Which non-Debian/Ubuntu for me next?

[Pott]

Yep another one of these threads, sorry ;)

I've only been using Linux since about November. I love Ubuntu and I've used 9.04, 9.10, Kuki, NBR and Crunchbang.

I now want another distro which may teach me a little more about Linux. I'm not looking for something as complex as Arch, just a different flavor. I'm still somewhat of a noob though.

So I was hesitating between Fedora, Mandriva and Debian mostly. Debian probably won't be that big of a change since I use Ubuntu a lot. Fedora seems the likeliest choice but I'm not quite sure.

The goal is to maybe someday put together all my favorite features of each distros, with my favorite window manager (Openbox) and create my own light/fast distro. One can dream :P

Am I on the right track to selecting the right distro..?

Thanks!

[Aeya]

If you like Openbox try Slitaz. :) It is made of wins.

[kaldor]

Wolvix!!!!

Openbox/XFCE :)

[wojox]

Sure your on the right track. Try Fedora 12. If your looking to broaden your package manager horizons, yum and rpm's are the way to go.

[Pott]

Actually I think I answered my own question there... I'll try Fedora 11 LXDE spin on the netbook (dual booting with Crunchbang on the 8GB SSD) and Fedora 12 on the big laptop. I think it'll be a good start. Thanks! Will take a look at your suggestions too. Openbox is fun to tweak.

[szymon_g]

you can always try OpenSUSE- install it without unnecessary packages (gnome, kde etc)- its really good distro. you can use yast for package managment, or just zypper (one of the best package managers i've ever seen)

[Method X]

OpenSuse is your next stop.
Very nice distro.

[gn2]

Wolvix!!!!



Hasn't had a full release for nearly three years.

[kaldor]

Hasn't had a full release for nearly three years.

The beta is quite stable and up to date.

I'd also second the yum/RPM suggestion. They are pretty big in the Linux world and would be very useful to know about.

[sxmaxchine]

i would recomend fedora and i think it is a great idea trying to learn how to create your own distro you will be amazed how much you can learn about how an OS works, goog luck with that

as well as fedora you might also like to try openSUSE or CentOS

[gnomeuser]

Mandrivas 2010.1 release looks very nice, Foresight is always a great distro if a bit understaffed. OpenSUSE is doing great work as well and finally Fedora.

[gymophett]

I would recommend Fedora. In my top picks.

[Ijan]

For "learning about Linux" documentation and help resources are what matters.

IMHO Ubuntu wasn't a bad choice there. Why not keep Ubuntu an do something new with it to learn something new.

Distro-hopping isn't that instructive after all. If you want to look further under the hood Fedora wouldn't be my first choice. It's clearly a matter of personal taste, but whenever I tried Fedora I got the impression it was - though well designed - a bit more of a technical testing groud than some other distros.
Arch or Gentoo have a reputation for beeing more clearcut and well documented in the "learning basic stuff about linux" field and people seem to feel that what they learn may be more transferable and less distro-specific.

[MooPi]

Upon reading this thread I've decided to give Fedora a try again. It was (Red Hat) my first Linux after all. Trying again after nine years or so should be fun. I'm going to brush up on Yum command line first.

[HH60Gunner]

+1 for opensuse It's a great polished operating system. I find myself juggling between ubuntu and opensuse all the time. Howver for now my main system is ubuntu.

[ibuclaw]

Why has no one mentioned Archlinux? ;)

[LowSky]

Why has no one mentioned Archlinux? ;)

I was going to I swear.
Arch Linux is really not that hard, and gives you experience with parts of your system none of the other distros normally have you touch. Their website has some of the best tutorials I have ever used.

[Madspyman]

Slackware, just kidding. Fedora's a good choice.

[J_Stanton]

sure your on the right track. Try fedora 12. If your looking to broaden your package manager horizons, yum and rpm's are the way to go. +1

[benerivo]

For something different i would go for Mandriva, but you are better off trying a few distros to get the best idea of what linux is. You tend not to learn much about linux with the automated distros (the ones that don't require command line input), but they do come with more 'features' installed, which was one of your interests.

[mechro]

Mandriva is nearly as good as Ubuntu for a "works out of the box" experience. With RPM, su instead of sudo, and Mandriva's configuration tools you'll see enough differences to give you a valuable learning experience without too much hassle.