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Linux For an OS X User


Alphadonius
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25 members have voted

  1. 1. Which Distro is Best for an OS X User?

    • openSUSE
      10
    • Mandriva
      3
    • Debian
      7
    • Other
      5


19 posts in this topic

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I'm a Gentoo user myself, though I don't think I'll inflict that on her just yet. :unsure: Those are two very sensible suggestions you give, but kinda makes a dilemma. On one hand, openSUSE is hands-down (by default at least) the best-looking distribution there is. On the other hand, I've worked with both (openSUSE 11.0 and Mandriva 2008 Spring), and honestly I think that Mandriva is easier to work with than openSUSE.

 

I was also thinking Debian (to give the most "pure" taste of Linux that I can to her, while still being relatively easy to use) or Arch (lightest on resources, but hardest for a newbie; least likely)

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Dreamlinux has the most mac-like interface out of the box, IMO.. I'm surprised not to see it in this poll.

 

Oh, and OpenSuse has a very small but very vocal following on this forum, don't let that skew your opinion.

I certainly think calling it "the os x of the linux world" is pretty ridiculous. OS X is the OS X of the entire *nix world, end of story.

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I think an OS X user would prefer to have a GUI control center most of the time :unsure:

 

Why not just show her both openSUSE and Mandriva and see which one she prefers herself?

 

Dreamlinux has the most mac-like interface out of the box, IMO.. I'm surprised not to see it in this poll.

 

Oh, and OpenSuse has a very small but very vocal following on this forum, don't let that skew your opinion.

I certainly think calling it "the os x of the linux world" is pretty ridiculous. OS X is the OS X of the entire *nix world, end of story.

 

Yeah OS X is the OS X of the entire Unix world, but Unix is not linux so openSUSE is the OS X of the entire linux world -_-:lol:

 

Dream linux just has a mac like interface, other then that there is nothing special about it and besides on any gnome desktop u could use something like Mac4lin etc.

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I think an OS X user would prefer to have a GUI control center most of the time ;)

 

Why not just show her both openSUSE and Mandriva and see which one she prefers herself?

 

I've already done that, and we agreed that looks-wise, openSUSE is better. It's different looking at somebody else using an OS compared to actually using it on a day-to-day basis though, as indeed I've found with OS X also. I suppose it may come down to flipping a coin, and picking one of the two then switching to the other if the first doesn't work out for whatever reason (or if she just gets curious). :unsure:

 

Dream linux just has a mac like interface, other then that there is nothing special about it and besides on any gnome desktop u could use something like Mac4lin etc.

 

Indeed, and I figure that if she wants an OS X-like interface, she can always just boot up into OS X itself. :D As she probably will most of the time TBH, but at least this will let her play around with Linux.

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Definetily, my choice is stuck on openSUSE (10.3) cause the newest one 11 withe KDE 4 had some problems like Sax2 is under running with those restrictions and like Alessandro17 said:

That is one of the main problems with openSUSE: Sax2 needs to be rewritten from scratch.

 

But, for the others distros like fedora core 9 sucks nuts with KDE4. I never had a great experience even with core 8. Sluggish and retarded is the only word I had in mind. And for mandriva and cie, they are for newbies and very simple to use, but not much more of features so I prefered SUSE :unsure:

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Definetily, my choice is stuck on openSUSE (10.3) cause the newest one 11 with KDE 4 had some problems like Sax2 is under running with those restrictions...

 

Even on my own computer, I use KDE 3.5 with openSUSE 11.0; no way I'm inflicting KDE4 on her until 4.2 at the earliest. :unsure: And this is from somebody who prefers KDE to GNOME in general. Which is another problem with Fedora: it doesn't even have KDE 3.5 in its latest versions. Thankfully, openSUSE didn't go that route.

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Well you can always download and install Ubuntu 8.04 and then to make the GUI look just like a Mac you can follow one of these guides.

 

As I said in a previous post, the point is to get her familiar with Linux, not with a bastardized Linux/OS X hybrid (as she has a real Mac anyway for OS X). So vanilla KDE 3.5 and/or GNOME it will be. Thanks anyway though. :P

 

(I'm also not a fan of Ubuntu except to give to a newbie to computers; my girlfriend is very adept in computers, just has only had experience with MacOS, both Classic and X, so far. If we go for a Debian-based distro, it will be Debian itself, probably Lenny.)

