*nixers, please give us a few words about your *nix of choice.

[drag]

I use slackware. I was using 8.0 up to last week when i fried it. formatted wrong harddrive.. doh

Now I use 8.1 and like kde3 very very much. I use slackware because I enjoy using command line much more than using a gui. So I like having no graphical configuration stuff to deal with. (like X but don't want to depend on it). On the flip side I like pretty pictures very much (i am a artist and very visual). And kde fits the eye candy bill very well with minimal effort. (i have something like 30 background pictures set on a rotation (changes every 5min).

I think that slackware is a very good comprimise between a minimalistic ideal (like openbsd) and bloated user-freindly distro (like redhat or mandrake).

As far as optimization goes I just compile a custom kernel (2.4.19) and get rid of any services I don't want (slacks package tool is very good at this) and it seems more that fast enough (though I definatly want more memory, 128 megs falls short when I have kde running at full force and have 6-7 apps going.)

I use Openbsd on another computer (I use it as a X terminal) and I like it very much. It is very HARDCORE and I love that very much. I will shortly set it up as a internet server (for personal use: ftp, ssh, maybe apache), so I won't have to worry about security with having services running from my desktop.

The downside of openbsd is that it doesn't fit the bill as a desktop OS. It's just not easy to deal with and the port stuff is just not up to date. Of course it would be my OS of choice in a professional enviroment and/or I needed to depend on security for my well-being.

 

[gaidin123]

Having used a few of the *nixes out there over the past 5-6 years I guess I'll toss out my opinions.

I started with FreBSD 2.x and was pretty confused as it was my first step away from Mac OS and Win95. I learned a bit from it but eventually tossed it in favor of Redhat a year or so later.

I began using RedHat to do basic ipmasquerading on a home router which taught me loads about Linux and basic networking/firewalling. Redhat seems to have the largest userbase and is one of the few distros to actually get corporate support. Things work in RedHat pretty well and if they don't, you will be able to search around and find out why. I've never had great luck with RPMs and rpming some programs while ./configure, make, make installing other programs always felt kind of odd to me. RPMs were idiot proof, when they actually installed and didn't run into dependency errors. Also oftentimes I found that the available rpms weren't as up to date as the current stable source so I found myself heading to source code more and more.

After a time I installed Slackware 8 and found that I really enjoyed the stripped down nature of the OS. I didn't need X for this box and the system booted very quickly and didn't take up much diskspace, unlike RedHat.

I played with OpenBSD as a bridging firewall for a few months which we never ended up putting in to production use. OpenBSD installs very quickly and is solid, er except for some bridging code in 3.0 stable but that has since been fixed. I learned IPF just as PF was announced after the licensing argument that the OpenBSD maintainers and the author of IPF (Theo and Darren Reed). PF seemed great as well but I haven't had much reason to play with OpenBSD in a while.

After that I got a Fujitsu lifebook p-series running a Crusoe 800mhz and decided to install Gentoo Linux 1.0 on it. After reading that you compiled the whole system from scratch I got very interested since the Crusoe is a somewhat underpowered processor. I absolutely love Gentoo Linux. I've never had an easier KDE or X Windows install. It is simple to install new services or update current ones using portage/emerge. Want the KDE liquid theme? Just emerge it and you will have it installed, perfectly the first time. Portage has also been the most frustrating part about using Gentoo. While keeping your system up to date you will inevitably run into a package that will not compile/install on your system. Whether the build file just doesn't work with your class processor or whether the person that submitted the build messed up, it will cause you headaches. I've also managed to completely kill portage once where I had to reghost from an older backup.

At work we use HP/UX on expensive, but slow seeming HP servers. Those things are tanks that I've never seen crash in over a year. Updating the software on them is a pain due to an unusual C compiler and other reasons (proprietary software with support agreements where we can't do a lot on the system or have to have it a certain way in order to get support). Logical volume management on HPs is great. I don't know the state of LVM under linux (or if such a thing exists for windows) at the moment but it's a great feature.

