which moderately easy to use distro?

[solarian]

Change because you are unhappy with Mandriva the distro or found a better distro but don't change because you don't like Mandriva company policy....

For me the philosophy behind the product is also a merit of the product.

And I'm doing what I want to do.

[arctic]

Change because you are unhappy with Mandriva the distro or found a better distro but don't change because you don't like Mandriva company policy....

Hmmm... so ditching Microsoft should only be done because their OS is crap and not because of their f**** company policy? :huh:

[ffi]

Hmmm... so ditching Microsoft should only be done because their OS is crap and not because of their f**** company policy? :huh:

 

Yup, not that I even think their OS is crap per se. Now suppose you really think XP is crap but MS' intention was to bring out an OS which would make people happier about themselves, the world and make everybode love eachother :unsure: would that make you change your opinion of XP?

Edited March 19, 2006 by ffi

[arctic]

I had used XP for some time (heck, I started with MS-Dos 5.0 and went the whole road to XP) and every Windows version they sent upon us mere mortals was crap. Even OS2/Warp was better! And M$ never did something in order to facilitate things for users. They always decided things based on $$$$. And why should I trust or have some high esteem of a company and its "morality" if they collect my personal data without my agreement, if they deliberately break tools so I am forced to upgrade and pay $$$?

 

It is a totally different thing, what Microsofts marketing team transmits through its campaigns and what Microsoft actually stands for. Microsoft never stood for making "people happier about themselves, the world and make everybode love each other". Maybe one advertizing campaing spread that lie upon you, but if this would be true, how can this coexist with their illegal behaviour for which they are being sued repeatedly since more than two decades? Remember the Netscape sues? Remember the fine the EU has put on M$? Remember their spreading of lies that Linux is a heaven for communists and thus evil? Do I really need to say more?....

 

Now: Microsoft Windows being a crappy OS: Have you ever heard some reasons why you should not use e.g. IE (which ships with Windows), or why it should not exist at all? Here are a few:

-IE has more bugs than a bait store!

-It can send your personal information to Microsoft. (Just like the rest of the system:"trusted computing")

-Its installation process overwrites system DLLs with newer version that are not always 100% compatible.

-IE is "integrated" in to Windows. Firefox is a well behaved application. When IE crashes or screws up it can hose the system. No other browser can do that.

-ActiveX allows hackers to do ANYTHING with your system. That's not true with Java.

-Microsoft's Java is not compatible with standard Java and vice versa.

-If the install fails it can leave your system unusable.

-If the install succeeds your system will be unusable.

-ActiveX is limited to IE on x86 based Windows. It won't work on Mac, Linux, DOS, Windows 3.1, etc. or with other browsers.

-Microsoft forces people to install and use it through bundling and unnecessary integration. If it were really any good do you think they would have to do that?

-And which mortal can debug something like this?:

 

http://www.bellevuelinux.org/reasons_to_convert.html

and

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html

might be interesting for you.

 

 

btw: we got completely off-topic...

[bvc]

but I'm no newbie that needs a dumbed down windblows replacement, so no Linspire, Mepis, PClinuxOS for me too.

 

I'm thinking between SuSE.....

I'm sorry, I didn't read the entire thread but...

 

PCLinuxOS dumbed down? When did that happen? :huh:

...and if you don't want dumbed down, why are you thinking of SuSE? It's by far the most dumbed down aside from Linspire and Mepis.

 

Please don't suggest Ubuntu, I have psychological incompatibility with it.

I can see that since you are considering SuSE :P

 

Why base your choice of distro on the distro's company policy or whoever works for the company rather than on which distro works best for you?

why not? most linux users wouldn't be if not for MS's policies and who works there :P

[EDIT] oh, I see arctic already said that

Edited March 19, 2006 by bvc

[solarian]

PCLinuxOS dumbed down? When did that happen?

It just feels so... (even if technically not so much). Maybe I should try again, but I didn't like it. It reminded me of windows too much, desktop was full of icons/shortcuts (I loathe those), and even "My Computer" was there... and mcc was designed to look as if for children. I like more serious attitude :D

...and if you don't want dumbed down, why are you thinking of SuSE? It's by far the most dumbed down aside from Linspire and Mepis.

I have never actually tried SUSE, just what some of my friends have talked about,

now I know more about it and am not considering it.

[ilia_kr]

Back to fedora: maybe i just missed it, but since there are new versions every 6 monthes, what is the best way to upgrade current version without losing data/reinstall? Can one upgrade via internet or it is nessesary to download the whole CD set again?