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I'm a Gentoo user myself, though I don't think I'll inflict that on her just yet. ;) Those are two very sensible suggestions you give, but kinda makes a dilemma. On one hand, openSUSE is hands-down (by default at least) the best-looking distribution there is. On the other hand, I've worked with both (openSUSE 11.0 and Mandriva 2008 Spring), and honestly I think that Mandriva is easier to work with than openSUSE.

 

BIG SCOOP. I have installed Mandriva on my new laptop, because of Sax2 and the difficulties in setting up a wireless connection with openSUSE.

Mandriva is also very pleasant looking. A bit on the "cutesy" side, if anything, but it can be easily customized.

It has a lot of nice features, like for instance if you insert a USB pen drive, it will put an icon on the taskbar with a few options.

Conversely, Mandriva has also some bugs, like major items disappearing from the K Menu.

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Try it on a IBM T42 and it doesn't work.

 

Do you mean Mandriva? Yes, Mandriva has always had this problem of "not liking" some hardware.

 

If we go for a Debian-based distro, it will be Debian itself, probably Lenny.)

 

Of course you know that Lenny is very stable now. I also recommend Parsix. It is Gnome based, but you'll know that an "aptitude install KDE" doesn't take much.

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Do you mean Mandriva? Yes, Mandriva has always had this problem of "not liking" some hardware.

 

Just so long as it likes a C2D MacBook. :censored2:

 

Of course you know that Lenny is very stable now. I also recommend Parsix. It is Gnome based, but you'll know that an "aptitude install KDE" doesn't take much.

 

Naturally, with regards to installing KDE. I might as well look into it anyway, but out of curiosity, what does Parsix add to Debian (or, rather, Kanotix) besides better Farsi-language support? Their website seems kinda sparse on details.

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Oh yeah I just read it would be a C2D Macbook so in this case I would recommend u use a distro with kernel 2.6.25 or .26 cause its got lots better support I have heard from some friends, or may be u could compile one your self :D

 

I can't tell u if Mandriva Spring works properly or if Debian will cause I never dual boot so only has OS X on it, but I know these 2 distros use kernel .24 and that may have some issues.

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Naturally, with regards to installing KDE. I might as well look into it anyway, but out of curiosity, what does Parsix add to Debian (or, rather, Kanotix) besides better Farsi-language support? Their website seems kinda sparse on details.

 

Nothing except a different theme and a copy of the Qu'ran. If you aren't a farsi speaking muslim I don't see the point in choosing this over debian.

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Oh yeah I just read it would be a C2D Macbook so in this case I would recommend u use a distro with kernel 2.6.25 or .26 cause its got lots better support I have heard from some friends, or may be u could compile one your self :D

 

Thanks for the warning! I'll make sure to get the latest version of the kernel as soon as whatever distro it is is installed; kernel-linus 2.6.25 is in the contrib repository of Mandriva, and both openSUSE and Lenny have 2.6.25 for their default kernel now, so that shouldn't be a problem whichever distro I choose, as long as having 2.6.24 on the initial install doesn't render it unbootable (which is really only an issue on Mandriva; for Debian, net-install FTW :) ).

 

Nothing except a different theme and a copy of the Qu'ran. If you aren't a farsi speaking muslim I don't see the point in choosing this over debian.

 

If that's all it is, then I agree with your conclusion.

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Nothing except a different theme and a copy of the Qu'ran. If you aren't a farsi speaking muslim I don't see the point in choosing this over debian.

 

I totally disagree:

Easy and fast install.

Kanotix scripts (that is what made Kanotix great). Add the Kanotix repo. Ask me for a complete sources.list.

Great (Kanotix) hardware detection and better support for a lot of things, for instance wireless.

Better look than default Debian Gnome (not applicable if you want to use KDE).

Based on the latest Debian Lenny.

Kanotix OTOH is based on Debian Stale (sorry, I mean Stable). Personally I have found it impossible to upgrade it to Lenny without breaking the system.

Default language: English.

 

A DistroWatch review:

 

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20080804#feature

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