Best Linux Distro Other than Ubuntu.

I'm looking to (once again) try something new on my desktop(ethernet connected), being that it doesn't require Wifi(which would be my biggest worry on my Acer laptop).

So what's the best Distro (WiFi problems aside) beside Ubuntu.

Please, no review links unless they are real user reviews.

 

I have not used any recently, but I have tried the following distros in the past and really liked some of them them.

1. Slackware: This is a more "hardcore" linux distro. It does not have any bells and whistles, it is designed to be stable, lite, and fast. When I used it (version 10 I believe) it was all those things, but it sacrifices some usability. Version 11 is new though so it might have improved there too. Also, to keep things stable they only update packages after they have been pretty well tested. So do not expect the cutting edge stuff every couple of months.

2. MEPIS: I tried this before it moved to a Debian base. So it will probably be similar to Ubuntu now. When I tried it it was the easiest to use of all the distros I have tried.

3. OpenSUSE: I did not like the package manager in this distro. May have improved.

The other obvious choices are Fedora and Debian. Fedora from what I have heard is becoming very polished and is looking good. Debian is cool, but the update cycle and usability are lacking considering Ubuntu is based heavily on it already there are not many advantages to using it.

Just my thoughts, no real reviews or anything.

 

I personally like Arch Linux ( http://www.archlinux.org/ ).
It is more of an "expert" distro because it requires a lot of manual configuration, but that's one of the reasons I like it. It lets you build the system from the ground up with only what you want or need, I've also found that learning how to configure something really helps you learn how it works, which means it's easier to fix if it breaks.

BUT, if you're willing to go through the work of the initial setup, I think Arch is a very solid system. I found it to be a little easier than Gentoo, and it didn't need the super long compile times. I can't speak for any speed differences between the two, as I haven't had a system that I've installed both on.

A couple other things I like about it is that it uses a rolling release system, unlike a distro like Ubuntu, where each "version" has a different package repository, with Arch, once you've updated the system, it's as up to date as any other Arch system. The only differences between different Arch "versions" are the packages available on the CD, and possibly the installer.

The other thing I like is that, at least for me, it's been sufficiently cutting edge. From what I've noticed at least (not that I've paid too much attention), Arch seems to have struck a good balance between release speed and stability. Their repositories are pretty good too, I haven't run into anything I needed/wanted that isn't in there already. And even if it isn't in the repositories, from looking at their wiki and other help pages, they seem to provide good support for installing programs from source.

If you want your hand held, try something else, but if you're willing to put a little work in manual configuration, give Arch a shot.

EDIT: other distros I've tried:
Ubuntu: got me started in Linux, I liked it, but wanted to try other distros because 1) I didn't like the release system (I like rolling release better) and 2) I found installing programs from source to be a pain.

Gentoo: I like it, definitely helped me learn a lot more about Linux in general. But, I decided to switch mainly because compiling just takes so long, and it compiling didn't seem to make a noticeable speed difference on my computer (compared to Ubuntu). It may have just been that I didn't do enough on either to stress it though.

Foresight: I tried it for literally about 30 min. After installation, I started to install packages, and found that the preferred method of searching for packages was through a web browser, and there was not way to do it through the terminal (so, what happens when X breaks? I suppose I could use links...). That was enough of a turn off for me to stop using it.

 

Yea, I may just try something that requires much more manual configuration.

Thanks.

 

I'm a big fan of Arch, too. It has good guides to get you started, but the wiki is a little sparse. But you can usually use gentoo wikis, and sometimes debian and slackware wikis.

It's my favorite package manager by far.

My favorite user friendly distributions are Pardus and Ubuntu currently. I really like Pardus' speed and compatibility off the disc, and it's package management is also excellent. There are a few annoyances, but then all user friendly distributions annoy me, and most much more than Pardus.

 

I third the Arch suggestion. Loving it.

 

Debian?

 

id suggest Pardus its a small turkish dist really great

 

Define 'best'. Do you want power? The ability to customize? Stability? Cutting Edge? Vendor Support?