So, to sum up what turned into a rather long post: I user Gentoo Linux on laptop and Linux router and love it minus a few portage issues, use slackware on a low traffic server and like it though never installed GUI components in it, used OpenBSD for a few months and liked it too but it is not a desktop system for me, and like the stability and LVM of HP/UX but not the oddities of it.

Gaidin

 

[straubs]

Originally posted by: gennro
Worst thing about linux is the game support guys, if u like games u really can't live with linux, but for everything else linux can do it better then windows.

I have to agree with this. I really wish some linux programmers would find some time to play some games!

I bet there would be SO many more linux users then. Especially now that the setup has evolved as far as I've seen with Mandrake. So easy!

 

[Fish54]

I favor FreeBSD as my OS of choice. The reasons for this are many, but basically what it comes down to is that it works and works well. The ports collection is great, and I love being able to use cvsup to make upgrading simple. Administration is mostly very intuitive... IMO, much more so than linux. I also think that kernel compilation is simple and straight forward, which I never thought was the case in linux.

With all of this said, I have been testing gentoo linux on a spare box, and I am considering installing it on my main machine for one reason. That reason is games (and the fact that I like to switch my OS a lot... I just haven't found a good replacement for FBSD yet). Right now I have an ATI Radeon that does DRI in FreeBSD, but I would like to get my GeForce2 back in action using the Nvidia linux drivers that actually support OpenGL.

I like that FreeBSD supported my Promise TX/2 out of the box and acted like my RAID0 'drive' was a real harddrive without doing ANYTHING. I love the stability and unity of BSD, and I will always use it on the server side... and frankly, I will probably come back to it as my desktop even if I run linux for a while.

Besides... isn't the daemon cooler than a penguin?

 

[thornc]

I have to say that Tru64 Unix(OSF,Digital Unix, etc were previous names) is my great Unix OS of choice!!
We still use it on a bunch of AlphaStation we have here and it's great(part of the greatness comes from the CPU!)
Very stable and reliable, good support (COMPAQ decreased it from great!)...

On my workStation I stil have WNT packed with CygWin and a X Server, so all *nix CLI and GUI needs are covered,
and nothing beats a good unix shell as a CLI! I usually connect to our file server that is running RH because of it's
vast industry support, in fact every x86 machine(that uses *nix) here at the lab is running some version of RedHat!

My lappy runs slackware 8.0 (still haven't updated to 8.1) because I did a minimalistic install from ZipSlack and
added the few extras that I needed (mostly tex+latex).

At home I currently use LFS but I usually change distros a lot, since my *nix needs at home at very minimal.

 

[Nothinman]

Currently using Debian 3.0 on 3 boxes, BBWF pretty much summed up why.

I would like to add though that Debian 3.0 was released on 11 different architectures, which itself is an amazing feat considering how many packages are available in Debian (>8000 last I checked in woody, sid now has >11000 IIRC), and it's great to have one OS that behaves exactly the same on completely different hardware from my Ultra1 SBUS based box to my Alpha and Athlon PCI based ones.

 

[MrBubba]

In my opinion, Solaris 9 on UltraSparc hardware is the best. It is scalable from my Ultra30 to computers that cost over $1 million. Making an OS for your own hardware is always good, as you know what kind of hardware will go in it. I am suprised that no one has said anything about Mac OSX. I have no experiance with it, but my company will be buying an Xserve (2x1ghz g4s, 2GB DDR ram, 4x120 Gb hds), and I am very excited to get my hands on it.

MrBubba

 

[Nothinman]

In my opinion, Solaris 9 on UltraSparc hardware is the best. It is scalable from my Ultra30 to computers that cost over $1 million.

The problem is that scalability comes at a cost. The very fine grained locking needed to scale to 64, 128, etc processors just adds overhead on 1 or 2 processors (obviously it's needed on 2 cpu boxes but even FreeBSD runs well on 2 CPU boxes with it's 1 BKL), I had Solaris 8 on my Ultra1 but now it runs Linux and Linux is noticably faster at some things, UI responsiveness is one hell even starting an xterm was faster.

