What distro should I try first?

[Nevon]

I've been running Ubuntu since the beginning of summer, and now I want to try more things. However, I've got my desktop set up nicely the way I want, and I'm not gonna screw it up until Gutsy is released in November.
However, I've emailed one of the IT-guys at my school, and hopefully they'll have some old computers that they are willing to part with for little to no money. If not, then I guess I'll have to get a second computer some other way. The point is that I'm not looking for a computer for daily use. I'm looking for a computer to experiment with.

So, I come to you seeking advice about what distros to try first. As I said, I've already tried Ubuntu, so I'm not going to install that on the second computer. Don't worry though, I will get around to installing most, if not all of them in due time. I just want your help choosing where to start.

The options are:
PCLinuxOS
openSUSE
Fedora
Sabayon
Mandriva
Damn Small Linux
Slackware
ArchLinux
DreamLinux
Other (Please specify)

[HermanAB]

Hmm, PCLinuxOS is a simplified Mandriva, which is a better RedHat, which is a crummy Fedora, which is a worse Suse...
;)

So, PCLinuxOS as the first try is probably best, since it uses Synaptic just like Ubuntu, which you are already familiar with.

Cheers,

H.

[Lord Illidan]

Zenwalk? It is a derivative of slackware, and it's small and very powerful. Comes with xfce. Fast, and it has a repository for most common applications.

[Nevon]

Hmm, PCLinuxOS is a simplified Mandriva, which is a better RedHat, which is a crummy Fedora, which is a worse Suse...
;)Wow, I knew about the relationship between Fedora and RedHat, but I had no idea that ALL those distros were related.


Zenwalk? It is a derivative of slackware, and it's small and very powerful. Comes with xfce. Fast, and it has a repository for most common applications.Ah, I forgot about that one!

Thanks for your input!

[happy-and-lost]

Arch is fun to play with

[starcraft.man]

If you don't want to screw up your main machine, easiest way to try out other distributions is Virtual Machines. Look at Virtual Box (http://www.virtualbox.org/) or VMware (I recommend first). Long as you got a GB of RAM and a decent machine should run well. The other means of course would be repartitioning and installing direct to your HD, might be a bit of a bother if your not interested in using them long term. I don't see a reason for you to need a second machine though for trying out distros, a VM should do fine if all you want is to see the differences.

As for what distro to try first, I don't really have one I'd recommend over any other. All are different so just start with the first and work your way down.

[mostwanted]

I've always wanted to try SUSE one more time, but the price of blank media doesn't agree with me. Foresight looks interesting too.

[rfruth]

DEB or RPM (yast) ?

[Nevon]

If you don't want to screw up your main machine, easiest way to try out other distributions is Virtual Machines. Look at Virtual Box (http://www.virtualbox.org/) or VMware (I recommend first). Long as you got a GB of RAM and a decent machine should run well. The other means of course would be repartitioning and installing direct to your HD, might be a bit of a bother if your not interested in using them long term. I don't see a reason for you to need a second machine though for trying out distros, a VM should do fine if all you want is to see the differences.
It amazes me how the thought of a virtual box never even occured to me...
But seriously, it's a lot more fun to play around with an old crap box from school. It gives me an excuse to sit on the floor with a screwdriver :D
But yeah, if I don't get a second machine I guess I could use a virtual machine.


DEB or RPM (yast) ?
Preferably DEB, but I'll try anything.

[Lord Illidan]

Hmm, PCLinuxOS is a simplified Mandriva, which is a better RedHat, which is a crummy Fedora, which is a worse Suse...What are you talking about? RedHat came first! Then, Mandrake, then Fedora. Suse is unrelated, it came from Slackware originally, then absorbed some parts of RedHat Linux.

EDIT : If it's an old OS, also try Arch and DSL as well as Zenwalk.

[Mud.Knee.Havoc]

Here's my advice if you've got a second computer that you want to use to play with linux:

1. Go to distrowatch.com.
2. Copy the list of distros into a text editor and print it off.
3. Download the first one, install it, play with it for a while.
4. When you get bored, download the next distro and install it.
5. Goto 4.