Perhaps if you went into some more detail about why you don't want to try Ubuntu and what you are looking for, that'd help us point you in the right direction.

 

Yeah, as celondil hinted at, there really is no "best" Linux distro for everyone. I mentioned what I like, and why, but, I wouldn't call it the "best" distro. Only my favorite, or the best for me.

That's one of the things I love about Linux and OSS in general... if you don't like something, there are usually other options that can fit you better.

 

PCLinuxOS i like that one a lot. Although its KDE by default not gnome like Ubuntu but i prefer KDE anyhow.

2nd Slackware

 

I already have Ubuntu on my Notebook and Desktop and very familiar with it. I just want to try something Differ on my desktop. The main reason I stick with Ubuntu on my notebook is that it is basically the only distro that I can get to work with my WiFi and without any other problems. On my desktop I don't have to worry about that.

Not really looking for anything specific, I just want to hear Users opinions on what they like to spark my interest. There is also so many distros. A few which I really liked but WiFi was a problem. I would love to try it on my desktop but can't remember the name.

The first couple of posts sparked me to try something that takes more manual config to set up.

 

I used a 2005 version of Mandriva Linux and I was very happy with it. PCLinuxOS is also a good distribution behind Ubuntu.

 

If I were you, I would setup my laptop to handle everything like email and such, and make sure it always has the latest bookmarks and everything. Then just install all the distributions you're interested in on the desktop, not all at once of course. There are so many excellent distributions, you really don't get to know the scope of Linux and GNU until you play with a good portion. As long as you have everything saved on your laptop you'll never have to worry about mistakes or buggy distros.

 

There will be a new Sabayon distribution next week. I would strongly recommend you give it a try.

Sabayon is very much on the "cutting edge", and yet seems to be very stable, has very good hardware recognition, etc...

I personally think this distro is actually better than Ubuntu in many respects.

 

I don't know, I started reading a review and the first thing they said was "everything under the sun." Personally I think a lot of Linux distros are too bloated already, I normally spend a bit of time trying to remove as much stuff I will not use during install. So for me personally a distro that comes with every package they can cram into it makes me worried.

Arch Linux, sounds very interesting. I like the idea that once you have it installed you can just keep your packages upto date, and never have to install a new version. That's the way it should be.

 

In that case, try VMWare out and you can see just about any OS at the same time.

But beyond that... are you learning for the sake of learning and trying something new or are you thinking of making a career out of it?

If the later, I'd recommend CentOS or OpenSuSE. As a desktop OS, Ubuntu seems to be the most popular at the momment, but I stick to Fedora because of work.

If you want to get down into the nuts and bolts of things, then Slackware and Gentoo may be the way to go.

And of course, there is always FreeBSD.

 

If you REALLY want to get down to the nuts and bolts, try LFS ( Linux From Scratch). I may do that sometime in the future, purely as a learning experience, not to use as my day-to-day distro.

 

Well, OK. Different nuts and bolts...

 

I am using 64 bit Arch linux. Kind of a pain that it does not come with the ipw3945 drivers, but I can get that through my Sprint Novatel U720 USB 3G modem.

 

I did this when I was in University as, it was awesome. To start from scratch, and compile each program you need type out your own start up scripts etc etc. It took a long time, but really helps you understand a lot about the system.

I would recommend this to anyone who has an old computer laying around and want a long term hobby.

 

LFS sounds very interesting, I'm going to give that a try too. I'll have a lot of reading to do with LFS

 

A lot of reading, a lot of writing for help , a lot of typing config files, a lot of compiling, etc. When I did it I got X Windows up and everything, and it is amazing how fast Linux is with just the raw basic stuff you need. But remember this will not be your production everyday machine

 

I'm really glad to see Arch Linux up there on the list. I think that Arch is a great step for anyone who is starting to feel comfortable with Linux. As everyone stated-- its ridiculously fast, up to date, and well maintained. The only thing that I'll mention is that its not for the faint of heart as configuration can be daunting and even though they have a great wiki and forum it's not as easy to find answers as with Ubunutu or Gentoo. This is my first time on the site-- I really like it as I just ordered my new T61p, which will have a nice clean install of archlinux.

