Distro

[worldworld]

Hi,

 

Which is the best distro to use for linux?

 

Thanks in advance. 

[bibby]

That depends on who you ask. 

 

I'm using Ubuntu Dapper Drake with XFCE ,

but I think I'm going to switch to something else and run it headless.

[joder]

For this question, you can get many different answers. It's personal taste. What do you want to do with the distro? Some type of server? Desktop?

[c4onastick]

Yep, its all taste really. I would say it depends more on your level of comfort with linux (which from this post, I'm guessing is probably pretty low). Some distro's aren't as beginner friendly as others.

 

http://distrowatch.com/

http://www.linuxquestions.org/reviews/

 

There's a bazillion different distros out there. Try one, see if you like it!

[mbtaylor]

Hehehe which is better in Windows Mac and Linux All a matter of preference.  Linux of course!!!!!

 

My favourite is OpenSuse - YAST is good for system maintanence and SuSE's hardware detection is great.

I do find myself installing Apt though for package maintanence

 

 

[Balmung-San]

From what I've heard (never having used it myself) Ubuntu is supposed to be a fairly good distro for beginners. I personally prefer either SuSe or Fedora. Again, it's mostly a matter of preference, and what you need to do with it.

[c4onastick]

From what I've heard (never having used it myself) Ubuntu is supposed to be a fairly good distro for beginners. I personally prefer either SuSe or Fedora. Again, it's mostly a matter of preference, and what you need to do with it.

I've got a lot of friends that love Ubuntu. I'm old-school: Slackware. Really, with the penguin, you can't go wrong.

[Balmung-San]

From what I've heard (never having used it myself) Ubuntu is supposed to be a fairly good distro for beginners. I personally prefer either SuSe or Fedora. Again, it's mostly a matter of preference, and what you need to do with it.

I've got a lot of friends that love Ubuntu. I'm old-school: Slackware. Really, with the penguin, you can't go wrong.

 

I've heard good things about Slackware. Is there any big feature it has that others don't, or is it just an all around good distro?

[c4onastick]

Well, its the oldest distro running around out there. Its really rock-solid stable, and it doesn't have too many bells and whistles. Which to me, is a big feature. I started out running a web/file server on my slackware box, but it eventually hooked me and now I'm running SLAX (live version of slackware, HD-installed) on my laptop. I think the reason why I really like slackware is it's clean. A fresh install is (can be) just baren, its like a canvas that you can do whatever you want with it.

 

As far as package managers (something I do miss from time to time, and a big distinguishing feature of a distribution, imho), slackware sort of has a version of debian's 'apt-get' called 'slapt-get' but I don't think the repository is as big as debian's. I build 99% of the stuff I run from source.

 

Mostly, I chose it (way back when) because I wanted a challenge. I was sick of windows (still am, don't get me started on Vista) and I wanted to learn linux, but didn't want some nice fancy GUI to hold my hand (my server is straight-up command line only). I've since delved into GUI world, which has been a fun break from windows.

 

That being said, really it was for the learning experience. I spent hours trying to iron out little bugs here and there with my builds, setting up iptables, configuring smb.conf by hand, etc. In the end, I love the stability, I've yet (knock on wood) to crash either of my slackware boxes (something I can't say about my debian box). And the simplicity is marvelous (to echo the Slackware Philosophy). By really learning about the nuts and bolts, its helped me troubleshoot other distro's because I've had a lot of practice doing things by hand (got a really good feel for how the operating system works).

 

Wow, this turned into a senior thesis. But, don't take my word for it. This is just my opinion (you'll find people in love with every distro, and thats ok). The only way the really appreciate a distro, is to install it and give it a shot!

[SamLiu]

usually someone who askes a question like that probably wants general usage

so they'd be going for one of two distros imho at this point

 

1) if they have 512mb ram +, they should be going for Ubuntu 7.04

2) if they have less than that, they should be going for Xubuntu 7.04 (XFCE Desktop gui)

 

why? Cause mark shuttleworth is a friggin billionare and pumps 10million bucks into ubuntu each year. And its stable as hell, good driver support, and you can install virtually anything with a simple "sudo apt-get install"

 

and if you want ANY computer to run faster than the speed of light, Xubuntu is definately the way to go.

Yeah, go Ubuntu.

 

I'm not a zealot....

[c4onastick]

I actually just started using Kubuntu on my laptop and can echo SamLiu's praises. Ubuntu (in any of its flavors) is a slick distro. I'm not sure I like the idea of not having a root user (I come from command line only linux) but the reasons why they left it out (listed on the wiki) actually do make sense for their target user base. The install was cake, and the Adept Installer works the way they all package management systems should (IMHO).

 

That being said, however, I wouldn't recommend Ubuntu if you want to learn the "nuts and bolts" of linux. Everything is sugar-coated. I enjoy the user experience for their "desktop" version, but I would be extremely hesitant to install it as a dedicated server (I'd go Slackware or Gentoo in that case). Too much of effective linux server administration is in the "nuts and bolts".

[s0c0]

If this question is directed at me then Debian or CentOS for those looking at a good server distro.  For this looking at a good desktop distro Suse or Ubuntu/Kubuntu.