Other OS.

[Rhawi Dantas]

I hope that I don't get bombarded by massive attacks from Ubuntu fanatics with what I'm going to say:

As Ubuntu grew in usability, became my main OS for every kind of tasks: from Developing with Java to seeing my movies/music/stuff.

As I was saying, I would like to have another Operating System that could let me exploit more things. And with the next realease that I'm willing to install I would like to try something else, so here is the real question.

Which other os you guys use ? OpenBSD, Solaris, FreeBSD...

So, any help with comments would be very nice :)

Thanks a lot and congratulations to the Ubuntu team :)

[matthew]

I don't expect any attacks to come your way. This is a good and honest question.

Really, it depends on what you want to learn. For security you might try OpenBSD. If you want another flavor of linux based on the rpm style of package management you could try Fedora/Red Hat. If you really want to delve into the inner workings of GNU/Linux and see how a whole operating system comes together you could try Linux From Scratch or Gentoo. If you are just interested in non-linux unix-like OS's you could pick FreeBSD or Solaris (I think there's an OpenSolaris, isn't there? Yep, here's the link: http://www.opensolaris.org/os/ )

Try out whatever you like and have some fun!

[Kvark]

If you want to try anything that is different then it might be worth to remember that Kubuntu is quite different.

If you want 'more' then Debian Sid would probably be it. From what I heard Ubuntu is a polished, fine tuned and stable, 'less bleeding edge' and 'less packages to choose from' version of Sid. That'd mean Sid is 'newer' and 'more' then Ubuntu.

Gentoo is what all the geeky power users talk about. Don't know about you but I'm sure going to try it when I gather enough courage to actually compile something from source.

Symphony OS seems to be very different. It claims to have something better then the normal desktop you store icons on and menues you navigate to start programs.

[somuchfortheafter]

actually sid has some newer packages but it still doesnt have x.org.....

[Perfect Storm]

You could also try Mandriva Linux a try.

[xequence]

Solaris is aparently SUPER stable, but doesent have good hardware support unless you use machines made by sun.

I have always wanted to give Fedora Core a try, and maybe later... I tried Mepis, it wasnt very good to me. Debian was evil, didnt even get to a GUI.

[-Rick-]

I hope that I don't get bombarded by massive attacks from Ubuntu fanatics with what I'm going to say:

As Ubuntu grew in usability, became my main OS for every kind of tasks: from Developing with Java to seeing my movies/music/stuff.

As I was saying, I would like to have another Operating System that could let me exploit more things. And with the next realease that I'm willing to install I would like to try something else, so here is the real question.

Which other os you guys use ? OpenBSD, Solaris, FreeBSD...

So, any help with comments would be very nice :)

Thanks a lot and congratulations to the Ubuntu team :)
FreeBSD rocks.

Both binary packages as source 'ports' (compiling packages)
Packages are always fairly up to date
There is a seperation between base system and the rest, making it more organized. Also there is more a core team developing, instead of people randomly submitting stuff.
Boots faster
Fun to learn a bit unix ;)
Generally more stable


Hardware support is different than from linux. Some things work better, some things don't.
Installation isn't that hard IMO. Just remember that it needs an primary partition and thats its better to not let it install a boot loader, but use grub or gag instead.
After installation its better to start reading the excellent handbook though :)