Complement Another Distro

[poofyhairguy]

Recently Ubuntu fans have been getting a bad name on some parts of the internet because of how excited and energized the community is. I think that these twos things are great, but its also important to show reason and honesty. The purpose of this thread is to complement another distro to show that although we are fans we aren't ignorant. Pick anything from any distro: something you like, something you wish Ubuntu had, something that is interesting or caught you off guard. Anything.

As this is a exercise in positivity, I will not tolerate trollish comments. If you have something bad to say about a distro, hold your tongue please. I'll lock this thread and my good idea will be shattered on the rocks of zealotry if I see criticism.

I'll go first. I wish to complement linspire for its work on Nvu.

http://www.nvu.com/

Your turn.

[mike998]

I know it's not strictly speaking a Linux distro, but I have tons of respect for FreeBSD. It's designed more as a server OS but works very well as a desktop, and the Linux compatability layer just makes it sweeter in that you can run native Linux apps. Oh... and the ports system are what got me introduced to Debian, and then to Ubuntu.

[poofyhairguy]

I know it's not strictly speaking a Linux distro, but I have tons of respect for FreeBSD. It's designed more as a server OS but works very well as a desktop, and the Linux compatability layer just makes it sweeter in that you can run native Linux apps. Oh... and the ports system are what got me introduced to Debian, and then to Ubuntu.

Now thats the spirit. You are right, I shouldn't limit to Linux. If anyone wants to complement Windows or BeOS, or OSX or whatever have at it.

[Stormy Eyes]

I've always liked the documentation SuSE provided with its Professional editions of SuSE Linux. Nice and heavy, with plenty of useful information.

[gil-galad]

Any distro that promotes free software is good in my book. Thank you redhat for fedora.

[totalshredder]

I think DamnSmallLinux is an amazing distro, and should be more recognized than it is. Whenever I'm in computer troubles, I just boot up to it. It's the only live CD that I cant tell is being run off a CD... Ubuntu is still tops for desktop though, but give DSL its props!

[bored2k]

- Xandros for its great customized Konqueror. They're disc creation utility rocks. It also has the best from the box VPN and Windows file sharing compatibility.

- Slackware for letting me get my hands really dirty with the command prompt.

- Mac OS X for giving Expose to the world.

- MS Windows, because it made Bill Gates a gatrillionaire. And after he achieved that made up status, he has helped in the giving of over 4 billion dollars to help fight poverty in the world.

- Gentoo for being strictly aimed at people that want to learn. /msg Gentoo: One day... when I have a spare computer , I will test you, yes I will.

[harryc]

SuSe because if it's documentation, stability, large package repository, excellent community, YaST package management system, sax2 for configuring graphics, and KDE smoothness. IMHO, nobody does KDE better. Suse 9.3 has Xen and Beagle out of the box...nice.

[robtotheb]

I'd like to thank Cedega and Wine for making the move away from Windows more appealing. Also, I would thank Apple for making OSX, my mum and dad use it with very few problems.

\\:D/

[gylf]

BeatrIX Linux is a great project. I love the fact that it refines its focus to four things: Web, Chat, Word Processing, and Email. Those are what the average non-technical user needs to do. It's not only a great stepping stone into the linux world for Windows users, but it also runs on older machines and can fit on a business card CD.

[Bob D.]

Debian: without all the amazing people who have contributed (and continue to contribute) something like Ubuntu would have never been possible.

Fedora: for being a Gnome-based distro with a graphical installer that "Just Works."

Bob

[jdodson]

fedora is awesome. not only is it a free distro(cost) but only made up of free software. they funnel tons-o-cash into gnome and other sweet projects. viva-la redhat, viva-la fedora.

[az]

Thank you klaus Knopper for developing Knoppix which is so many things at once.

1. An excellent example of linux technology.
2. A radical implementation of a difficult thing to acheive. (There is no live OS in the world that can run correctly on so much hardware)
3. A very useful utility that I would not feel comfortable without.
4. _The_ first live linux cd.
5. A cd which has shown off linux to many more people who never would have tried it.

[Nu-Buntu]

I would send gratitude to the team at MandrakeSoft (now Mandriva) for being the first noob-friendly distro I used and getting me to think OpenSource.

