Its kind of like asking which kind of car is the best - there is no single distro that suits everyone perfectly. At the end of the day, it comes down to what you're looking for. As a starting point, you probably want to use something that will just give you a taste for Linux and get you running without too much fuss. Something like Ubuntu is usually a good starting point, their driver support is very good straight off the disc, and a lot of the inner working are hidden from you. After a couple of weeks/months, you might find Ubuntu's ease of use getting in the way or get the itch to learn some more. You might want to try something more easily configurable like Debian (what Ubuntu is based off of), or to take that to another level, Gentoo or Arch where you are forced to install everything you need yourself. If you're patient and not afraid of a bit of reading, Arch or Gentoo will teach you a lot from installing them. I personally love Arch - I have actually had less issues using it than Ubuntu recently. Just be aware that going with a smaller distro as your first means a smaller support network, so you may be on your own for a lot of things if you choose to go that way - Google is your friend.
No answer from me.. Too many variables like cpu architecture and other hardware.. I'm not even going to get into the skills part. What is it with this "what's the best" BS all the time these days.. the best surely is what works for you reliably all the time. Never buy the most expensive, and never buy the cheapest.. the best will always be somewhere in the middle... solid quality at a fair price.. Regardless.. debian with all it's faults has the largest user base.
There is no best. But these are all imo: For desktop (noobs): Ubuntu - due to big community gathering, lots of driver support and apt-get Easiest Server to configure: Suse enterprise server - Yast2 is awesome. It wizardises everything (almost) For reliability and easy of use (server): Red hat - Simple and logical system configureation Most secure: Debian - If your smart enough to understand it Most useful "out of box" package: Backtrack - millions of scripts and utilities
i worked of many linux and i found SUSE most intresting and stable...its graphics are awesome......i think you should try SUSE....by the way debian redhat , ubuntu all r gud ....but my personal favourite is SUSE.....rest is up2 u
I have tried openSuSE recently, within the last 3 weeks.. It's a donkey!!, Disabled deliberately by novell to allow NO P2P, no mulitmedia.. faulty cd support (after 6 hours I could find NO WAY to play an audio cd for more than 30 seconds before the drive ejected) The OS is crippled with DRM and selinux (hated by fedora users) with drives mounted by device ID rather in the normal linux way.. somewhere this has been set because modifying the mountpoints (which should be a doddle by editing fstab) breaks everything.. stupid c****!!.. and NO c-media support for soundcards.. the cmi8738/8788 series must be the most common onboard cards before the useless ac97 junk came along. It is very poor seemingly by design.. Back in suse 10.0 days it was the distro I would recommend wholeheartedly to new users.. not any more. suse doesn't work.. IT IS NOT FOR NEW USERS.. AVOID unless you wnt to BUY IT with support. Even the suse community online are disheartened and drifting away. I asked about the cd and soundcard problems on the suse forums and all anybody could say was use debian or fedora.. says everything.... kaadi.. if you want to tell new users to install something this broken I hope you are ready to answer all the questions which have NO ANSWERS about why simple things don't work all the time. BTW.. I don't believe you are actually a linux user.. We have this horrible habit of using REAL ENGLISH as a command line doesn't understand gibberish INIT 0
All the simple configuration tools in the world don't change the fact that if it is done RIGHT, you generally only need to use them once. Instead, they can tend to increase the complexity of what is at the end of the day a really simple config file, and then options can become hidden away in tabs or obscure check boxes etc (the "sticky keys" disable option for instance in keyboard settings). While they might be easier on the eyes, they tend to be a self fulfilling need quite often, and then if X dies, anyone reliant on the GUI is stuck bleating for help on forums. Several years back I actually bought a copy of SuSE 9.1, was my first distro ever. Yes, configuration wasn't hard, but I've gotta say, I wasn't that impressed back in the day, and even after dropping money on it I gave up on Linux for a while after that. The FOSS movement has come a long way since then, I probably wouldn't have been happy with any distro back in the day. But I wouldn't touch SuSE with a 50ft pole today. Novell is a scourge, and Mono/Moonlight is just a disaster waiting to happen.
I think every experienced user should download openSuSE 10.3 and attempt to install and use it. It's a great example of what happens when the enemy buy something, and then say they are keeping it up in direct competition with their "you will pay" OS. Real eye opener.
