what flavour of linux do you use ?

richardlionheart

hi all

i have installed Linux Ubuntu ( hardy heron ) onto my 2nd pc
and find it an absolute breeze to get along with.
easy updates and new software search and install is
just a couple of clicks.

more security when surfing and downloading.
and it can run certain windows favorites under wine ( Windows Emulator )

on my laptop have Linux Mandrake ( mandriva as its now know )
mainly for my c++ work . As i prefer mandrakes version of gcc.
(as i build /compile linux mods for games. as windows compilers are very prone to
crashes and bugs during the linking process )


but for anyone new to linux i definately recommend Ubuntu.

just run the cd live ( runs a desktop without install anything so gives a taste
of it without installing )

i just wanted to find out how others felt , along with alternatives to windows
and what types and programs they recommend.

regards
Rich

fwor

A couple of months ago there was a very long thread (called something like "Linux user club" IIRC) which had much discussion about this.

I've used Ubuntu for a couple of years now, and run everything under it, including a complex PVR setup.

While it's perfectly functional, I wish that when I'd started out I'd tried some alternative desktop managers. I much prefer the look of KDE (as in Kubuntu) to Gnome, which to me looks dull. But I know where everything is in Gnome now, so can't justify making the change...

To anyone just taking up linux, I would recommend trying a handful of different distros as LiveCDs to see which they like the "feel" of best. I've seen recent recommendations for PCLos, Mint, Mandriva, Zenwalk and loads of others, so it really does seem to be a personal thing...

Conor_3

I used Ubuntu until they broke it in 8.04.

Robin_T_Cox

I had the same unhappy experience with Ubuntu 8.04. Now I use Debian Lenny, which is soon to become the new stable (long-term) version. I was delighted to find that there is now a greatly improved installer with Debian, and I'm running the KDE version. Since Ubuntu and various other distros are all based on Debian anyway, I guess that my choice of software is as valid as those that come with those distros, and certainly more tailored to my requirements.

fwor

Robin_T_Cox wrote: »

I had the same unhappy experience with Ubuntu 8.04.

Interesting - what bit did they break as far as you were concerned?

I'm a bit surprised, as I have 8.04 running fine on 4 desktops and one laptop - some were fresh installs and some dist-upgrades. The only thing that I can't make work is wireless LAN on the laptop, which is Ok in unsecured mode but not with WEP or WPA.

Everything else - including Samba and network shares from Windows based PCs - works fine.

Robin_T_Cox

I'm afraid that on my particular kit I experienced the dreaded Hardy freeze with kernel 2.6.24. The history of this problem is described in the following link.
http://lwn.net/Articles/287829/

ON the same kit (I run 3 hard drives, with Gutsy 7.10 still running stable on one, and I tried Hardy 8.04 on one of the others) Debian Lenny is running stable with kernel 2.6.26 on the disk previously used for Hardy.

I suspect an obscure bug in kernel 2.6.24, but it obviously doesn't affect people with some hardware configurations, like yourself, since many have been running Hardy quite successfully.

David_Forrest

I've been using Ubuntu for around about 3 years now, but I have experimented with alot of differnet distrobutions.

Primarily I use linux for my job, and also part of what to used to be my university course. But working in a job where i'm programming php and java, its great the ammount of things tat you can make linux actaully do.

Most servers (Where websites are hosted) run on a basic linux distrobution, one distrobution that I never saw mentioned above is CentOS. Which is one hell of a powerful operating system, but its also a !!!!! to get working properly especially in the way a copmmon user would like it to work.

My advice, like fwor's is that if you want to experiment with linux, get yourself apile of live cd's where you can just use the cd to boot into the system and play about with all of the power features that it has. The problem with linux is many people are so used to windows, that they just don't want to change, but once you get a feel for linux and how easy and staright-forward it is to use - You get used to it

fwor

Robin_T_Cox wrote: »

I'm afraid that on my particular kit I experienced the dreaded Hardy freeze with kernel 2.6.24.

Interesting again... I did notice that when trying to set up wireless on the laptop I did get a couple of kernel lockups, so other than that I must just be lucky with the combination of hardware I have. From the links you posted, it seems to be more widespread than just wireless chipsets, though.

What you say gives me some hope that I ~might~ get wireless working with Intrepid when it comes out in a few weeks time...

ormus

all the above posts, is proof yet again that any linux distro is still not ready to be a mainstream OS for the joe public user.
its great for playing with, but thats it.

ps. i use knoppix and ubuntu nearly every day.

fwor

ormus wrote: »

all the above posts, is proof yet again that any linux distro is still not ready to be a mainstream OS for the joe public user.
its great for playing with, but thats it.

I reckon on balance you are probably right as things stand right now, but not ~all~ of the above posts prove that.

I don't think there's any doubt that linux installers are getting better - eventually it will get to be suitable for the average man in the street - particularly when shipped pre-installed, with suppliers providing support.

colin79666

Fedora on and off. Soon going to be doing a module at uni on Linux Server admin so no doubt will learn a lot there and will experiment with more distros.