OSDev.org

Right now I have decided to try some of these, since Slax is smaller I am going to try it first.
(faster download with dialup )

*nods*

From looking at it further, Arch and Slackware seem to go into a similar direction, but while I enjoy "no frills" Linux (as opposed to Ubuntu / SuSE pains), their package management feels a bit too "naked" for my tastes.

And that's basically what it ends up to - tastes.

(And some of those patches available in Gentoo - which you could disable anytime using USE="vanilla" - are not only useful but necessary to get a proper system running, because upstream is not always the best authority...)

I prefer Ubuntu or Debian (yes, I know they are very similar).
I love apt-get.

I used to be conflicted between debian-based and redhat-based (fedora), but for some reason Ubuntu runs at least 4-6 times faster than Fedora did. I haven't tested Fedora in a long while, but it was a big deal a few years ago.

CentOS is *ok*, but it seems to lack in the driver-support fields. I just tried installing it the other day and it wouldn't detect my network cards at all.

but as already said, it's all about preference. Try a few different distros and see which one feels the most comfortable to work in, then that's the one that should be used.

Well, I suppose that trying them all, would be a great Idea, I might even get experience with Linux systems to.

Coddy wrote:Well, I suppose that trying them all, would be a great Idea, I might even get experience with Linux systems to.

Please be a bit carefull and keep the warranty card of your hdd ,safe . This was my hobby once and swapped nearly 50 distros in a period of 2 - 3 months and finally settled for Slackware . Swapping distro all the time is one of the sure shot ways of thrashing your hdd . Avoid Debian and its derivatives , they are pretty good in this respect .

I agree with the other posters , that choice of a distro is purely a matter of taste
Regards
Shrek

Just to go a bit off topic, as I felt this didn't warrant its own thread.

I recently tried to install Xubuntu on an old PC, everything but the processor meets the requirements. Now it won't turn on. I'm thinking I just broke the power switch, but not sure. Is there anything I might have done that would stop the power light from even coming on?

I was gonna try ArchLinux, but then this happened.

I almost did trash my hdd, nothing would read it, or find it, I finally got it back with JeOS and formated it.

Coddy wrote:OK, I can not choose what Linux I want from my below list.
Fedora 10 (gnome)
Fedora 10 (KDE)
Ubuntu 8.10
Linux Mint 5 or 6 (Gnome)

I'd recommend to use Fedora 10 with gnome. I am using it in my D830 laptop and work without any problem. My wireless is working fine. My colleges also have the same laptop with Ubuntu installed but they have to keep their machine above from the table to have a good ventilation(Other wise they stuck due to heat generation!). I never had that problem.

I wonder, what has that to do with the distro used?

Solar wrote:I wonder, what has that to do with the distro used?

IIRC, One of the main goals of FC10 was improving power management. As a result, you can find benchmarks showing FC10 using "substantially" less power than other distros.

I put substantially in quotes because I have only read *about* the benchmarks, I've not looked one up myself.

So you mention Fedora and ubuntu and if you do that you have to mention debian aswell. I would never recomend ubuntu to anyone. Sure, it's userfriendly, sort of, but in every other way it suck IMHO.

It's been a long time since i tryed out fedora, but in generel it was a good experience. Same with debian, however there's other issues, so if you are not a experienced linux user, which you're clearl not, I cannot recommend Debian either.

Then there's other cetegorys os linux distributions. Fx. I like the Gentoo consept a lot, but if you want to use it as it was intented, it's insanely complicated and I cannot recomend that either.


Well, I'm not really qualified to take part in this discussion, but I'd say go for fedora and if it doesn't work out, go for windows xp/7.

Fx. I like the Gentoo consept a lot, but if you want to use it as it was intented, it's insanely complicated

No its not - it has excellent guides which tell you step by step what to do. If you can't get it running that way, then usually its YOU who is the problem.

Granted, setting up Gentoo takes much more time than installing a linux from cd, but you get more in return from it (and most of that time is spent automatically compiling code, so you can just leave the computer on overnight and be happy the next day).