[mudra]

I would like to thank MEPIS for their original live CD / Installer. Without that I would never have given linux / Open Source a real go. Major thanks must of course go to DEBIAN without whom, UBUNTU and MEPIS would have had nothing to build on.

[jerome bettis]

i would like to thank the developers of:

debian for everything they've done!!

mepis for being a great live cd i use to fix my computer everytime i screw it up.

gentoo for giving me something to do when i'm bored, and for making me learn stuff.

[KiwiNZ]

I have a soft spot for Mandriva , and Fedora. But I guess Redhat holds the fondest memories. It gently guided me into Linux all those years ago , it never grumbled when I messed up and was always there for me when I woke up.
I look back at version 6 and version 7 and a tear come to my eye , *sniff* , I miss you Redhat , but now I have a new friend , I love you Ubuntu :-({|=

[ssam]

yellowdog have been a top distro for powerpc. without them i dont think i could have ever got into linux. also i think they have done a lot for linux on powerpc, fixing stuff and figuring how to use all the power management hardware. they also made yum, which makes rpm based distros useable (yum is to rpm as apt is to dpkg).

[poofyhairguy]

Thank you klaus Knopper for developing Knoppix which is so many things at once.

1. An excellent example of linux technology.
2. A radical implementation of a difficult thing to acheive. (There is no live OS in the world that can run correctly on so much hardware)
3. A very useful utility that I would not feel comfortable without.
4. _The_ first live linux cd.
5. A cd which has shown off linux to many more people who never would have tried it.

6. Being better at detected video card settings than Ubuntu to the point where I boot it and steal it xfree.conf file to fix people's xserver problems in Ubuntu.

[jrobcet]

I'd like to hand out kudos to Yoper. It truly delivers on its promise for "high performance". Even when running KDE, Yoper seems much faster than other distros I've used. And coupled with lightweight desktop environments such as XFCE or Fluxbox, Yoper just seems to fly.

Add in stability, good hardware support and a friendly community and what you have, in my opinion, is a winning operating system.

[GarySaved]

The first distro I got to detect everything was Mandrake.
It was the first you could just let it install with the default answers, and when it was done, you would have a useable OS.

Gary

[crane]

I would have to say thanks to Redhat. I installed it (7.3) to run a q3 server. Then oneday I decided to play around with it as a desktop. ever since then my linux addiction has grown stronger. It led to me using Blag ( Based on fedora nut one CD install) then into ubuntu!

I would also like to give one more thanks.
To all of YOU. I don't mean just Ubuntu users either.
Thanks to the entier linux community for all the help and support while I learned this distro through a series of questions, wiki's, docs, and chat in general.
The world could learn a lot from the linux community.!

[ubuntu_demon]

mac OS X - for making safe desktop computing feasible for newbies
debian - for making Ubuntu possible. also great for servers

[BAshworth]

My congratulations, and compliments to....

Suse - for the best (IMHO) documented distro out there.

Mandrake - for having some of the best hardware and partitioning tools. Still unbeaten from what I've seen.

RedHat (Fedora) - for the RPM. Which was one of the biggest steps in making Linux approachable by the masses.

Every distro has it's unique features that set it apart from the others. Linux has exploded in useability over the last 3 years. For an OS with spotty financial backing, (as Linux distros typically have), it has matured an amazing amount. Hopefully the innovations and feature sets continue to grow exponentially.

[Xian]

I can easily thank:

SuSE: A top-notch YaST control center. Saved my newbie hide frequently.

Slackware: Taught me how fun Linux can be to manage and configure.

Debian: We all stand on the shoulders of this giant.

Gentoo: A month in their forums equates to a year spent anywhere else.

[TravisNewman]

SuSE: love it, except for YAST and RPM. ;) But yes, it's my favorite non-debian non-source distro.
Slack: Got my start with Slack, so I owe a lot of learning to it. Good for many, not my cup o' tea.
RedHat/Fedora: one of the major reasons Linux is where it is today.
Debian: dpkg and apt-get are the greatest pieces of software ever.
Gentoo: the distro where I REALLY started getting into linux. I still like it a LOT, and I learned quite a bit, but it was too much work in the end.

