Curious of who uses what Distro wand why

[Paroxysm]

I keep jumping around OS's I was using windows various versions then I get bored and jumped on the the Ubuntu the had problems with have 4gb or more ram playing nice with my ATI drivers so I left Ubuntu and went to Opensuse was with Opensuse for quite a while but I wanted to play Drakensang so I started to use windows and slowly windows came back as my FUll time OS now I ant to go back to Linux but I havn't made up my Mind which distro to try this time so I decided to make a post here to see what most people are using

[RealNC]

I suppose most people are using Ubuntu and openSUSE due to their "user friendliness". Me, I use Gentoo :D I've had enough with distros that make you keep old software for half a year or more at which point they provide major updates.

So I wanted a "rolling release" distro that is versionless. The most popular choices were Archlinux and Gentoo. I've tried them both and liked Gentoo better. Now I get software updates when they're ready, not when Ubuntu/openSUSE/Fedora/Debian/whatever decide it's time for a new distro release. This was one of the things I missed in Linux when compared to Windows; software updates when the software in question actually comes out. On Gentoo (and I suppose there are some more but less popular rolling distros), there's a new Firefox, you get it very soon and without breaking your system (see "Debian Sid" or "openSUSE Head/Factory").

I'm happy and I never looked back since.

PS:
There's a dozen other things I could write here about things in Gentoo (and Arch) I simply love. Live ebuilds for installing from SVN/Git/etc using the package manager (with full dependency tracking and un-installation), USE flags, large package collection (rivals even Debian), dead-easy way to integrate custom patches (Cairo with ClearType for example) into the package manager... And I'm finding even new stuff today :D

[Paroxysm]

I would like to try Gentoo but I am a little confused at which Download for 64bit

[RealNC]

Before actually considering trying Gentoo, you should be aware of one point: Gentoo is source based. That means, when you install the system, the package manager will compile all software (everything, including glibc) from source code (using the compiler and linker flags of your choice; I used "-O2 -pipe -march=native" as CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS, and "-Wl,-O1,--hash-style=gnu,--sort-common,--as-needed" as LDFLAGS). Read the documentation for more info ;) This is a bit analogous to an RPM-based distro that would only use src.rpm packages, or Debian-based one using only deb-src packages. So an installation of Gentoo takes time.

Fortunately, the documentation is excellent (http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/)

If you are not willing to run a source-based distro, there is Archlinux that is both source-based as well as binary-based.

In any event, reading about Gentoo and browsing a bit around in its documentation is recommended before attempting it.

You will occasionally find references to "versions" of Gentoo like "2007.1" or "2008.0". As mentioned before, Gentoo is actually versionless. Those "year.release" versions are the versions of the install media (live CDs), not Gentoo itself. The most current installation media is 2008.0. For 64-bit, it's this live CD ISO image:

http://bouncer.gentoo.org/fetch/gentoo-2008.0-livecd/amd64/

Note that installing Gentoo is not a "click and go" step like in Ubuntu. You have to read the docs ;)

[jonnycat26]

I'd recommend OpenSuse. I've been using Linux for about 10 years, and I've reached the point where I just want things to *work* and not have to worry about fixing broken bits myself.

On that note, I'd have to recommend against K/Ubuntu. They're very friendly distros, but they have a very annoying habit of occasionally breaking something big and making a mess of things. Additionally, their KDE4 implementation seems to be crap, for whatever reason.

[Adarion]

I actually don't use a distribution, it's called a "meta-distribution" (*wiseasses*) ;)
I'm using Gentoo for several reasons. Gentoo can be seen as a comfortable version of LFS (Linux from scratch) for lazy people. :)
Gentoo allows me to absolutely individualize a lot of things without having to do alle the work neccessary when building LFS. You can have it fancy shiny with flashing lights or spartanic, simple and not being a resource hog. It's also quite fast and furthermore it supports a broad variety of architectures. I guess it probrbly competes in that point with NetBSD. At home I yet(!) only use various x86 and amd64 but it would allow me also to use it on ppc, sparc, arm and many others. Okay, not all with full package tree but of course it won't make sense to run openoffice or similar on embedded-style chips.
Another important poit for me was the learning. The curve is steep and I still have to read a lot of things and research stuff. But I'm in science anyway and I WANT to understand Linux, at least to a certain degree.

Recommendation:
Yes and no.
If you are willing and able to put a lot of effort in it, read manpages, books, forums and if you want to learn, understand and of course want all the individualism then Gentoo or LFS are right for you.
If you just want to work and have all the issues to a distributot, well, then you're probably better off with a precompiled one like the many Debian derivates, RH derivates, Mandriva or SuSE or whatever you like.

