The Definitive "WHICH LINUX DISTRO?" Thread

By matrixstylez
in Linux

 Share

What distro do you use?  

609 members have voted

  1. 1. What distro do you use?

    • Mandrake
      111
    • Fedora/Red Hat
      145
    • Knoppix
      26
    • Debian
      44
    • Gentoo
      117
    • SUSE
      69
    • Slackware
      54
    • LindowsOS/Lycoris
      8
    • PCLinuxOS
      3
    • Other
      32

Recommended Posts

Grand Master

Fred Derf Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted
what do you think is the best disto available today, what are you using or what is you favourite distro you've tried as yet?

Go here and look at their top 10.

I like Knoppix and/or Debian. Once they're installed to the HD then they're basically the same.

Veteran

kongit

Posted
Posted

My personal favorite is gentoo. But that takes a while to install. It took me four hours today to install gnome and its dependencies. But I find it to be noticeably faster than the other distros. Slackware is good, but compared to the completeness available in other distros it is lacking, but for function, stability, and ease of hard-core editting of settings makes it trump most other distros. I think that fedora core 1 or suse would be really good for a user that doesn't want to put a lot of effort into their linux. Don't get fedora core 2 test 1, and I suggest against mandrake 10 until the main release. Both of those had many bugs for me compared to the others. For personal use I would choose redhat 9 and ximian desktop if I wasn't using gentoo.

Grand Master

MulletRobZ

Posted
Posted

Don't go for Mandrake 10.0 whatever you do! That OS is a lot buggier than what some people may expect and some of the updates (especially the scanner updates) will prevent you from operating your system. I don't know what Mandrake 9.2 is like, but Mandrake 9.0 didn't have too many problems. The only thing with virtually any version of Mandrake is that the latest NVidia drivers will not work by using the normal procedures (install the drivers and then edit the XF86Config-4 file so nv now reads nvidia). This is because Mandrake modifies the kernel to heck, and this is not good if you wish to upgrade the kernel later on.

Slackware 9.0 is extremely good and so is Slackware 9.1, but here's some advice for Slackware 9.1: Do not install the CUPS drivers included on the Slackware CD. Download them off the Internet, install them via source, add cupsd to /etc/rc.d/rc.local (and run this as root), and set up the printer via the KPrinter wizard. The reason is that for some strange reason, if the CUPS drivers found on the Slackware CD are used and the service is designated for startup, the printer would not work for any non-KDE applications. Therefore, my vote for the best distribution goes to Slackware.

Fedora Core 2 Test 1 is not bad as well, but will cause the printer to fail once you add TrueType fonts to fonts:/. Fedora Core 1 most likely does not have this problem. And Knoppix is excellent if you don't want to install Linux, but want to boot it off the CD-ROM.

Grand Master

CaKeY

Posted
Posted
The only thing with virtually any version of Mandrake is that the latest NVidia drivers will not work by using the normal procedures (install the drivers and then edit the XF86Config-4 file so nv now reads nvidia). This is because Mandrake modifies the kernel to heck, and this is not good if you wish to upgrade the kernel later on.

Where do you get your information? :huh: I installed the 53.41's with no problem. The kernel is fine too. Every major distro uses a custom kernel. You can always recompile it or use a standard one from kernel.org.

Grand Master

MulletRobZ

Posted
Posted
Where do you get your information? :huh: I installed the 53.41's with no problem. The kernel is fine too. Every major distro uses a custom kernel. You can always recompile it or use a standard one from kernel.org.

Hello? I tested Mandrake since 8.0, but only since 9.0 if you take my video card into consideration. I never had luck getting the latest NVidia drivers to work on my system if I have MandrakeLinux installed. I do not know what the heck is going on, but that's my scenario. I'm back to Slackware 9.1 and I had no problems getting NVidia 53.36 to work, which would mean 53.41 would also work fine. As for the kernel, Slackware used the raw kernel and I'm not sure about the Fedora Test Release, but I did not notice any prefixes added to the kernel source as compared to Mandrake (eg. 2.6.3-7mdk). In Slackware's case, they probably added some extra internal software which allowed the use of Slackware Installation Packages (TGZ) and some other information that identified the system as Slackware.

