Uh... Linux distros?

[SunnyD]

Been a long... LONG time since I played with Linux. Instead of just googling, I figured I'd ask what the "popular" distros are these days.

My plan, or what I'm looking for at least - going to be running in a VM, doing mostly some programming with it and otherwise poking at it to get my familiarity back up to par with *nix. As far as programming goes, I may end up needing to cross-compile a kernel for a different platform eventually (PPC based), not sure if that makes a difference for the distro or not.

I have in the past used SUSE, Redhat, and Gentoo. But again, it's been a long time, so I might need some noob lube. Suggestions are welcome! Please!!!

 

[lxskllr]

Ubuntu's always a good choice. It can be as complicated, or easy as you want it to be.

 

[Snapster]

Linux Mint is worth a look.

 

[VinDSL]

And, don't forget openSuSe.

There's your Top-3...

 

[Modelworks]

I'm going to throw redhat fedora in there as well. I have in the past had a couple pc that ubuntu would not boot on but redhat has never failed to boot for me. Also because I use it with applications like Maya and Softimage as that is the only distribution they officially support.

Ubuntu to me was great a version or two ago but now they are trying to cram everything including the kitchen sink into the OS and it just feels bloated.

 

[blackangst1]

My suggestion is spend some time at www.distrowatch.com. It lists the top distros and you can check out distros until you are old and grey

 

[SunnyD]

Well, so far it's Ubuntu (Knew that one was coming), openSUSE, and Mint?

Modelworks recommendation for Fedora is a gimme, especially since I know it will also support PPC.

Never heard of Mint though... I'm interested.

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Never heard of Mint though... I'm interested.

Mint's a slightly retooled Ubuntu. Anyone who's familiar with Ubuntu should get on with Mint fine. I prefer Ubuntu, but I wouldn't be heartbroken if I were forced to use Mint.

 

[dennilfloss]

I like Kiwi (another retooled Ubuntu) and PCLInuxOS.

 

[Nothinman]

I prefer to just go straight to Debian. I like the rolling updates of sid and I don't really see much benefit other than exposure coming from Ubuntu.

 

[SunnyD]

Well again, my primary goal is development, and cross-platform development at that. It looks like the latest snapshot release of Ubuntu, as well as Fedora, openSUSE and Debian all support multiple platforms. I wonder if this makes a difference at all for me. I've never done cross-platform dev before so I haven't a clue.

 

[KeypoX]

Originally posted by: lxskllr

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Never heard of Mint though... I'm interested.

Mint's a slightly retooled Ubuntu. Anyone who's familiar with Ubuntu should get on with Mint fine. I prefer Ubuntu, but I wouldn't be heartbroken if I were forced to use Mint.

I heard great things about mint. Tried it for a couple months and was very unhappy with it. I would be heartbroken if i was forced to use mint, over ubuntu.

I like fedora as well but do like the more windows-like things ubuntu has implemented by default.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: KeypoX
I heard great things about mint. Tried it for a couple months and was very unhappy with it.

See my sig...

 

[Sylvanas]

I've tried all the major ones and for me the standout is Ubuntu 9.04. Period.

 

[SunnyD]

So what exactly does Mint do that makes it "better" (or worse) than Ubuntu if it really is just ... Ubuntu?

 

[SSWilson]

Originally posted by: SunnyD
So what exactly does Mint do that makes it "better" (or worse) than Ubuntu if it really is just ... Ubuntu?

It freshens your breath.

As best as I can tell, they have some homemade tools and the update rating system.

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: SSWilson

Originally posted by: SunnyD
So what exactly does Mint do that makes it "better" (or worse) than Ubuntu if it really is just ... Ubuntu?

It freshens your breath.

As best as I can tell, they have some homemade tools and the update rating system.

It's interface is also more Windows like. To me it's like a Windows/Linux love child.

 

[Nothinman]

As best as I can tell, they have some homemade tools and the update rating system.

And IMO the rating system is because they include questionable stuff and so that they can point the finger when problems happen because 99% of the work is done by Ubuntu and other OSS developers.

It's interface is also more Windows like. To me it's like a Windows/Linux love child.

AFAIK it's still Gnome but just with a different default theme. They also include some non-free/questionable codes by default but nothing that can't be accomplished with minimal work on any other distro.

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

It's interface is also more Windows like. To me it's like a Windows/Linux love child.

AFAIK it's still Gnome but just with a different default theme. They also include some non-free/questionable codes by default but nothing that can't be accomplished with minimal work on any other distro.

Yea, it's still just Gnome, but the general layout feels more like Windows. It uses 1 "Start Button", and a single taskbar like Windows has.

 

[Nothinman]

Yea, it's still just Gnome, but the general layout feels more like Windows. It uses 1 "Start Button", and a single taskbar like Windows has.

But my point is that since it's still Gnome, just use Ubuntu and install that theme if you like it better.

 

[BW86]

I've used Ubuntu and Mint within the past few months and they were great. My gf was even able to use them

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
[...] 99% of the [ Linux Mint ] work is done by Ubuntu and other OSS developers [...]

Um... That's what open source (or open sores, as detractors call it) is all about.