[Nevon]

I got all psyched up just by thinking of all of this, so now I'm installing Fedora 7 on a Virtual Machine. *giggles like a freak* It takes forever to install though ...

[LookTJ]

I would say Arch Linux

[Pancetilla]

Another vote for Arch; use it as Lego bricks to slowly build your system, you'll learn a lot in the process (great wiki, forum and support docs included)

[RAV TUX]

I've been running Ubuntu since the beginning of summer, and now I want to try more things. However, I've got my desktop set up nicely the way I want, and I'm not gonna screw it up until Gutsy is released in November.
However, I've emailed one of the IT-guys at my school, and hopefully they'll have some old computers that they are willing to part with for little to no money. If not, then I guess I'll have to get a second computer some other way. The point is that I'm not looking for a computer for daily use. I'm looking for a computer to experiment with.

So, I come to you seeking advice about what distros to try first. As I said, I've already tried Ubuntu, so I'm not going to install that on the second computer. Don't worry though, I will get around to installing most, if not all of them in due time. I just want your help choosing where to start.

The options are:
PCLinuxOS
openSUSE
Fedora
Sabayon
Mandriva
Damn Small Linux
Slackware
ArchLinux
DreamLinux
Other (Please specify)

Other: Elive Gem 1.0

[R.Bucky]

VMware is fine for testing new OS. Clearly LiveCD's are my frist choice. I would try out Gnewsense.1.1 which is KDE (vs.Gnome) and MEPIS. You could also tr out installing KDE or Xfce on top of Unbuntu if you are simply getting bored with the setup.

[RAV TUX]

VMware is fine for testing new OS. Clearly LiveCD's are my frist choice. I would try out Gnewsense.1.1 which is KDE (vs.Gnome) and MEPIS. You could also tr out installing KDE or Xfce on top of Unbuntu if you are simply getting bored with the setup.This is actually good advice try using all the different DE within your current install before trying new distros.

[fwojciec]

Another vote for Arch; use it as Lego bricks to slowly build your system, you'll learn a lot in the process (great wiki, forum and support docs included)

This is actually one of the most fitting descriptions of Arch (and Arch experience) I've heard in a while. Arch would also be my recommendation :)

[Nevon]

Moahaha! This is just soo much fun!
I've tried KDE, GNOME and xfce. Out of those my favorite is GNOME. But I want to try fluxbox too.

Right now I'm installing ZenWalk. Fedora crashes after a little while, for an unknown reason. I'll get to tinkering with that later, right now I'm too tired.

[RAV TUX]

Moahaha! This is just soo much fun!
I've tried KDE, GNOME and xfce. Out of those my favorite is GNOME. But I want to try fluxbox too.

Right now I'm installing ZenWalk. Fedora crashes after a little while, for an unknown reason. I'll get to tinkering with that later, right now I'm too tired.try e17 out also on your desktop.

Two other recommendations for distros:

1. Wolvix (based on Slackware)
2. PC-BSD (based on FreeBSD)

[regomodo]

Debian




If you don't want to screw up your main machine, easiest way to try out other distributions is Virtual Machines. Look at Virtual Box (http://www.virtualbox.org/) or VMware (I recommend first). Long as you got a GB of RAM and a decent machine should run well. The other means of course would be repartitioning and installing direct to your HD, might be a bit of a bother if your not interested in using them long term. I don't see a reason for you to need a second machine though for trying out distros, a VM should do fine if all you want is to see the differences.

I don't think it's as simple as that. For some reason i've had trouble getting some distro's to work in VBOX. NimbleX, LFS, Gentoo, Arch all had issues booting for me.

[Nevon]

try e17 out also on your desktop.
I've requested a free download of Elive (which uses enlightenment). So if my request is approved I'll try it out.