By doing gentoo I realized what a horrible lot of work distributors have to do. All the patching, localization (still a horror for me on the console and xorg-server 1.5.x, KDE on older xorg works out of the box), messing around in config files (*1), and just glueing all the libs and progs together ... it's like building a house. Either you take the bricks and put concrete between them, build in metal to stabilize and so on, or you just buy a finished ready-to-move-in apartement. LFS people even have to forge their bricks out of raw stone, Gentoo people can skip at least that one.

But if your Gentoo distribution is set up once then you just have to do the updates and as long as they are minor it's easy and always up to date. Note: Gentoo has no versions. There is no such Gentoo 9.04 or whatever, every daily portage snapshot is kind of a new version. So it's constantly in a flow.
You also can install Gentoo on any computer with a network connection. You don't actually need the Gentoo install media, though it provides you with everything neccessary. What you need is net access, fdisk style prog and some mkfs that is able to create any Linux suitable FS and a kernel that can access your mass storage (only a problem with really recent storage controller chips).


Pro:
+ individuality at max
+ speed possible
+ always up to date (if package maintainers don't sleep and forget to update tree...)
+ lots of learning and understanding
+ no versions (I see that as a pro, there is no problems with having e.g. LTS or not)
+ can be installed from any OS that has a network connection
+ available for many many HW platforms
+ prolly things I forgot

Con:
- you better have a flatrate and also a fast net connection
- a quick CPU is helpful for compiling (e.g. AMD 4850e is already very fine, a VIA C3-2 well... it's still bearable but takes very noticeably longer, slower than older Duron/Celeron class you better cross compile large packages)
- lots of work, at least at the beginning
- you can't just put in CD, install in about 15 minutes, reboot and start to work
- prolly things I forgot

(*1) well, okay, probably most users on any distribution have seen at least their xorg.conf and messed around with it. I think it sucks but the new hal driven stuff stinks, too.

[hax0r]

Archlinux: easiest and fastest way for me, so in the end I can do something useful instead of poking with my system :(.

[Ex-Cyber]

Mostly using XP right now because my monitor and xorg do not play nice together (this seems to be due to a combination of stupid EDID data and naive heuristics+bugs in xorg, the latter of which seem to be fixed upstream but not in distros). I was a Gentoo user but got sick of various issues with it; the big ones were lack of USE flag dependencies and some boneheaded policies (e.g. games group policy vs. nethack/slashem), but more generally the whole project seems to be collapsing under its own weight. I moved to Debian unstable (largely to avoid running a distro with a "standard" fully-populated desktop, since I prefer Fluxbox), but I still don't use it that often. I might install Fedora 11 beta tonight to see what goodies they've brought back from the future. ;)

[RealNC]

lack of USE flag dependencies

For what it's worth, this is now supported :D If a package needs another package to use specific USE flag, emerge now tells you so ("please emerge foo-bar/baz-1.0 with USE=cairo" for example.)

[deanjo]

Well I use openSUSE. Why? Because of the great package selection, the build service, yast making system admin easy as hell without dropping to cli, it tends to have a more polished look and has good documentation, not to mention it is also one of the distro's that most commercial apps test against to maintain compatibility. Now with zypper it also has great package management with speed rivialing (maybe even a bit faster) apt. Gentoo is fine if you have a lot of time on your hands to tweak and config away but in a production enviroment that minimal speed gain you get by using gentoo is offset by the time you spend pissing around tweaking.

[Ex-Cyber]

For what it's worth, this is now supported :D If a package needs another package to use specific USE flag, emerge now tells you so ("please emerge foo-bar/baz-1.0 with USE=cairo" for example.)AFAIK those messages are generated by manually coded checks in a handful of ebuilds, and have been around for a while. EAPI 2 seems to have "real" USE dependency support, but the migration looks like a long haul.

[Aradreth]

I suppose most people are using Ubuntu and openSUSE due to their "user friendliness". Me, I use Gentoo :D I've had enough with distros that make you keep old software for half a year or more at which point they provide major updates.

So I wanted a "rolling release" distro that is versionless. The most popular choices were Archlinux and Gentoo. I've tried them both and liked Gentoo better. Now I get software updates when they're ready, not when Ubuntu/openSUSE/Fedora/Debian/whatever decide it's time for a new distro release. This was one of the things I missed in Linux when compared to Windows; software updates when the software in question actually comes out. On Gentoo (and I suppose there are some more but less popular rolling distros), there's a new Firefox, you get it very soon and without breaking your system (see "Debian Sid" or "openSUSE Head/Factory").

I'm happy and I never looked back since.