I am suprised that no one has said anything about Mac OSX. I have no experiance with it, but my company will be buying an Xserve (2x1ghz g4s, 2GB DDR ram, 4x120 Gb hds), and I am very excited to get my hands on it.

OS X is a really cool desktop and I'm surprised n0c hasn't posted about it, but I don't think I'd run it as a server. Especially when you can get practically the same hardware cheaper and run a more time-tested OS like Linux or FreeBSD. If you have time to play around with it, try getting dhcpd running on it. I installed it on a friend's G4 for his home network and it works so-so, but sometimes it just stop noticing any traffic and needs to be restarted, I run the same version of dhcpd on Linux on my Ultra1 at my place and it's never done anything like that.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Yeah yeah yeah, Ill get around to Mac OS X and OpenBSD soon. Just been busy and frazzled. I want to stick to my own thread rules after all

 

[Fish54]

I'm gunna go with Nothinman on that...

I had a Sparcstation 20, albeit a very slow machine, but it ran Debian very well, much better than it could run Solaris 8. Also, I do agree that the UI on Sparcs running Solaris is very slow, but on the server end, they are quite amazing. I consider them to be more of a Big Rig than a Sports car tho, definately not the fastest, but solid, strong and reliable. (BTW, did everone see that Solaris x86 is back? here )

As for OSX, I have played with it a bit, and it seems that even though Desktop functions are very good, and it's a very pretty OS, it has its flaws. I feel that the GUI is oversimplified... probably catering to the normal Mac users, but it forces me to go to a terminal to do any of the fun stuff I want to play with. Also, as a server it lacks stability and as Nothinman said, tends to have processes that just stop responding (ie apache, dhcpd, etc).

Originally, I wasn't planning on commenting on these two systems, but I was a Unix Admin for over 22 Solaris machines and a couple OSX boxes, so I couldn't resist putting in my 2 cents.

 

[PG]

I've tried various Linux distributions, but I really like Mandrake.
Red Hat had problems with several of my mice and the latest version doesn't have Star Office or even Open Office if I remember correctly.
I bought the 8.2 Power Pack and am very happy with it. It came with Star Office 6.0 which is worth more than the whole price of the Power Pack when you think about it.

I'm more of a desktop type user so Mandrake really works well for me. With some work I got the Nvidia drivers up and working so I can play Quake 3 on Linux. Yes, I was lucky and got the Linux version from Best Buy a while back for just $10.
I also found some plugin rpm's so I can watch all DVD's in Xine. By default it won't play the encrypted ones.

It's nice to have all these features, and there are many more too. I haven't even looked at most of the installed software yet and there's a ton of free software on available the net too.

 

[foocoding]

Great thread, n0c...

Maybe you guys can help me.

I'm building a new PC, and I just can't decide on an OS. I've used all the BSD's, and my favorite right now is openbsd, which I currently have on my laptop.

OpenBSD just feels so perfect for me, but I can't help but think of some of the linux software I'm missing out on. It usually takes a while for new linux software to be ported over, which is a problem for a technophile like me ;P

So, if I do go with openbsd, will I be able to play DVD's right away, take advantage of my dual head g550, etc etc? Maybe, but probably not as well and linux will.

I'd like to be able to play the occasional game of quake3, but that's it for gaming. Any suggestions?

 

[Nothinman]

It usually takes a while for new linux software to be ported over, which is a problem for a technophile like me ;P

Depends on the software, a lot will compile without changes even if ports havn't been updated.

I'd like to be able to play the occasional game of quake3, but that's it for gaming. Any suggestions?

Doesn't DRI require Linux (because it uses a Linux kernel module to do the direct stuff)?

 

[GigaCluster]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

It usually takes a while for new linux software to be ported over, which is a problem for a technophile like me ;P

Depends on the software, a lot will compile without changes even if ports havn't been updated.

