Favorite Linux Distros
I'm curious if anybody else here is playing with, or using. Linux.
I'm fond of Mint, and I've used the Gnome, XFCE, and Fluxbox version (right now). It's a build off of Ubuntu, but it just has the one task bar at the bottom of the screen instead of the top/bottom that I always see with Ubuntu.
I found TinyMe for old computers, a PCLinuxOS offshoot, and I was very impressed.
Also, Slax works really well, and is kind of fun.
I noticed that Sabayon looked really hot, but it needs ample resources, which sort of defeats the purpose of Linux, in my mind.
I found that with Mint, Edimax or RAlink wireless cards worked right out of the box, but I couldn't get a D-LINK to work.
Anyway...just tossing this out and wondering if anybody else is messing around with the Tux.
I'm fond of Mint, and I've used the Gnome, XFCE, and Fluxbox version (right now). It's a build off of Ubuntu, but it just has the one task bar at the bottom of the screen instead of the top/bottom that I always see with Ubuntu.
I found TinyMe for old computers, a PCLinuxOS offshoot, and I was very impressed.
Also, Slax works really well, and is kind of fun.
I noticed that Sabayon looked really hot, but it needs ample resources, which sort of defeats the purpose of Linux, in my mind.
I found that with Mint, Edimax or RAlink wireless cards worked right out of the box, but I couldn't get a D-LINK to work.
Anyway...just tossing this out and wondering if anybody else is messing around with the Tux.
12 Comments
jonnyRedHat distro of AlphaLinux. Not exactly mainstream. And probably not much use to you, unless you have an old DEC Alpha from like 20 years ago.
gwiz665Windows XP..
OrnthoronI use 64bit Ubuntu. But I have tweaked it a little bit to work well with my laptop, ie compiled my own kernel to make use of the hard disk protection.
joedirtI wanted to try Mint. But there a huge advantages to sticking with Ubuntu / Debian install base.
What about Foresight? I really want to try out a Conary based package distro.
(you do know you can move the taskbar to the bottom in all gnome/kde etc???)
OrnthoronI love having two taskbars. I have different system information uploading continually in the middle of the top one, so I always know if some fishy process is stealing my computing power. The more space to twiddle with, the merrier I am.
lucky760Debian.
Ubuntu on my at-home dev server (aka an old laptop).
xxovercastxxMy first real adventures into Linux were with Gentoo. Building a system from the ground up like that is a great way to learn how all the parts work. It's not the only way, mind you, and it can be rather frustrating and confusing, but it's certainly a way. USE flags give you a very fine level of control over your packages. Maintenance is a bit more difficult than other distros.
Have a Debian server sitting beside me at home right now. It's primarily a NAS unit. Got Ubuntu on my laptop. Will probably be putting on my primary desktop soon, too.
I've tried out quite a number of distros, usually by way of VirtualBox.
Let's see... scrolling down this list I remember trying Dreamlinux, PCLinuxOS, Knoppix, SymphonyOS, OpenZaurus, Damn Small Linux, Puppy Linux, Kororaa, VidaLinux, Red Hat, OpenSUSE, Mandriva, TurboLinux, Vector Linux, GeexBox and probably others that I've forgotten. I've also tried OpenSolaris, Nexenta, m0n0wall, FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD. VirtualBox makes it so damn easy to try them out that I've gone a bit overboard at times.
If you want to experiment and don't want to fuck around with reinstalling over and over on a spare PC (or don't have a spare), go grab VirtualBox as I've mentioned twice now.
For desktop use, it's hard to compete with Ubuntu now. I do like Mint, but Ubuntu still has an edge in support and package availability (though both can usually be applied to Mint with minimal effort). For servers, I'm pretty comfortable with Debian. I still love Gentoo for some reason, though I don't do Gentoo installs anymore. I think emerge might be habit-forming... apt just doesn't give me that fuzzy feeling. I've got a Gentoo server at work that I built almost 5 years ago that does a million things for me.
dgandhiUbuntu.
From 1998-2006 I was using Debian and tmsrtbt almost exclusively. For a while I had DamnSmallLinux(which is Deb derived) on my old P-233 laptop, but when I upgraded to my new Laptop a few years ago Deb-stable did not have SATA drivers in the install disks, so I installed Ubuntu, and never looked back. I'm actually very impressed with the amount of polish Ubuntu was able to add to Debian, and with a noticeably better upgrade every 6mo, I'm getting happier with it all the time.
rougyEverybody, thanks for the input!
I'll remember to give VirtualBox a try.
lavollive only ever been able to make slax work, but it was impossible to get wireless to work with it on my asus laptop.
but it is still there on a bootupable memory stick should i ever need it.
rougy^ I couldn't get SLAX to work with my wireless, either.
I've been using Edimax adapters on two computers with Mint, and both of them worked just fine. SLAX can see the network signal, but it's very weak and it also doesn't seem to like the encryption.
I couldn't get VirtualBox to work on my Vista machine, but it seems to be working okay on my XP workstation.
I just tried Granular, a PCLinuxOS derivative with a KDE desktop, and I must admit that it's not bad. Small footprint. Sluggish install, but once it was done, it was responsive enough. I'm going to try to install it on my old Dell and see how it works.
winkler1Ubuntu.. intrepid on my primary laptop. XP could only see 3 gigs of RAM. I run WinXP within VirtualBox.. the 2.1 release of VBox makes host networking really easy.
I'm running Boxee on an Ubuntu 8.04 machine in the living room.
At work I have an old 512MB running ubuntu just for firefox and synergy.
I use foxmarks across my boxen and VM's to keep bookmarks synched. FFox keywords are handy things, especially for searches.
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