SoulSe Posted September 8, 2003 Report Share Posted September 8, 2003 I'm not sure if this has been done before, but I thought it would be interesting to find out not only what distro(s) you use, but why? I am not going to create a poll because a) There are hundreds of distros and B) Some of you use two (or more). So: I use Mandrake because it is flexible and kind of 'grows' with my knowledge (if you know what I mean). I also love urpmi and the rpm package system in general. I am ordering Gentoo cds because I want to learn more about Linux and because the portage system looks sweet. If this is an un-original thread, please delete it :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtweidmann Posted September 8, 2003 Report Share Posted September 8, 2003 I use Mandrake because it works, its relaible, its fast, and good community to back it up. I do like tinkering with the way my PC works, but I also need it to "just work" most of the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidzoo Posted September 8, 2003 Report Share Posted September 8, 2003 I use Mandrake simply because I have found it to be the most friendly distro that I have tried. I too am a big fan of urpmi and the rpm package system although with my recent changes to my desktop ("uninstalling" Windows) I now have 20 GB of undormatted space and I'm thinking about trying Slackware because I want to learn more about the "guts" of a Linux system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted September 8, 2003 Report Share Posted September 8, 2003 I use arch because Mandrake didn't give me as much control as I wanted, compiling everything in Gentoo got old, and it's i686 optimized out of the box-the closest you can get without going Gentoo. That and: who can argue with a package management system called pacman? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulSe Posted September 8, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 8, 2003 Does arch provide the learning 'curve' (excuse the -very weak- pun) that Gentoo does? SoulSe wants to learn more... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul Posted September 8, 2003 Report Share Posted September 8, 2003 I use mandrake on my server ... coz I've never been able to break it .. and it keeps going and going and going. I use gentoo on my desktop coz I like trying out new thing, and waiting for rpms got boring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted September 8, 2003 Report Share Posted September 8, 2003 I'm currently installing debian cos i'm intrigued and sick of the reinstall thing with Mandrake. Mainly its becoming like Win...on the product releases. I changed to 9.0 for the kernel and which I needed for blue tooth, then never got round to really getting it going... Then 9.1 came along and .... Im getting tired of each new release not being able to upgrade packages. Also Debian has some 'unique ' features. First the RVM. Thats the re-virginiser module. It seems to be installed as default and has the effect of making you feel like you never used linux before... second see number 1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FX Posted September 8, 2003 Report Share Posted September 8, 2003 I started with Mandrake, but for some reason just couldn't or didn't like the feel. I use RH9 now with apt/synaptic to update and love it. Thinking of giving Mandy 9.2 a shot when it comes out, but then about that time RH10 will be out, so I'll still be confused. LOL FX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sas Posted September 8, 2003 Report Share Posted September 8, 2003 I've used mdk since 8.2 - it was my first distro, i chose it after recomendation from a friend (hello turtle). Plus it was £10 for 6cds (binary + sources) little did i realise i wouldn't really need the sources ones but they only cost me an extra penny. After that i tried debian (woody i think) but decided against it as it wasn't as user friendly as mdk and due to my isdn ta not working with linux i couldn't really use it's main "selling point" apt-get. Then i tried suse 8.1 (or.2 can't remember now) which seemed really polished and stuff in comparison to mdk and debian but there was something that didn't feel quite right about it. Then it was mandrake 9.0 Then it was crux - an i586 (iirc) optimised distro, which was lightweight - in that it had no help pages besides man, you had to write all config files by hand (no wizards or automagic stuff) and only came with a handful of packages, i gave up on that because after recompiling my kernel it wouldn't boot from it anymore, besides that it didn't have a lot of stuff i wanted which'd mean downloading them alll seperately and messing around with dependancies. So i went to mdk 9.1 which i've been settled with for ages now, in part due to the fact i got the linux format dvd that has the 3 install cds plus 2gig's worth of contrib rpms and partly thanks to i know i have a reliable place of help (thanks you guys) Though when i go to uni i should be able to access the net from linux so i may switch to either gentoo (compiling everything