PS:
There's a dozen other things I could write here about things in Gentoo (and Arch) I simply love. Live ebuilds for installing from SVN/Git/etc using the package manager (with full dependency tracking and un-installation), USE flags, large package collection (rivals even Debian), dead-easy way to integrate custom patches (Cairo with ClearType for example) into the package manager... And I'm finding even new stuff today :D
That pretty much sums me up although I ended up with Arch instead of Gentoo as I prefer binaries with the possibility of building from source then the other way round. :)

[deanjo]

That pretty much sums me up although I ended up with Arch instead of Gentoo as I prefer binaries with the possibility of building from source then the other way round. :)

You can build from source from any distro. In fact I usually rebuild the critical openSUSE 64-bit packages (ones that do seem to benefit processor specific optimizations) from with the flags I want using the build service.:)

[RealNC]

AFAIK those messages are generated by manually coded checks in a handful of ebuilds, and have been around for a while. EAPI 2 seems to have "real" USE dependency support, but the migration looks like a long haul.

No, it's part of portage now. No ebuild hacks or workarounds. There's a new syntax for ebuilds to specify USE deps.

[Ex-Cyber]

No, it's part of portage now. No ebuild hacks or workarounds. There's a new syntax for ebuilds to specify USE deps.Right, but the point of introducing the new syntax was to make the kind of messages you mentioned unnecessary, because the package manager can just rebuild the offending package(s) automatically instead of bugging the user with it. I realize that this exists, but last time I looked almost no ebuilds were actually using it because the spec and implementations were both unstable.

Anyway, off to try my luck with Fedora 11. :D

[RealNC]

Right, but the point of introducing the new syntax was to make the kind of messages you mentioned unnecessary, because the package manager can just rebuild the offending package(s) automatically instead of bugging the user with it.

No, that is shooting the user in the foot. You will lose functionality that way (for example you need a USE flag enabled, but another package needs it disabled; if it did that on its own, you would be pissed that no one told you).

What you propose here is an example of not really thinking about a problem :D

[energyman]

gentoo
no jumping-through-loops to get mp3 or avi working
no 'we are smarter than thou' gui tools getting in my way
no rpm hell
no broken init (looking at you debian)
no hunting for header files (you are ALL guilty, fedora, suse, debian, ubuntu...)
easy to maintain
easy to setup
easy to repair
easy to de-crappify. I don't want gnome, nothing of it. Nor do I want sendmail. Or apache. Or gstreamer crap.

[deanjo]

gentoo
no jumping-through-loops to get mp3 or avi working
no 'we are smarter than thou' gui tools getting in my way
no rpm hell
no broken init (looking at you debian)
no hunting for header files (you are ALL guilty, fedora, suse, debian, ubuntu...)
easy to maintain
easy to setup
easy to repair
easy to de-crappify. I don't want gnome, nothing of it. Nor do I want sendmail. Or apache. Or gstreamer crap.

Oh come on now, rpm hell is a well out dated argument with the modern package management out there. MP3 and AVI playback on most distro's is as simple as clicking a unofficial package, some even popup a message saying would you like to install the restricted packages upon clicking a file. Hunting for header files is as simple as installing the devel packages. Decrappifying is just as easy, unselect the packages.

[energyman]

'modern' soso... the last time I had to install mp3 in an opensuse install it wasn't pleasant at all and a lot more than 'just klicking on an unofficial package'. It was like replacing every multimedia related app on the system - and ignoring some crap by the installer. I pulled it of. The girl who owned the computer wasn't able to.

[energyman]

That pretty much sums me up although I ended up with Arch instead of Gentoo as I prefer binaries with the possibility of building from source then the other way round. :)

arch is broken.

Look at your /boot. How is the kernel binary named?

[deanjo]

'modern' soso... the last time I had to install mp3 in an opensuse install it wasn't pleasant at all and a lot more than 'just klicking on an unofficial package'. It was like replacing every multimedia related app on the system - and ignoring some crap by the installer. I pulled it of. The girl who owned the computer wasn't able to.

Then you have not tried opensuse in some time then I guess.

http://opensuse-community.org/Restricted_Formats/11.1 <--- one click install

[energyman]

12 month ago. Recent enough?

[deanjo]

12 month ago. Recent enough?

lol, 1 click installs for opensuse have been around since 10.3 (Oct of 07). Seriously if my preteen kids have no issue getting them installed on their own.....

[RealNC]

As always, this kind of thread dissolves into "the distro I'm using is better than yours!" :p

[energyman]

well, there is gentoo and slackware - and then there is crap.
I don't bother with crap.

[BlackStar]

arch is broken.

Look at your /boot. How is the kernel binary named?

By default? 'kernel26.img' I also have a custom 'kernel26-fastboot.img'. Your point?

Another Arch user here.

