Hi,

In the past I have used Knoppix, Overclockix, PHLAK, Morphix, Mandrake (9.1 & 10), and Fedora.

I have a new machine I built (2.4GHz Celeron D, 512MB DDR, 4 x GIGABIT NICs, Tyan mobo) and I am trying to decide which Linux distribution to install. I think I have it settled between Yoper and FedoraCore3.


I have used FedoraCore1 and FedoraCore2 in the past and loved it greatly, but was a bit dissapointed that MAJOR upgrades are only released 3-4 times a year. Yoper took my mind when I heard lots of great comments about Yoper (yos-i686-2.1.0-4). When reading about it I see lots of ease of system management and so on.

Other important factors are the use of the latest Linux Kernel and KDE (I love KDE and almost always use that) in their versions. Along with support/compatibility for a wide variety of hardware.

I have been using Linux for almost a year now on a few of my machines, I can handle most tasks however I am still novice with using the konsole/terminal line and updating my kernel and all of those other tasks that way, so the ease of use is important.

Any feedback on which distribution you think would work better for me, from what you have read here would be GREATLY appreciated. As I am interested in installing it today hopefully since I already have the FedoraCore3 and Yoper ISOs downloaded.

Thanks

Forgot to write what I plan on using this machine for..... mainly surfing the internet, benchmarking different computer components, testing items, some coding perhaps, and a chance for a local SOHO server but that isnt a major concern since I already have other servers for that task. Mainly just some productivity tasks Im interested in.

Any ideas? I have looked for other articles on choosing a distrubution for you but like the one I found at Linux Journal the link was too old it said so nothign showed up.

Yoper is pretty goood. It is a lot slimmer than Fedora - 1 CD as opposed to 4, and it is defnitely biased towards KDE (its developer is familiar with KDE, not so much with Gnome). It is renowned for its 'speed', although to see it, you'll probably have to update the kernel first thing because there were some problems with the one that shipped on the latest iso. Luckily this is as simple as running 'apt-get install'. Obviously its software selection is not going to be as extensive as Fedora's, but the essentials are there, so it should not be a problem for a simple desktop. Finally, be aware Yoper is upgrading their servers this week, so not all features of the web site are available. In particular, the forums are down at the moment.

Thanks, having only been recently focused on Yoper, about how often are their major releases for Yoper? Is it easy to use with like the normal gui options for everything? Have you experienced any incompatibility conflicts? Also, on some other forums I heard rumor they would be charging for future versions of Yoper in order to receive the full ISO else you'd get a cut down version. Is this true?

Yoper is a small (as in, small development team) distro... it releases on 'when it's ready' schedule. If you want someting more definite than that, try Ubuntu - they are officially committed to a 6-month release cycle.
Yoper is pretty easy to use - I had no problems. But I run older hardware picked for Linux compatibility, so I don't have much to say about that.
As for future changes, I haven't heard this but it is possible - anything is possible with Yoper because its main developer does change his mind and direction occasionally.

TuxFreak - the question of which distro is best for [fill in the blank] is asked all the time, and just like a discussion over which movie or rock band is "best", in the end it's a totally subjective call, and the answer is that there is no universally "best" distro out there. Instead, there's just a "best distro for you" and the only way to find which one it is would be to try several, then decide for yourself seems to fit your needs and preferences. Good luck with it. Two excellent sources for ISO's are LQ ISO and LinuxISO. -- J.W.

Thanks for your help JW and Ferrix... im booting Yoper installer on my other machine as im typing this out... Hope it turns out to all be good. Thanks a lot for the resources JW I havent come across those, and thats exactly the type of info i was looking for

You're welcome TuxFreak - happy distro hunting and I'd be interested in hearing which one you decide to go with What's especially cool with Linux is that if you choose one distro and then later get restless or bored or dissatisfied with it, it's pretty easy to change. -- J.W.

I decided upon FedoraCore3 since I have had previous experience with Fedora, and Yoper was acting up a bit after I installed. Unfortunately xorg fonts or somethign was missing from one of the ISOs so tommrorow ill just reformat again and reinstall it without the xorg package which would require the fonts off the ISO... thats not much of a problem but I am having some troubles getting my two gigabit PCI NICs detecting in Linux... their D-Link DGE-530T and there are Linux drivers but for some reason im not doing something right or their not working.... They use SK98lin... Also im trying to get lmsensors working but since you have to compile it depending upon your chipset and everything Im still figuring that out... I know my chipsets and hardware and everything just need to get mroe experienced with Linux if any of you have resources they would be appreciated. Thanks once again.