
Fedora
Slackware

clemcat
March 7th, 2006, 04:01 PM
SuSe 8.1:???:
SuSe 9.0:???:
Red Hat:-k
Fedora :neutral:
Gentoo:(
Knoppix[-(

And you know what I have learned, Ubuntu\\:D/ is the best one yet, toooooo easy to config and tweak exactly like I want to.

Chris

bender888
March 7th, 2006, 04:32 PM
SuSE 9.1, cd failed to burn
Mandrake 10.1, :confused:
Fedora Core 3, this was the first distro that I liked and the on that got me into Linux.
Slackware 10.1, to much work.
MEPIS, Knoppix 3.9, not bad.
Ubuntu \\:D/

Ubunted
March 7th, 2006, 05:40 PM
Well after struggling with corrupted CD installs of Red Hat 7.1 and 9 at school,I'm frankly surprised I kept going. But I'm glad I did. I tried Mandrake 10 followed by 10.1 and used that on my laptop for a few months before deciding to try this ubuntu thing I'd been hearing so much about.

lordofkhemenu
March 7th, 2006, 08:03 PM
Hmm. Where to start?
If it wasn't a specialized linux distro (say floppyfw or something like that), I probably tried it...I've been using linux since the late 90s.
In no particular order (some are no longer around and some were even re-visited) and the earliest release version that I can recall using:
Redhat 4.2, SuSE 6, OpenLinux, Caldera, Slackware 7, Debian 3, Mandrake, Lunar, Sorcerer, Arch, Gentoo, Mepis, Knoppix, Vector, TurboLinux, Conectiva, LFS, Beehive, Stampede.
I'm now using Ubuntu - happily, I might add, on my laptop.

My first ever Linux experience was with RedHat 4.2...I accidentally wiped out my Windows 98 partition during the install...had no recovery disks..so I learned Linux the hard way.

FISHERMAN
March 7th, 2006, 08:17 PM
Knoppix and Ubuntu are the only Linux-versions I've tried so far.

Crenshinibon
March 7th, 2006, 08:44 PM
I sticked to Suse Linux for a long time. But used it mainly as a server system (router, game server, email server ... stuff like that).

When switching my workstation to Linux, abondening completely M$, my first try was Gentoo. But after 3 weeks of trouble ... I tried Kubuntu, cause I was used to the KDE. But after all it was still to complicated to just USE it ...

Now for almost a year I'am using Ubuntu. And what schould I say ... I love it :-D

daveisadork
March 7th, 2006, 08:51 PM
Started out on Mandrake. Tried Fedora, Gentoo and even FreeBSD before settling on Debian. After that I switched to Ubuntu.

Swiss
March 7th, 2006, 09:06 PM
Slackware, Knoppix, Suse, Mandrake, Knottix, Mandiva, Musix, LGP, Ubuntu, Slaxscustom....


Ubuntu takes the cake....

Endwin
March 7th, 2006, 09:07 PM
Back in the dark ages Red Hat ummm 5? Whatever was the main one in 1995/6.

I wanted a server to play with so then we went with FreeBSD, good works, no clue how to use it then.

Mandrake 7 First setup where I had some semblance of a clue for a server setup. Worked good, no clue how to secure it got hacked and well..

Back to FreeBSD, newer version supposedly more secure. All is better... then apache got hacked so...

OpenBSD – Secure out of the box yay for server. Learned how to use it well enough for my server needs.

Then somehow I heard of this Ubuntu thingy. Ok fine, My 2k main machine just got hacked and well needed a reinstall, my original disc was broke, and my backup copy had a damaged cover so I couldn't really reinstall. So I decided to pop it in install and really and truelly learn linux apart from hacking out some server stuff.

The end result I have 5.10 now, its on my main machine I am very happy with it. I have it also on another machine as a house file server and when Dapper 6.04 comes out the OpenBSD server is going away and it too will embrace the glory of Ubuntu. Not to mention the family comp I maintain downstairs. Even setup a dual boot Ubuntu/xp machine on my laptop for games (the wondows ones).

followme
March 7th, 2006, 09:58 PM
Can't remember them all or which version, but in no particular order. RH, Fedora, Turbo, Suse, Vector, somethingBSD, peanut linux, debian, Mandrake, knoppix, mepis, lycoris.


-I liked Vector, but gave up when it came to installing new programs, couldn't always figure it out back then. Heard the new ones are similar to Ubuntu and quicker.
-Debian was great, but got sketchy when adding non-debian repos, couldn't remember all the commands in terminal, gave up back then.
-I probably played the most with Fedora.
-Had Suse the longest on my system, 1.5 years
-Started playing with Mepis recently and heard they may move away from Debian and be more like Ubuntu. That's how I ended up here.

For now Ubuntu is on 3 of my systems at home. Sticking with Ubuntu due to the support and ease of administration, for now at least.

russelld
April 15th, 2006, 05:55 AM
Back in the dark ages Red Hat ummm 5? Whatever was the main one in 1995/6.

RH5 in 1995/6? I started with a mag CD of RH4.7 in 1998 on a P133. It rocked and just keep running while Win98 would crash several times daily.
When I saw wine running solataire, I was hooked.

