Favorite distro for your desktop

Started as per the following, which was a good idea:

Edit: At the moment I've got one machine with XP/Ubuntu 7.10, and another with Ubuntu 7.10/OpenSuse 10.3. Would like to install Slackware on the Linux-only machine, but have already tried a triple-boot, and am afraid I'll probably hose the entire setup for the SECOND time. LOL

 

So... which do you like better, Rob?

 

Suse. Can't explain why, exactly. Ubuntu is certainly easier to install in a dual boot setup, and everything that I've tried has worked "out of the box." I'm still having trouble with sound in Suse. It's working now but the volume is low. I don't think there are specific drivers available for my cheap eMachines computer. The Alsa drivers at least allow sounds to be heard, and I can hear music. So, not sure I can describe my rationale for liking Suse best, and still sound rational. lol

I guess the look and feel, for whatever reason, just suit me best. Wonder how I'd feel if I were using Gnome with Suse and KDE with Ubuntu?

Which distro is your own flavor of choice, swarmer?

 

How about a linux screenshot thread as well....or add the screenshots to this thread after stating which distro you use?

I love messing with different distros and looking at screenshots since so much is customizable

 

Right now my flavor of choice is Mint KDE CE all things considered. Best implementation (cleanest) of KDE I've seen yet. Looking forward to an eventual KDE4 Mint release, although the good folks at Kubuntu may lure me over with an earlier release. For me a distro has to be Ubuntu/Debian based or I'm not going to feel at home.

Rob: With all you're doing with Linux, you'll be an 'expert' in no time I had the 'feeling' of being hosed after installing the wrong Nvidia driver and not being able to get into X last night....had to run a sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg in recovery mode to get back into X and install the 'correct' 'new' Nvidia driver. That is a good command to tatoo on your forearm. All is now peaceful. LOL whew!!

 

I've been using Kubuntu on my desktop for ~2 years now, it's amazing. I'm giving Gentoo a shot on my laptop, but it's very frustrating (compared to Kubuntu, with which almost everything just worked).

 

Forget gentoo, too annoying and messy.

Get Sabayon, its based on gentoo but much easier, better and visually attractive. It also has one of the best out of the box support, for multimedia and hardware

Unlike gentoo whose package installs are done by compiling (takes ages to gain a few seconds speed improvement) Sabayon has both, compiling and binary (beta called equo)

 

The advantage of Gentoo is not speed by compiling. It's getting the best distro for you by only running what you want from the get go.

 

Yes that is also true.


However for that purpose I prefer Arch Linux, as it also really lets you build an OS with what you want

 

I like Mint Gnome the best.

 

I don't know if I can say I have a "favorite", since I haven't tried many lately. I installed Ubuntu a few days ago. The last Linux distro I used before that was Mandrake 10 (now Mandriva) from about 4 years ago. I actually had a few problems getting everything in Ubuntu working (first I had a bad CD burn, then sound problems, then an update broke some package and I had to reinstall it), but it's all working now.

Except for Compiz, which has my graphics card (Intel x3100) blacklisted due to known problems. I overrode that to test it out, and it was pretty cool for about 10 minutes, and then I encountered the problems.

 

I think part of why I'm trying Gentoo is to learn more about Linux. I know some people who can do just about anything in Gentoo. Sure it takes some time, but I'd like to learn, if possible.

 

I like Ubuntu and Wolvix.

 

Another I really like is Sidux. But I can't use it until it supports my wireless card in Sig....or have they updated it?

 

My Linux-only desktop has an nVidia 6100 and I can't enable Compiz in Suse. Haven't even tried yet with Ubuntu, but, no doubt, the results will be the same. The XP/Ubuntu machine has some cheap nVidia card (I can't even remember which one and rarely use that machine anymore) which cost about $50; I installed it only so that I could hook up to an Apple ACD. DVI is required. In hindsight, I guess I should have gotten a better card, but at the time, had no plans for Linux.

You know, I'm going to try Compiz tomorrow with Ubuntu just for the hell of it.


Edit: Forgot to ask whether any of you guys have ever tried GAG? I want to try the triple-boot again with Slackware (though I probably will never get it up and running in this lifetime LOL). The claim for GAG is that using it allows installation of up to nine OSes. I can make and size partitions with the likes of GParted, but trying to figure out where to put what is way over my head with the third OS. I'm hoping GAG makes that chore a little less complicated for my very simple mind.

 

I've always had success with GAG. Give it a try.

With three OS's you'll have to use Gparted to create two paritions within a larger partition. I forget how to do this but there are tutorials. Both Linux OS's can use the same swap partition obviously.

Another option is installing Ubuntu last because it's version of Grub does a nice job of detecting all other OSs.

 

Sidux is pretty cool but I'd give it another year or so to catch up. I really want to see a slackware based distro emerge to compete with the big boys.

 

Yep, that's what I was thinking too. In the meantime I love Mint KDE CE

 

Too late. Suse and Ubuntu are already installed. If I try to add Slackware, I may lose (again) the first two distros, in which case, the next time (third) I try a triple-boot, I'll again install Ubuntu last.

 

Are you losing distros because your drive is not partitioned correctly or what?

As long as everything is partitioned correctly, GAG will work as well as Grub should you choose to not install Ubuntu last.

I've never tried Slackware because I hear it is very difficult to install, etc. I've used Wolvix and Zenwalk which are Slack based. They are both very nice and relatively easy to work with. A lot of folks like Arch and Vector too, but I've never used these.