I'm a web dev, in my spare time. I mod and admin several web sites around the world. I was contacted by a commissioning agent for a major publisher, to co-author a book on PHP-Nuke (a content management system or CMS). And, I was asked to join the Coppermine Photo Gallery dev team, blah, blah, blah.

I'm only telling you this to demonstrate that I have some experience in these things... and what you are mocking (Linux Mint) is the way we do things, in the world of GPL!

I'm thinking about publishing my own distro for the Asus Eee PC, based on Linux Mint 7. Does that make me a 'bad guy' because 99% of the work was done by others? Hell no! It's SOP in the Linux community.

I'm not sure about the history of Linux Mint, but what I've gathered from reading the blogs...

Clem and company were playing around with Ubuntu, adding their own artwork, making it more user-friendly, developing their own tools, and so forth and so on. Ppl liked what they saw and asked him to release his own distro.

Whether or not that's factual, it holds true to form. I got ppl hankering for me to release my blocks and modules, all the time.

Authoring software is easy (security/sanity checks aside) but packaging a distro and (especially) writing the docs is what I find tedious and boring. If I decide to release an Eee PC distro based on Linux Mint, there's no way that I'm doing it by myself. I'll gather up a team, like Clem (and Canonical) did - build on the work of others, contribute to the community, and support Eee PC users.

I know you're a purist, but I don't understand your attacks on the open source movement.

I guess that's the thanks we get - put your hand out to help someone and they shit in your fist!

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: VinDSL

Originally posted by: Nothinman
[...] 99% of the [ Linux Mint ] work is done by Ubuntu and other OSS developers [...]

Um... That's what open source (or open sores, as detractors call it) is all about.

I'm a web dev, in my spare time. I mod and admin several web sites around the world. I was contacted by a commissioning agent for a major publisher, to co-author a book on PHP-Nuke (a content management system or CMS). And, I was asked to join the Coppermine Photo Gallery dev team, blah, blah, blah.

I'm only telling you this to demonstrate that I have some experience in these things... and what you are mocking (Linux Mint) is the way we do things, in the world of GPL!

I'm thinking about publishing my own distro for the Asus Eee PC, based on Linux Mint 7. Does that make me a 'bad guy' because 99% of the work was done by others? Hell no! It's SOP in the Linux community.

I'm not sure about the history of Linux Mint, but what I've gathered from reading the blogs...

Clem and company were playing around with Ubuntu, adding their own artwork, making it more user-friendly, developing their own tools, and so forth and so on. Ppl liked what they saw and asked him to release his own distro.

Whether or not that's factual, it holds true to form. I got ppl hankering for me to release my blocks and modules, all the time.

Authoring software is easy (security/sanity checks aside) but packaging a distro and (especially) writing the docs is what I find tedious and boring. If I decide to release an Eee PC distro based on Linux Mint, there's no way that I'm doing it by myself. I'll gather up a team, like Clem (and Canonical) did - build on the work of others, contribute to the community, and support Eee PC users.

I know you're a purist, but I don't understand your attacks on the open source movement.

I guess that's the thanks we get - put your hand out to help someone and they shit in your fist!

I don't have a bit of problem with Mint. Any distro can be made into just about anything you want if you put in the time. I think a release should be judged by it's default layout. Yea, Mint's mostly Ubuntu, but there's enough difference that that someone could prefer one over the other. Ubuntu for me :^)

Sharing code's what OSS is about. That's what makes it good and useful. There's no point in reinventing the wheel every time you want to do something.

 

[Nothinman]

Um... That's what open source (or open sores, as detractors call it) is all about.

I know how it works. My point is that the only real reason that I can see them using that rating system when 99% of the packages will fall into "Not testing by Mint but believed to be safe." is so that they can point the finger at Ubuntu when an update breaks something. Ubuntu, Debian, RedHat, etc all take responsibility for their packages and whenever possible fix the bugs themselves and forward the patches upstream.

I'm only telling you this to demonstrate that I have some experience in these things... and what you are mocking (Linux Mint) is the way we do things, in the world of GPL!

It's not how "we" do things. Most distros do separate packages into supported and unsupported but that's as far as they take it.

Clem and company were playing around with Ubuntu, adding their own artwork, making it more user-friendly, developing their own tools, and so forth and so on. Ppl liked what they saw and asked him to release his own distro.

If the tools are that good why didn't he just try to get them accepted into Ubuntu? That would make Ubuntu better, get the tools into more people's hands and relieve him of the burden of maintaining his own pseudo-distro. There's already a handful of subdistros like Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu so it's obviously something that's not too hard to do.

I know you're a purist, but I don't understand your attacks on the open source movement.

Wow, I am in awe that you could construe my remarks as "attacks on the open source movement". Do you also accuse anyone who gives a movie a bad review of "attacking the movie industry"?

I guess that's the thanks we get - put your hand out to help someone and they shit in your fist!

Except that Clem just put out the exact same hand only with different colored nails when I've already got practically the same hand. If other people like his color of fingernail polish better that's fine, but why waste time redistributing the whole hand when he could just distribute the polish?

 

[pcgeek11]

Except that Clem just put out the exact same hand only with different colored nails when I've already got practically the same hand. If other people like his color of fingernail polish better that's fine, but why waste time redistributing the whole hand when he could just distribute the polish?

I love this comparison!