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Linux Distributions


Eggman
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Linux Distributions  

960 members have voted

  1. 1. Which is the best and why?

    • Ubuntu Linux
      404
    • Mandriva Linux
      24
    • Fedora Core
      61
    • SUSE LINUX
      132
    • Debian GNU/Linux
      62
    • Gentoo Linux
      124
    • Slackware Linux
      43
    • Knoppix
      5
    • MEPIS Linux
      6
    • Xandros Desktop
      4
    • FreeBSD
      28
    • Other
      67


235 posts in this topic

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Fedora Core, because it has a very large and helpful group of users. There are several excellent user-to-user support sites to get quick help with problems, and for learning your way around, much like this site is a huge help in getting OSX on x86 working for all of us.

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Since your new to linux I would say the ezer to try and use would be ubuntu Because of apt-get and synaptic,alsp there forums and wiki are great.And Mandrive its user friendly and a lot of ppl coming over to linux start there.

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It should be *nix variants, actually.. But most modern Unices (BSD, Linux et al..) use X and its myriad window managers. I recommend getting a distro with either Portage or Apt-Get. They're great package management systems. Gentoo users in general seem to be a bit loyal to their distro, though.

 

You'll still get the same UI and commands, though; the main differences are in bundled apps and drivers, ease of installation, packaging, and support.

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My vote goes to Gentoo.

 

By the way, why is FreeBSD on the list? :(

Oh bah. I was tired; I just got a list of the top Linux distributions and accidentally stuck that on the list because it was mentioned on the page.

 

It should be *nix variants, actually.. But most modern Unices (BSD, Linux et al..) use X and its myriad window managers. I recommend getting a distro with either Portage or Apt-Get. They're great package management systems. Gentoo users in general seem to be a bit loyal to their distro, though.

 

You'll still get the same UI and commands, though; the main differences are in bundled apps and drivers, ease of installation, packaging, and support.

Are you serious? There's no real difference in the GUI? So, basically, any distribution will be about the same? :)

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Seems that Ubuntu is getting quite a number of votes but no one has commented on it. Personally, I've used Ubuntu since it's first release and I must say that it's a pretty snappy distro. The installer fits in a single CD, and they'll even ship it to you for free. The community support is highly active as well. Moreover, a new version is scheduled for release in October so it might be a good time to get it as well. :)

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Are you serious? There's no real difference in the GUI? So, basically, any distribution will be about the same? :)

 

They all use the same GUI's, but some may ad/or logos and customize the menus. The two most common GUIs are KDE and Gnome. There are other elements that differentiate the distros such as installation, installing programs, ect..

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Seems that Ubuntu is getting quite a number of votes but no one has commented on it. Personally, I've used Ubuntu since it's first release and I must say that it's a pretty snappy distro. The installer fits in a single CD, and they'll even ship it to you for free. The community support is highly active as well. Moreover, a new version is scheduled for release in October so it might be a good time to get it as well. :)

I support Ubuntu and I hope the community gets bigger as time passess. I ahve been using 5.10 (Breezy Badger) Preview Release on virtual OS and I might say it is a nice release. Looking forward to the officalrelease. As much as I like Ubuntu, I would not use it on a production server :).

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Use any Linux that supports VMWare Workstation 5.0

 

Too bad VMWare doesn't run in Ubuntu, but Red Hat, SUSE, Fedora Core and Mandrake does.

I'm really impressed with the speed Windows XP runs in VMWare. It flies with only 192MB memory and completely usable on my P4 1.6Ghz. Sometimes I forget I'm inside Linux when the guest Windows XP is running full screen.

 

:-)

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Use any Linux that supports VMWare Workstation 5.0

 

Too bad VMWare doesn't run in Ubuntu, but Red Hat, SUSE, Fedora Core and Mandrake does.

I'm really impressed with the speed Windows XP runs in VMWare. It flies with only 192MB memory and completely usable on my P4 1.6Ghz. Sometimes I forget I'm inside Linux when the guest Windows XP is running full screen.

 

:-)

 

vmware does run in ubuntu,go to there forums and read up on it :)

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In the specs, there's no mention of Ubuntu

http://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/intr....html#wp1000805

 

I'm gonna check the forums, they've probably recompiled the kernel with vmware-config.pl. Thanks for the tip! :D

 

Yea they dont support that distro.some ppl have had some problems getting vmware to run in ubuntu...but that goes for all linux distros. :)

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I think I'm going to use Ubuntu for now. Thanks for all your help! However, now I need to know something else:

 

What is the difference between GNOME and KDE?

 

Thanks for helping! And feel free to keep voting! :)

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I'm a long term slackware user, use it for servers. I'm getting into gentoo, which is nice once you get through the 18-hour birth pains B)

 

For the desktop, my favourite Linux is a little known BSD variant called Darwin, it has this wicked windowmanager/GUI called Aqua :)

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I really like Ubuntu, but I wish it were distributed with "batteries included" regarding multimedia. I know about the legal issues and how easy it is to get those to work, but is makes it a bit hard to advertise its "Just works" factor.

 

I also like Gentoo, which is nice to learn more about Linux. You do everything by hand, but you have the most powerful hand ever B)

It suffers a lot from its (well deserved) bad reputation, though.

 

About the Gnome/KDE differences :

- Gnome is easier (as in, less painful) for beginners.

- KDE is ultra-configurable. Fun, but it has a lot of drawbacks

- KDE software is very well integrated but often bloated. If for some reason you need to scare away forever somebody from Linux, make him try KBear :)

- Disregard the KDE screenshots that look like {censored}, it can be made to look somewhat appealing

- Using KDE software in Gnome can be a pain

- Using Gnome software in KDE can be a pain

 

[troll]Whichever you choose, 40% of the linux Users will tell you you made the right choice, 30% that you should choose the other big name desktop environment, 20% will say "Down with this bloated {censored} ! I use Fluxbox, and it is very snappy on my Pentium 133", and 10% that will say "Stop using this GUI junk ! True mens do everything from the CLI".

Among those 10%, 50% use vi, the other 50% use Emacs. ;)[/troll]

 

 

Hagar >

True. I stopped caring for Linux on the desktop since I got my Mini :D

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Emacs = God.

 

That doesn't mean it's good. Seriously, is there anything emacs can't do? It's an HTML editor, a web browser, an AIM client (no, I'm not kidding), and five thousand other things. Not to mention the fact that a compiler and debugger run INSIDE emacs...

 

I always wondered who used XEmacs among the CLI addicts, though...

 

It can be extremely painful to get things working with Fedora that don't work out of the box. Gentoo is designed to be flexible, but it's more difficult to use. *Ubuntu... never used it, admittedly. I've heard good things, but I just installed Fedora a couple of weeks ago, so I'm not willing to go through the download. I'm planning on it sometime soon.

 

GNOME is basically targeted at the Mac. Out of the box, you'll find GNOME is not as close to Windows as KDE. You can reconfigure everything so both look identical, but you're not getting the same functionality.

 

KDE has Konqueror, which has a unique rendering engine and is more well integrated than GNOME's Galeon and Epiphany, which are good but dry on features.

 

Many, many Windows ports use GTK+, at least in my experience. Qt/KDE software is usually written from scratch, providing higher levels of integration. There are hacks to provide uniform theming between GNOME and KDE, but nothing comes out of the box unless you choose an identical theme between the two DEs.

 

Linux on the desktop is reeaaaly flexible, but even KDE is not going to be as uniform as Windows or MacOS when you start installing external software without package management.

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