Besides Ubuntu; what other distros do you like/use?

[mikodo]

Hi,

When I read about other distros I feel like kid in a candy store.

Here are some of the ones interesting to me!

Debian -> Huge repositories; Stringent quality control with Stable releases.

Cruncbang -> Simplicity, reconfigurability and I like the black.

Arch Linux -> Rolling Release, Great documentation; Arch User Repository, if you don't worry about security issues!

SimplyMepis -> Packaged cutting edge features of Debian.

Linux Mint -> Rolling release based on Debian testing.

What do you like and why?

[RiceMonster]

Fedora:
Everything feels well laid out. It uses rpm, which is my proffered package format. I don't have to spend hours tinkering to set up. Oh, it's also up to date.

CentOS:
Red Hat for free. I like it on the server.



Also, in b4 recurring.

[Retlol]

Fedora and OpenSuse.

[mikodo]

Fedora -> Sounds interesting, something new from apt-get.

[Learning Linux 2011]

Slackware is kind of a "purists" Linux distro.

[matt_symes]

Why would you have Fedora when you can have Arch or Gentoo :)

[Tibuda]

Debian -> Purity with GNU
Sorry, but the FSF does not think so. http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html


On topic, I use Arch because it is rolling-release, have binary packages and handle dependencies. Crunchbang is my favorite out-of-the-openbox experience, I have a similar Openbox system on Arch.

[cgroza]

I installed Fedora 14 a few days ago and I like it. It is a real competitor for Ubuntu. But I use Ubuntu more often because I like apt-get more than yum. Yum seems slower in comparison with apt on my system.

[andymorton]

I've been using Arch with Openbox on my laptop recently. So far I'm very impressed. The speed is amazing and I like the idea of a rolling release.

[Version Dependency]

Crunchbang (http://crunchbanglinux.org/), Archbang (http://archbang.org/), and Madbox (http://madbox.tuxfamily.org/). What can I say...I like openbox.

[ilovelinux33467]

In b4 recurring

Fedora: Innovation, I like cutting edge

[cgroza]

Crunchbang (http://crunchbanglinux.org/), Archbang (http://archbang.org/), and Madbox (http://madbox.tuxfamily.org/). What can I say...I like openbox.

Never tried Openbox, but I should take a look.

[mikodo]

Sorry, but the FSF does not think so. http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html

Thank you for the correction!

:redface:

[asnd16]

I use ubuntu, I do like Fedora, I would love to use OpenSUSE

[3Miro]

Ubuntu -> Simple and quick, you can get it up and running in the shortest amount of time. Also, if it doesn't run on Ubuntu, then it doesn't run on Linux.

Arch -> less hassle version of Gentoo (great for my laptop)

Gentoo -> I've got the power!

[andrew.46]

On topic, I use Arch because it is rolling-release and have binary packages.

Then you would like Slackware -current too :)

[Quadunit404]

I like Fedora too. I've been thinking about switching to it sometime after the release of Fedora 15 and then getting a tablet around Christmas (the tablet in which will run Ubuntu, so no, I'm not leaving the Ubuntu world :P)

[mikodo]

It has been fun this weekend (long) to read about different Distro's.

Thank you everyone for sharing. :)

As a newbie, I usually focus my computer time with learning CLI and Dash; I was told today in another thread that it is Dash, not Bash! :)

So, when I do opt for another Distro in another partition, for now it will be Debian Squeeze. There won't be any learning about Package management, etc. It should encourage me to use the CLI even more ... I hope.

I just need to figure out how to move my /home partition data files, to a shared /Data partition, in order to share them between Lucid and Squeeze. Hmm ... I haven't a clue on how to do that!!!

:confused:

[Tibuda]

Then you would like Slackware -current too :)

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought "current" was the development branch of Slack?

[NormanFLinux]

PCLOS - Simple desktop with apt-get front end for RPM package management.

It has everything out of the box.

[smellyman]

Arch
PCLinuxOS

Both rolling releases and PCLOS has best out of box experience of any distro.

[Thewhistlingwind]

It has been fun this weekend (long) to read about different Distro's.

Thank you everyone for sharing. :)

As a newbie, I usually focus my computer time with learning CLI and Dash; I was told today in another thread that it is Dash, not Bash! :)

It's Bash. I don't know what the other guy was on.:popcorn:

[weasel fierce]

Im curious about Gentoo. Some people say its much faster since everything is compiled for your specific hardware, others say its a fairly minor difference, if at all.

[NightwishFan]

There is both dash and bash. I believe Debian uses dash for booting since it is faster but the terminals all default to bash.

[Dustin2128]

Im curious about Gentoo. Some people say its much faster since everything is compiled for your specific hardware, others say its a fairly minor difference, if at all.
Oh don't worry, the speed difference is more than compensated for by hours of compiling ;). I muddled through a gentoo install last night though, and it is... uh... interesting to setup. But if you're like me, your curiosity will break things. A lot of things.

