DEFINITIVE: Which Linux Distro? (poll)

By markwolfe
in Linux

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Which Linux Distro do you prefer?  

773 members have voted

  1. 1. Which Linux Distro do you prefer?

    • Slackware (or derivatives)
      33
    • Debian
      56
    • SUSE Linux (or derivatives)
      99
    • Fedora Core (or Redhat, or RHEL)
      120
    • Gentoo (or derivatives)
      86
    • Ubuntu
      273
    • Other Debian Derivative (Mepis, Kanotix, etc)
      25
    • Arch
      19
    • Linspire
      22
    • Mandriva
      40

Recommended Posts

Grand Master

Gone

Posted
Posted

Wow. I should really start a website for these questions. It is a very god question but man every forum I've been to this has been asked many times. Ubuntu was the best version I used for ease of use. It had all my hardware configured correctly unlike Fedora Core (versions 1-3) and Redhat. Suse and Mandrake were ok. There is no "standard linux" just common distrobutions. Here is my order of ease of use:

1)Ubuntu

2)Fedora Core

3)Suse

4)DSL (Damn Small Linux)

5)Mandrake Linux

6)Feather Linux

7)Yellow Dog Linux

8)College Linux.

Veteran

Crimson Behelit

Posted
Posted
Wow. I should really start a website for these questions. It is a very god question but man every forum I've been to this has been asked many times. Ubuntu was the best version I used for ease of use. It had all my hardware configured correctly unlike Fedora Core (versions 1-3) and Redhat. Suse and Mandrake were ok. There is no "standard linux" just common distrobutions. Here is my order of ease of use:

1)Ubuntu

2)Fedora Core

3)Suse

4)DSL (Damn Small Linux)

5)Mandrake Linux

6)Feather Linux

7)Yellow Dog Linux

8)College Linux.

586135168[/snapback]

1) Ubuntu

2) Mandrake (aka Mandriva :x )

That's my list of easy distros (from personal experience).

I can't comment on the others.

Check this out. <-- Great resource for 'which linux' questions...

Grand Master

msg43

Posted
Posted

Ubuntu is popular because it is easy. I would defently recommend archlinux to anyone with a fair amount of linux knowledge. It rocks, it fast, pacman package manager is da bomb, and the aur package making system rocks also. Anyone use gentoo or slackware should really try archlinux. Just my 2cent.

Apprentice

Grayout

Posted
Posted

What's al the hype about Ubuntu, they say it's the easiest distro to use, but the forums are flooded with Ubuntu problem threads. I'm not trying to be negative here, but I fail to see why Ubuntu is so popular for noobs with all the problems it has.

Apprentice

seeplusplus

Posted
Posted

I like and use SuSE linux. It is the best. I have tried them all (the major ones anyway).

Slackware: very stable and fast, but package management is horrible.

Debian: also very stable and usable, but they are always behind on software!

SuSE: best update system, best software installation system (install directly from a server). Can even upgrade KDE so easily. All browser plugins work. Has lots of software that other distros dont for copyright reasons.

Fedora Core: very close to SuSE. I just dont like the fact that they are too "bleeding edge".

Gentoo: amazing distro, portage is awesome. Needs waaaaaaaay to much time and maintenance.

Ubuntu: Why do so many people like it? I dont get it :no: .

Other Debian derivatives: still not better than SuSE.

Arch: stable, fast. Not a good desktop. Maybe good for a server.

Linspire: Too expensive in the long run. Good attempt at cloning windows.

Mandriva: good, still not as good as SuSE or Fedora or even slackware.

I really dont mean to insult anyone. I appreciate the work of all those working on the distros, keep up the good work.

Some one give me a reason not to like SuSE.