[Frak]

Try SymphonyOS or Elive GEM, I've tried SymphonyOS, and it is simplistic and elegant, while RAV TUX has said some very good stuff on Elive GEM, so it must be good. :)

[Nevon]

Elive looked very good, so hopefully I'll get to try that.

Regomondo - I also had trouble booting Arch in vbox.

[regomodo]

Elive looked very good, so hopefully I'll get to try that.

Regomondo - I also had trouble booting Arch in vbox.

TFFT. I keep thinking it's me as i get no search results on Google (relevant) when something goes wrong

[Nevon]

I just installed Mandriva, and damn does that distro look good or what?! I'm starting to like KDE more and more.

EDIT: Eh, it's kinda late where I live. So I'm not actually trying out the distros much. I'm just taking a little peek at them for now.

[plb]

If you want to _learn_ linux...slackware. If you're looking for something that will most likely help you in the job market later on....redhat or suse.

[uputer]

You mean Fedora or SUSE, don't you?

I think those are the good RPM ones but I haven't tried them yet although I have booted up a Fedora 7 Live CD.

[ev5unleash1]

Ubuntu

[Bruce M.]

OK, I gotta ask ... different distros?
Isn't Linux ... Linux?
I'm a real newbie to Linux (U 7.04) , as you probably know from my first two lines.
Are you saying the commands I learn in Ubuntu are not good in RedHat, SUSE, Fedora or whatever?
How lucky or unlucky was I in choosing Ubuntu as my first Linux experience?

[regomodo]

OK, I gotta ask ... different distros?
Isn't Linux ... Linux?
I'm a real newbie to Linux (U 7.04) , as you probably know from my first two lines.
Are you saying the commands I learn in Ubuntu are not good in RedHat, SUSE, Fedora or whatever?
How lucky or unlucky was I in choosing Ubuntu as my first Linux experience?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel

Ubuntu is a good way to break into Linux

[Nevon]

I'm also fairly new to Linux, so I probably won't get everything right, but I'll try.
Linux comes in several different distributions, like Ubuntu or Fedora. The difference between the distributions (or distros for short) can be very small (for example Ubuntu vs. Kubuntu) or very big (Slackware vs. Ubuntu). In some cases the only difference might be that a few other packages are installed by default, and in some cases the experience might be TOTALLY different.
Think of it this way, "Linux" is just a base. The different distros are the result of modifications to that base.
The commands you learn are called "bash" and are used in a number of different distributions, so if you try another distro your knowledge of bash will most likely be of use. I think Ubuntu is a good distro to start off with. It's good for becoming less afraid of the command line.

[blithen]

Ubuntu

o.o; Are you kidding me?
Not to be mean but this is a thread about which distro he should tryout next. He already uses Ubuntu. >_>

[nvteighen]

If you want a distro that IMO may be very interesting it's gNewSense Delta D (an Ubuntu 6.06 fork). It's aim is to be absolutely free (as in freedom) and it's sponsored by the Free Software Foundation. It is not very usable now, is a bit old and has still some references to Ubuntu that should be removed soon; ah, and it comes in a Live CD. I really expect a lot of that distro.

[tbrminsanity]

I have a similar question; With Ubuntu 9.04 just around the corner, I wanted to try try a bunch of different Distros first to see if there was any that I may like more then Ubuntu. I also want to find a Distro that will work better for my work Laptop. Here are my criteria though:

Must have great 64-bit support
Must have a full list of apps in the package manager (I hate building from source)
Should be either Gnome or XFCE. I'm not a big fan of KDE.
Should come with a lot of out of the box support for multimedia (mainly flash, codexs, and such)


For my work laptop I have to use one of the following Linux Distros as they are the only ones that support the IBM Linux layer and tools (like Lotus):

RHEL 5 (the most supported by my workplace)
Fedora (lots of support)
Suse (ok support)
Debian (ok support)
Ubuntu (ok support, and my current OS)

[linux4life88]

I voted other, I would give Zenwalk a try. I really like this distro and it runs great on older computers.