from source seems cool plus they have a decent forum community) or debian (i'd like to become some kind of packager or something and the debian way of doing it seems very nice from the inside). Although i probably won't switch unless i do have loads of spare time to mess around with. We'll see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crashdamage Posted September 8, 2003 Report Share Posted September 8, 2003 Basically, I'll go along with try it and then use what you like. But I'd like to add a little something to this. The 1st distro I tried was Redhat 6.3, and it was ok but just couldn't do everything I needed at the time, too much hardware that wouldn't go. Later, I tried Mandrake 8.0 and that got me pretty close to fully functional, enough to leave it on permanently in a dual-boot. 8.2 was the one that really got things going. It got me out of having to dual boot and was so good I still use it. I've played around a little with other distros in the meantime just to see if something else would be worth a switch, but I'll probably quit wasting time experimenting and stay with Mandrake because Mandrake really is pretty fast, it's stable, has lots of software available - but most of all because Mandrake has urpmi. Not many people using other distros know about Mandrake's urpmi. Even many Mandrake users don't really realize what a terrific tool it is. Everything else can be debated endlessly, but urpmi is the one thing that makes Mandrake the best, at least of all the rpm-based distros. Once you get all your ftp mirrors setup, you can just type: # urpmi -v mutt (or whatever package) and off it goes. Downloads all the necessary packages to satisfy any dependencies (if available on the discs or the mirrors you have setup) and installs everything easy as pie. It's not perfect but it works pretty well. RedHat has nothing like it. # rpm -Uvh <package> is not the same thing. Suse's YAST is ok but can't quite compare. Other than that, all the kernel mods RedHat does kinda drive me nuts...and I just don't see any advantage to other distros worth getting excited about. They all have strengths and weaknesses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phunni Posted September 8, 2003 Report Share Posted September 8, 2003 I use gentoo because it's the only disto I've been able to get working as I like it. I am sick of the long package installs though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlc Posted September 8, 2003 Report Share Posted September 8, 2003 Gentoo, Debian & Solaris are my main distro's. I'm thinking of throwing Arch on my laptop to see how it works, like phunni long compile times start to bite in Gentoo. How ever, I do like the control over Gentoo. I like to be in control so Gentoo and Arch(looks to be a canidate). For another distro test. I've used just about every RPM distro out there and I just don't really care for them. That being said, if anyone ask what distro they should use(noob) or just someone wanting a good Linux that is all made up for them, I would point them to Mandrake!!! :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland Posted September 8, 2003 Report Share Posted September 8, 2003 Mandrake: because it do what I want and if I want to do something new Mandrake may give me the tools to do it fast, well and easylly. Plus it's stable, its fast, no probleme even with quite recent hardware. Plus urpmi I think rpm is nearly unusable without urpmi. Plus Automount: I'm lucky: works with all the pc's I've set up ( 4 ) Plus DiskDrake: My old copied Partition Magic does not know Ext3 or ReiserFS The only problem with Mandrake: as it is going i feel I'm going to stay a newbie all my life :? I've started with Red Hat 7.0, got Red Hat 7.1 and after I switched to Mandrake 8.2, 9.0 and now 9.1 I must say that Mandrake 8.2 almost saved my marriage :wink: roland Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phunni Posted September 8, 2003 Report Share Posted September 8, 2003 I must say that Mandrake 8.2 almost saved my marriage :wink: OK - I'm curious - you got to explain that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heather1113 Posted September 8, 2003 Report Share Posted September 8, 2003 Favorite distro so far is Mandrake. I started out with 8.1 and found it a bit too challenging for me so I read everything I could get my hands on and came back for 9.1, and was very impressed with it's ease of use and how polished it is. I've tried just about every version of Red Hat since 7.3 but always go back to Mandrake. Now that I've used it a while though I'm starting to feel that it's a little too newbieish and need more of a challenge unfortunately my harddrive is not big enough for an additional distro on it. I am also less than thrilled with how Mandrake is with upgrading, I'd rather not have to do a fresh install everytime a new version comes out. I'm leaning towards Debian for my next distro. I keep putting it of though because Debian frightens me :wink: . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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