[energyman]

By default? 'kernel26.img' I also have a custom 'kernel26-fastboot.img'. Your point?

Another Arch user here.

crap. That isn't 'versioning' that is crap. No easy way to tell what version that kernel is and no way to have several kernels around.
crap.

lol, 1 click installs for opensuse have been around since 10.3 (Oct of 07). Seriously if my preteen kids have no issue getting them installed on their own.....

I had not 'problems' it was just harder than it should be. And it is certainly not 'userfriendly' or 'easy'. With gentoo it is way, way easier.

[superppl]

As always, this kind of thread dissolves into "the distro I'm using is better than yours!" :p

Are you suggesting there does exist another purpose to these threads?

Also, I use OpenSUSE. I like it how things work and how the OS doesn't automatically assume that I am a lobotomy patient (I say this while glaring at Apple and Microsoft).

[deanjo]

I had not 'problems' it was just harder than it should be. And it is certainly not 'userfriendly' or 'easy'. With gentoo it is way, way easier.

Uhhuh, 1 click and type in your root pass is so hard. Of course you could of just enabled the packman repo (again a click) and hit upgrade to get all the unrestricted packages too or a simple zypper up command for the cli elite.

Seriously, how can you honestly say the pains of installing a gentoo system is easy but a one click install of multimedia is hard?

[Aradreth]

You can build from source from any distro. In fact I usually rebuild the critical openSUSE 64-bit packages (ones that do seem to benefit processor specific optimizations) from with the flags I want using the build service.:)
Most distro's aren't rolling releases though. ;) (and making a build script script in arch is really easy compared to some of the others I've tried.)

arch is broken.

Look at your /boot. How is the kernel binary named?
Works fine for me, but then you say everything but gentoo and slackware are crap so your opinion does really count in my eyes.

I had not 'problems' it was just harder than it should be. And it is certainly not 'userfriendly' or 'easy'. With gentoo it is way, way easier.
My father managed just fine with openSUSE (codecs and all) but I seriously doubt he would be able to install gentoo. So openSUSE is user friendly and gentoo isn't.

[deanjo]

Most distro's aren't rolling releases though. ;) (and making a build script script in arch is really easy compared to some of the others I've tried.)


That's the beautiful thing about the build service, usually the latest and greatest packages can be found there. There has been also heavy consideration lately in the opensuse-project mailing list to start making the upgraded packages part of the supported packages for the major items such as KDE, Gnome, the kernel, alsa, etc etc. So in that effect it would be more of a rolling release.

[superppl]

That's true, a person can always find the latest version for pretty much any package in the build service.
Also, some people just don't have the time for the "better" distros. It would take hours and hours to learn to how to install, configure, and maintain gentoo, and I simply don't have that time.

[yotambien]

[..]now I ant to go back to Linux but I havn't made up my Mind which distro to try this time so I decided to make a post here to see what most people are using

Hi.

First, I wouldn't base my choice on what most people are using; and even less, on what most people over here (who bother to post) are using. I don't think it's a secret for anyone which distributions are the most popular, you don't really have to ask here to know the answer.

Second, you didn't mention what you are really looking for. How do you want your OS system to be? What are the main things you plan to do with your computer? What did you like/dislike of OpenSuse and Ubuntu? Do you want to get things done quickly or enjoy fiddling around? Etc...

Cheers.

PS. For your statistics, I use Debian Sid (which is always up to date, Gentoo guys).

[DanL]

well, there is gentoo and slackware - and then there is crap.
I don't bother with crap.
Wow. Someone's a pretentious, l33tist, l-user. Don't worry - I don't hold it against you. In fact, I myself oscillate between being an Ubuntu freetard and an Arch @sshole. (Yeah, there's Gentoo, but I don't want to put THAT much time into learning Linux).

I often use Ubuntu, because it meets my computing needs and I like to help the "common joe" break his Microsoft shackles by doing lots of technical support for it (on ubuntuforums.org and Ubuntu docs). I've also played with Debian/GNU and Sidux. No, I haven't become a Debian policy snob (yet), but that's only because I'm on drugs to prevent that sort of thing.

The free ".rpm distros" (Fedora/openSuSE) are thinly-veiled corporate crap and I wish they would die.

Those are my thoughts. Bottom line - use whatever works for you.

[jonnycat26]

The free ".rpm distros" (Fedora/openSuSE) are thinly-veiled corporate crap and I wish they would die.


Wow... considering that those corporations (RedHat, Novell, IBM, and Intel) provide about 1/3 of the code that goes into the Kernel, clearly you're not a Linux supporter.

But then again, I'm sure a lot of people wish Ubuntu would die, as they provide nothing to the Kernel. Parasites!