[arctic]

You can try to upgrade, but things "might" break here or there sometimes. (I always did a clean install, so I can't tell from my own experience, but only from what I read in the fedoraforum. Maybe you should check the fedoraforum on upgrading). And you should be able to do a network-install if you don't want to download all images.

[Gowator]

I have never actually tried SUSE, just what some of my friends have talked about,

now I know more about it and am not considering it.

Like I said, its the only distro ever made me feel dirty by using it.

I used a lot of distros and Suse is the only one I have really found it hard not to take the who PC and just throw it out of the Window. I absolutely hated everything about it. I really lack ebnough superlatives to adequately express how much suse makes me wanna puke.

[scarecrow]

I really lack ebnough superlatives to adequately express how much suse makes me wanna puke.

 

This is exactly how some germans describe Mandriva!

So, I guess it's subjective, after all...

I cannot stand SuSE anymore either, but it ain't that bad- just clumsy/overfed.

[Artificial Intelligence]

What people need:

Image made by me

 

B)

[jlc]

Back to fedora: maybe i just missed it, but since there are new versions every 6 monthes, what is the best way to upgrade current version without losing data/reinstall? Can one upgrade via internet or it is nessesary to download the whole CD set again?

 

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/YumUpgradeFaq

 

Fedora is also working on making it totally painless (as much as one can), but that might not be for a release or two.

 

What people need:

Image made by me

 

B)

 

 

You must be part of there marketing team

[solarian]

From the shameless ubuntu propaganda department :D

[Gowator]

I really lack ebnough superlatives to adequately express how much suse makes me wanna puke.

 

This is exactly how some germans describe Mandriva!

So, I guess it's subjective, after all...

I cannot stand SuSE anymore either, but it ain't that bad- just clumsy/overfed.

Not really, I don't particualry like Mandriva as a distro myself since 8.2....I got a couple of issues with Ubuntu but overall non of these leaves me feeling like I have been violated like suse does... I actually took a hammer to the CD/DVD set it made me feel that dirty to have it in the house. Mandriva is just badly engineered which is what would make germans not like it but Suse is just pure dirt, its as bad as Windows IMHO and the whole YaST lockin thing is $evil.

 

Im just warning the guy before he tries it because I really wish I had never even touched it.

It really is the only distro I feel like this about and I have treid Linspire and Lycoris etc. Corel etc. etc. and Suse really is the only one that makes me feel ill thinking about having it on my PC. I try lots of distro's but I will never ever reinstall Suse... but its ccompletely unusable to me anyway since you can't edit the Xorg.conf by hand so I can't have my projector working ever with Suse.

 

Is it easy to use? Yes as long as you want to follow the gestapo type rules they have about using it... so long as you don't want to step out of the box and watch DVD's. I found their enforcement of their rules and hacking of Xine to be completely pukeworthy. I really do mean this, I have never said this about any other distro. And YaST... YaST is the most harmful peace of software EVER written for linux, including viruses.

Its single aim is to prevent users being able to use their system without it and hence always locked to Suse. This is very bad for Linux because it takes people who become dependant upon YaST and then get sick of Suse because they can't get it to do what they want and when they try another distro they are completely lost without YaST. So they either end up going back to Suse OR Windows.

 

However Ubuntu is also easy to use... but at least you can edit the config files with other tools. FC is easy, slack,arch and gentoo are a bit more techy etc. but only Suse has YaST the worst software ever written for the good of linux.

[josk]

Hmmm... switching the distro..... Im thinking about that too....

 

What I like to see:

 

Fast boot time (My opinion is that suse and ubuntu are too slow)

Good control panel (2 points to ark-linux | 1 point to suse | 0 to ubuntu)

Half year release cycle

Packet manager (large collection, easy to use | somehow I dont like Suse's yast)

X86_64 and X86_586 versions

 

I think this is hard decision to make. Somehow I dont like Suse at all and its quite heavy. Ark-linux sounds very interesting but Im lookin for something more popular. And at the moment it lacks x86_64 version. Fedora have been always too buggy for me. Recent version of Ubuntu have some problems with my rare hardware (sata1/2, x86_64 x2 smp) and I thats why I cannot even install it.

 

I havent tried Mepis, Kanotix... distros like that.

 

Could someone name any distro that have fast boot time, KDE is default WM, it contaisn good packet manager and its very updated (most recent versions of kernel...)?