Linux distributions

[marcel]

What Linux distribution are you guys using, and why?

[jacek]

and why?

The answer is simple --- because it's the best. You're really asking for a holy war.

[marcel]

The answer is simple --- because it's the best. You're really asking for a holy war

You voted for other . Did I miss any big/popular distro?
So what is the name of the distro?

[Gopala Krishna]

Yeah jacek, but this is also a nice chance to know some of goodies of different distros..
Whatever it is, i use kubuntu on my main system and recently installed yoper on my old 900 MHz pc. Yoper really is fast and good(10 mins install with all basic tools in one cd) . :-)
As far as kubuntu is concerned there should be many more people to post about it

[wysota]

You missed PLD that Jacek uses. And yes, you are asking for a distro war. Oh, and your choice of distros is really weird No LFS? No Ubuntu but Kubuntu present? No Redhat (be it Enterprise or an old installation of RH 9-)? What about other Debian flavours and non-debian Distros?

Oh, forgot to argument my vote... Debian because it's very stable and very secure and very selfmaintaining for servers and Mandriva, because it was the first distro I managed to install and I didn't have a reason to uninstall it. Sometimes I also use LFS, but I decided not to vote for "other", as I haven't booted it for over a year.

[marcel]

Oh, and your choice of distros is really weird No LFS? No Ubuntu but Kubuntu present? No Redhat (be it Enterprise or an old installation of RH 9-)? What about other Debian flavours and non-debian Distros?

It was a hard choice, yes, but mostly because the poll can have a max of 10 options. I tried to choose only "veteran" distributions. And yes, I should have mentioned Ubuntu too.

[fullmetalcoder]

I tried them all since I first booted a live CD and I'm currently using Frugalware (Slackware derived) and Zenwalk (Other) because they are able to kick the living shit out of my low end PC which has lagged behind for a couple of years already... It may change when I get a new computer but its I guess I'll wait for KDE 4 to be released so I've got plenty of time left to make a choice...

[Brandybuck]

I'm not using Linux, I'm using a real operating system! FreeBSD!

[marcel]

Come on... I admit that FreeBSD is one of the best but the poll was about Linux.
Anyway since you mentioned a Unix, I think Solaris kicks the asses of all BSDs out there.

[wysota]

Linux is GNU and GNU = GNU is Not Unix

[Michiel]

Gentoo! Because it's one of the few distro's that works for/with me. Because of Portage / use-flags. Because of the excellent Gentoo community.

[Gopala Krishna]

Is it possible to use two different linux distros on the same system along with win-xp ? Someone told me that though it might be possible, its likely to decrease the performance of system!
I want to try gentoo without spoiling my stable kubuntu(feisty) installation.

[marcel]

Yes, I have used xp + slackware + suse and sometimes xp + slackware + freebsd and sometimes xp + slackware + solaris .

It is just a matter of who's bootloader you use. I've always used LILO, from slackware. Just add the other OS's to /etc/lilo.conf and runu lilo. Of course, grub can handle it too.

Someone told me that though it might be possible, its likely to decrease the performance of system!

That's a lie ! Unless you decrease the performance, a linux distro can't . A computer does only what you tell it to do.

Installing multiple os's is just a matter of having free hard-disk space.

Bottom line, you always have to use the bootloader from one of your linux distros, since XP's bootloader can't be configured that easily. I didn't even tried, although I have read some articles on the internet that stated it was possible.

For me LILO is just fine.

EDIT: just be careful when you create the partitions for the new system. Typically, all you need is a root partition and a swap partition. I always use cfdisk or even fdisk since it gives more control. So try to use those, if you can, not the installer's partitioning utility.
For example, the one from SuSE sucks, so I bet there are other systems just like that.

[Gopala Krishna]

Thanks Marcel, may be i can reserve one partition to try linux distros.

[hgedek]

Iam using SUSE.I tried debian,fedora,ubuntu,gentoo.But I couldnt use them long time as suse.I am happy with it and still using it.

[Tux-Slack]

Is it possible to use two different linux distros on the same system along with win-xp ? Someone told me that though it might be possible, its likely to decrease the performance of system!
I want to try gentoo without spoiling my stable kubuntu(feisty) installation.

It's posible.
But you should rather try some Virtual Machine for testing out distros and you won't mess with anything. VMware, VirtualBox, qemu...

I'm using Slackware 12 on my work-laptop and Slackware 11 on my home file server.
Why Slackware? SSSS.
Stability
Safety
Speed
Simplicity.
In that order.
And because of the great Slack comunity.
Slack 11 on server because I'm to bussy and lazy to upgrade. And it does its job and never had any problems with it.

[Kumosan]

Currently using Gentoo, but this will change soon. I am not directly interested in Linux and I don't want to waste that much time anymore to search the Gentoo forum after each world update to get everything that broke running again.

[Brandybuck]

I needed a Linux on my laptop (because of the necessity to use a closed source proprietary video driver), and due to the lack of time, I put on Kubuntu. Other than knetworkmanager, which I like, the rest of the distro seems rather lackluster and somewhat buggy. When this project is complete, I am thinking about putting on Slackware.

[marcel]

When I started this thread/poll I was also in search for a distribution fit to be installed on a laptop.
I use Slackware on my desktop and never had any reasons to complain,but when I first installed it on my laptop it turned out it did not have any power saving features available.
For example, the cpufreq modules are not automatically loaded and I don't know if they even are compiled(they should be, I'll have to check this). Therefore the CPU was running at full voltage even when it didn't needed to. The videocard can also run in power saving mode, but I can't take advantage of it since nVidia saw fit not to distribute the GeForce Go 8xxxm series drivers themselves, instead they let the laptop manufacturer release them. The worst part is that there's no version for Linux, so I'm stuck with the generic 'nv' driver.

At that moment I turned my head towards SuSE. It seemed really good. I installed the 10.3 release and it had all support I wished for. Unfortunately I realized after using it a little bit that it sucks. KDE was completely modified, you don't know what's what. It doesn't even look like KDE. Basic tools are missing, such as mc. God knows what else was missing, but I didn't want to stay and find out so I quickly uninstalled it(actually installed slackware over it). I wonder if SuSE users really know how a freshly compiled KDE looks like...

So I installed Slackware 12 and I will configure the kernel myself for whatever I will need, whenever I get around with it. It is fast, simple, easy to update and easy to maintain. So I recommend it for a laptop, but only if you have the time to stay and configure it.

[Brandybuck]

So I installed Slackware 12 and I will configure the kernel myself for whatever I will need, whenever I get around with it. It is fast, simple, easy to update and easy to maintain. So I recommend it for a laptop, but only if you have the time to stay and configure it.

I am thinking of dumping this Kubuntu and putting Slackware on my work laptop. My requirements are simple, but too simple for today's complicated *nix world. A fairly minimalist base install, decent package management, vanilla KDE, and open source drivers for my hardware. Slackware doesn't have decent package management, and hoping for open source drivers is still as delusional as it was ten years ago. Oh well. Slack still comes closest.