“Probably everyone who reads DesktopLinux.com encounters the same question over and over again: “What’s the best Linux desktop distribution?” Now, while some people will swear up and down that Slackware or Fedora or even Puppy, for that matter, is the best Linux desktop, I think the answer is more complicated. In fact, I don’t think there is a single answer.”
Just like with text editors, file managers, windows managers, and other things, the selection of an OS is a highly personal thing. Unless it’s preloaded. 🙂
Care to explain the negative moderation? The statement above is absolutely true, as anyone with experience in evaluating software knows.
There are far too many subjective points to adequately address unless you know everything about the end user in question, and only that specific end user has all that knowledge about him-or-herself.
Time to sit back and watch the attacks begin.
Morse Telecommunication’s Slackware Pro 2.0 rocks!!! 🙂
Someone missed the joke… Should I have said “SLS 0.98” instead to make it more obvious? 🙂
Moderate this one down, too, you humorless bastards. 🙂
… simply the one distribution you yourself prefer to work with. Let it be RPM based, Deb based or even source based. It’s all about personal taste. As I’m writing this I do it on Ubuntu, because I’ve gotten tired of configuring stuff by hand (sadly Libranet seems to be more or less dead). But I have earlier used and tested over 70 different distributions, and I can’t say I hate either of them. Most fun, when I really enjoyed configuring everything by hand, I used Arch or Crux.
So it all comes down to one thing, personal taste. And talking about package management, even rpm or slacks tgz is a breeze to install nowadays. Even source based distros like Crux and Gentoo too. As with everything that is new to you, you have to do some form of document reading, searching, asking or whatever. But today there is, for example, no “RPM Hell”. The same goes for new applications in Windows too. You have to read up if you try new stuff, or of course you might to do the trial and error approach, like I have done so many times before
It took me about 5 minutes to understand apt/dpkg when I first tried a Debian based dist. Not everything maybe but the most common and useful commands like:
apt-get install package
apt-cache search package
apt-cache show package
apt-cache policy package
and so forth…
Almost all of the by me named distros even has a nice frontend to the command line stuff, like Synaptic for example.
The article talk about wanting this and that, my experience tells me that GNU/Linux is GNU/Linux. What you can do in Gentoo, you can also do in Ubuntu. Difference is the learning curve, nothing else.
— Vecchio
But today there is, for example, no “RPM Hell”.
The expression “RPM Hell” comes to the fact many people failed to understand how dependacies work. The same problem occurs on any real package managers like dpkg or even some script like “configure make make install”.
Apt is in fact the frontend for dpkg to solve these dependancy. At that time, rpm based didn’t have that kind of frontend until urpmi(Mandriva), apt4rpm (no longer maintained as the creator works on smartpm) and yum (Fedora and in some extent OpenSUSE) appears.
The expression “RPM Hell” comes to the fact many people failed to understand how dependacies work.
You obviously have no experience with RPM Back in Red Hat 4.x, 5.x, 6.x etc…
A dependency is a requeriment one package has over another. RPM Hell comes from the fact that to upgrade package X, you have to MANUALLY find and install package Z, Y, K, M, P, etc. Now when you try to install package M, you find out that it requires package T and R… which in turn Requirez Z and U… you start getting the idea, don’t you?
Sometimes, you even had to upgrade Package A, which required B and C. But C required a specific version of A, so you coulnd’t upgrade it… bah… ugly. Back in those days, apt-get was much simpler and had less problems like these.
In the end, you managed to upgrade and update everything with RPM… but it was a pain.
As you’ve mentioned, the fact that the dependencies exist and are a problem which a fancy “front end” solves, doesn’t mean that rpm hell didn’t exist back in those days.
Ok fair enough, but I couldn’t see the need to explain something happening more or less years ago. It’s like dissing Windows because Millenium was crap. XP is a much better OS, and so is most of every Linux dist out there today.
