Favorite linux distro?

[Abix]

Im fairly new to the linux scene and so far Ive only gotten to install and experiment with Red Hat 9 and some old Mandrake distro. Being the Windows guy that I am, I wasnt that sure what I needed to look for in a linux distro to suit me, as the whole system was absolutely different from Windows. Ive slowly learned how to do pretty simple stuff on my Red Hat install, and learned the absolute horror of the bajillion of dependencies that any program may or may not require, and I was just wondering what yalls favorite liux distro is, and why.

 

[Rottie]

I prefer Suse over others. Cuz it is easy to install without problem for me cuz I was Linux newbie.

 

[ducksoup0]

Debian: using APT, you will never have to track down dependencies manually again.

 

[Monoman]

Originally posted by: ducksoup0
Gentoo: using EMERGE, you will never have to track down dependencies manually again AND have all the latest and greatest

corrected for my choice.

 

[ducksoup0]

I'd rather you not change a quote like that. Certainly Gentoo is a valid choice. But I think that recompiling EVERYTHING is a bit quixotic.

 

[M00T]

gentoo

 

[n0cmonkey]

Slackware has always been my favorite. It was the first distro that made me learn how to use Linux, so it's had a big ole nixy spot in my heart.

That's about the only reason.

 

[Nothinman]

Debian.

 

[drag]

Debian, Slackware, Fedora.

In that order.

Debian is my favorite bacause apt-get makes everything so freaking easy to maintain. I think the attitude of the developers is good (having guidelines is good, sticking to them is not. And Debian people generally stick to their Debian social contract.)

Slackware, because it's easy to live with. It's simple to setup and simple to run.
Note that simple does NOT equal easy.

In fact in Linux (and software in general) "easy" and "userfreindly" generally means very very complex.

I am the type of person that can't leave well enough alone. Something that bugs me, or something that I don't understand I just don't fret. I MAKE it so that I understand it.

I started off with Redhat thinking that that was the most "user freindly" distro out there. Very complex, very automated. I didn't have a clue what was going on, and when I broke something I didn't know how to fix it.

The terms were all new. The conventions were all new. I was exposed to a fraction of the complexity that Windows hides from us and it's bewilderin to a newbie.

So in comes Slackware. F*** complexity. If it does what you want it to do, with the minimal amount of complexity, that's a whole hell of a lot better then trying to figure out the solutions some other guy thought was a good idea behind walls of automation to problems you don't even know exist yet.

K.I.S.S, keep it simple stupid.

So after running Slackware for a long time, I was able to understand Linux and understand how Unix worked and how it applied to everyday use of the computer. Then I was able to "upgrade" my thinking to match what was needed to understand how Redhat functions.

Then comes in Fedora. Fedora is nice because it handles the compexity in a ok and fairly open manner. This compares favoriably to Suse with it's YAST until-recently-closed-source-software and Mandrake, which I bothered with for a short time and then ran away.

The majority of stuff works. Somethings generally don't, but it's not usually to hard to work around it. And official support of Yum and Apt-get is a VERY positive trait.

You want to install a program? apt-cache search program, apt-get install programname

That's it.

Before RPM's were a pain:
1. Find a rpmsearch mirror online.
2. find your package.
3. Download it.
4. Try to install it.
5. Go back to rpmsearch mirror.
6. find dependancies
7. download dependancies
8. Try install dependancies
9. Go back to rpmsearch mirror
10. find dependancies of dependancies
11. download dependancies of dependancies
12. install dependancies of dependancies
13. install dependancies
14. install package

15. try to run program.
16. Watch program crash.
17. Realise that you downloaded and installed random crap from all over the internet. The RPM's were created by people who ran pretty much custom setups with all sorts of nasty dirty programs from other random people.

18. cry.

19. Install Debian.
20. Figure out Debian's esoteric nature.
21. apt-cache search program
22. apt-get install programname
23a. run program
23b. smile
23c. take a nap.

