DrunkenMaster Posted September 20, 2008 Share Posted September 20, 2008 I'm wondering if there's a distro with pretty much everything installed out of the box. I'm looking for E17, XFCE, Flash, Firefox, Java, LaTeX etc. I've used Slackware and BSD most. But, I found that going through all the package names, filtering what I needed and didn't using the package managers to download needed software sorting through all kinds of OSS software with dumb and confusing names that say nothing about what it is. Its a huge waste of my time. I came across an 'Ultimate' build of Ubuntu http://ultamatix.com/ and was wondering if there's anything similar or if anyone can recommend it. I certainly don't have the time to run a Gentoo install and would -prefer- to use Slackware but its a pain with all the package selection mess during install. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tiagosilva29 Posted September 20, 2008 Share Posted September 20, 2008 (edited) Nevermind, you are talking about different builds. Gentoo Ubuntu Edited September 20, 2008 by tiagosilva29 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elv13 Posted September 20, 2008 Share Posted September 20, 2008 Make a script to install what you want. Do it once and then enjoy it. Your software choice is unique, like most people, it is the best solution. You can do script for most distro. On slackware, probably slapt (i never used slackware btw), debian apt, fedora yum or apt, gentoo emerge, suse yast and so on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted September 20, 2008 Veteran Share Posted September 20, 2008 Do you mean every window manager? fluxbox, openbox, blackbox, etc? How about the different implementations of X? Xorg, XFree86, Xvesa, XFBdev? And there are a ton (literally, if you put them on floppies, I suppose) of F/LOSS software in the repos. Do a Debian net install and do an apt-get install * after opening up your repos to universe/multiverse or whatever it is called. I shudder to think of the install time. :ermm: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tiagosilva29 Posted September 21, 2008 Share Posted September 21, 2008 gNewSense Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evolution Posted September 21, 2008 Share Posted September 21, 2008 I believe you don't realize what you're saying.... if you wanted everything that means you want every single package.... and all the redundant ones. Why do you want a window manager and a desktop environment, they can't run on top of each other? Have you considered skipping Linux all together since this appears to be too difficult for you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted September 21, 2008 Veteran Share Posted September 21, 2008 ^^ (N) Maybe it was bad wording choice for thread starter. Lets find out what he's after first, then help. EDIT: especially since he's proven to be a positive Neowin contributer (mvc) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barney T. Administrators Posted September 21, 2008 Administrators Share Posted September 21, 2008 I believe you don't realize what you're saying.... if you wanted everything that means you want every single package.... and all the redundant ones. Why do you want a window manager and a desktop environment, they can't run on top of each other?Have you considered skipping Linux all together since this appears to be too difficult for you? Let's try to help the OP instead of trying to derail his request. We expect mature responses here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrunkenMaster Posted September 21, 2008 Author Share Posted September 21, 2008 Ok, let me try again. I admit it wasn't clear. (At the least *I* know what I was talking about ;) ). When you install Slackware, you can do the "Install Everything" Option, which turns out to be only 6 GB give/take (and I have the space) or if you want to do things a bit more cleanly, you can choose which text editor(s) you want etc. I think RedHat etc does the same thing. OpenSolaris just installs everything. The BSDs tend to install the base stuff. Now the first problem is there are too many software apps with too many obscure names some of them really suck. So I'm hoping there's at least one distro that does a good job of reducing the options to the best/more popular ones. How is one to know that Nano is a text editor and Pine is e-mail? You don't unless you've tried it. Kate is a text editor for KDE. There's also at least 10 audio players bundled with each distro. Now the second is, if all the popular apps are installed with the default installation, its a real time saver. Java was/is difficult to install. Ditto some of the Window Managers (I only want XFCE + E17). Configuring the Window managers to load up your apps is also difficult since some of the apps install to different locations (it depends on the distro and the package). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elv13 Posted September 21, 2008 Share Posted September 21, 2008 If I understand, you want a distribution with your own choice of software. Everybody have his own choice of software so it is impossible to have a perfect match. You have understand that there is 4 major categories of apps and people tend to stay with 1: -GTK2/Gnome apps: simple to use, not too much configuration (gimp, inkscape, thunar, firefox, kino, ardour, pidgin and many other) -QT/KDE apps: more configurable, constant look and feel between applications (kate, okular, kdevelop, digikam, basket, amarok, kolourpaint, ksnapshot) -GTK1/Tk/FLTK: not very powerfull, not very configurable but damn fast on today computer (xpdf, roxFM, emelFM, xedit, xsane, mplayer, xcalc, xterm, xfig, feh, blender, cinelerra, dillo) -CLI apps: fast, keyboard driven, configurable using text file (vi, emacs, nano, mutt, aptitude, lynx, elinks) All of them can provide a complete desktop experience. All of them have many must have. Must distro will try to stay with 1 kind, not mix all of them. Having 200 music player, 800 text editor and 9 web browser is totally useless, you should make a choice and build a desktop with 1 or 2 application per task. Installing the complete debian version (all CDs) is mostly stupid, you dont need all that. And about application that "suck", if they fit in the last 2 categories, they may suck for you, but not for everybody, it depend of what you are looking for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tareqsiraj Posted September 22, 2008 Share Posted September 22, 2008 like Elv13 said... you have tons of applications and you have tons of user's preferred apps. no distribution will give you a perfect match. some people like vi, some people like emacs. some people like mercurial as SCM, some people like git, some people like bzr. unless you install *everythine*, you wont get a distro that will automatically give you whats on your mind. are you planning to create a easily deployable distro with all your preferred apps? or is it just one time solution. If youre planning to deploy, its easy to create a script (or as tiagosilva29 mentioned, create your own setup for the distro). if its one time, you'll just have to do it once :). I sometimes have to deploy different distributions for the developers at work and I try to keep a list of base apps in the wiki. Install the base system and install the apps listed in the wiki (e.g. it takes ~2 hours to get everything ready from scratch. Start the install ... do other stuff check if its done after 30 mins ... if its done, install the apps needed and do a system update in one command line. done.). For my personal desktop, I try to keep it clean and install as needed. Find a fast repo... and it takes minutes to install stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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