[deanjo]

Wow... considering that those corporations (RedHat, Novell, IBM, and Intel) provide about 1/3 of the code that goes into the Kernel, clearly you're not a Linux supporter.

But then again, I'm sure a lot of people wish Ubuntu would die, as they provide nothing to the Kernel. Parasites!

Exactly, just look at all those evil doers :p


Processed 7075 csets from 992 developers
126 employers found

Top changeset contributors by employer
(Unknown) 1116 (15.8%)
(None) 843 (11.9%)
Red Hat 827 (11.7%)
IBM 557 (7.9%)
Linux Foundation 528 (7.5%)
Novell 449 (6.3%)
Intel 242 (3.4%)
Oracle 158 (2.2%)
MIPS Technologies 143 (2.0%)
Nokia 133 (1.9%)
NetApp 119 (1.7%)
NTT 99 (1.4%)
Astaro 97 (1.4%)
MontaVista 90 (1.3%)
(Consultant) 86 (1.2%)
SGI 84 (1.2%)
Qumranet 74 (1.0%)
QLogic 70 (1.0%)
(Academia) 70 (1.0%)
SWsoft 64 (0.9%)
Analog Devices 61 (0.9%)
HP 60 (0.8%)
Sony 59 (0.8%)
rPath 56 (0.8%)
XenSource 53 (0.7%)
CERN 49 (0.7%)
CC Computer Consultants 48 (0.7%)
Freescale 47 (0.7%)
Fujitsu 47 (0.7%)
Tripeaks 46 (0.7%)
linutronix 44 (0.6%)
Snapgear 39 (0.6%)
Simtec 34 (0.5%)
Atmel 28 (0.4%)
Google 28 (0.4%)
Cisco 27 (0.4%)
Toshiba 25 (0.4%)
Broadcom 25 (0.4%)
SteelEye 24 (0.3%)
Renesas Technology 23 (0.3%)
Mellanox 21 (0.3%)
LSI Logic 17 (0.2%)
Adaptec 16 (0.2%)
Wipro 15 (0.2%)
Marvell 14 (0.2%)
Miracle Linux 14 (0.2%)
Solid Boot Ltd. 14 (0.2%)
AMD 12 (0.2%)
Hitachi 11 (0.2%)
ARM 11 (0.2%)
Canonical 10 (0.1%)
XIV Information Systems 9 (0.1%)
OpenedHand 9 (0.1%)
Open Grid Computing 9 (0.1%)
Veritas 8 (0.1%)
Secretlab 7 (0.1%)
Neterion 7 (0.1%)
Katalix Systems 7 (0.1%)
SANPeople 7 (0.1%)
Digi International 7 (0.1%)
Znyx Networks 6 (0.1%)
Wind River 6 (0.1%)
NEC 6 (0.1%)
Wolfson Microelectronics 6 (0.1%)
SUNY Computer Science 6 (0.1%)
NetXen 6 (0.1%)
NVidia 6 (0.1%)
Myricom 6 (0.1%)
Chelsio 5 (0.1%)
Realtek 5 (0.1%)
IPUnity-Glenayre 5 (0.1%)
Linux Networx 5 (0.1%)
Barco 4 (0.1%)
SIOS Technology 4 (0.1%)
MIPS 4 (0.1%)
University of Aberdeen 4 (0.1%)
PiKRON s.r.o 4 (0.1%)
Pardus 4 (0.1%)
Crash Barrier 4 (0.1%)
Tresys 4 (0.1%)
......


Not to mention the many other projects they fund and contribute to.

The list goes on... I do chuckle that Sony contributes more then
Canonical.

[jonnycat26]

Not to mention the many other projects they fund and contribute to.


Exactly.. Redhat has given us NetworkManager and other gnome related projects, and Novell is probably one of the biggest contributors to both KDE and Gnome.

Damn those corporations!

[Blue Beard]

I still use Microsoft because it is the easiest way to make things work. Many of my work place's applications such as Cisco VPN only work on Microsoft.

Microsoft still represents 90+% of the market.

I am trying to make Linux my OS of choice and it's getting closer.

Fighting between distro's is not going to increase market share. This has to stop!

Some of the previous posts clearly indicated the bountiful choice and freedom Linux provides.

I suggest each of us work to improve our area of interest to enhance Linux.

[deanjo]

I still use Microsoft because it is the easiest way to make things work. Many of my work place's applications such as Cisco VPN only work on Microsoft.

Microsoft still represents 90+% of the market.

I am trying to make Linux my OS of choice and it's getting closer.

Fighting between distro's is not going to increase market share. This has to stop!

Some of the previous posts clearly indicated the bountiful choice and freedom Linux provides.

