Which is the best distro of Linux?

WishMaster · Post by **WishMaster** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 10:11 pm

I really can recommend OpenSUSE with KDE.
It is very easy to use and stable.

MadMax · Post by **MadMax** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 12:12 am

I use Fedora Core 5 and I'm very happy with it.

Post by **Fred** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 12:21 am

Remember than KDE use QT as graphical toolkit which is only free for opensource (GPL/LGPL) projects, which is a real drawback IMHO. So GTK is the only viable solution for commercially driven projects (like PB).

bembulak · Post by **bembulak** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 8:05 am

I tried to get along with Gnome, but I can't. I know, the GTK is good, but Gnome...

Then I prefer XCFE to Gnome, wich is faster!

The Distro which works best for me (on my hardware):
Mandriva 2006. Easy to use and stable, just like Suse.

Inf0Byt3 · Post by **Inf0Byt3** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 4:34 pm

You can try SimplyMepis 6.0 if you like Mandriva2006. It works much faster than Mandriva and it's made in France too. I am using SimplyMepis for now but I ocasionally use Mandriva too

.

WishMaster · Post by **WishMaster** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 6:33 pm

@Fred: The KDE desktop can (of course) run both GTK and Qt programs.
So Qt's licence is abolutely no problem.

bembulak · Post by **bembulak** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 7:02 am

@Inf0Byte3: Thanks, sounds good, but I keep my self in chains. I've sworn myself I will never make that "New-Magazin-New-CD-New-Distro-Thing " again. A long time I was trying nearly every Distro I could get.
The Pro was, that I nearly know every big Distro and itsconfigs now, but I never was working with them. Doing configs was my daily bizz.

Mandriva works fine, because all of my hardware works with it (lucky me). So I won't change it (at the moment).

Pinhead · Post by **Pinhead** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 7:15 am

I have Slackware with Fluxbox. It is small and fast.
All you need to run PB is in the disribution, no searching for GTK and SDL...

r_hyde · Post by **r_hyde** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 6:22 am

I saw that Xandros was mentioned earlier in the thread, and recommended for users just coming over from Windows. Forget about it. It's a decent distro with some fancy tricks in it to make it more windows-like, but you're going to run into nothing but trouble trying to install anything not provided in the Xandros Networks repository. I don't think I'd be comfortable using it as a development platform, either - it's just too much unlike other linux desktops from a config perspective.

The distro I've been using very happily for several months now is PCLinuxOS. It's got kind of a crappy name, but once you get past that you'll find that it's a nice KDE/RPM distro that runs fast and is easy to configure and update/upgrade. Its developer calls it a beta, but in his own words, "all software is beta - we just have the balls to admit it!" It's seriously WAY beyond beta quality. No wi-fi support though I think, which may or may not be a problem for you.

Beach · Post by **Beach** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 6:54 am

r_hyde wrote:No wi-fi support though I think, which may or may not be a problem for you.

Speaking of wireless, I just installed a new AP in my house and decided to do WPA-PSK with TKIP to get a little bit better protection over using WEP alone. I was bummed to find that I could no longer connect with my Ubuntu laptop as the standard network manager did not support WPA. I searched on the Ubuntu forum and found a new manger called 'gnome-network-manager' which fully supports WPA and now it connects fine....

So, I guess what I am trying to say is... with a little tweaking, Ubuntu can even support advanced wireless network connections fairly painlessly.

-Beach

PB&J Lover · Post by **PB&J Lover** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 7:34 am

I like Ubuntu. It loads quicker than Freespire. It was hard to get PureBasic running with it and I'm not sure all the libraries are loaded. I think now that it is out and more free versions that you can try first on CD will make Linux more popular. I've been waiting to install a viable Linux when I first heard about the OS. Now I have.

Cons: Can't turn off touchpad tapping without hacking code.
no real support for DVD movie playback etc.

Freespire has more settings and options, but I don't like that the Synaptic Package Manager is not part of the installation (I did get it installed though).

Maybe Linspire is worth buying. I don't know. I don't like their MicroSoft-like practices of limiting the software downloads to theirs and how they've taken over Firefox and Thunderbird.

Xandros is not an option because they've discontinuted support for ME machines and that's what I have. I've loaded Linux to get new life out of it since XP is not a good option.

What's the best one for running PureBasic?

Thanks.

Beach · Post by **Beach** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 8:02 am

Easy to install on Ubuntu... this is all I do:

Code: Select all

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential
$ sudo apt-get install libgtk1.2-dev
$ sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev
$ sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2-dev

Then just unpack the PB archive - w00t!

Also, getting the DVD player to work was not that bad either - just three commands. Here is the guide to install DVD playback:
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Dapper#How_ ... capability

-Beach

Joakim Christiansen · Post by **Joakim Christiansen** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 5:54 pm

I have tried many distros, Ubuntu, Mepis, Madriva, etc...
But the new PCLinuxOS MiniMe is really cool, it's very easy to use and comes with almost no programs so you can install only the ones you need. And getting it to work with my ati card was just to click some buttons. I love it!

walker · Post by **walker** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 6:08 pm

if you have the possibility to download a few iso's, I would suggest that you try 2 or 3 (or even more) Live-CD's to determine if the distro would "fit". A good point to start is DistroWatch.com (link is mentioned somewhere above)

I'd used SuSe Linux, then Kanotix for a long time but a month ago I'd switched to Kubuntu (Ubuntu/Kubuntu) is very easy to use and as Beach said, PB is installed and working within minutes ... and its one of the best structured and best looking distro's around (my opinion)

garretthylltun · Post by **garretthylltun** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 10:23 pm

PB&J Lover wrote:Xandros is not an option because they've discontinuted support for ME machines and that's what I have.

You seem to have misundersood something there. Microsoft has
discontinued support for ME, not Xandros. Xandros is promoting to users
of Win 95, 98 and ME because MS has dropped the support for those.

http://www.xandros.com/ads/get_the_facts.html

On another note though... Xandros is similar to Linspire in the fact that
Xandros does try to limit you from installing software that hasn't been
tested and approved to work with no issues on Xandros. But! they do
not stop you completely from doing it. You can add deb package sources
to the list and install anything you want.

-Garrett