[poofyhairguy]

Gentoo: A month in their forums equates to a year spent anywhere else.

I second that. When people have trouble here, an I don't have an answer, I search the Gentoo forums. One of the nerdiest places on the planet.

[claydoh]

I have to give Lycoris (http://lycoris.org) a big nod here, it is what cut the final knot tying me to windows. A better menu layout, easy to set up, and a friendly community.

I also have to mention BeOS, well just because without trying it, I don't think I would have discovered Linux, and therefore Kubuntu :-)

[somuchfortheafter]

linspire for sponsoring nvu, and click and run which I'm sure will help alot of the escapees migrate without dumbing them down *cough* xandros *cough*
gentoo- you are indeed the bad bitch of linux distros and you have a learning curve that is so steep, yet it manages to help thousands including myself learn about the core details of linux.
slackware yea me and you go back since 9.0 but ehh times change, yet you taught me alot.
debian.......
mepis... yea you and me had a run in with the sbi...........
knoppix-std... your awesome.

[Spoofhound]

BeatrIX for focusing on a few key uses .... and proud of it

Any distro that goes to the trouble of producing live-cds - if you don't like the feel of it don't instal - taking the fear out of trying

[arctic]

ibm: for the pc-basics
windows: for making the pc what it is today. a mutli-purpose machine that is affordable
apple: for great user-interface ideas and designs

debian: for too many great things
mandrake/mandriva: for the best desktop for beginners with tremendous administration tools
yoper: for an extremely fast kde-destkop and building a system from scratch without a dependency hell
slackware, lfs, rock-linux: for learning configuration stuff
fedora: for its experimental touch
knoppix: for saving my systems more than once
etc....

all linux-distros do a great job imho. :D

[Chrysaor]

I second that. When people have trouble here, an I don't have an answer, I search the Gentoo forums. One of the nerdiest places on the planet.

I third that. :) I search Google for hours, than i check Gentoo forums or wiki, there is the answer..

[Dave88]

I'd like to complement RedHat for introducing me to linux.
And Debian for loosing windows grip (even after redhat i was still attatched to windows xp).

[deception]

Arch for being a really fast distro for my desktop, for easy package management and for stability only matched (for me) by debian distros.

[picpak]

SuSE: for being the first distro I've tried, and giving me the overall hang of Linux :smile:

Mandrake 10.1: For being one of the easiest distros I've tried, with an amazing package manager (unlike SuSE, which didn't automatically install dependencies), and being fast and stable (unlike Mandriva 2005).

Ubuntu: For being the fastest and most stable Linux distro I've ever tried. And if it ever slows down, I can just install Beatrix :)

Windows XP: For being one of the fastest Windows out there, for me anyway. And for having some very good programs, like K-Meleon, Ares, 1By1, etc.

[TravisNewman]

Poofy, I just totally paid attention to the first post for the first time.

Where are we getting a bad name?

[weekend warrior]

Ian Murdock's blog for one. I was very sad to see ubuntu "supporters" posting such rubbish :-x These people should know that they can really harm their own community that way. I'm really glad this thread was started :)

http://ianmurdock.com/archives/000244.html

http://ianmurdock.com/archives/000258.html

[weekend warrior]

This one really hurt.... :(

"Looking at the comments: good Lord.
Are Ubuntu users the new Gentoo users?"

Posted by: Dave at April 12, 2005 06:58 AM

[TravisNewman]

Ouch. That does hurt.

Not to knock Gentoo users. I love most of them, but they do seem to have more of an outspoken extremist userbase

Man some of those comments were harsh. The ones FROM UBUNTU USERS I mean. We really need to promote a more cooperative attitude.

[Kimm]

Debian: for apt-get and dpkg
Slackware: for being oh so stable and wounderfull
Mandriva/Mandrake: for being my first dist and fo helping me get into the Linux world
Linspire: For helping people move from Windows
Topology: for getting to try linux in a faster and more real environment then a LiveCD
Gentoo: for its smart way of being and the stability aswell as getting more close to Open source then anything else

[benplaut]

gentoo: for giving choice to the mini-masses! and for the great portage

SuSE: for an outstanding YaST2 and SaX2 control center \\:D/

Mandrake/Mandriva: for a great attempt to bring Linux to the masses

Debian: apt...

