What's another distro worth trying?

[hugom]

While I'm goingaway on holiday I thought I would try out a some new distros. I've been using ubuntu for about 4 or 5 months now?

I was thinking of trying debian, but a lot of people say its to confusing and outdated.

Also, I'm not a huge fan of gnome 3, but really, I'm open to try anything?

Just wondering what you guys think will be a good distro(s) to have a play around with next, I'm still new to the whole linux world still though.

Cheers.

[sanderd17]

Here you have a list of all popular distros: http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity

Fedora and OpenSuse are also good, and I've heard that once you have Arch set up, you never return to anything else (I haven't set it up though).
If you keep an Ubuntu based distro (like Mint), it will be easy to get used to since you'll have all the same tools.

And btw, how long did you try gnome-shell? Once you got the hotkeys (super key and alt-tab), it is really easy. I'm now using gNatty, a gnome-shell remix of Natty.

[Beacon11]

If you're interested in branching out I say go all-out. Why stay in the same family and try Debian (although it's fantastic)? Ubuntu, Debian, and Mint are pretty similar due to their relationships. I say try a different Linux branch, e.g. something based on Red Hat. Try CentOS, or OpenSUSE. They have a different package management system, etc. You'll learn more that way!

[krapp]

All of them are worth trying! if you have a hamster computer or know how to dual-boot.

Re. Debian, it's not confusing at all. Are the software packages relatively old? yes. But never confusing. The main repo is pretty stale, but you are hardly confined to those packages even if you install Debian Stable.

I'd suggest you try Fedora and OpenSUSE so as to try something outside of the Debian universe.

[hugom]

Oh wow, thanks guys. That's awesome help. Will start sorting I'll look at in the morning?

Just wondering is Gentoo worth trying? Because that was one i was thinking of as well.

[Beacon11]

Just wondering is Gentoo worth trying? Because that was one i was thinking of as well.

I'm not qualified to give advice regarding Gentoo as I've never used it, but I think anything is worth trying! It will also be different from the Debian family, so not a bad choice there. I believe it's based on FreeBSD.

[shobon]

Are the software packages relatively old?

This is a misconception that I see a lot.

If you're on a desktop/laptop/personal computer then try installing Debian then using the experimental/sid repositories, it'll keep you up to date and is fairly stable despite its name.

I'm not qualified to give advice regarding Gentoo as I've never used it, but I think anything is worth trying! It will also be different from the Debian family, so not a bad choice there. I believe it's based on FreeBSD.

Gentoo is a GNU/Linux distro, FreeBSD is another operating system all together, and not related in the slightest. Gentoo takes quite some time to set up if its your time, but you compile every package yourself and you can create quite a fast system once you have your CFLAGS set up to your system's specifications.

[Beacon11]

Gentoo is a GNU/Linux distro, FreeBSD is another operating system all together, and not related in the slightest.

I realize FreeBSD is not Linux, I guess I just wasn't specific. My impression is that Gentoo tries to make a Linux version of FreeBSD. Perhaps the correct phrase is "Gentoo is based on FreeBSD ideas." Perhaps I misunderstand, but that impression is gathered from things like post #3 in http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=18760:

Some 'linux people' tried FreeBSD and liked ideas upon which FreeBSD is built/works and they thought about 'porting' them into the Linux world, so they started Gentoo where Portage is Linux version of Ports, USE flags are Linux equivalents of WITH/WITHOUT flags from Ports, all/most configuration only in /etc/rc.conf with /etc/make.conf for compile options, just multiuser + singleuser mode like in FreeBSD and viola, You have Gentoo Linux whom most ideas came from FreeBSD UNIX.

[nrundy]

I'd say if u want to try a ubuntu-ish alternative = Mint

if you want a different experience = Fedora 15

if you want to see where ubuntu came from = debian

[Beacon11]

I'd say if u want to try a ubuntu-ish alternative = Mint

Yeah I hear good things about that one, although I'm hearing even better things about Pinguy. Have you tried that nrundy?