It was dual boot for a few years and went from RH to:
Corel_linux :)
Mandrake :) but it died when doing a upgrade from v7 to v9 in 2002] (*,)
so went back to ******* till I found a replacement
Debian :( really tough for a newbie
Xandros :)
Knoppix: hardidsk install :p in 2003 after windows got chewed by a worm
then didn't look back
tried Gentoo too time consuming
eventually Window got forgotten and then deleted.
Ohh how I'll miss reformating to reinstall the Win partition!
Slackware, DamnSmallLinux and eventually Ubuntu on an '95 laptop running BlackBox.
Laptop got run over last year, the new one had partitions sorted out with Knoppix LiveCD which also erased OEM XP :grin:
then installed Ubuntu Hoary, then Breezy.
Ubuntu is really the ant's pants with usabilty of Debian backend \\:D/

welders4linux
April 15th, 2006, 07:17 AM
Some Live CD/DVD's

Knoppix
Dam Small Linux
etc

I did a lot of research and went gung ho on Unbuntu.
Haven't looked back for a second!!

Christmas
April 15th, 2006, 07:36 AM
My first Linux Distribution was Red Hat 9, aproximately 4 month ago. After that I found out that Red Hat is relative old so I switched to Fedora Core 4 at the recomandation of a romanian forumist. After learning a few things I heard about Ubuntu and decided to try it out. And here I am now, using Ubuntu 100% for 2 month. My Windows partition is gone since Ubuntu. If I will ever think of installing another distro, that would definetely be Debian.

Oh and I almost forgot, I even installed Slackware. It was on my hard for 1 hour. I really don't like at all the KDE desktop and that was it with Slack.

duan
April 15th, 2006, 09:01 AM
3

some old linux installation many years ago.
dual booted with debian 3.0 for two weeks.
dual booted knoppix for 2 months.
dual booted ubuntu for 6 months.
replaced mobo and installed OpenSUSE 10 and ubuntu 5.10.

I use ubuntu daily and play with the other things.

Thiago
April 15th, 2006, 02:25 PM
hm...
SuSE -> tried Mandrake (and my cd drive -LG- stop to work.. ](*,)) then i back to SuSE -> FreeBSD -> Slackware (used it for a week i guess) -> Kurumin (BR Distro) -> Gentoo (2 days compiling gnome/other things... :rolleyes:) -> Debian-CDD -> and then i find Ubuntu (using it for almost 2 months and love it) :D

NeoGreen
April 15th, 2006, 03:08 PM
I have tried RedHat, Debian, SUSE, KNOPPIX, and Kubuntu. I really like Ubuntu because it seems to be more challenging, as far as installing. Debian was more of a head ache, especially during install.:D

zubrug
April 15th, 2006, 04:53 PM
Back in 2001 I purchased a $70 box set for Mandrake, went back to windows. Then tried at least a dozen others but with my inexperience and a vastly different attitude on forums in those day's was discouraged again.
Finally read an article about linspire (laugh all you want),I payed again for linux, it worked out of the box so to speak with all of my hardware except my modem. (dsl worked)
It was quite constricting in a similar way to windows (not nearly as bad), distrowatch sent me on to ubuntu and have been using it exclusively for about eight month's.
I am going to start a new thread, How many times did it take for you to get linux installed to the point you actually replaced windows with it.

ice60
April 15th, 2006, 06:10 PM
How many versions of Linux have YOU tried before settling down with Ubuntu?
Zero, Ubuntu is my first distro :cool:

i want to try a BSD next and/or either Gentoo, Arch or Slackware. i've got a Gentoo livecd with an option to install, so maybe it will be that :confused:

i think i'll stick with Ubuntu though, i just want to learn abit more about Linux.

unbuntu
April 15th, 2006, 08:30 PM
Let me see...

I started off with Redhat 7 back in 2001 (I think...), but I didn't use Linux that often back then, and Redhat seems the first "big name" comes to mind about Linux. Then comes Redhat 8, and 9. After Redhat is terminated, I tried a little Fedora, but didn't really like it. (I hope it's been improved now) Also I've played around with Knoppix, and LFS(Linux from Scratch. Spent like half a day downloading, ./configure-ing, and 'make install'-ing, but wasn't successful maybe because my laptop is too slow for compiling everything from scratch.)

Last year, in order to set up a UNIX programming environment, I googled a bit and heard good stuff about Ubuntu, and I went to the website, and found out that I can order them free of charge. Didn't take it too seriously until a package arrived at my doorstep 6 weeks later when I finally realized it's for real :) After installed and learned more about it, I started to like it, and it's a very fine piece of software. Now I've been using it for about 6 months. I've never spent more time on any distro than on Ubuntu.

In the future, I may try some other flavours of UNIX, like FreeBSD, Solaris, or Gentoo.

dicecca112
April 15th, 2006, 10:39 PM
Mandriva - really slow
Fedore Core wouldn't install
Yoper
VLOS - wouldn't install
Overclockix - doesn't like sata drives
Mepis
Suse - Ok
PCLinixOS - wouldn't install
Gentoo - way to complicated

I think thats me

amunimanghi
May 16th, 2006, 12:03 AM
gentoo. thats about it.

RAV TUX
May 16th, 2006, 02:39 AM
Ubuntu was my first distro.

centered effect
May 16th, 2006, 04:03 AM
For me:

Red Hat 7?
Madrake
Fedora (1 to 4)
Debian
Mepis
Gentoo
Slackware (Slax, Wolvix too)