 

I think it's funny how I've seen so many people (myself included) advocate Arch Linux, both on this forum and on others, and yet, on DistroWatch, it's not even in the top 20 (it's 21st).

But, as they've pointed out on the Arch forums, a distro's popularity (or quality) isn't accurately measured by its rank on DistroWatch, all a high DistroWatch rank means is that they get a lot of clicks to see their page there.

 

Yeah and in truth quality is rarely (other than the case of maybe Ubuntu) measured by popularity. If that were the case Windows would be considered the cream of the crop. And well, I have my own reservations about Windows.

 

My Vote is SimplyMepis!

 

Going out of the Linux area: FreeBSD (and it's based on distributions);
Linux:
-Gentoo;
-Sabayon;
-LFS;
-Arch.
I hate the rest.

 

I have to ask, why do you like Sabayon? its in the same league with Ubuntu which you cooked up a large essay of why you hate. All it really is is a Gentoo version of Ubuntu with everything possible installed at once instead of waiting for you to install from the package manager. Sabayon speed vs Ubuntu speed is relatively similar. I just went from Sabayon to Ubuntu and I dont notice a speed difference. Its also much slower than a "real" gentoo install. You've reached a little bit of a contradiction there.

No offense.

 

Why do I like it? Well I like it because it can be as fast as Gentoo, it's nice looking and it's always featuring latest and newest software. Regarding speed - you can compile it, so...
I also like the fact that the developers are enthusiastic and willing to implement nice stuff into it (I believe it was the official Beryl distribution, not sure about Compiz or whatever it is called now).
Usually I'm into basic things (this is one of the reasons I respect LFS) as I don't want bloatware into my system. I always like to keep to only the things I need and like and ditch the rest.
"No offense." -> none taken.
I usually can explain contradictions as they're my words, so...nice talking to you.
I guess I'm still hating the whole "too many choices" thing.

 

True it can be recompiled but that takes time and effort. Everything the devs implement has been implemented before in other distros. They just dont want to go through the hassle and server space of uploading it all to a DVD image.

If you get fed up with choices, why arent you still on microsoft?

 

I think he might have been referring to choices in Linux.

That's one of the problems with Linux are the number of choices can be very confusing to new people. We always say try Linux but before Ubuntu there are never a clear choice of which distro of Linux to recommend to new people.

That's what makes Ubuntu so great, it has nearly become the standard Linux distro out there. It's just what Linux needs to take the next step and become more main stream.

When you have a standard, you suddenly see piles of good documentation targeted at it, books, wikis, blogs, forums. You also see nearly all new applications developed packaged for it very quickly.

There will always be a place for alternative distos, but I think the lack of choices is sometimes a good thing.

 

"If you get fed up with choices, why arent you still on microsoft?"
I am, mostly.
I use FreeBSD as the open source alternative and I like it. I don't really like Linux security and neither how things work (more specifically the whole kernel based thing, with various implementations, etc.). The thing is that I need a spare HDD to really work with FreeBSD and have some real fun with it. I don't have one right now, so my needs are best suited by Windows Vista.
I am planning to buy a new HDD and install FreeBSD (I currently mess around with it and do various stuff in VMware) once the developers will release both FreeBSD 7 and x64 nVidia drivers.
Quite frankly I am very satisfied with the BSD flavor and I am not willing to use Linux at the moment.
Any question is more than welcomed if needed answer.

 

That was a joke

 

I just answered the question.

 

im very new to linux and i just started using ubuntu and i really like it. it has all the necessary stuff i need, and the fact that its free is really amazing. i can see how it can be a better alternative to windows for companies and such. although there are many softwares that may be mac or windows exclusive, im sure you can find a way to change the code so its compatible with linux. i plan to do some research and find out how its done and maybe i can get some programs working for my linux . alternatively, i guess i could look for linux versions of the program, but wheres the fun in that?

 

Trust me, native code that is emulated doesn't get you there. Native applications work best. Programs like Wine, Cedega and others don't ensure you that you'll have all your programs working. For instance I don't see a Linux Photoshop in the near future as I don't see a Microsoft Office for Linux.