I suggest each of us work to improve our area of interest to enhance Linux.

It's not so much "fighting between distro's". It's more fighting among devels in the same project that causes much of the turmoil.

[BlackStar]

crap. That isn't 'versioning' that is crap. No easy way to tell what version that kernel is and no way to have several kernels around.
crap.
You are surprisingly ignorant for a Gentoo user.

Many people find that Arch provides the perfect blend between rolling releases, flexibility, usability and ease of maintenance. Gentoo is nice, but fails in the usability department (build OpenOffice or Mozilla from source? No thanks, there are better ways to spend my CPU time). There's a reason why Arch has roughly twice the users of Gentoo (according to distrowatch).

Comparing Arch to other distros, it lags behind Ubuntu in usability, but fares better in the maintenance and flexibility departments (Ubuntu is not a rolling release distro, either). Debian is great, but you can forget up-to-date software unless you use unsupported or unstable packages. OpenSUSE is interesting, mainly due to the build service, but a) its package manager is still awful as of version 11 and b) it still manages to lag behind pretty much everything else in performance. Fedora fails pretty much everywhere (sorry).

[energyman]

and many people think arcg is crap, because of lack of good version support and other shenanigans.

Distrowatch does not count users. It counts clicks on the links on their website. Not surprising that an arch user doesn't know that or doesn't understand the difference.

[deanjo]

OpenSUSE is interesting, mainly due to the build service, but a) its package manager is still awful as of version 11 and b) it still manages to lag behind pretty much everything else in performance. Fedora fails pretty much everywhere (sorry).

Best way to improve it is to set the backend to zypper instead of PackageKit. You can also enable the aria2 feature that makes it extremely robust when mirrors may be down. As far as speed goes I can't say I share your experience when compared to other distro's except for the fact that on a Ext3 file system barriers are enabled by default where as most others default to barriers off.

There is also a strong possibility of specific kernels being made for role types which should improve the performance further in the future releases.

[Wyatt]

Q. What distro do you use?
A. I use Gentoo Linux

Q. Why?
A. I like the flexibility of the system that allows me to choose what I want and do not want. I like the package manager represented by scripts that emulate how a human builds software. I like the sense of community and the people I've met. I like the documentation that generally shows a high degree of polish and demystifies arcane concepts like configuring a kernel. I like the emphasis on a user-driven duality of purpose, with gradations of "stable" versus "unstable."

Please, can not we just agree to disagree, guys? This is embarrassing to watch. :(

[deanjo]

I like the documentation that generally shows a high degree of polish and demystifies arcane concepts like configuring a kernel.

This is one thing I can absolutely agree on. The documentation on gentoo is simply awesome (and often resolves issues with other distro's as well). The unfortunate part is that the documentation is needed for even the most basic of configuration most times (ie tvcards, dmraid, etc).

[Adarion]

Very sadly the Gentoo Wiki was lost. I hope Gentoo will make it an official project with in and out of house backups. Of course the wiki is not all the documentation.

And yes, it's getting warm here over all that flaming. Stop it please folks or I'll call the firemen. :p

If someone likes to use a binary distribution, well, why not. It's way less work for them and if they can accept the lack of configurability and individuality etc. that a precompiled system causes, well, good for them.

But I think that a lot of bug feedback comes from gentoo cause of all the people compiling and using most various versions of software and hardware architectures. Others will notice at max some runtime issues.

[deanjo]

Very sadly the Gentoo Wiki was lost. I hope Gentoo will make it an official project with in and out of house backups. Of course the wiki is not all the documentation.

And yes, it's getting warm here over all that flaming. Stop it please folks or I'll call the firemen. :p

If someone likes to use a binary distribution, well, why not. It's way less work for them and if they can accept the lack of configurability and individuality etc. that a precompiled system causes, well, good for them.

But I think that a lot of bug feedback comes from gentoo cause of all the people compiling and using most various versions of software and hardware architectures. Others will notice at max some runtime issues.


The wiki lives http://www.gentoo-wiki.info

[BlackStar]

Distrowatch does not count users. It counts clicks on the links on their website. Not surprising that an arch user doesn't know that or doesn't understand the difference.

I never claimed it counts *users*. The fact remains that distrowatch claims a relative user count of 2:1 in favour of Arch.

Note they key word: *relative*. It doesn't matter if it counts unique visitors (which it doesn't), clicks (which it also doesn't) or hits (which it does). The relative difference remains a valid metric.

To get back on topic, both Arch and Gentoo are - and will probably remain - fringe distributions in the large scheme of things, both Arch. The fact is that relatively few users are willing to invest in the skillset and time necessary for either of these distros. They have their purpose; they are great for those who want something more out of their OS (but are not willing to invest into LFS); they won't ever achieve "mainstream" status in the way Ubuntu has.