I thought you could enable Linux binary compatibility on *BSD. At least FreeBSD 4.3 let me do it, and I cannot remember a single program that I tried that wouldn't run.

 

[Nothinman]

I thought you could enable Linux binary compatibility on *BSD. At least FreeBSD 4.3 let me do it, and I cannot remember a single program that I tried that wouldn't run.

You can, but why run the app in emulation if you don't have to?

 

[foocoding]

It seems XFree86 put in matrox g550 + dualhead support in 4.2. So that's one less worry

I'm just going to go with openbsd I think. It just feels so perfect whenever I use it. It's like it was built for me

And if it doesnt work out, format and install linux, costs me nothing so what the hell! God I love unix.

 

[CTho9305]

I use a posix-compliant-kernel-based OS most of the time... not a *nix but anyway...
I like it because it runs all my applications without any extra compatibility layers... it detected all my hardware instantly... and it looks nice.

I also use debian because its package management is almost as good as in the other OS I use... and in my opinion beats the other remaining options. It is also very configurable and not too hard to set up once you figure out which 100 or so of the billion pakages you actually want (that's one of my quips - it is VERY difficult to figure out which packages to use. maybe they should add a "x other people used this package over the others that do the same thing to get it AND updated it later")

 

[jhu]

i have netbsd on my sparcstation ipx. it's not doing much right now, but it used to be my webserver. i find it's faster than linux on most things.

my router is a 486 running linux without a harddrive.

my main system is running linux from scratch just for the hell of it.

 

[Fish54]

DRI does work on FreeBSD: DRI on FreeBSD

Linux compatability isn't a true emulation of a Linux environment in the classical sense, its a linux kernel and collection of libraries, etc that can be used to run linux apps. In fact, on many occasions, FreeBSD runs linux apps faster than Linux does, although it's estimated to only run around 90% of linux apps, and doesn't do so well with ones that rely heavily on the /proc filesystem.

From the FreeBSD Handbook:
In effect, there is a Linux kernel in the FreeBSD kernel; the various underlying functions that implement all of the services provided by the kernel are identical to both the FreeBSD system call table entries, and the Linux system call table entries: file system operations, virtual memory operations, signal delivery, System V IPC, etc... The only difference is that FreeBSD binaries get the FreeBSD glue functions, and Linux binaries get the Linux glue functions (most older OS's only had their own glue functions: addresses of functions in a static global sysent[] structure array, instead of addresses of functions dereferenced off a dynamically initialized pointer in the proc structure of the process making the call).

Which one is the native FreeBSD ABI? It does not matter. Basically the only difference is that (currently; this could easily be changed in a future release, and probably will be after this) the FreeBSD glue functions are statically linked into the kernel, and the Linux glue functions can be statically linked, or they can be accessed via a kernel module.

Yeah, but is this really emulation? No. It is an ABI implementation, not an emulation. There is no emulator (or simulator, to cut off the next question) involved.

So why is it sometimes called ``Linux emulation''? To make it hard to sell FreeBSD! Really, it is because the historical implementation was done at a time when there was really no word other than that to describe what was going on; saying that FreeBSD ran Linux binaries was not true, if you did not compile the code in or load a module, and there needed to be a word to describe what was being loaded--hence ``the Linux emulator''.

 

[Nothinman]

I didn't figure DRI was Linux-only, but I wasn't aware (i.e. didn't look =)) how much had been done in FreeBSD.

That was also a really good explanation of the Linux ABI implementation, I wasn't aware how it exactly worked. Now that it's on paper it makes sense and it's basically the same as the Linux binary personality support that lets it run Tru64 apps on Alpha Linux and Solaris apps on Sparc Linux.