Neowinian

c21db

Posted
Posted

Slackware, but just the base system. The rest I'd rather compile myself. No matter how great all of the other distros are, they will each have their own little annoyance, e.g. bad directory structure, rpm, half baked config utilities. Not to mention the drawbacks of 486 packages. A lot of configuration happens when you compile a program and you miss out on a lot of things when you get binaries. People who use distros that have precompiled packages and who complain about the performance of Linux, should consider the fact that all they're really running is a 486 with a really high clock speed. You need to make Linux aware of your high performance hardware before you'll get any performance out of it. When it comes to system configuration, most GUI configurators are really lacking in options, and they don't make it easy for you to manually edit your configuration. A lot of people dont like messing about with config files, but its one of the things you have to do in Linux. It's not meant to be easy, but it does require you to know what you're doing. I think less time should be spent making Linux user friendly, and more time should be spent on helping people understand how Linux works. Installing is all part of the experience. By the time I got my first installation up and running, I knew quite a lot about Linux because it took me about 15 times before I finally got it, but when I got it, it all made so much sense. People shouldn't be hidden from the workings by GUIs. No GUI [that i know of, please correct me], gives the same amount of control as a command line. That's the reason I love Linux, control. You can change anything you like in Linux, maybe with configuration, but you also have the option of rewriting certain code to better suit your needs. It might sound a bit far fetched and not that many of us probably ever will, but at least the option's there if we ever decide to.

Veteran

Crimson Behelit

Posted
Posted
People who use distros that have precompiled packages and who complain about the performance of Linux, should consider the fact that all they're really running is a 486 with a really high clock speed. You need to make Linux aware of your high performance hardware before you'll get any performance out of it.

586183804[/snapback]

:yes:

Grand Master

Knight'

Posted
Posted
Slackware, but just the base system. The rest I'd rather compile myself. No matter how great all of the other distros are, they will each have their own little annoyance, e.g. bad directory structure, rpm, half baked config utilities. Not to mention the drawbacks of 486 packages. A lot of configuration happens when you compile a program and you miss out on a lot of things when you get binaries. People who use distros that have precompiled packages and who complain about the performance of Linux, should consider the fact that all they're really running is a 486 with a really high clock speed. You need to make Linux aware of your high performance hardware before you'll get any performance out of it. When it comes to system configuration, most GUI configurators are really lacking in options, and they don't make it easy for you to manually edit your configuration. A lot of people dont like messing about with config files, but its one of the things you have to do in Linux. It's not meant to be easy, but it does require you to know what you're doing. I think less time should be spent making Linux user friendly, and more time should be spent on helping people understand how Linux works. Installing is all part of the experience. By the time I got my first installation up and running, I knew quite a lot about Linux because it took me about 15 times before I finally got it, but when I got it, it all made so much sense. People shouldn't be hidden from the workings by GUIs. No GUI [that i know of, please correct me], gives the same amount of control as a command line. That's the reason I love Linux, control. You can change anything you like in Linux, maybe with configuration, but you also have the option of rewriting certain code to better suit your needs. It might sound a bit far fetched and not that many of us probably ever will, but at least the option's there if we ever decide to.

586183804[/snapback]

Meh, I don't claim to be a speed demon 1337 omptimiser, but I've compiled lots of my systems with Gentoo before, and it's not exactly that much faster. The real speed benifits will be when applications load the libs they actually need, rather than everything under-the-sun, I've had some experience with LDFLAGS, and there was a much greater speed improvement here than any CFLAGS I've used. Real improvements will come with improvements in compiler and how Linux organises its files, have a look at http://www.bootchart.org and you'll see what I mean. The only reason why I see compiling is useful is to make sure the packages work on your system, and with Gentoo specifically, USE flags. Everything else is fluff.

Grand Master

msg43

Posted
Posted
Slackware, but just the base system. The rest I'd rather compile myself. No matter how great all of the other distros are, they will each have their own little annoyance, e.g. bad directory structure, rpm, half baked config utilities. Not to mention the drawbacks of 486 packages. A lot of configuration happens when you compile a program and you miss out on a lot of things when you get binaries. People who use distros that have precompiled packages and who complain about the performance of Linux, should consider the fact that all they're really running is a 486 with a really high clock speed. You need to make Linux aware of your high performance hardware before you'll get any performance out of it. When it comes to system configuration, most GUI configurators are really lacking in options, and they don't make it easy for you to manually edit your configuration. A lot of people dont like messing about with config files, but its one of the things you have to do in Linux. It's not meant to be easy, but it does require you to know what you're doing. I think less time should be spent making Linux user friendly, and more time should be spent on helping people understand how Linux works. Installing is all part of the experience. By the time I got my first installation up and running, I knew quite a lot about Linux because it took me about 15 times before I finally got it, but when I got it, it all made so much sense. People shouldn't be hidden from the workings by GUIs. No GUI [that i know of, please correct me], gives the same amount of control as a command line. That's the reason I love Linux, control. You can change anything you like in Linux, maybe with configuration, but you also have the option of rewriting certain code to better suit your needs. It might sound a bit far fetched and not that many of us probably ever will, but at least the option's there if we ever decide to.

