Which linux distribution do you like the best?

[ichwar]

Which linux distribution do you like the best?

I've tried Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and OpenSuse. They are all nice in their own way, but does anyone have any suggestions on a better linux operating system? I don't really want something with too fancy of a GUI, it tends to take too much of my system resources. I'm looking for something that will run really smoothly on really old systems.

Any suggestions? Could you also tell me why you like the distro too?

Thanks in advance?

 

[xPlozion]

i've been using archlinux for more than a year now, and have tried all the major ones (got a 64 cd case filled w/ them), including ubuntu, fedora, debian, freebsd, gentoo, opensuse, and none of them compared to arch for speed and usability.

when installed, arch has the bare minimums to have a working distro. this means vital programs and it drops you to the terminal. their package manager is very easy pacman -Syu does a complete system update as well as synchronizes the info. installing a de is as simple as pacman -S xorg gnome gnome-extras, and if you've got a new nvidia vid card, pacman -S nvidia

i've had this running on old systems back from 98 with openbox and it was running fast. it's got the speed of gentoo and slackware, but it's got binary packages. the system config is based off of freebsd's, so the important system configs are located at /etc/rc.conf (timezone, network setup, programs running at start (from /etc/rc.d/), and more). the programs are compiled with i686 flags, not i386 which many of them do, and there's a large list of them too. if it's not in the official repo's, then it's in abs (user contributable packages).

 

[Max1337]

I like SLED (Novell SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop)
Best working Linux OS I've used so far.

 

[ichwar]

xPlozion, does Archlinux come with the Gnome desktop environment? I don't really care for XFCE too much.

Max, is SLED free? I mean, it's not all open source is it? But do you have to pay for it like RedHat?

 

[Max1337]

For updates, yea... but just to use it, no.
I'm not sure if it's open source, I never really looked into that for SLED lol

 

[Smith6612]

I've been running Fedora here for some time so I chose that.

 

[xPlozion]

it comes with gnome, kde, *box, xfce, and many others, it's just you have to install them the way i mentioned above. it's pretty simple, and depending on the server you choose, can be pretty fast

pacman is as powerful as debian's apt-get, but when i was using debian, i didn't like apt-get.

btw, i use gnome when i'm on windows. i do not like kde as it's got too many redundant useless programs and uses more resources. also, kde4 was a bit buggy w/ me when it was released, and haven't looked at it again (i've been gnome since i've had arch installed).

 

[Starshine]

I have Fedora on another machine that I am trying out. I've been a DOS / Windows person from the start.

Not to be off-topic, but as its referring to linux OS, I am curious what you all would suggestion as a good server OS to use ( linux based )

I would have 2 windows based machines connecting through it. ( a laptop with Vista and an older desktop with XP media edition )

Although I can download and install Win Server 03 to use instead.

 

[ichwar]

it comes with gnome, kde, *box, xfce, and many others, it's just you have to install them the way i mentioned above. it's pretty simple, and depending on the server you choose, can be pretty fast

pacman is as powerful as debian's apt-get, but when i was using debian, i didn't like apt-get.

btw, i use gnome when i'm on windows. i do not like kde as it's got too many redundant useless programs and uses more resources. also, kde4 was a bit buggy w/ me when it was released, and haven't looked at it again (i've been gnome since i've had arch installed).

OK, It sounds like archlinux is pretty fast then. That's what I'm looking for, speed and stability on a really old box.:thefinger
Edit:

I have Fedora on another machine that I am trying out. I've been a DOS / Windows person from the start.

Not to be off-topic, but as its referring to linux OS, I am curious what you all would suggestion as a good server OS to use ( linux based )

I would have 2 windows based machines connecting through it. ( a laptop with Vista and an older desktop with XP media edition )

Although I can download and install Win Server 03 to use instead.

I've never tried to congfigure a server before, but Ubuntu does have a dedicated server edition that you could try. I'm not sure if it comes with everything you need, but it's better than trying to do it with a desktop edition, uses too much of the cpu.

 

[hamsn]

If you want vista like graphics and themes pre installed, its openSUSE
else like xp, then Ubuntu

 

[ichwar]

ok, I'm downloading the USB img file for ArchLinux.
What I need right now is the ndiswrapper for Archlinux since my wireless G network adapter doesn't have a native linux driver.
Does anyone know where to get Ndiswrapper for ArchLinux? Or does it come with ArchLinux?

Also, does anyone know of a good installation tutorial?
I've never done a text based installation before, so I don't know how to even start.
I'm not 'afraid' of the command line though, I just need to know what to do.

Thanks!

 

[nandifamily]

How do u run the gnome interface on windows?

it comes with gnome, kde, *box, xfce, and many others, it's just you have to install them the way i mentioned above. it's pretty simple, and depending on the server you choose, can be pretty fast

pacman is as powerful as debian's apt-get, but when i was using debian, i didn't like apt-get.

btw, i use gnome when i'm on windows. i do not like kde as it's got too many redundant useless programs and uses more resources. also, kde4 was a bit buggy w/ me when it was released, and haven't looked at it again (i've been gnome since i've had arch installed).

 

[ichwar]

How do u run the gnome interface on windows?

Lol, you can't do that dude

 

[Max1337]

lol
The Gnome interface is for Linux, not Windows

 

[alexandgruntz]

I'm not a Linux expert - all I use it for really is accessing (potentially) virus infected drives, so I'm running Ubuntu.

 

[dbojan]

If you want vista like graphics and themes pre installed, its openSUSE
else like xp, then Ubuntu

I dont know why would anyone chose some distro because of themes. Themes are easy to find and install. I prefer using Slackware and it comes with default kde theme and not even a wallpaper is changed.

 

[crabbypup]

i use puppy linux. it runs on everything from a P2 with 128mb of ram to my laptop with an amd dual core with 3gb of ram. it will use any graphics card with 4mb of graphics memory or more. and it looks pretty good too. it uses icewm and gtk with an option to use jwm instead of icewm. you can add almost any wm you want to it. it has full slax 12 binary compatibility.

 

[xPlozion]

How do u run the gnome interface on windows?

lol, oops, didn't notice i typed that. must have had windows in mind when typing that upat:

 

[ichwar]

lol, oops, didn't notice i typed that. must have had windows in mind when typing that upat:

you typed that???

 

[idfizbo]

I'm a fan of Knoppix all the way, although to be fair, I have a very specific usage for it: data recovery. I can't tell you the number of times that people have brought their computers to me, saying that every repair tech they took it to said the hard drive was slag, and I got the full data back with Knoppix. Great distro.

For use as an actual full-time OS, though, I'd go for Ubuntu. A friend of mine swears up and down by it, and it seems extremely stable. Granted, I've never used it extensively myself, but from what I've seen, that's where my vote goes.