Here's a comparison of major distributions (Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, openSUSE, Mint, Fedora, Sabayon, Mepis, Freespire)
in term of installation, ease of use, package management and speed:
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20071203#review
-
Sadly, that review is extremely biased and not very informative or even accurate.
For instance, package management in Fedora is listed as "prone to failure". Either Brian is extremely outdated, or he is trying to use knowledge about older releases of Fedora to base his judgement on 8. Since fedora implemented YUM as the package manager, many of the more common issues encountered in the RH series have become almost non-existent (*almost*). The biggest issue that used to arise a while back was what was known as "Dependency hell" or dependency nightmares, due to rpm not being able to gather and track dependencies properly, it was just supposed to really manage the package database.
Also, he only seems to be reviewing the "windows like" distros. what about things such as Gentoo, LFS, Knoppix, etc.
It is an interesting review, but do not take it as stone, as it needs quite a bit more review, and correction.
Ubuntu is coming along nicely now, but I would still rather stick with a distro that is not quite so .... dumbed down. -
Talking about PCLinuxOS he writes:
"KDE is the default desktop supplied with PCLinuxOS. This takes a little longer to get used to than GNOME in my opinion."
He should have qualified that by saying that it takes a little longer to get used to than GNOME *for a person used to using GNOME*. As a person used to KDE, I found that using Ubuntu took me longer to do several tasks than it would have using PCLinuxOS, and that was in part because I did not know where or how things were done in GNOME. (Enabling 3D effects, opening a file manager with root privileges, renaming files or folders in a File Save/Open dialog box, etc.).
He then writes:
"Once you get over the KDE quirks, navigating your way around the system is relatively straightforward ..."
However, he fails to mention what any of those quirks are. I think that is a little unfair. -
i found it to be quite an interesting read. since im really wanting to get into linux.
Daemoen, to say that it was dumbed down isnt too bad in my opinion. since i imagine that would suit a complete noob like me quite well. if im wrong please correct me. i was thinking of trying out wither MINT or UBUNTU. i know...typical..but id really like to get the hang on things before really diving in.
i love trying out new things and experimenting. but i dont see what so bad about "dumbed down" distros.
what really surprised me is that thy're no all THAT dissimilar. or am i wrong?
id really like to get into SABAYON one day. would be great.
Overview of popular distributions
Discussion in 'Linux Compatibility and Software' started by John B, Dec 3, 2007.