BeatrIX: for answering my questions as to making a custom distro (that's exactly what i wanted?!?)

Slackware, Arch, LFS: for still providing a higher goal to acheive someday

Ark Linux: for a completely free alternative to Mandrake and SuSE (control panel!!!)

Red Hat: bringing and sustaining Linux in the enterprise environment

Fedora: For including GNOME as default DE :roll:

Knoppix: for being the only distro that would boot from a Compaq Pavillion 6873 (which died shortly after)

Morphix [light GUI]: for one of the very few live distros that included XFce or Flux... the other Compaq Pavillions thank you :wink:

Mac OSX: for being a good, reliable server in mys school... faster than Debian! (we never figured out why...). And for making competition for Windows... we'll be there to releive you in a year or so :-P

Windows 95: for providing me with a first GUI system that i could play with all i want, but i just couldn't break it!

Windows 98: for still being compatible on computers built for Win 95

Windows 2000: for being the best OS Microsoft ever made :grin: !!

Windows ME: for fixing a ton of bugs before Win XP was released

Windows XP: for bringing computer using to the masses, and still retaining the option to switch back to the old, reliable Win 9X theme \\:D/

Windows: for making a target for the Mad Penguin! http://ubuntuforums.org/images/smilies/eusa_whistle.gif

Microsoft: For making the end-all best Office suite in the market today (don't flame me)

[weekend warrior]

Originally posted by panickedthumb
Man some of those comments were harsh. The ones FROM UBUNTU USERS I mean. We really need to promote a more cooperative attitude.
Got that right! I was really taken aback :shock: It even made me think about my interest here, especially since I have Kanotix up and running beautifully on my newer box. Which leads me to my compliment....

I'd like to compliment Kanotix for getting so many things right. Kubuntu could learn some things from it.

Things I like:

+ LiveCD
+ lightning fast
+ slick graphics
+ superb KDE 3.4 setup
+ multimedia ready
+ good hardware detection
+ fast and easy install
+ sensible default software selection
+ 586 architecture by default
+ very stable for me
+ compatibility with sid
+ dist-upgradable
+ klik (http://klik.atekon.de/), great idea

On the slightly negative side:

- seems much of the community is German speaking - Sprechen Sie Deutsch? :?
- it's a one man operation, like Mepis - here today, gone tomorrow?
- will it end up just being a quick and fancy Debian installer? or is that basically what it already is?

But overall very impressive in my book - 2 big thumbs up for Kanotix! (and of course a thumbs up for Debian sid too!)

Heh, If I ever suddenly disappear from here, you'll know where I've gone off to.... ;-)

[poofyhairguy]

We really need to promote a more cooperative attitude.

I'm working on it.

[poofyhairguy]

But overall very impressive in my book - 2 big thumbs up for Kanotix! (and of course a thumbs up for Debian sid too!)


Kanotix is a great distro. I think it should become the unofficial official installer for Sid.

[TravisNewman]

Not trying to knock you, but I don't think its something one person can do. ;) But it is quite sad what they're saying about us. Something needs to get done.

[poofyhairguy]

But it is quite sad what they're saying about us.

Sometimes the group deserves it. Its time to focus on more positive things.

[Xian]

Not trying to knock you, but I don't think its something one person can do. ;) But it is quite sad what they're saying about us. Something needs to get done.
The best you can do is promote a co-operative attitude at home, and attempt to instill it among the member base by making it a focus of attention through an admin and moderator led effort that rewards and recognizes those who strive to not engage in divisive tactics and language. And even then the most desirable outcome will not be the elimination of improper "ambassadors", but the simple outnumbering of them by more rational and sensible users.

Just look any day of the week over at LQ at all the "Us vs. Them" threads that continually populate that and many other forums. One of those here and there really doesn't make a world of difference, but taken as a whole they do cultivate a type of environment that is more divisive, arrogant, and abrasive. These kinds of threads exist at Ubuntu forums as well, and many prominent members contribute to them without thinking that they might be better served by attempting to gently slap the wrists of those who enjoy belittling what should be our allies and neighbors.

