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View Full Version : What other kinds of linux have you tried?



Kappity
October 27th, 2007, 09:15 PM
I thought of making this a poll, but that would be a big list at the top of the page.

Just curious what other linux/unix background other people around here had before turning to Ubuntu (or Kubuntu or Xubuntu). Also, if you've decided you like Ubuntu better than other kinds of linux, then why?

I had to start using Unix computers, mostly Solaris, when I came to my present job in 1999. Later, we also had some set up with Red Hat. Of course, these were set up by our systems engineering people, and I just had to learn to do specific tasks. I got curious enough to put Red Hat on an old desktop, originally with Win 98, which I'd already decided to give away. I tried it for a few months, and got it working pretty well. Never got the sound working, and couldn't install a couple of programs that I wanted. When I did give the computer away, the new owner put XP on it. I switched to Mac rather than buying another Windows computer, but kept an old Windows 98 laptop.

I tried Suse Linux on that laptop. Worked pretty well, but could never get wireless working. Again, install problems on a couple of programs. Then I somehow fried the original 6 GB hard drive.

Decided to buy a new 40 GB hard drive, and give linux another shot with either Ubuntu or Xubuntu. I went with Ubuntu 7.04, which I promptly upgraded to 7.10.

With Gutsy, finally wireless works, athough I'm not sure why.:) That's big, for a laptop. I like the synaptic package manager, which gives me a wider variety of programs that I can install without doing obscure things (to me) like editing makefiles. I've still run into the occasional problem trying to install a program that isn't in the package manager, but nothing vital.

So for me, the advantage of Ubuntu, so far, is that I've been able to get it to do more on my computers than either Suse or Red Hat. That isn't a criticism of either one, it's just that I've found Ubuntu easier.

HermanAB
October 27th, 2007, 10:06 PM
I use the one that works and gets the job done. Xubuntu works great on laptops - super fast. Some customers insist on Redhat, but I don't like RedHat, since it feels like going back in time about three years. The last two Mandriva releases are pretty good and it has wizards for everything, which makes it easier to set up than Ubuntu. However, once you got it to work, all Linux distributions are the same.

cookieofdoom
October 27th, 2007, 10:39 PM
I tried Mandrake 8.2 a while back. I was pretty young (7th or 8th grade, I think). I like it a lot, but I couldn't figure out how to install software. When I finally got a program to install I found that I had accidentally managed to uninstall all the other programs that came with the CD. That wasn't a very happy experience. I had it loaded on a second hard drive and I found myself plugging in that hard drive less and less; eventually I stopped using it.

About a year ago I tried Ubuntu and I was hooked. I resized my Windows partition to 20GB and gave myself the rest split 50/50 between FAT32 and ext3. I only use Windows for gaming now. I've run Puppy, Fedora, Gentoo, (that was fun, lol), Xubuntu, Kubuntu (can't really count those, imo) and Arch. I've also run Wolvix, Sabayon, and Mandriva on VirtualBox.

I love Arch, and I've still got it installed on my main hard drive. It's very fast, very customizable, and has great implementation of KDE (my preferred WM) through the KDE mod. It's harder to set up though, and takes more time. Honestly I'd love to switch to it if I had more time. For right now I prefer Ubuntu because it "just works". That's actually the reason I keep coming back to Ubuntu. I've only met a few pieces of hardware that don't work with it out of the box.

bb10
October 27th, 2007, 10:44 PM
openSUSE, fedora, momonga, kubuntu, xubuntu, sabayon, linux mint, arch linux, debian ... and of course ubuntu. All in the past 2 months (when i started with linux) :)

blithen
October 27th, 2007, 10:49 PM
Hmmm.
I VirtualBoxed TONS of distros. I don't really format my drive and install one unless I LOVE it. Which hasn't been done yet. I love Ubuntu.

pieisgood4589
October 27th, 2007, 10:57 PM
I have tried zenwalk, slackware, fedora core 6, redhat, openSUSE, SLED10, Damn Small Linux, Damn Small Linux -Not, Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Edubuntu, Sabayon, Mint, PCLinuxOS, Mini PCLinuxOS (whatever the heck it's called... you know, the one with the acorn?) all in 2 days. I burned over 80 cds in a frenzy to find a Windows alternative. I eventually settled on Ubuntu. It's the best. :popcorn::lolflag:

DarkOx
October 27th, 2007, 11:20 PM
I tried everything when I was first starting out:

Slackware and Gentoo were too much work to get to a usable system. Installing software sucked.
Smaller distros (Zenwalk, for example) also shared this problem, usually because the software wasn't in their repositories.

Fedora and Ubuntu were Gnome-based (or at least Gnome-centric), but I quickly found when I used them I would only use KDE programs in the Gnome environment (though I did prefer Gnomes' menu system).

Suse had great configuration tools and looked really slick, but installing packages was painful.

PCLinuxOS was great. Installing stuff was a breeze, configuration was easy with the control centre, the whole package looked slick. But it didn't have as much stuff as was in Ubuntu's repositories.

Long story short? I've stuck with Kubuntu, even though it's implementation of KDE leaves something to be desired. The major advantage of the Ubuntu base -- easy installation of packages -- is simply too good to pass up.

wolfen69
October 27th, 2007, 11:35 PM
it would be easier to list the ones i havent tried.

popch
October 27th, 2007, 11:38 PM
it would be easier to list the ones i havent tried.

Please do.

I myself have 'seriously used' SuSe (since about 6.4, I believe). I then converted to Ubuntu on account of the positive press it received, also because it detected more of my hardware than did SuSe.

Flying caveman
October 28th, 2007, 04:21 AM
Red hat 9.0, Knoppix, Suse 10.1/10.2, DSL, Puppy, and Xandros which sucked because it was like a trial ware on Winders, pay for a version which may or may not work.

phrostbyte
October 28th, 2007, 05:11 AM
Fedora
Ubuntu
Kubuntu
Debian
Slackware
Slax
Gentoo
Red Hat Linux
Mandrake
Knoppix
DSL
Puppy
DreamLinux
ArchLinux
Slax Popcorn
Xubuntu
Fluxbuntu
and more...

-grubby
October 28th, 2007, 05:16 AM
let's see my CD case...:
Ubuntu 7.10
Debian etch 4.0
Linux mint Cassandra
Kubuntu 7.10
Knoppix (latest version)
Debian Lenny
Kubuntu 7.04
Vixta
Puppy
DSL 4
Feather Linux
Ubuntu 7.04 Ultimate
DSl 3.?
Fluxbuntu 7.10
Xubuntu 7.04

didn't realize I've tried so many

sixstorm
October 28th, 2007, 06:03 AM
Ubuntu 6.06, 6.10, 7.04, 7.10
Debian 4.0 Stable
DreamLinux 2.2
Sabayon Linux (2nd to last release)
Kubuntu 6.10
Xubuntu 6.06

I dunno why, but I always keep coming back to Ubuntu. Maybe Compiz/Beryl has something to do with it. :D

glosman15
October 28th, 2007, 06:44 AM
Debian, DSL, Fedora, and Feather Linux.

Ubuntu works fine, so I don't really bother trying to find other ones unless someone tells me about one, I just found out about fluxbuntu so I'm gunna try that at some point since I like fluxbox better than gnome.

cookieforyou
October 28th, 2007, 09:09 AM
SuSE
Gentoo
Slackware
K/Ubuntu
Knoppix
Debian
DSL
Ubuntu Studio
PCLinuxOS
Fedora Core