10 best distros
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| ColonelPanik Oct 11, 2008 7:54 PM EDT |
This should be fun. |
| azerthoth Oct 11, 2008 8:22 PM EDT |
Mandriva higher, reverse Debian and Ubuntu, Gentoo lower (says a Sabayon and Gentoo proper user). Just my .02. |
| Scott_Ruecker Oct 11, 2008 8:40 PM EDT |
What?! no PCLOS?? :-( |
| jdixon Oct 11, 2008 10:29 PM EDT |
He obviously hasn't tried Slackware in a LONG time. |
| tracyanne Oct 11, 2008 11:19 PM EDT |
Yeah Mandriva deserves a much higher rating, if only because of it's popularity outside of the US. Ubuntu doesn't really deserve top place, it's poularity isn't really justified - it's a testament to the marketing effort that lots of money can buy - as there are Distros that are less problematic than Ubuntu, Mandriva, for instance. |
| garymax Oct 12, 2008 12:21 AM EDT |
I don't understand this man's position on Slackware. So if a distribution doesn't have a 6-month release cycle or a regular, predictable one, it is somehow lagging in development? Please. Slackware is one of the most up-to-date distributions there is. Not having a predictable release cycle is a feature; Pat only releases it when it's ready. Ubuntu releases every 6 months and lets the community sort out the bugs. Just take a look at Launchpad after the release of 8.10. I guarantee that Slackware's next release with KDE 4.1.* will be more polished and more stable than most other distributions in terms of fit and finish. |
| jdixon Oct 12, 2008 12:27 AM EDT |
> What?! no PCLOS?? And no Debian derivatives other than Ubuntu and Knoppix. Personally I don't consider Knoppix a "distribution" as such. |
| gus3 Oct 12, 2008 1:39 AM EDT |
Ah yes, the "just wait until the next release!" line. ;-) But this bit rubs me raw: "[Slackware] is also only developed for the i386 platform." That is no longer true of Slackware proper, as far as it goes, because Slackware now requires a smidge more than what the most tricked-out 80386 system can support. The oldest supported hardware is now the i486. I'm using the highly compatible SLAMD64 derivative on my desktop. It isolates the 64-bit libraries into /lib64 and /usr/lib64, so regular Slackware library packages can install on the same system without clash. |
| wayne1932 Oct 12, 2008 4:27 PM EDT |
He has obviously never heard of PCLinuxOS. His loss. the one's I have tried on his list came up badly wanting. |
| tracyanne Oct 12, 2008 5:22 PM EDT |
@wayne, you are aware that PCLinuxOS is basically Mandriva Linux with a different packagemanager. |
| newmikey Oct 13, 2008 10:10 AM EDT |
@traycanne, you are aware that although PCLinux was based off Mandriva, it has its own kernels, scripts, artwork, repositories, hardware detection and liveCD script? There certainly IS a family resemblance, but "Mandriva with a different packemanager" is way off! |
| azerthoth Oct 13, 2008 10:18 AM EDT |
PCLinuxOS is closer to Mandriva than Ubuntu is to Debian. |
| rijelkentaurus Oct 13, 2008 10:44 AM EDT |
PCLOS is closer to stale than an open bag of potato chips, too. And the forums tend to be as friendly as a porcupine with a hangover. "Mandriva with a different package manager" is not that far off, IMO. |
| cjcox Oct 13, 2008 2:25 PM EDT |
Stupidest top 10 list ever made. Waste of time. I recommend making your next attempt a humor piece. |
| jdixon Oct 13, 2008 2:33 PM EDT |
> I recommend making your next attempt a humor piece. I thought this WAS his humor piece. :) |
| Steven_Rosenber Oct 13, 2008 4:39 PM EDT |
Quoting:Slackware now requires a smidge more than what the most tricked-out 80386 system can support. The oldest supported hardware is now the i486. Slackware 12.0 would boot and install fine on my VIA C3 Samuel CPU. None of the Slackware 12.1 kernels would boot. I'd try Slackintosh on my Power Mac G4, but it runs Debian Etch so well, it would be hard for me to do any experiments on it until I get a few more drives to work with. |
| dinotrac Oct 13, 2008 8:07 PM EDT |
Top three distributions (in order): 1. The one I'd like to have 2. The one my friends are bragging about. 3. The one I actually use. Sigh. |
| xm4n Oct 13, 2008 8:50 PM EDT |
Fedora is the rule of the roast. How dare he says it isn't one of the best. I have used it and works FLAWLESSLY in all apps that I use. Even games run perfect (3D-intensive ones). I recommend Fedora and it seems to have better quality than Redhat Linux. So anyone who says Fedora is a scouff hasn't really tried out Fedora and is just opinionated based on people b****ing about old school stuff. Really, Fedora rocks the boat!! |
| rijelkentaurus Oct 13, 2008 8:53 PM EDT |
And occasionally tips it over. |
| gus3 Oct 13, 2008 11:58 PM EDT |
"Remember to tip your server." "It makes a funny noise when I do that." |
| bigg Oct 14, 2008 9:56 AM EDT |
> Really, Fedora rocks the boat!! Fedora is great, provided you wait until two or three months after the release to install. For me the big problem is that there is only 13 months of support for each release. I really liked Fedora 7 for the few times I used my wife's laptop but then all of a sudden Fedora 9 was released and that was the end of Fedora 7. I like the ability to run a distro for at least 18 months, with security updates, if I choose. |
| happyfeet Oct 14, 2008 10:44 AM EDT |
@gus3 LOL |
| gus3 Oct 14, 2008 11:54 AM EDT |
@happyfeet: Just repeating the response I saw on here, yea these many months ago. |
| happyfeet Oct 14, 2008 2:55 PM EDT |
@gus3: I must have missed that. Worth repeating, though... |
| Steven_Rosenber Oct 14, 2008 4:49 PM EDT |
We're all biased by what our hardware runs (and runs well). |
| techiem2 Oct 14, 2008 5:15 PM EDT |
Quoting:Really, Fedora rocks the boat!! Quoting:And occasionally tips it over. Gentoo grows the trees, builds the tools, builds the boat, rocks the boat, and then occasionally tips it over. :P |
| Scott_Ruecker Oct 14, 2008 6:25 PM EDT |