 

[cmv]

I started out with Slackware way back in the 90's then I tried RedHat when it started getting popular along with a lot of other distributions. Eventually started using RedHat a lot - especially at work. Finally got around to trying Debian and enjoyed it for a couple years. Somewhere in there I also used OpenBSD for a while (and still do for firewalls). I also got around to trying FreeBSD and learned about "make world" and cvsup'ing stable, ports, portupgrade, etc. Right now I still use OpenBSD, RedHat, Debian and FreeBSD. My lone Debian machine is my laptop which I plan on moving to FreeBSD when I order a bigger hard drive. For linux machines I prefer RedHat over Debian because RedHat is just more my thing. I prefer some sharp edges over ultra dull edges. Another way to explain would be that RedHat has a reputation for being a bit cutting edge (using software before it's time) while Debian has a reputation for dragging along rather slowly and using ultra ulta stable software. Now someone can come along and point out the holes here and wonder why I'd want to run something newer and possibly unstable compared to ultra stable but I just can't explain it. I gave Debian a good run and it just isn't my bag (and yes, I tried stable, testing, unstable, etc - currently running unstable).

For me the best fit is FreeBSD. I just like it. It makes sense. It is simple (to me). I enjoy working with it. The upgrade process is a dream. I simply haven't found anything with the same level of comfort yet... But I still use bash just because that is what I started with...

FreeBSD.org has lots of good information.

Edit: I'll definately keep up to date with Debian and whatever else keeps my interest. In my opinion there isn't one OS that fits 100% - each has drawbacks and strengths and the level of experience each person has with a particular OS is a strong influence.

Short version: I keep an open mind but at the moment I prefer FreeBSD .

 

[Chronic321]

Sorry guys, I didn't realize we were only talking about Unix based operating systems. Redhat is the only one I personally own, but MAX OS X looks awesome.

 

[phrawd]

I use Slackware. Not really 8.0 anymore after my updates, not quite 8.1 either. But anyways. I don't really have much to say that hasn't already been said other than I may check out gentoo as a few slack users have mentioned some good words about it. The real reason I wanted to post was to say something about game support in linux. There is game support for the most popular games in linux (relative statement, I know...). Check out transgaming or loki (R.I.P. but still their software is out there). I don't play games but I know a lot of the really popular ones run faster in linux than in windows (Quake 3 / Warcraft III) for example. Nothing is perfect but it's a start.

 

[Tiger]

I use Gentoo Linux.
I suppose for the fact that it kicked my ass the first time I tried an install.
Since getting it installed and running it I do really enjoy the portage system.
Some say they can't see or feel a difference between compiled from source apps and packages (pick your system). I know the same machine just seems to run "better" with everthing compiled from source. I'll admit it's a totally subjective statement and probably not provable one way or the other. It's just the way the machine feels to me and that particular box has run everything from Mandy 8.2 to Debian Potato.

 

[Flatline]

After trying about every distro I could get my hands on (except the compile-it-all distros like Gentoo...next on the list), I've finally decided that I like RedHat the best.

Mandrake just seemed a little too "chunky" for me (I should have a better explanation, but it just didn't feel right)

I really liked Suse 8.0, which I installed because it natively supported my Audigy, but after a while my networking services started crashing intermittently and that kind of soured me on Suse (I didn't feel that I should have to keep fixing my networking when it was configured correctly)

Lycoris would be great for a noob, but it was too "Windows-y" for me (although I like the built-in network browser); I dual-boot with W2K, so if I want Windows I can have it anytime

Debian is my server OS of choice because of its stability (unless it's a Dell, 'cause RedHat certifies their software on Dell machines)

Slackware is lovely for setting up firewalls, etc. but I usually use Debian for that (re:ungodly stable)

I've tried about 15 other distros which I won't even go into here...

RedHat just seems to be my favorite...it's very stable, there's an RPM for just about anything (and if there isn't, then install it from the source), I like the updater, it's possibly the best documented distro (VERY important), it's fast, and if you really really need it you can call them for support.
By the way, if you install OSS (Open Sound System), every Audigy will work in RedHat (or just about any distro) after an extremely simple installation...I love the guys at OSS for that, and promptly sent in a donation. I highly recommend it.