Edit:
Best way to improve it is to set the backend to zypper instead of PackageKit. You can also enable the aria2 feature that makes it extremely robust when mirrors may be down. As far as speed goes I can't say I share your experience when compared to other distro's except for the fact that on a Ext3 file system barriers are enabled by default where as most others default to barriers off.
Thahks, this will come in handy (I keep an openSUSE VM around for testing my apps).

[deanjo]

Thahks, this will come in handy (I keep an openSUSE VM around for testing my apps).

No prob, as a side note you might find this interesting. I've been using it for a while now and it makes creating appliances extremely easy. Once it goes public it will be nice but lots of features are still being incorporated.

http://www.linuxhaxor.net/2009/04/04/first-look-at-suse-studio/

[Adarion]

The wiki lives http://www.gentoo-wiki.info

Nah, that's more a zombie. Yes, there were several backups by people who cad either used Go*gle cache or similar archives or people that had just backuped the whole thing on their hdd but the real wiki still needs to be rebuilt.

[Ant P.]

Q. What distro do you use?
A. I use Gentoo Linux

Q. Why?
A. I like the flexibility of the system that allows me to choose what I want and do not want. I like the package manager represented by scripts that emulate how a human builds software. I like the sense of community and the people I've met. I like the documentation that generally shows a high degree of polish and demystifies arcane concepts like configuring a kernel. I like the emphasis on a user-driven duality of purpose, with gradations of "stable" versus "unstable."

Please, can not we just agree to disagree, guys? This is embarrassing to watch. :(

This. I can't comment on the community side since I've never got involved with it, but it's got the best package manager out of any distro I've used so far... shame it's not the default one ;)

[DanL]

Exactly.. Redhat has given us NetworkManager and other gnome related projects, and Novell is probably one of the biggest contributors to both KDE and Gnome.

Damn those corporations!

Life would be better without corporations. Personally, I would prefer that Linux stay entirely free (as in freedom).

[deanjo]

Life would be better without corporations. Personally, I would prefer that Linux stay entirely free (as in freedom).

Here is a challenge for ya then, remove all corporation contributions and see how functional of an os you have. Ooops there goes X, oops there goes mysql, oops there goes a good chunk of the kernel, oops there goes file systems, ........

[jonnycat26]

Life would be better without corporations. Personally, I would prefer that Linux stay entirely free (as in freedom).

I'm glad your opinion is that of a fringe minority.

[GreekGeek]

Hi guys,

I've tried Slackware, Redhat, Ubuntu, Kbuntu, SuSE and a bunch others I can not recall....

Debian is where I have been, since about 2002. It's package management, via Synaptic is great. You can opt for "testing" or "unstable" or "experimental" and in that order also, for uber stable to living on the edge. You can mix and match too, but that takes some learning and counts as living on the edge. Look around, read the forumz.

You will be hard pressed, to find a OS without any dents. In the end, do what is comfortable, fun and don't be bullied by people with large mouths and small hearts.

Greekgeek :-)

[kraftman]

Life would be better without corporations. Personally, I would prefer that Linux stay entirely free (as in freedom).

Thanks to GPL it's entirely free (as in freedom).

[Svartalf]

Life would be better without corporations. Personally, I would prefer that Linux stay entirely free (as in freedom).

Life would be better with corporations or similar that act responsibly.

Otherwise you wouldn't have the computer you're typing your post on, the Internet that you used to send it to the forum, the electricity that powers it all, and not to mention all that deanjo thoughtfully pointed out to you.

None of the other alternatives would provide any better and even in a Socialist or Communist system, you still have corporations- they're just partly or wholly owned by the State.

[Svartalf]

In keeping with things on the subject of the thread:

Ubuntu (Easier to provide services for the less Linux literate...).
Fedora (Testing code for one of the mainline distros...)
SuSE (Ditto...)
Mandriva (Ditto...)
Angstrom (I do embedded dev...)
Maemo (I have an N800... ;-) )

[MetalheadGautham]

I use the following:

ArchLinux i686 (no free time to migrate to 64bit)

KDE 4.2.2 - EXTREMELY FAST AND AWESOME (but for few minor bugs) I think KDE has completely redeemed itself this time. Its fast, responsive and has a light memory footprint when multitasking, though default usage is around 260MB.

Xfce 4.6 - PWNS all other Xfce versions and Gnome. Lighter, faster and better looking, its the best DE for backup.

IceWM - PWNS all other WMs. Uses lesser resources than even awesome. Got neat features built in including CPU/Network graph, date, tray, etc. So no need to use PyPanel as with *Boxes.

