Distro discussion

[sally_maria]

Hi, I've been lurking here for a while, so I thought I'd try and start a conversation. I've been using Linux for about a year, but wouldn't consider myself any kind of expert.

I was wondering which distros people use, and if you stick to just one, or if you "distro-hop" or use different ones on different machines. What do you love most about your distro of choice?

Comments

[snakeling]

I'm an Ubuntu girl. I use it because it's the first I found that worked (way back when it was Breezy Badger), and I'm all about something that works. :)

What I like most? The community. When I have a problem, there's always an answer for it in the forums, and people tend to be very helpful, even to newbies.

[zvi]

I, too, use Ubuntu, or, rather, Xubuntu. (I used to use Ubuntu but I switched to Xubuntu because I heard it worked faster. I'm not entirely sure if it is faster subjective, but it's too much work to switch back.)

I like it because there are lots of answers on the internet for a novice.

[feathertail]

I used Xubuntu for awhile, mostly because I loved its simplicity and its black and royal blue color scheme. "OMG! Ubuntu!"'s benchmarks, though, suggest that it's basically just as fast as normal Ubuntu.

I personally use Ubuntu with the Elementary-OS theme and addons. I love how simple and uncluttered it is. It loads fast, and it's responsive both in the sense of being quick and in the sense that it feels much less "noisy" than Windows. It's like a good pet, and does what it's told.

[siliconshaman]

Distro hopped for a bit, tried Mint, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Kbuntu and few others..settled on Ubuntu in the end because it seems to have the best support. Ok sometimes they break it a bit with the updates, but it also gets fixed on a pretty fast turn-around too.

[allen]

I run Ubuntu on my laptop, desktop, and home media/fileserver, plus Debian stable on our main server. Before that I used Red Hat, and, well, before that Slackware back in the days when Slackware was all that was around.

I love apt, which keeps me on Debian-based distributions. And Ubuntu generally has better hardware support and/or documented workaround, which is why I switched my initially laptop and later desktop to it.

[ex_bel786]

I remember installing Slackware from floppies onto my old Sharp laptop, so many years ago! That was my first Linux install. I might even still have those floppies around.

[ex_bel786]

I've always used Xubuntu on my Eee netbook. I love Xfce, and how easy it is to stay updated using the Update Manager. Also, I agree with other commenters that there's a lot of support on the Ubuntu forums- I always have found the answer I needed.

We have Debian on the shared desktop/server, but I'm not the one who maintains it. I do like how easy it is to add packages.

[sally_maria]

I found Mint around the time I decided I wanted to try Linux seriously, and if I ever had to pick only one distro to use that's what I'd go for.

I'm dual-booting it with Windows 7 on my desktop and with Peppermint One on my laptop, at the moment. It has all the great things about Ubuntu, with just those few extras that make it even better for me, like the MinuMenu.

I also have a netbook, on which I've tried various distros, from the XFCE version of Mint, to Ubuntu Netbook Edition, and Peppermint Ice. At the moment I'm using Jolicloud, which has the distinction of being the only one that will hibernate it properly, as well as booting rapidly and having a good selection of software available.

Over the last year I've found installing distros to be a very absorbing displacement activity, so I've tried quite a few variations, though nearly all Ubuntu/Debian based. I've discovered I strongly prefer Gnome to KDE, XFCE is not bad, and the Openbox and LXDE you get with the Peppermints is great for a lightweight desktop, though not nearly as flexible.

Since I got this new computer, I've also been trying VirtualBox, which at least cuts down on the number of times I'm actually changing operating system. :-) I've been trying out the Gnome version of PCLinuxOS, and wondering whether it's worth putting it on the laptop instead of Peppermint One. I quite like the idea of a rolling release, rather than having to re-install every six months, though I know it increases the chances of something breaking.

[asenathwaite]

I'm a relentless distro-hopper. I started with Puppy on an ancient laptop, and then moved on to Zenwalk, Mint Fluxbox (I love lightweight window managers), a few others I don't remember, and most recently Arch, then Peppermint, and now back to Puppy (the Browser Linux puplet, to be precise). Right now I'm running off Puppy on a flash drive with my Arch install underneath.

I really liked Peppermint, but I couldn't get it to recognize my screen resolution. Zenwalk is solid, but the apps it comes with tend to be outdated. Arch is whatever you want it to be, but setting it up is a pain. When I used Mint it was very nice, but kind of slow on my laptop. I've come back to Puppy over and over, so I guess it would be fair to say that it's my favorite distro.

