The "Linux" discussion

[dafunkymunky]

Now if am to install LINUX... which one do you people think is the best..

[Kotik]

I have only used Gentoo so far and only seen other distros on friends computers but I am pretty sure that Gentoo is the best distro.

http://www.gentoo.org

[SFilip]

its hard to decide...
when my friend got linux a couple of years ago, he had mandrake. he said mandrake is the best linux.
then he had to reinstall and tried red hat (now known as fedora) and when he did that, he said that red hat is much better, stable etc.
a couple of months after he reinstalled again, this time with slackware. then slackware was better, with more functions...
then he reinstalled again and installed ubuntu linux (the one i'm using actually) and again he said it was waaay better than any other he tried.
and finally 2 months ago he installed Gentoo. he said that its the fastest, most stable linux he tried.
so basically every linux is great.

oh and as i said before...my choice is ubuntu linux. it has GUI (X), however it uses Gnome instead of KDE which is why alot of people didn't like it at first.
thats why there is a version of ubuntu that works with kde - kubuntu. i think you should try it aswell

[nighthawk]

Linux is great OS if you haven't used windows. It is too hard to move from windows to linux.

I have tried some and there was one that was wery interesting - Austrumi. It is Live distribution so you don't have to install ti on the hard drive. It has only 50 MB and has many nice programs like gimp, inkscape, opera, abiword... I used older version 0.95.

[dflynn]

I just installed Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex.
So far, so good. I'm just installing a bunch of extras but it really isn't too difficult to get used to from a basic user's pov.

I'm excited to use it more

[instinct46]

Has anyone tried Slackware 13 yet??

Visually its amazing but thats more down to KDE, but the speed end of KDE with slackware is brilliant, I was using Ubuntu and for some reason its going really slow

My mobile broadband works in it straight out of the box and everything, it also did in ubuntu but I've always been a slackware nut lol.

[funcutter]

Well I just once used it… I think so that was a demo of linux. Gr8 feeling in terms of visibility and few functions.

[instinct46]

Out of all my experience in using linux I would say:

Ubuntu or Mandriva, for beginners.

Slackware or Debian, for Intermediate.

Linux From Scratch, for anyone who truly wishes to learn Linux, this can be beginners to intermediate as they supply an excellent manual for creating your linux.

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I use Slackware, as not only do I find it to be the fastest but the most reliable. It has my two favorable desktops, Fluxbox & KDE. The KDE which Slackware comes with seems like it would take a lot of computer resources, yet doesn't by its standard settings, you can turn all its flashy gizmos up and it does... but they are nice =D

You really do need to know something about linux to use Slackware, as you will find their aren't as many utilities for setting things up installed straight out of the box. I find it handy to have a laptop or something at hand when installing on my PC just encase I can't find how to setup the internet just encase you decide to go with this remember this command "startx" it will start the xserver as it boots up into shell.

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The last version of Debian I used you have to apt-get the Xorg server yourself and by Xorg I mean XFree86 that how long ago I'm going back. This is what Ubuntu is based off, if you want a quick install version of this I would use Knoppix it installs the main things including xserver. First linux I ever used which was when I was 6 which I'm 20 now so its goin back quite a while.

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Ubuntu, I loved first linux which started working with my WiFi, but after a while it started to annoy me how slow it was, they have installed so much cr*p I would go nuts lol, also insecure, plus I hate the sudo command.

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Mandriva "Mandrake" was nice has always been nice, no problems with it except how slow it is, nicely polished but mneh its so nice it makes me sick, and its also slow on older machines.

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I would recommend anyone who has the internet and unlimited download, to install a Virtual Machine, and just try them out on that before actually installing them to your system =/ and if you try linux and don't like it, always keep a LiveCD version handy for any repairs to your machine. For a liveCD I would recommend BackTrack/

[flabbyrabbit]

My vote would before mint, its based on Ubunutu but I found it alot easier. I had a few problems with drivers in ubuntu, where as mint comes ready with everything you need.

Flabby Rabbit