Combuster wrote:

Fx. I like the Gentoo consept a lot, but if you want to use it as it was intented, it's insanely complicated

No its not - it has excellent guides which tell you step by step what to do. If you can't get it running that way, then usually its YOU who is the problem.

Granted, setting up Gentoo takes much more time than installing a linux from cd, but you get more in return from it (and most of that time is spent automatically compiling code, so you can just leave the computer on overnight and be happy the next day).

Maybe we're not talking about the same type of install. I'm talking about a stage 3 install (or is it a stage 2?), which requires you to perform complicated operations. Granted, there's a really good handbook which takes you through the entire process, however, your specific hardware has specific requirements, thus you can't just follow the book letter bt letter if you want it to be worth the effort. Then there's guides and tutorial for the specific hardware (if you can find them), but if you make even the sligtest mistake, you may have to start from scratch. Another thing is that even an "experienced" linux user, and by that I just mean a person who have been using fx. ubuntu for a reasonable amount of time, don't understand half of the steps required and they are not explained indept in the handbook. Of course you can do further research and so on and so forth.

My point being that many would probably be able to do a decent install, but the time spend, endless you really are a linux GEEK, in which case you'd probably do a LFS instead, it takes an imense amount of time to get to a point where it is actually worth it.

I have spend an imense amount of time on gentoo some time ago (things might have changed a bit in the mean time mind you), and I'm not talking hours or even days, but weeks and probably months, be cause I wanted it so badly. Now, I'm a reasonable intelligent guy and many do consider me a geek, but I still have only been able to get a command promth up and running and to get to that point I had to mae some serious sacrifices.

Granted, it was all done on a somewhat complicated computer, but even with the most easily configured hardware, I'm pretty sure it would be very tought, especially considering that the creator of this thread, to whom we are all trying to give sound advice, put up a list as he/she did.


Now, I haven't slept for almost 24 hours, so I don't care to read all that i've written through to ensure quality, but I hope it'll do.


Regards

Zacariaz wrote:I have spend an imense amount of time on gentoo some time ago (things might have changed a bit in the mean time mind you), and I'm not talking hours or even days, but weeks and probably months, be cause I wanted it so badly. Now, I'm a reasonable intelligent guy and many do consider me a geek, but I still have only been able to get a command promth up and running and to get to that point I had to mae some serious sacrifices.

Really? On a 3 year old AMD Athlon64 I followed the AMD64 Gentoo book to the word, but deviated at the end by adding "emerge kde" (it downloaded 157 packages, built, and installed without me doing anything). Only took half a day to get the system up and running (sound, network, 3d acceleration all working fine)... I don't know how you managed MONTHS

MessiahAndrw wrote:

Zacariaz wrote:I have spend an imense amount of time on gentoo some time ago (things might have changed a bit in the mean time mind you), and I'm not talking hours or even days, but weeks and probably months, be cause I wanted it so badly. Now, I'm a reasonable intelligent guy and many do consider me a geek, but I still have only been able to get a command promth up and running and to get to that point I had to mae some serious sacrifices.

Really? On a 3 year old AMD Athlon64 I followed the AMD64 Gentoo book to the word, but deviated at the end by adding "emerge kde" (it downloaded 157 packages, built, and installed without me doing anything). Only took half a day to get the system up and running (sound, network, 3d acceleration all working fine)... I don't know how you managed MONTHS

As I mentioned, my hardware platform isnot, or at least wasn't at the time, the easiest to dance with. Only thing I'm saying is that Gentoo can really be fustrating, not that it actually is per definition.

I have actually thought about giving it another try, but I'm not sure if it's worth it.

For those interested, the hardware I'm using is a laptop, Lenovo "Thinkpad x61 Tablet" with Wacon enabled XGA screen, danish keyboard and 4 gigs of ramI'm not sure why this was so troublesome, but I guess it has to do with be not being able to make compromises. I want perfection, end of story