What Linux Distro Should I use?

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2004-08-08 08:14pm

I need help picking out the proper distro. Right now I have Mandrake 10, Suse 9.0, Debian, Lindows and I think one more floating around my house. All have proved less than satisfactory. Suse has gotten into dependancy hell and died everytime I've tried to run it, I couldn't figure out Debian, Lindows sucked (but I did like it's hardware detection) so badly I just couldn't stand it and had to dump it and I couldn't get x to work (probably my odd setup) with mandrake and subsequently gave up (it's sitting on my drive right now eating ~20 gigs). I want a simple distro of linux that will be easy enough to use for an idiot such as myself and yet has room for me to grow with as I expand in proficiency. What do you all recommend?

GoldenFalcon · Post by **GoldenFalcon** » 2004-08-08 08:21pm

There's always RedHat, Slackware, and this other one who's name just escaped me...

But I've heard many good stories about Slackware, so you may want to try that.

Terr Fangbite · Post by **Terr Fangbite** » 2004-08-08 08:43pm

Hmmmm i found mandrake very idiot friendly. If you have any mandrake problems www.mandrakeusers.org is a very good resource, however if you can't stand it then try looking at www.linuxiso.org which has several dozen distros several of which are called friendly for windows to linux transfers and easy to use (whichever you're looking for).

YT300000 · Post by **YT300000** » 2004-08-08 09:05pm

Gentoo.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2004-08-08 09:13pm

You can also try FreeBSD, which is more UNIX than Linux.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2004-08-08 10:05pm

Also, Slackware is the most BSDish of the Linux distros (I prefer SysV init though). BSD is also not a UNIX, since it has not been certified by the Open Group which owns the UNIX trademark. Anyway the GNU tools are better than the BSD ones and have more features (and bloat).

Linux has better hardware support than BSD though.

Anyway, I use Debian (noted for it's reputation for being difficult to install- however a new installer is about to be released which will make installing it quite a bit easier). Use Gentoo if you want to wait hours compiling.

Basically, get either Debian (new installer), Fedora, or Gentoo, in that order, due to easy updates.

Lindows is actually a heavily modified Debian, and can be converted to standard Debian rather easily (assuming you have broadband). The same applies to Xandros(another newbie distro) and Librenix (sp?)

Xisiqomelir · Post by **Xisiqomelir** » 2004-08-08 10:42pm

Pu-239 wrote:Anyway, I use Debian (noted for it's reputation for being difficult to install- however a new installer is about to be released which will make installing it quite a bit easier)

New Debian installer is out

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2004-08-09 12:51pm

Does this installer ask a thousand questions too? That's the reason I aborted my Debian installation

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2004-08-09 10:28pm

Slartibartfast wrote:Does this installer ask a thousand questions too? That's the reason I aborted my Debian installation

Review:
http://applications.linux.com/article.p ... /09/164207

Now that Debian is no longer difficult to install, it is no longer 1337. I'll have to switch distros

. J/K. Though I did run Linux from Scratch.

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2004-08-10 01:21am

I've been using Gentoo for a while, and I love it. It can be a bit intimidating at first, especially during installation, but the documentation is among the best I've seen (rivalled only by FreeBSD's) and walks you right through the whole process. The installation can take a long time, due to the fact that you have to compile everything from scratch (actually, most packages also have a pre-compiled version, but where's the fun in that?) but that's pretty much just an issue when you're first starting out. Once you've got your system up and running you'll spend very little time compiling.

Once you've got everything installed, though, you'll quickly see that it was all worth it. Portage is the single best package-management system I've ever seen, allowing you to easily customize packages to you liking, use multiple versions of a package concurrantly, and mix and match between the tested and stable versions of some apps and the most current, bleeding edge versions of others (as opposed to Debian, which forces you to pick one branch for everything and stick to it), while making it incredibly easy to keep things up to date. There's also some other nice utilities like rc-update that make system administration a whole lot easier.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2004-08-10 02:38am

Pu-239 wrote:
Slartibartfast wrote:Does this installer ask a thousand questions too? That's the reason I aborted my Debian installation
Review:
http://applications.linux.com/article.p ... /09/164207

Now that Debian is no longer difficult to install, it is no longer 1337. I'll have to switch distros . J/K. Though I did run Linux from Scratch.

It's not that it was difficult to install, it was that I couldn't even finish replying to the Y/N questions one after the other, wondering if I chose the right one... I mean, would it have hurt to install just the basics and allow me to add services and packages later, or at least asks these questions in menu form with the recommended option highlighted, or something?

>Do you want a network? Y/N
>Do you want TCP? Y/N
>Do you want IP? Y/N
>Do you want the packet verification interface to default to congruential? Y/N
>You sure you don't want it in phases instead? Y/N
>Do you use a mouse? Y/N
>Does the mouse have a ball? Y/N
>Does it have buttons? Y/N
>Is it a WRYXFG-protocol compatible mouse? Y/N
>Do you use a monitor? Y/N
>Is it a 60 hz monitor? Y/N
>Does it support Megavision? Y/N
>Do you have a modem? Y/N
>Is it old? Y/N
>Do you like potatoes? Y/N
>Do you like green eggs and ham? Y/N
>Would you like them in a house? Y/N
>Would you like them with a mouse? Y/N
>Would you eat them in a box? Y/N
>Would you eat them with a fox? Y/N

Argh...

Terr Fangbite · Post by **Terr Fangbite** » 2004-08-10 10:46am

egads, no wonder people say debian's installer is insane. The redhat/mandrake installers i've done are much simpler. You just choose what you want on your pc and then walk away for an hour while it installs them all.