My favorite thing about "best of" lists is that they create discussions where everybody disagrees with everybody....I love it. My Favorite, No, My Favorite, No No, MY Favorite...lol!! |
| gus3 Oct 15, 2008 12:08 AM EDT |
My experience with Gentoo: A 500 horsepower engine on a 12-foot dinghy, held on with Super-Glue. Just don't open the throttle too quickly. |
| hkwint Oct 15, 2008 12:37 PM EDT |
Well, I use Gentoo because it's stable (at least my configuration of Gentoo is) and very easy to repair once you screwed up. I tried SimplyMEPIS too, that wasn't too bad. Only a PITA to install VMWare. Gentoo shows that the hard and very user unfriendly way of installing VMWare in Debian clones isn't necessary at all; under Gentoo it 'just works'. Didn't like Ubuntu because it was rather difficult to change the configuration to my likings. Also Gentoo is complete compared to other more 'lean' spartan distro's when it comes to development environment. When I want to compile something in Ubuntu there are a lot of files and libraries etc. the system just misses. I remember installing Debian once, but it was rather difficult because of all the really confusing ncurses menu's, you have no idea where you are coming from and where to go to (same for FreeBSD). Installing it is needlessly difficult. They should look at OpenBSD for something that's simple to install. I can explain to my mum (the most digital-illiterate person I know) how to install OpenBSD: Look at the cursor, and answer the questions. I can't explain to her how to install Debian or FreeBSD, because I myself don't even know which menu-item to choose. I just can't find my way around in those silly user-unfriendly menu's. You need a 'HOWTO' to know which menu-item to choose in which order, while OpenBD is simple to install without anything at hand (except some configuration parameters maybe). Suse plainly didn't work - without changing the whole packet manager. After that I quite liked it, but it was slow. Slackware required too much effort to run, but it was the first Linux I used so maybe that's why. I also didn't know how to resolve dependencies back then, because every BSD - the only OS except Win and Dos I had used back then - does it for you. I'm trying Sabayon, but after using it for more than 10 minutes it always 'almost hangs' meaning every action including typing a single character takes more than ten seconds to process. Apart from that Sabayon is rather good, but of course the slowdown is a showstopper. I need a new version probably. I remember also wanting to try Mandriva but I couldn't figure out which of the versions I needed. Knoppix also worked rather well. Since the moment I started using Gentoo Linux, it's too hard for me to use FreeBSD, because I seem to use some functions in Linux which FreeBSD didn't have the last time I tried it. I wanted to try VLOS but figured out it wasn't gratis so I refrained from it. Despite all the distro's I tried I haven't find a 'really good one' yet, but Gentoo is closest. One of the only distro's which doesn't force you to use a bloated WM like XFCE by the way (exaggerating here of course! But it is true, XFCE is more bloated than what I use). What I don't like about it is the limited availability of some packages, the painstakingly process of updating configuration files, some problems the packet manager spits out and the far-too-many USE-flags, and the really stupid ACL-issue. For the rest I'm happy with it. However, fact remains: There's no sensible discussion possible to talk about the ten best Linux distro's if you haven't defined 'best'. Most articles don't. |
| techiem2 Oct 15, 2008 12:45 PM EDT |
I think I'm pretty much with hkwint here.
That's basically my reasoning for using Gentoo as well.
Stability, ease of use (yes, I said it), power, not having to hope that the packager built package X with the features you want and without features X Y Z and Q that you don't want, not searching for 5000 standard dev libraries if I want to compile something by hand.... But as said, there is no one Best distro for everyone. It all depends on the person and their individual tastes and personality. |
| gus3 Oct 15, 2008 12:49 PM EDT |
My experience with Gentoo: When they botched the dependencies to/from libffi, it broke the GCC update, which then broke my ability to get any updates at all. Thus, I had a functional system that was stuck. I even tried installing the binary package to get things back, and it still was dead in the water. I felt like I was waiting for an update for Windows. And that is a showstopper. |
| Steven_Rosenber Oct 15, 2008 1:01 PM EDT |
OpenBSD is a lot of things, but easy to install ain't one of them. The FAQ is very good, but it's easier to install FreeBSD or any Linux. I still can't manage to get a MacPPC install of OpenBSD to boot. The quality of the MacPPC instructions is light years worse than the excellent i386 ones. If after many dozen Linux installs, a half-dozen i386 OpenBSD installs, a couple NetBSD and FreeBSD installs, I can't get a system to boot, that tells me something. |
| azerthoth Oct 15, 2008 11:13 PM EDT |
Gus, that probably one fo my biggest loves about Sabayon. 2 package managers that take a 100% different approaches. So while I use portage for a lot of stuff, and thus blacklisting that package from entropy, if something in portage goes haywire, I am 3 commands away from a fast rebuild with entropy. I just mv the blacklist and have the entropy package manager do a world update. All the breakages disappear, then I just mv the blacklist back and start in on recompiling the stuff that I prefer to keep control of. @hk, 3.5 is current Sabayon, however there is an updated install medium coming out soon so that your not spending a long time downloading the updates after you install, so keep your eye's peeled for 3.5.1, and for mercies sake please get the DVD version, putting portage compatability into the CD version is a bear, trust me I know, I wrote up the process. |
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