[jerome bettis]

i've gotta retract my earlier positive comments about gentoo. i'm getting emerge errors like crazy here ... i'm done with this, back to apt and dpkg land where everything works like it should.

[gabbman]

I would like to compliment Texstar for his work in the passed on many linux distro's and more recently on PCLinuxOS.

[raven]

I just start progrming courses
and some projects keeps me all night, all day
sweating to solve problems
so, I want to extend my sincere apprecialtion to all distros
and programers that sweat for days and nights
and would share freely their works a
BIG THANK YOU
for all the open source community
and all distros

[mohaham]

My thanks to..

Debian: for apt-get and dpkg
Red Hat: Enterprise Linux and Anaconda
Mandrake/Mandriva: for a User friendly distro
Gentoo: for their great forums
SuSE: for YAST2
Knoppix: for the first live CD linux

[tread]

Redhat and a magazine called PCQuest, without whom Linux in India would be very very low .. the ability to easily download iso images is still low there, and if PCQuest had not distributed Redhat regularly with their magazines (since Redhat 5, my first Linux installation), I would never have become interested in Linux.

Btw, I read Ian Murdoch's blog and the comments .. and they are pretty fierce comments at that. Generally, I don't understand what the point behind knocking other distros is .. GNU/Linux promotion is the big idea. Whatever spreads Linux is good .. gnome/kde, vim/emacs wars are stupid too. Linux is about choice, let each have his/her own.

[thechitowncubs]

gentoo: for giving choice to the mini-masses! and for the great portage

SuSE: for an outstanding YaST2 and SaX2 control center \\:D/

Mandrake/Mandriva: for a great attempt to bring Linux to the masses

Debian: apt...

BeatrIX: for answering my questions as to making a custom distro (that's exactly what i wanted?!?)

Slackware, Arch, LFS: for still providing a higher goal to acheive someday

Ark Linux: for a completely free alternative to Mandrake and SuSE (control panel!!!)

Red Hat: bringing and sustaining Linux in the enterprise environment

Fedora: For including GNOME as default DE :roll:

Knoppix: for being the only distro that would boot from a Compaq Pavillion 6873 (which died shortly after)

Morphix [light GUI]: for one of the very few live distros that included XFce or Flux... the other Compaq Pavillions thank you :wink:

Mac OSX: for being a good, reliable server in mys school... faster than Debian! (we never figured out why...). And for making competition for Windows... we'll be there to releive you in a year or so :-P

Windows 95: for providing me with a first GUI system that i could play with all i want, but i just couldn't break it!

Windows 98: for still being compatible on computers built for Win 95

Windows 2000: for being the best OS Microsoft ever made :grin: !!

Windows ME: for fixing a ton of bugs before Win XP was released

Windows XP: for bringing computer using to the masses, and still retaining the option to switch back to the old, reliable Win 9X theme \\:D/

Windows: for making a target for the Mad Penguin! http://ubuntuforums.org/images/smilies/eusa_whistle.gif

Microsoft: For making the end-all best Office suite in the market today (don't flame me)
ditto

[Kyral]

Knoppix: For being my first exposure to Linux and an all around kickass toolkit (anytime my friends have problems in XP, I throw in a Knoppix disc to see if its a hardware problem :smile: )

Slackware: For being the first distro I actually USED hardcore on my old laptop, and for teaching me the basics and how to compile my own kernel :D

Gentoo: For showing me how much a damn good package management system is worth (PORTAGE ROCKS!!)

VidaLinux: For making an otherwise insanely long Gentoo install very short (Anaconda + Portage = Good)

Debian: For being one of the oldest and more stable distros out there, and giving us Apt and Ubuntu

Ubuntu: For finally giving me the distro that is perfect for me O:)

[Mez]

gentoo is a great distro.... It's bleeding edge, and uses a great package management system

If only it had asimple base-installer like Ubuntu, then I'd be using it (aswell)

[bk452]

SuSE is great. I like how you can access your windows files without all the fuss of configuring things.