And to clarify my experience with Dependency hell, I started using Linux back in -95, so I’ve had my share of those problems too
— Vecchio
Edited 2006-01-25 20:55
I didn’t deny about rpm dependancy problem. The above poster vecchio pointed out the dependancy problem applied with basic package managers or basic command (make make install) therefore not unique to rpm based distros back then.
Back in those days, apt-get was much simpler and had less problems like these.
Did you know that apt-get is the frontend of dpkg (true Debian package manager) as I pointed out? Use dpkg command instead to install/update a debian package, you will got the same problem like rpm.
Edited 2006-01-25 21:11
Actually it was never quite as bad with dpkg because Debian uses a different convention for naming the packages, which allows you to have multiple versions of the same library installed at the same time.
What’s the best Linux desktop distribution?
That’s an easy question. I do not like the letter ‘S’ because it looks like a snake, so I do not want Suse or Slackware. I like everything that starts with an ‘M’ because my name too starts with it. I do not like Mandriva’s star, but pyramids are cool. So the choice is obvious: Mepis has to be the best distribution for everyone on this planet!
I checked most Linux distros, and I didn’t like any.
Would be better if there just one, but a good one, just like Windows or OS X.
Would be better if there just one (Linux distro), but a good one, just like Windows or OS X.
Yawn…
I checked most Linux distros, and I didn’t like any.
Well…if you have really tried most of the hundreds of Linux Distros then I guess you are more than qualified to make that decision. Stick to what works for you then.
Would be better if there just one, but a good one, just like Windows or OS X.
So a closed source distro? No thanks.
given there are so many (plenty are installable) that represent a good cross section of the major distros. Some even have easy remastering.
from the article
“You can certainly run Linux on even less-powerful systems with distributions like Damn Small Linux, Zenwalk (aka Minislack), or Puppy, but for the best combination of low system demands and features, MEPISLite, and its big brother SimplyMEPIS, is hard to beat.”
OK for 800MHz but for those older boxes <200MHz Puppy and DSL are still responsive.
Simple as that.
FreeBSD is nicer thought, but it doesn’t qualify as “desktop linux distribution”.
Linux-XP.
I wan’t to run Linux as my os, but run my windows apps in it. Don’t tell me to use WINE. I have and it makes me want to pull out all my hair, and launch bottle rockets out of my bum.
I always choose the distribution that _currently_ fits my needs best. Back in the time when I was a Windows guy and when I got interested in Linux, I wanted a distro that makes the transition easy. I knew SuSE a little, but never liked it, but I was told that Mandrake was a good & easy one – so I installed it, and in fact I completely switched to Linux within a few weeks. I still had Windows on my HD for a few months, but almost never booted it.
After a few motnhs, I decided i want to know more about Linux, I mean, I really wanted to dive into it. So I ame across Gentoo. Gentoo gave me the opportunity to learn A LOT about Linux, and I’m really thankful for that. Gentoo forces you to do most things by hand, but still it’s package system allows you to pretty easily get a running system. I learned a lot about bash, about how the kernel is made up and what it’s all about, I learned about compiling, kernel modules, ifconfig, /etc and all what you dare to know.
Then after almost 2 years with Gentoo and with 1000x more Linux knowledge, it happened that I had more and more to do at my university & at my job, so i decided I wanted an easier distro, one thats “just works”. And I began to like Gnome (instead of KDE). So Ubuntu came just in the right moment … and that’s what I’m running now. It really just worked on both my computers (AMD64+iBook), Gnome is wonderful, it needs virtually no maintenance, but still the undelying Debian allows me to make use of the Linux knowledge I gained.
Tom
Took the test came back with Debian as #1 which is spot on for me, I love debian, #2 was Mandriva…which I don’t care for but have run in the past. and #3 was SUSE, which is my second favorite Distro and what I’m running on my lappy
I’d call that a decent little test, I like the results
How many columns can this subject take?
Do we again need to be reminded that there are several distros to choose from and that only you can decide what right for you?
Not front page news if you ask me.
Sorry 🙁