im actually using a distro called trustix at the moment for various tasks. Its great. Very small distro based off red hat. Runs well on a pentium 300mhz with 64mb ram and 4 gig hdd lol. (no graphical user interface)
i had been told and convinced by the beauty of the ubuntu website that ubuntu was the superior breed.....i made the move over to debian just yesterday (new HDD ya) and i must say......what have i been missing all these years? why in gods good name did i ever install ubuntu to start off with? its like win98 all over again;D just a happy little man right now -tripplite
^^ told you .. Ubuntu is great for starting out, and finding out about your hardware. It's what they target it at IMHO.. new users and first timers. once you get over the fear of using the command line to install something that isn't in the repositories a few times, and install all the dependencies that are missing to compile your first source package it all opens up. Now trustix.. I very much like it. It is probably the best and fullest of the mini distros in this release cycle. Some little things, but nothing that would make me say "avoid" at all. I think most of the live cd distros are good for starting out. I can't survive out on the road without my puppy and killbill disks. (I hates XP so bad.. so bad.. and sh1tsta I will not even allow to boot) Currently I'm checking the live and installable notebook OS releases.. not much time for anything else right now. So it starts to get definitive.. Ubuntu or Live cd = newbie/special use/dual boot. Live cd distros once installed can either be great or a nightmare. can't comment really. Try them and see if they work for you. Debian (and derivatives) = slightly more skilled.. say about a month or two in before you are confident Fedora/redhat = about the same as debian, but be prepared for some hardware to be badly supported, and possibly some DRM issues. It is related to a commercial OS after all. Suse = broken by design.. Novell are owned by microsux so avoid. Sabayon/gentoo = the way to go if you really like having control and you have 64bit hardware and cutting edge graphics etc. Sabayon is great IMHO.. slaughters vista on new "built for vista" hardware.. try it live dvd boot on a vista64 machine and see!! It is even faster installed. Homebrew/LFS = fun.. great fun. Nothing better than doing a command line minimal installation and then adding the things you want. I have a p2 with 32mb ram that runs debian lenny kernel, with fluxbox, rox and a couple of internet apps. Still lacking a good small browser which works. Dillo is an antique and the next smallest I could find kazehakase is too ram heavy. If you have an old pc hanging about I would suggest this to everybody with a couple of spare evenings and a few skills..the most important skill you will find using linux is the ability to read and understand instructions.. the internet is full of cryptic linux pages about apparently nothing.. until the day you have no sound because your soundcard wasn't detected during install.. or x doesn't start, or or or... You take those skills and apply them to that random collection of bugs and obsolete patched to hell and back code M$ call an "operating system" and you look like a fekkin genius.. I mean that most sincerely.
@varnull hi frnd.......i suggested that guy because its stable and its easy to install on ne of desktop ....it gives problem only wen u r trying to install it on SCSI disk....n i guess SLES 9 service pack 4 is pretty stable and yes i am not a linux user actually i am a linux administrator but a new one ...working from last one n half year...not gud enough i guess...to comment on what you said........ Thanks for giving right advice at right time.
Trying to read your post makes my head hurt. It might be cool on your mobile phone when talking to your other cool friends to spell "any" as "ne" and "good" as "gud", but it just makes everyone here think you are a complete noob (and a tool) with no credibility...
kaadi - please treat forums the same as if you were typing Linux commands, ie if you don't use the correct syntax things won't work. Full, real words only in future thanks..
C'mon creaky.. mandriva and tiny-me review please? We can build a great user thread of what works and what doesn't here
What can i say.. i've been using Mandriva (obviously previously known as Mandrake) for 7years, i think the first version i used was 8.1, have used most versions in between, and without issue. Well the odd problem here and there, but nothing unfixable. One of my 3 work pc's is Mandriva 2008.0, in fact i just noticed that 2008.1 (2008 'Spring') has just been released. I can't be doing with rebuilding that PC yet, it's a workhorse running Enlightenment nicely (P4 2.66); it's hard to justify hours of downtime at work, rebuilding pc's too often, and am perfectly happy with the stability of that pc, it's got an uptime of 4 months or so. As to TinyMe, test release 7 is excellent, it's my other main work Linux pc (uptime of 2 months or so, P3 800). I use both of those pc's for Production work ie maintaining our Unix boxes, plus 1 of the machines is used to burn Production billing data, the other machine is used to checksum said data. I also use the TinyMe machine as my radio listening machine; i work far away from home, so one of my local radio stations is simply too far to get at via a normal radio, i use RealPlayer on TinyMe to tune in to one of my favourite shows. My 3rd pc is Windows XP and Office 2003, even with 1GB of RAM it's not very usable at all, in fact it's bearly usable for checking emails. When it's on go-slow (most of the time), i keep a webmail window open on the linux pc's or use my Blackberry. Anyways, i'm not one for giving real detailed info on distro's, long ago i used to try loads of distro's, and often, but it got to the stage where all i was doing was checking out distro's and not actually using them for work purposes enough, so i settled back with a couple stable distro's and now just upgrade once in a blue moon. They only really get changed if they're found to be lacking ie stopping Production work getting done. Of course what that means is that the machines are used mostly for terminal sessions for scripting/misc work and browsers constantly open for information gathering. At home i now only have 3 linux machines. 1/ my main laptop is a dual-boot of XP and Mandriva 2006.1, i very rarely use the Mandriva side of the laptop anymore, it's rock-solid and everything, it's just not used anymore. 2/ have an old and trusty Dell GX-150 tower (P3 1GHz) which runs TinyMe, i only really use that now and then as i have other Windows machines that i use more) 3/ my new Dual Core multiboot machine (4 boots), it has XP, TinyMe, Mandriva 2008.0 and MiniMe 2008. Even this machine doesn't get used that often as i spend most time using the sexy Quad Core machine for AVI and DVD work. I only have 1 pair of hands at the end of the day
Wow, this thread still runs on the first page? Im using CentOS at the moment. Its pretty sweet. Its basically red hat compiled from the source with the red hat stickers removed.
when i saw a load of old linux threads being updated in my inbox i knew there was a post padder on the loose... let's not post for the sake of it in future, you can just subscribe to things, then post when you actually have something of use to add...