[Skraut]

I gotta thank Gentoo for teaching me linux. I tried it back in beta .9something and spent a month getting it up and running the first time. But in that month I went from no Linux knowledge to having to install cygwin on all my windows machines at work so I could use the command line :)

I also want to thank OSX. Falling in love with "It just works" is what brought me to Ubuntu.

[mike998]

Ahem...
Well, after reading some of the earlier posts, I have to add:

Windows (any version, although I started with DOS 5 ish) for getting me used to using computers, and Windows 2000 for being a stable O/S, and Win XP (with the horrible interface switched off) for being one of the best non-free O/Ses out there.

All the other Distrobutions (too many to mention) that I have tried, and even if I didn't like them, for the hard work they put into making an operating system.

Gotta add, though, I read the links posted earlier. I really and truly don't know what to say. I've tried to maintain an attitude of "if it suits you as an operating system, use it" for anyone and everyone. Having evangelizing (in a bad way) Ubuntu users bad mouthing other distrobutions (including our "parent", Debian) is just shameful.

[Gsibbery]

I know it's not strictly speaking a Linux distro, but I have tons of respect for FreeBSD. It's designed more as a server OS but works very well as a desktop, and the Linux compatability layer just makes it sweeter in that you can run native Linux apps. Oh... and the ports system are what got me introduced to Debian, and then to Ubuntu.

I have to agree. My main OS is FreeBSD and I find that I use it mainly as my main OS of choice. At the risk of sounding like a nerd, my all-time favourite OS is Plan9 (http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/). :D

[LongTooth]

"Mandrake/Mandriva: for a great attempt to bring Linux to the masses." Yes, I will give them that. That's the first distro i used. SuSE was the second one. Those two are the ones that introduced many to Linux. Easy to install and work with. That's what we need.

I allso have to give kudos to Fedora Core. After years of pulling out my hair, for some reason working with FC made things click. I'm sure that after all these years, "IT" all finally came together. Thanks FC.

But I have to give my gratitude to the Debian system. Nothing beats it and I mean nothing, The apt-get package management of a Debian OS is, bar none, the only way to go.

With that said, may I suggest Frugalware. A great but little know distro from Hungary. Slackware based with Arch's Pacman package manager. Very new but great potential.

[Gtaylor]

I've always admired SuSe as the ideal model for a successful Linux distro. They have ample support, a very fine tuned product, great stability, and they are now security certified to the point where their server products may be used by the United States Federal Government right up there with Unix (banking, records, etc.). I started out with RedHat 6, moved to SuSe, and stayed on it pretty hard until Ubuntu came out.

Additionally, I admire YaST and the fact that SuSe was willing to open-source their biggest selling point. This is the end-all-be-all of configuration tools, it configures hardware, software, packages, servers, services, backups, init scripts, repository/update mirroring, nfs mounts, samba, and just tons of other things.

I also really like SaX2, which is an X-based configuration utility that makes resolutions/color depths as easy/easier to configure than Windows.

I would like to see Ubuntu release as polished and powerful a product as SuSe in the future, without the requirement of actually buying the "enterprise edition". A rock solid foundation combined with great GUI config utilities is a winner and is why we see this distribution exploding onto the market and giving Redhat some serious competition. Unfortunately the "infection" hasn't reached Redhat's stomping ground where I live (US East coast), but hopefully it will in the future.

[Lovechild]

I wish to compliment Fedora (and RHEL) on the great exec-shield, FORTIFY_SOURCE and SELinux work they have done - I hope others will adopt it.

And as a special mention I would like to compliment KDE on recently passing the ACID2 test, way cool..

[compmodder26]

I'm a big fan of Gentoo. I love portage and the ability to customize everything to your systems specs.

[skoal]

Some people call it a distro, so why not...

Linux From Scratch is by far the finest learning tool available for aspiring System Admins - well, at least a starting point. LFS has exceptional documentation, easy to follow hand-held guides, and a great team of developers who answer the mailing lists.

\\//_

[qalimas]

SuSE has YaST, wonderful for beginniners. Mandriva is great for beginners, as it's probably the easist to get multimedia working on. And something inside attracts me to Fedora, not quiet sure what it is ;) And of course Knoppix, which proactically revolutionized live CDs ;)