Sorry, but the FSF does not think so. http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html

And if the FSF says so, it must be true! :roll:


Gentoo GNU/Linux

Gentoo makes it easy to install a number of nonfree programs through their primary package system.

So it's not endorsed because it doesn't erect artificial barriers to installing nonfree software? Now I see what you MIT/BSD people are always on about...

EDIT: Wouldn't this fit well under distro talk?

[weasel fierce]

Oh don't worry, the speed difference is more than compensated for by hours of compiling ;). I muddled through a gentoo install last night though, and it is... uh... interesting to setup. But if you're like me, your curiosity will break things. A lot of things.

yeah, I broke my last ubuntu system through curiosity so Im sure my hard drive would end up napalm'ing itself

[3Miro]

Im curious about Gentoo. Some people say its much faster since everything is compiled for your specific hardware, others say its a fairly minor difference, if at all.

Depends on what and how you are doing. You can make Gentoo fast and stable or you can make it slow and unstable. There is a lot of freedom in what you can do and you have to spend quite some time learning. It took me 4 - 6 tries before I could get what I wanted, but I think it was worth it (I also had the time to spend).

Note that the other distros don't want to have slow systems. They simply add a lot of options. If you build say KDE with all of its extras, then it will be only marginally faster. For 32-bit, it can make large difference as many times distros use i386, while most CPUs support i686 ... this is a larger topic. For 64-bit, the difference is small.

However, it may be the case that you don't want to use all of the options in KDE (for example desktop indexing is something that I find useless), then Gentoo will let you completely disable the indexing. Disabling a few features like that can make thing considerably faster.

In any case, Gentoo takes the least amount of RAM that I have ever seen. I had a 32-bit Gnome build once, with Compiz, that was using 98MB of RAM right after boot.

[Timmer1240]

Im presently Using Linux Mint Debian really really enjoying it I also really like Crunchbang and Debian stable theres just so many that are really good to use!

[wolfen69]

Both rolling releases and PCLOS has best out of box experience of any distro.

What does it have that Linux Mint doesn't?

Anyway, I like to try out Fedora from time to time.

[NormanFLinux]

Daily updates and of course with PCLOS' being a fork off Mandriva, the famous control center.

[K_45]

Debian Stable for me. I've switched from Ubuntu. A clean netinstall makes sure XFCE is as lightweight as its supposed to be. Nothing GNOME, no synaptic, so I'm using the command line much more often. Who would've thought the command line can support a 15GB music library in 10MB? MPD+ Ncmpc, no need for a fat GUI.

[Cope57]

I tested a few versions of Ubuntu, but I use Debian on my desktop, and my laptop has PCLinuxOS.

Windows free since 2003...

[marl30]

Linux Mint and a few other Ubuntu derivatives. I like Puppy Linux. Kind of like OpenSuse, but just can't see myself living with it.

[smellyman]

What does it have that Linux Mint doesn't?

Anyway, I like to try out Fedora from time to time.

years of experience doing a rolling release right. The best KDE implementation out there imo. Incredible hardware support.

linux mint takes Ubuntu's polish and polishes it more by a fraction.

[Artemis3]

Openbsd for routing/firewall, pf rulz! Screw iptables and its nonsense :P

[gnomeuser]

openSUSE's GNOME3 Live distro is quite awesome in it's own right. I can't really make friends with YaST which I find to be a 90's throwback of root running complexity with any elegance but the rest of the distro works very well.

[leviathan8]

Debian and Ubuntu minimal.
RIPLinux and Puppy Linux from Live environment.

[BrokenKingpin]

The only distro I am using right now is Ubuntu on all my machines.

I do however try other distros on my test machine from time to time. I usually try new releases of SUSE and Sabayon when they come out, as well as try Debian Testing once in a while. Although these other distros have some compelling releases, they are just not enough to pull me away from Ubuntu. This may change when 11.04 drops through.

[mikodo]

Well I have made up my mind what I am going to do, now that Gnome2 is dying...

Next install will be Xubuntu, with dual install of Squeeze with XFDE.

Thanks for the input everyone!

See ya.

:razz:

[linuxyogi]

openSUSE 11.4 Gnome 3

Linux Mint Debian Edition XFCE

[m_duck]

Mostly, I use Arch or Slackware - both brilliant for their 'simplicity'. I installed OpenSUSE 11.4 (with KDE) for relatives the other day though and was very impressed by how clean and snappy it is.

Another good distro which hasn't been mentioned yet is CRUX. In use it is quite similar to Arch and Slackware, but aside from the initial install, packages are installed from source. The kernel is not managed by the package manager so you are free to run whatever kernel takes your fancy without it making a mess of things :).

And a final addition: Lunar Linux. I've not used it for a little while but is a fine distro. Again it is source based with a decent package manager to boot.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

CentOS - We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux at work; therefore, I can experiment with things at home in the same configuration I use at work. I can experiment with the newer releases while the company is deciding if or when it will upgrade.

