Distro Suggestions

Hello linux users,

I opened this forum to post suggestions about distro´s for a new member who is looking to a distribution and become a linux user (GoodGuy), if anybody have some to tell feel free.

GoodGuy, I used used mint and ubuntu 9.1, now I´m trying 10.04 but when I use compiz effects I have some problems. I don´t remember 8.1, but if I would suggest I guess 9.1 showed me more stable than 10.04.

Take a look in this forum too:

http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/which-distrobution-you-guys-running

If you're really new to the Linux world, it behooves you to stick with a "mainstream" distribution such as Ubuntu, Fedora or -- God help me -- OpenSuSE.  The reason is quite simple: 1) documentation, 2) broad user base, 3) third-party support (e.g. software written by third-parties that isn't included in repositories is commonly available as a .deb or .rpm)

Even if a distro is "based" on a mainstream distro, there is always "secret sauce" that you have to contend with -- typically in the form of either kernel tweaks or software dependencies.

Mind you, I've been running Linux exclusively since 1996, so while I have some fifteen years under my belt, I'm kind of crusty about trying new stuff. Maybe I'm not the best judge of new distributions.

Cheers,

-C

GoodGuy93,

one of the great things of Linux is that you can run on any machine and get the most out of it.

you should always use the newest version (now is 11.04), which isn't always the slowest, that's a Windows user perspective. ;)

You can upgrade from your CD, but yours is way too old and I suggest you download or ask for a new cd, Ubuntu ships it for free.

With your pc specs, I recommend you Xubuntu, or even Lubuntu.

Just for sake of discussion - why the "God help me"?  Bad experience with Suse?  Again - just curious!  (I love getting trinkets of info from other users)

I was wondering about the Suse comment as well. :-)

My principle complaint with SuSE is YaST. If you're not familiar with YaST, its the admin tool for SuSE systems.  Its modeled after IBM's AIX utility, SMIT.  The big difference is one cosmically grand fault: it breaks conventional behavior of sub-systems to make them work with YaST.  As an example, if you don't want to use YaST to manage your SysV startup scripts (i.e. /etc/rc*.d/), too bad -- if you try to manage them outside of YaST, you'll become very frustrated very quickly because YaST will reset any changes you make.  YaST has hooks into a LOT of the sub-systems, and will thwart any efforts you make to change those sub-systems outside of YaST.  

As an old-school Unix guy, I'm used to doing things The Hard Way.  I.e. I like mangling config files by hand, and knowing how things actually work -- this is my big gripe against Windows: too much of the inner workings of the system are obscured. 

SO, that's my big gripe with SuSE.  If you could totally strip-out YaST, it'd basically be Red Hat with some Novell secret-sauce.

Cheers,

-C

You're most welcome!  Hopefully, you'll find that sound is the biggest battle you have to wage in your time with Linux.  Unfortunately, its a battle I have been fighting non-stop for the last sixteen years.  *sigh*  Case in point, my current laptop (an HP EliteBook 8540w) has never been completely well-behaved.  I still have to reset mixer settings every time I reboot, and periodically the mic throws fits, but in general once I tweak it, it works great until the next reboot.

On the up-shot, at least you don't have to hand-configure X11 any more!  I remember it took me a solid 4 months to get X running on an S3Virge chipset back in the day... This will date me further: when I got the config "right", I made copies of it and distributed them around my house so I'd never lose it! 

Cheers,

-C

Good luck - and keep tinkering!

Hey there GoodGuy93! I'm glad you find a solution that suits your needs. Keep on rocking in the free world!

Has anyone tried Pardus?  I'm using it now and really loving it.  It's the best KDE distro IMHO, and runs nicely (even on slightly older hardware).  The only negative for me is the lack of google talk plugin (Pardus is independent, and does not use debian or rpm packages, but the repo does have a lot in it, like Skype and Frostwire, as well as some music programs I use).

BTW - I've always loved Puppy, and I keep the latest release on a usb.

I have been toying with an idea that I thought you lot might like (because you're the thinking type.)  The idea is this: why can't you have a distribution that is really just a repository of packages that differ from a base distro?  e.g. base your distro off of Debian and just alter the bits that you need to and repackage them?

Cheers,

-C

I've always toyed with this idea - building my own distro.  Apparently ubuntu offers a program which will create an iso image out of the version you have set up for yourself on your computer.  I think it's called remastersys.

Of course, using basic Debian and altering repos can work, but it can break the system if you make a mistake.  Not a big deal for experienced users, but a heart-stopper for beginners!

I had helped a friend build-out a floppy-disk based distro way back in the day -- fd linux.  The issue, though, was that it couldn't support X and its associated requirements due to space restrictions (duh.)

That said, the big thing that always stops me from "rolling my own" is Debian... its "light" enough, for the most part.  Fortunately, Debian has avoided a lot of the DB-ery that has made Ubuntu suck since 10.04.  I'm talking about the things like "console-daemon" and whatever ubuntu is using as an RC system these days... and its "long-game" around "cloud" computing (which is really obnoxious, imo.) 

Back when Gentoo was first making a scene (i.e. when it was new on the scene) I gave it a try for six months and had a very interesting exchange about it with a co-worker.  This email is another reason I don't "roll my own".  You can read the email at http://sodaphish.com/files/gentoosucks.html 

Cheers,

-C