Grand Master

CaKeY

Posted
Posted
The only thing with virtually any version of Mandrake is that the latest NVidia drivers will not work by using the normal procedures (install the drivers and then edit the XF86Config-4 file so nv now reads nvidia).

This is simply not true. Maybe YOU cant get your card to work, but most everyone else can.

  This is because Mandrake modifies the kernel to heck, and this is not good if you wish to upgrade the kernel later on.

Again. You can upgrade your kernel just like you can with any other distro. I'm running 2.6.4 right now.

Rising Star

shimon

Posted
Posted (edited)
Thank for the rename from "The Big Linux Poll" to "The Definitive 'WHICH LINUX DISTRO?' Thread"

and now to "What distro do you use?" and with glue and now with out and new thread made based on mine

Edited by shimon
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • Alien Isolation 2 will bring a new protagonist and setting, watch the reveal trailer here

      By PeterTHX · Posted

      Yes, it's why Weyland bought Yutani corporation.
    • Creative launches flagship Sound Blaster AE-X internal sound card for audiophiles

      By PeterTHX · Posted

      LOL. Can't even quote and edit a comment correctly. Figures you're a Linux user.
    • Microsoft resumes forced Copilot app installation on some Windows PCs

      By ad47uk · Posted

      I have disabled it, but the app is still taking space. I have a Mac and it is only possible to disable Ai on that, but I think that bit does get rid of the AI components after a while. What we are told is that we agree to all this when we use the devices as it is in the end user agreements, their software, they can do what they like. I doubt that any bill will happen in the U.S, the government there are in league with big tech firms. The E.U maybe, they seem to have some guts when it comes to tech companies. The U.K is not in the E.U, but some things still affect us. Our government is as gutless when it comes to tech companies as the U.s government.
    • An actual cosmic "Eye of Sauron" had been looking straight at us all along

      By hellowalkman · Posted

      yep, thanks!
    • WebChangeMonitor 26.06

      By Copernic · Posted

      WebChangeMonitor 26.06 by Razvan Serea Monitors allows you to quickly check a number of web pages and tracks changes based on the content of the web pages. Allows to monitor several protocols, including HTTP and HTTPS. Allows to view and record differences. Available for Win7/10, Linux and others. WebChangeMonitor features: Allows monitoring of web pages and informs about content changes Indication of states of currently monitored items in the tool and taskbar Reporting as sound and/or email as well as log file or HTML log Several configuration / filter options Support all protocols, e.g. http, https Multi-threaded, running in the background Bulk-import and bulk-export of items (from/to CSV) to monitor Export of results to CSV file for further processing Allows running command on items states and/or showing diff (changes) of content with preferred diff-tool ...and many more! Open Source (C++, wxWidgets) Cross platform for Windows (7/10), Linux, RPi and Mac (if self-compiled) WebChangeMonitor 26.06 release notes: Release 26.06 brings mostly s but updates the underlying core infrastructure. A major compiler is used for both x86/x64 and WoA64 architectures. This also means that all core libraries are re-compiled accordingly which required some changes in the build scripts. One of the core libraries (cURL) has been updated to address vulnerabilities and a nasty linker error that was causing the need for a dedicated patch which could now be eliminated. Download: WebChangeMonitor 64-bit | Setup 64-bit | ~10.0 MB (Open Source) Download: WebChangeMonitor 32-bit | Setup 32-bit View: WebChangeMonitor Website | Other Operating Systems | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware

  • Recent Achievements

    • Dedicated
      Mark Spruce earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • Collaborator
      conkir earned a badge
      Collaborator
    • Rising Star
      olavinto went up a rank
      Rising Star
    • One Month Later
      lamborghiniv10 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      lamborghiniv10 earned a badge
      Week One Done

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      482
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      257
    3. 3
      Steven P.
      74
    4. 4
      +Edouard
      69
    5. 5
      Skyfrog
      68
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!