Linux Mint - The one I use is based on Ubuntu; however, the desktop has a little different default appearance, and it comes with the codecs installed. It comes in handy when you want a quick install. It is on my less used machines.

I try other distros all the time; however, these are the distros I am actually using at the moment. That could change. It has in the past. :)

[krapp]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MmQjoQZy4Gc/TVJUu3NgkEI/AAAAAAAAApo/mk0o1ST2BDI/s1600/Debian-Squeeze.png

Debian Squeeze

[boydrice]

I've tried quite a few distros and BSDs and the ones I always come back to is Slackware, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD.

Slackware is just so much fun for me. The more I use it the more I learn.

For the distros that do more for you out of the box than those three, I I like openSUSE, and Fedora.

[Ctrl-Alt-F1]

I've used Fedora in the past and quite liked it. I also tried OpenSuse but I didn't like all their custom tools.

In addition, I've used Arch. I missed a couple of features that are natively in a desktop installation of Ubuntu, but that Arch setup was unbelievably fast (bare-bones).

[mikodo]

Farts and Krapp guys!

8)

[jroa]

I mainly use Fedora for the last year or so. I have also used Mint in the past, and I recommend it to people who want to try Linux. Been wanting to try a BSD, but have not had time to mess with it. Are there Live BSD versions?

[kostageas]

Downloading Fedora and PCLinuxOS in honour of this thread. :)

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

Farts and Krapp guys!

8)

:lolflag:

[smellyman]

Downloading Fedora and PCLinuxOS in honour of this thread. :)

Be sure to check out this thread (http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,87377.0.html)about your first software update.....Need to change the sources list.

[boydrice]

I mainly use Fedora for the last year or so. I have also used Mint in the past, and I recommend it to people who want to try Linux. Been wanting to try a BSD, but have not had time to mess with it. Are there Live BSD versions?

Not as many as Linux but there are some.

OpenBSD with cwm and fvwm:
openbsd.maroufi.net/marbsd-x_en.shtml

NetBSD with Xfce:
http://www.jibbed.org/

FreeBSD with GNOME:
http://www.ghostbsd.org/

There are others and I am pretty sure PC-BSD can be run as a live CD as well. None of the above with the exception of GhostBSD can be installed from the image. Really to truly get a feel for BSD you need to install it.

[jroa]

Not as many as Linux but there are some.

OpenBSD with cwm and fvwm:
openbsd.maroufi.net/marbsd-x_en.shtml

NetBSD with Xfce:
http://www.jibbed.org/

FreeBSD with GNOME:
http://www.ghostbsd.org/

There are others and I am pretty sure PC-BSD can be run as a live CD as well. None of the above with the exception of GhostBSD can be installed from the image. Really to truly get a feel for BSD you need to install it.

Cool. I will check these out when I am done moving. I have been wanting to install on a virtual machine first to get the feel of it, but I thought a live CD might be better, although slower.

[CraigPaleo]

Pardus. Latest Review. (http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20110425#feature)

[benc1213]

Arch but I am taking a break until I can get the wireless to work on my laptop.

[Welly Wu]

I used OpenSUSE 11.4 64 bit with KDE for the better part of three weeks this month. I liked it a lot except there were a lot of dependencies that were unmet when I installed .RPM packages from the OpenSUSE repositories or a third party vendor. The other problem was that boot up resulted in a black screen often times even when I invoked nomodset when using the nouveau drivers for my ASUS N61JV-X2 notebook PC.

It was about as fast as Ubuntu 11.04 64 bit. There were a lot of problems involved when I decided to upgrade to GNOME 3 desktop environment and it eventually stopped working altogether.

Ubuntu is my favorite GNU/Linux distribution now because it just works and it is easy to use.

[dava4444]

HI

When the light Ubuntu's didn't work for me I used Arch, my fav one was called FireFly, shame it died :( i could put that distro on laptops from '99 and it would still work!

(if I'm honest I only really use Ubuntu these days) but i've played about with nimblex (on an old desktop), and I think that distro's okay too.

vboxed a good few but not native. past two years mostly Ubuntu/X/L/K.

peace

Dava

(thinking of Vboxing OpenSuSe just now mmmm :rolleyes: )

[arkanabar]

Currently using PCLOS 2010.12, followed by CrunchBang 10 "Statler" and Lubuntu 10.10. I've used Sabayon, SalixOS, Mint (gnome, fluxbox, lxde, and LMDE), Kubuntu 9.04, and Ubuntu (don't recall which ones, sorry).

edit: one thing PCLOS has that Mint doesn't is rolling release. You install PCLOS once and keep it up to date. Debian Edition aside, Mint has a definite EOL after which you HAVE to install a new version from scratch -- the mint team does not support upgrades from one release to the next.

[dh04000]

Mandriva.

[Spice Weasel]

Cool. I will check these out when I am done moving. I have been wanting to install on a virtual machine first to get the feel of it, but I thought a live CD might be better, although slower.

BSD is a lot like Arch. You will want to customize it, a live CD isn't very useful for this purpose. If you want to get a better idea, a VM would help.