 

[Abix]

If apt-cache and apt-get work like you say drag, then that is definently gonna be my distro of choice for my system(damn you windows xp!). I literally spent 3 hours finding dependencies of dependencies of dependencies just so I could compile some obscure program so that I could compile some libs so that I could compile a xine gui. Absolute hell.

 

[drag]

It mostly works.

For Debian it works, it's very rare that a program you want is not aviable thru their official mirrors. However some 3rd party repositories exist for some programs (mplayer is a good example of this). It's best to keep 3rd party stuff down to the minimum amount. Debian's packages and maintainers are very high quality and disicplined.

They tend to be a version or 2 behind for big programs. Like Gnome and KDE will be a couple months behind other distros. XFree86 is not going to be upgrade for a long time, yet.

Fedora is pretty good. It's more up to date, but the package selection from official servers is much more limited. I have come to depend on 3rd party repositories which can cause problems if you mix and match to much.

Good 3rd party Fedora repositories are Dag's RPMs, Atrpms, and FreshRPMS. They do a OK job of making sure that they keep comptable with everybody else.

The only trouble I have is that when I install Fedora's official apt-get package it gets over written with 3rd party repository's versions, and then I have to edit the stuff all over again.

The advantage of Fedora is that it's more up to date and easier for most people to adjust to then Debian. Disadvantage is that it's more likely to mess up, which takes some effort to fix, and it's slightly less stable then Debian.

It may be better to use Yum for Fedora. It does the same thing as Apt-get and is installed by default, unlike apt-get which you have to download and install seperately. I think yum is the prefered method. Guys I know that are Redhat fans use Yum.

Fedora package related sites:
http://www.fedora.us/wiki/FedoraHOWTO
http://www.fedora.us/wiki/RepositoryMixingProblems
http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/apt/

Debian sites:
http://newbiedoc.sourceforge.net/
http://www.debianhelp.org/
http://www.debian.org/doc/

Note with Debian you have 3 flavors.
Stable, Testing and Unstable.

Testing is like Debian's Beta OS. Eventually it will be the next Debian Stable OS. Shortly Debian is going to release a new OS, so Testing is at a pretty stable state right now.

Unstable is were all new stuff is introduced. It's unstable because it's changing constantly. Packages are tested here until they are acceptable for acceptance in Testing.

Stable is unchanging. Only bug fixes, never any new features. It's pretty dated right now, and I'd recommend install Testing or Unstable over Stable, unless you have bunches of computers to maintain or want to run a server.

 

[kogase]

"Unstable is were all new stuff is introduced. It's unstable because it's changing constantly. Packages are tested here until they are acceptable for acceptance in Testing."

This paints an unrealistic picture of Unstable, and is the main problem with Debian in general. Unstable is, in fact, just as stable as any other distro that uses modern software (in computer time, modern is "less than a year old"). Debian does themselves a huge disservice by labeling Unstable as such. In fact, it's the reason I don't use Debian (or wouldn't use Debian, anyway). I don't feel like using something from somebody who paints an unrealistic picture of their, and frankly others', work. However, I'm fine using Ubuntu, which uses the Debian Unstable branch, because they don't implicitly label their distro as "unstable". Anyway.

Edit:

The word I was looking for was "explicitly".

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: kogase
"Unstable is were all new stuff is introduced. It's unstable because it's changing constantly. Packages are tested here until they are acceptable for acceptance in Testing."

This paints an unrealistic picture of Unstable, and is the main problem with Debian in general. Unstable is, in fact, just as stable as any other distro that uses modern software (in computer time, modern is "less than a year old"). Debian does themselves a huge disservice by labeling Unstable as such. In fact, it's the reason I don't use Debian (or wouldn't use Debian, anyway). I don't feel like using something from somebody who paints an unrealistic picture of their, and frankly others', work. However, I'm fine using Ubuntu, which uses the Debian Unstable branch, because they don't implicitly label their distro as "unstable". Anyway.

Edit:

The word I was looking for was "explicitly".

That's a silly reason not to use a piece of software, IMO.

 

[drag]

I use unstable.

It's unstable because it's changing constantly. It's unstable ground, but it terms of not crashing it does a superior job.