 

well i've just installed the newest version of PCLinuxOS 2007 and i'm extremely happy with it, wifi worked straight away with WPA encryption, it has a pretty decent set of software preinstalled, it looks very nice on its own and its extremely easy to get beryl or compiz fusion working with it (both are preinstalled and if your gfx is set up properly it'll take at most 5 clicks lol, im finding it even easier to use than ubuntu which is an achievement in its own

 

As I've said a few times. PCLinuxOS is the real easiest distro. Its better than ubuntu for ease of use because everything and I mean evrything is done for you. Ubuntu is easy to use but it still lets you do stuff so you can learn.

 

from a distro standpoint PClinuxOS is a great distro which i think noone should ever use because of Texstars (the guy who made it) attidute so far in my looking i have seen one review that was any bit negative and you know what texstar did? he told the users to go bash the page instead of taking the criticism and and fixing it

 

I have kind of a love/hate relationship with PCLinuxOS. Yes, it is easy for most things, such as setting up graphics and codecs and whatnot. Also, hardware support seems to be pretty good. But it's not perfect. For instance, my media buttons (which work immediately in Linux) don't work in PCLinuxOS without changing some hardware configurations. Even then, only the volume buttons really work, and the Play/Pause/skip buttons still don't work. Also, it's an .rpm based distro, and I feel much more comfortable with debian-based distros. On top of that, it just seems to be generally lacking in a coherent package; some things seem way too out of place, and there are a lot of software packages installed by default that I don't use and other ones I do use aren't there. I just feel more comfortable with Ubuntu.

 

I think one thing that Windows does better than Linux is the clean install. When I do a clean install of Windows there is nothing much installed besides the core OS. That's what I would like to see from Linux, a distro that gives you a fast, stable, small install. But then makes it super easy to add the applications you like later.

 

Are you kidding me CodeMonkeyX?

In this thread alone we've talked about Gentoo, Arch, and even LFS, if those aren't examples of just installing the core OS, I don't know what is. Maybe it's not "super easy" to get it started, but for Gentoo or Arch at least, adding applications later is (usually) really easy (probably not so much for LFS).

And, nothing much installed with the core OS for Windows? Let's see, what does Windows have that's already installed besides the core OS? Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Windows Firewall, Microsoft's Wireless Configuration, Image Viewer, MS Paint, etc.

Some of these aren't intrusive, and hardly take up any disk space (MS Paint), but others like Windows Media Player? I would hardly call that part of a "core OS".

I agree that a Windows install is pretty spartan compared to a distro like Ubuntu, but put it next to Arch or Gentoo and the base install looks huge.

 

I've used a lot of different Unix/Linux systems, and clearly Ubuntu brought linux to a different level. First because of its ease of use and secondly the stability. I started with Red Had 7, then I went on to Fedora 3 which was awful every new updates broke some stuffs. Then I went on with Mandriva for a few years but since few people use it, solving bugs are not easy. I unfortunately have Open Suse at work, and I HATE it, the package management system is totally crap!

 

Install the server version of Ubuntu (it is possible... I'm running it at home ) It'll install the bare minimum of what you need. Then you can install any desktop stuff you want. The "bloat" comes along with kubuntu-desktop or ubuntu-desktop, which just have a ton of packages in them, which is arguably a good thing.

 

Interesting, but don't you get server bloat stuff? Like apache, PHP, MySQL, or is all the stuff easily configured to not install?

That would be cool to make console server install then just install gnome and stuff as needed.

 

Nope. None of the other stuff. You can install everything as you see fit, the server install just gets you a very basic system up and running.

 

PCLinux is the only KDE that I seem to like so far. Just installed it.

I'll play with it for a couple of days, then install another distro.

I'm going from easiest to hardest, being it's going to much longer to master something like LFS

 

The best one is the one that works for whatever computer you have. There's no point switching around, because anything you can do on one distro you can do on another once you have it installed and running.

 

xplinux and mandriva is what ive been hearing