KDM Display Manager - Since I use KDE, I thought I might as well have KDM.

Notable software (uncommon stuff):

1. gecko-mediaplayer enables mediaplayer plugin for netscape plugin using browsers. Feature rich, pretends to be WMP, QT and Real plugins and fools sites to enable video playback. Can easily save videos (very useful feature) by rightclicking.

2. Gnome-MPlayer needed by gecko-mediaplayer. Better than GMplayer and all other GTK media players.

3. Powerpill for better package management (faster downloads).

4. MultiGet download manager.

[Adarion]

Intel Pentium 4 "Prescott" 2.66GHz (no HT)
256MB DDR1 400MHz RAM
Intel D915GLVG Motherboard
Onboard Intel GMA 900 GPU
Onboard RealTek ALC 880 Audio
Seagate 80GB SATA HDD


Look. Look what wonderful things you can do with Linux. Bring a P4 with 265M RAM to fly, even with a fancy KDE4 desktop.
I had the questionable joy to service broken W32-XP on a similar box and it was so slooooow. Okay, there was a lot of 3rd party software running, too... well... some users seem to like all the 1000 blinking items in their systray and then wonder why they run out of mem.
Also had to service a Vista with 1GB. Similar experience but there was nearly no 3rd pary stuff. Switching off that indexing stuff helped a bit.

Then I had an OpenSuSE on easter weekend. Maybe it was just me being used to Gentoo but it wasn't THAT uncomplicated as the SuSE fans write to get MP3, DVDcss and stuff running. Well, I must mention that it was also for a person that doesn't know much about tech, patents etc. and the person just expects the box to run all the stuff normal users use.
Oh, and... fancy thing: I had 2 notebooks of the same style in hardware and the memory footprint was a good part lower on Gentoo. It was also faster. (of course it was, I mean it is supposed to be this way)
Still I used the OpenSuSE on it since it provides quicker handling when it comes to installation (lack of compile time) and I think if that very person wants to get an update of something or install additional functionality (that is not related to MP3 or DVDcss *cough*) then it's far easier that telling the person about USE and CFLAGS etc.
On the other hand some thing looked (no, just were) rather broken and it took several tries to get the installation running at all (*buntu failed completely while Gentoo rocked the box); there were some severe graphic issues and similar stuff. So I have a direct comparison of two nearly identical notebooks with 2 different distributions.
So SuSE runs on it fairly and most things work, but my Gentoo runs better there but of course I could do more tuning by hand while SuSE is just a general distribution that is expected to run on all x86 (i586) compatible.

Another box I'm building will have Ubuntu, choice of the user. Well... I'll see how it will perform with the box, the user and me when I have to do all the usual system care (updates etc.).
Meanwhile I shall enjoy some Gentoo emerging of KDE4 on my shiny new AMD system. :)

[AdrenalineJunky]

i'm using arch right now, i really like it, but its not for everyone.

previously i tried tons of distro's. mostly used mepis (which is still installed, buy i haven't booted into it since install arch..) which i really like for stability and the fact that its always worked with no need to do pretty much anything...

also used sidux for a decent amount of time as well.

at the end of the day, its all what you're looking for, just try some stuff out.... virtualbox is your best freind :)

[L33F3R]

Linux Mint AMD64 hands down.

I wont say i like it quick and easy (have fun with that 1), but I like my system to just work for me. if i need something in a flash i can usually just apt-get it and in 10 seconds use it. As much as I like Linux i also like my OS to work for me which is partly why ubuntu does so well. often times i need to compile things and thats fine but a fine line exists between setting your system up and actually using it.

Intel Q6600
Nvidia 7950
OCZ 6gb Ram

I have an old PC i use for running gameservers in the back.
vector linux for this computer :P.

800mhz P3
256mb ram
20gb HDD

[Ant P.]

Look. Look what wonderful things you can do with Linux. Bring a P4 with 265M RAM to fly, even with a fancy KDE4 desktop.

Heh, I gave my parents one with even worse specs and it runs KDE4 (and youtube) fine. Forget Intel, this thing had a SiS chip...

[mirv]

Well, I use gentoo because I really enjoy the package manager. And the rolling updates is really nice.
Being said, gentoo just suits me very well. I have friends who far prefer ubuntu, or debian. Basically, like all things linux, comes down to personal taste - each distro will have advantages and disadvantages, but it just depends what you like.
On a side note, someone was actually confused when they asked if I used gnome or kde and I responded with "neither". Just try things out and see what you like.

[SolidSteel144]

Which Distro do I use? Arch Linux
Why? I like how it has the latest software available (it's rolling release). It doesn't install crap I don't need. It has an amazing package manager. It's just a very flexible distribution. :)