If you don't like it, then I'll just call it SID.

SID is were all new stuff is introduced. It's SID because it's changing constantly. Packages are tested here until they are acceptable for acceptance in(to) Testing.

 

[Nothinman]

This paints an unrealistic picture of Unstable, and is the main problem with Debian in general. Unstable is, in fact, just as stable as any other distro that uses modern software (in computer time, modern is "less than a year old"). Debian does themselves a huge disservice by labeling Unstable as such. In fact, it's the reason I don't use Debian (or wouldn't use Debian, anyway). I don't feel like using something from somebody who paints an unrealistic picture of their, and frankly others', work. However, I'm fine using Ubuntu, which uses the Debian Unstable branch, because they don't implicitly label their distro as "unstable". Anyway.

That makes no sense. The Debian people do some questionable things once in a while, but naming sid 'unstable' was not one of them. And IIRC part of the reason they chose unstable was that it sorted nicely in directory listings, stable->testing->unstable.

 

[kogase]

It makes perfect sense. It is incidental to say the least, which distro I choose, so I'm right in choosing any preposterous reason to not use vanilla Debian. But my reasoning makes perfect sense anyway.

 

[Nothinman]

Have you ever heard the phrase "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" or how about "Never judge a book by it's cover"?

 

[kogase]

Yes.

 

[Nothinman]

And you still think it makes sense to not use something simply because of it's name?

Would you not drink Bud Light because it's name is reminiscent of marijuana?

 

[drag]

Weird.

So you wouldn't use Unstable because they call it Unstable, but yet your perfectly whilling to use Unstable that is used by a different group of people who took it and don't call it Unstable?

Er... ok. To each their own.

In my eyes it's perfectly correct. Unstable = always changing. Stable = doesn't change.

Main Entry: un·sta·ble
Pronunciation: -'stA-b&l
Function: adjective
: not stable : not firm or fixed : not constant: as a : not steady in action or movement : IRREGULAR <an unstable pulse> b : wavering in purpose or intent : VACILLATING c : lacking steadiness : apt to move, sway, or fall <an unstable tower> d (1) : liable to change or alteration <an unstable economy> <unstable weather> (2) : readily changing (as by decomposing) in chemical composition or biological activity e : characterized by lack of emotional control


Words do mean more then one thing, remember that...
Maybe they should of named it: Stable, Testing, Vacillating?

Your not one of those Politically Correct word-lawyer type junkies are you?

Not that I mind a whole lot. Ubunutu is perfectly OK in my book.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
And you still think it makes sense to not use something simply because of it's name?

Would you not drink Bud Light because it's name is reminiscent of marijuana?

I wouldn't drink budlight because it's absolutely horrible, and I'm not a fan of NASCAR.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Nothinman
And you still think it makes sense to not use something simply because of it's name?

Would you not drink Bud Light because it's name is reminiscent of marijuana?

I wouldn't drink budlight because it's absolutely horrible, and I'm not a fan of NASCAR.

Na, your obviously a "Natural Ice" drinker (or as we called in when we were teenagers "Daddy Ice").

 

[kogase]

I don't get what the big deal is. I don't use Debian Unstable, for exactly the reason I stated. I didn't mean for my reasoning to be taken so seriously. But consider: Unstable is, as anyone who has used it knows, stable to a degree comparable to other big Linux distros. But Debian dubs it Unstable, which, regardless of any other meanings the word my carry, implies "crash prone". It seems like an inappropriate name to use. And I'm simply not going to use their distro, at least, not as it is still called Unstable. And I can do whatever I want, dammit.

 

[drag]

Nobody said that you were wrong in your choice. You can do whatever you want. Not a big deal.

Of course when I here the term "crash prone", I think of nascar. It's not a pretty picture. But to each their own.

But at least pick something a little less silly. Most people pick something along the lines of "Debian maintainers and users are generally elitist anal snobs" and "their OS is out of date."

 

[kogase]

I dislike NASCAR, and I have never, and refuse to ever try Natural Ice or any other watered down rubbing alcohol variants.