 

I've always been partial to Arch, but I can get away with anything really. I've avoided suse and red hat/fedora because of the weird installers and configuration utilities they put in the stuff.

Debian based distros are nice because of their debian-menu setup but I just install menumaker for systems without it.

 

PCLinuxOS 2008 MiniMe for me please. Thanks.

 

I like Ubuntu best, Mint just isn´t for me.

 

I use Kubuntu 7.10 x86-64 as the only OS on my work T61, and a Windows XP vmware machine when I absolutely have to use a Windows app. That said, I haven't run into that situation yet... Kubuntu handles switching between multiple monitors better than XP ever did for me, it handles the wireless, it handles Java apps better, is faster, and basically everything is just better Heck, Windows even runs faster in a VM than it does natively

Anyway, just had to brag a bit there... heh

 

I'm with you all the way on that, Pitabread. I have a VB XP pro machine set up in Mint KDE CE, and the linux programs are just great, just really great. If I can get my Blackberry Curve sync'd in Linux, I'll only go to Vista to launch my games, you know, like a gaming partition. Linux has come of age....I just hope they can get the hardware drivers all sorted out because if I buy an Nvidia card, I should be able to use their drivers in ANY OS I damned well want!

 

Yeah. Fortunately, my Blackberry 8800 (I need the GPS more than the camera of the curve) syncs over the air, so I'm not missing a whole lot other than not being able to back it up or install software from the desktop. But that's not a big deal... it still works perfectly fine accessing it like a USB drive, and with Barry I can even get it charging, if not synched or used as a modem.

 

Pitabread....I was thinking of sync'ing my BB to scheduleworld, then syncing evolution to scheduleworld...have you done that by chance?

 

I've gone back and forth from Ubuntu to Mint a couple of times....Flock is great isn't it? I'm getting ready to install it in Mint KDE CE.

 

After trying several different distos on my old desktop, my favorite so far is Mepis. I've also concluded that I prefer KDE over GNOME.

 

I too tried a number of distros and found PCLinuxOS 2007 worked best for me. Everything I threw at it just worked with no drama.

I have it PCLinuxOS running as a Virtual Box guest with XP Pro as the host. Working with Virtual Box allowed me to try out several distributions without dual-booting.

RR

 

This thread goes to show how awesome it is to so much variety and choice in Linux distros, I love it!

Great thread btw, rep for you.

 

I never figured out how to install it right in Ubuntu, care to tell by PM?
BTW, I'm using version 1.1.

 

I've installed it two or three times....I have to follow a set of instructions in the Ubuntu forums. Actually, I'll think I'll snag those, clean it up (it's all over the place), and put them in the Mint KDE CE wiki..... I'll link you to it.

 

I lost distros because I didn't have the slightest idea what the hell I was doing! LOL

The partitions were made and ready to go . . . I thought. When I tried Slackware, I obviously did something wrong, because neither Suse nor Ubuntu would work again. Not really certain what exactly went wrong.

When I reinstalled, I followed your advice with Suse first, Ubuntu last and everything went very smoothly. Haven't yet retried Slackware.

 

thanks a lot.

 

Thomas....here is the link...you need to do things in two different parts of the thread...read through first, then start. It works as I've done it 3 times over.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=268273&highlight=install+flock+browser

 

Hey, on PCLinuxOS all you need to do is install it from Synaptic. Why all the drama? (as someone else on this thread said).

 

I just can't understand why Flock isn't in the Ubuntu repos....it's not like there are that many browsers to choose from.

 

Good!!

 

What, you don't like Slackware?

 

No! Good that everything went smoothly. Right?

I'm too noob to try slackware but as I stated, I like some of the distros that are based on slackware and hope that one day they are developed to the point where they can be considered competitors to Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS etc.

Wolvix is my favorite new distro.

 

Ubuntu, PCLOS, Mandriva, and Debian are good distros.

 

I am currently running CentOS 5.1 on two desktops (one at home, one at work), and I quite like it. The more I use it, the more I am liking a Gnome-based setup. I plan on installing it on my T61 soon.

 

I've got Flock set up very nicely in Mint KDE CE....much better browser for Linux, i.e. sharp interface and taking FF extensions and all. I'm in the process of cleaning up the instructions that are in the Ubuntu forums for installing this, as they are needlessly too complicated to achieve the exact same end, and not complete also. I'm going to post them in the Mint Wiki under KDE CE, and I guess I'll post them here for posterity.

 

Nope. We have a Blackberry enterprise server at the office. You might consider using Google Calendar... I know there's a google app that will sync them over the air for free.

 

My three favorites

Sabayon Linux
Arch Linux
Linux Mint

 

Thanks, you got me thinking as I sync Google Calendar with Outlook in Vista....however I've got 1200 or so contacts I need to sync....let me ponder this

 

You know, I liked Sabayon....in fact, I've got in on another machine...but damn, it seems the software in the repo's is old old...am I wrong?

 

I have the 3.4 full dvd so have not had the need to find other software as it comes preloaded with tons, but for the few that i did need I used equo and the packages were up to date.

However since sabayon is new distro, I doubt the software in the repos is old. I could be wrong though.

Really like the binary package manger they have now dubbed "equo", no more compiling which is great since compiling takes ages.


I would gladly check for you but currently I have no linux distro installed on my laptop, currently looking for one with pulse audio support that I like since pulse audio is the only way my realtek hda sound card works out of the box with.

 

@blackbird/ Interesting....I may reinstall the newest version on the other machine and check it out. Hey man, keep the distro's a comin' ... LOL