586183804[/snapback]

You my friend should try archlinux. I think it everything you will be looking for.

http://archlinux.org/

like slack you only install base system

you configure everything, great package manager it sweet.

Rookie

ehegagoka

Posted
Posted

Hi!

I've been using Slackware for quite some time now, But not that often, because of what my work needs. So I just practice at home. Although at my previous work I've also been exposed in Slack as a web/mail/dial-in/proxy/firewall/vpn server...I dont know the others. This has been setup on a single PC. As for my continues study on Linux, I've found out that deciding which distro is the best for you, is based on what you need, on what are your interest on a distro, would you rather want it to be complicated in configuring files, or those that give you almost everything in just a snap. I guess it depends on how "extreme" you want to setup/customize your OS. I haven't tried other distro aside from Slack & Red Hat, but they both work perfectly fine for me.

Ryan

Rookie

ehegagoka

Posted
Posted

Hi!

Sorry for the separate post he9x. I'm just wondering, why in the world of Linux, everyone's trying to win one distro over the other. Is there any competition at all?? If they're all doing it for the idea of Open Source, why compete? I guess there really shoudn't be any comotion at all on which distro is the best, as long as it does what it needs to do, it is stable, id est. reliable!

Ryan

Apprentice

seeplusplus

Posted
Posted

Sorry for adding more. I want to explain my choice (SuSE) again.

I have tried so many distros and some BSDs: Redhat, slackware, Fedora Core, Vector, Mepis, Yoper, SuSE, Mandrake, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Gentoo, LFS, Linspire, debian, ubuntu, slax, knoppix, CentOS, Xandros, Libranet, Resala, College, Lycoris... these are the ones I can remember now. I have some good experience under my belt (currently am an administrator linux/windows). I had problems with every distibution I used. Examples include: Slackware is great and fast but no good package management, it allows you to install stuff (binaries .tgz) without checking anything, even though I usually compile from source, but cant keep up with the dependencies, monodelvelop was the straw that broke the camel's back it ruined netscape since it used MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME. Gentoo was too much work and you need to have lots of time on your hands, its exciting at first as some people here seem to like that but after a couple of weeks you get tired of looking for fixes for everything you install (Ironically the server I maintain is running gentoo) would not reccomend it for a desktop. The WORST thing I see in most distros excluding FC and SuSE is bad internationalization of fonts, not enough support for other languages. BSDs were good but it's a server OS not for desktop. Most of the other ones are 1 CD distros which means they are incomplete (I have tried). My choice is still SuSE, everything worked with it, you can install devel packages and compile anything you need (mplayer and xine for me) nad the plugins all work in firefox, everything just works, I havent had any problems with SuSE. Fedora is good but still they are missing some stuff and it more gnome oriented (I prefer kde). It is not that I dont kow what Im doing it is just that I prefer a distro that makes the experience as easy and enjoyable as possible. I have alot more to say about the other distros but Im guessing some of you are probably bored by now.

Grand Master

markwolfe Veteran

Posted
  • Author
  • Veteran
Posted (edited)
I was thinking of using linux. What is a good linux OS for a XP lover?

586236947[/snapback]

First one for someone at the "curious" level would probably be a LiveCD like Knoppix.

Being a LiveCD, it will let you boot into Linux working from the CD and available RAM only - no hard drive writing. (Y)

EDIT: * merged into "definitive" thread *

Edited by markjensen
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