I've thought about trying CrunchBang, Absolute, and Salix. Maybe someday.

[asenathwaite]

Oh, I forgot antiX. I really liked that one.

[feathertail]

Fun names. ^.^

[kerravonsen]

With a name like that, dare I deduce that it is a command-line only distro?

[asenathwaite]

Not quite, but it's intended for older machines (antiX = antiques) and doesn't have much in the way of gui configuration utilities. I used the command line a lot.

[kerravonsen]

Slackware back when it was the only game in town, then RedHat, then Debian, then GenToo, then Ubuntu (Xubuntu).

I tend to stick to one distro until the irritation level is high enough that it's worth the pain of trying out a new distro. If you say "What irritation level?" I will shake my head. All distros have a certain amount of niggle and not-quite-perfect-ness. One chooses to put up with the little irritations because the plusses are worth it. Until they aren't.

I moved from Slackware to RedHat because it had an actual packaging system.
I moved from RedHat to Debian because of quality control issues, and because Debian you could actually upgrade instead of having to re-install every time a new version came out, and because of the huge number of packages; no more rpm dependency hell.
I moved from Debian to GenToo because I was sick of being five versions behind everything, because with GenToo it was trivial to build a custom kernel (which I needed at that point to support certain hardware) and because I could get rid of all the cruft like KDE and Gnome support. And because it not only had just as many packages as Debian, but if you wanted to install something that wasn't in the distro, it could be added to the packaging system, rather than be a second-class citizen. I ended up learning a heck of a lot using it, so that was a plus, too.
I moved from GenToo to Xubuntu because I was sick of recompiling everything. The amount of work needed to maintain the system was notably higher, and I wanted to relax for a while and have something that Just Worked. And being Debian-based, it also had a lot of packages.

A friend at work is trying to persuade me to move to Arch, but I haven't tried it yet.

[swisscelt]

Have you used Red Hat (or Fedora, or CentOS) since they came out with yum? I find it cuts down on dependency hell.

[kerravonsen]

Yes, we use CentOS at work. I find it frustrating because the distro still has a lot fewer packages than Debian, Ubuntu and GenToo.

[blnchflr]

Ubuntu is my primary and stable distro - it works, and I like the community.

Ideally I'd love to distro-hop more, but I always have such a hard time getting other distros working, esp. wireless internet. And without internet connection, there just isn't enough for me to do on a computer :o)

[seekingferret]

I was on Kubuntu until Jaunty, then I switched to OpenSuse and have been there since. I miss a few of Ubuntu's features, mostly apt-get, but for the most part I don't regret the switch.

[baggyeyes]

Fedora 13 aka Goddard. I switched from a horribly mangled Ubuntu Studio with KDE installed. I got the DVD install disk by downloading it at a library. Great! Updating is a challenge. I have an idea, using Firefox's Down Them All addon, but I've yet to put it into practice.

Previously, I had tried OpenSuse, Mepis, Mandriva and Damn Small Linux.

I like to switch between a variety of environments, depending on my mood, so I gravitate to distros that incorporate many into one. I didn't find Ubuntu did that very well. Suse, Fedora and Mandriva have done so for a very long while.

[dragonwolf]

I'm currently running Ubuntu on my desktop and Kubuntu on my laptop. I've played a little with OpenSuse and a number of other random ones, though they generally didn't last long.

[doldonius]

RedHat till about version 9 (not Fedora 9, Fedora was exactly what made me look elsewhere). Debian after that.

Debian stable is, well, stable. It may lack some newest features, but its reliability is well worth it. Makes a pretty nice router or server, too. Thus, I have a single platform on all my computers regardless of their roles. Not quite good from the security point of view, but greatly relieves the pains of administration.

[swisscelt]

Ubuntu in my home, Red Hat Enterprise at work. Both have pros and cons. I loved Slackware, though... I had a full command-line system (no X windows) on a 386 with a 125 MB drive. Yeah, it would be pretty pathetic today, but back in 1994 it got the job done.

[algorhythm]

I used to distro hop regularly but settled on Debian in 2006 and haven't looked back. I'm comfortable enough with the distro to run Sid and create my own .debs in the few situations where I can't find a precompiled binary so I haven't felt a need to change ships for a while.