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Since Suse has decided to sleep with the "pigs", I am now looking for another distro to replace it. My requirement are as follows:
Easy install
Easy automatic updating (Suse really dropped the ball there lately.)
Easy upgrade
Stable and secure
User friendly
I want to use it for a file server...eventually.
Basically, I'd like to have things already configured in it such as Real Audio, and such in order to listen to talk shows and music on the web.
Oh, it would be nice if I could play my DVD's out of the box as well.
Crap! I just want something better than Suse so I don't miss it when I shred it!
This is the distro I use and recommend, Why because it works right out of the box. No need to configure Everything, everything just works. It also comes as a 1 CD install that is a live CD that you can install later if you wish.
Hmmm...Mandriva I played with years back when it was called, "Mandrake", which I much preferred as a name. What does it have to replace YAST as a default now? Any good?
I toyed with Knoppix when I bought the book, "Kiss the blue screen of death goodbye." It is actually what got me interested in Linux in the first place.
What I liked about Suse was the massive amount of programs it packaged. However, I admit 90% of them I'll never use.
Hmmm...Mandriva I played with years back when it was called, "Mandrake", which I much preferred as a name. What does it have to replace YAST as a default now? Any good?
Nobody has an option to replace YAST. Since I tried Suse 6.4 I have never seen an all-in-one as good (Debian's apt-get is a better package manager). But even YAST was screwed up from it's transition from the original YAST to today's YAST2. Much in the same way that YOU was botched recently. Mandriva does have their own GUI replacments for YAST but it is not YAST. And it is not a totally bad thing. And, yep, Mandriva is a very bizarre name.
There are a lot of other very good options but a commercial version of Mandriva is going to be closer to a commercial version of Suse than some of the others. Fedora or *buntu come in second, Debian or Slack rate depending on your ability and willingness to configure and etc yourself.
IMHO
Easy install
Easy automatic updating (Suse really dropped the ball there lately.)
Easy upgrade
Stable and secure
User friendly
I want to use it for a file server...eventually.
Basically, I'd like to have things already configured in it such as Real Audio, and such in order to listen to talk shows and music on the web.
Oh, it would be nice if I could play my DVD's out of the box as well.
Most of these lead me to recommend Mepis, since it sounds like you'll be using it as a desktop to begin with. For using it as a file server, however, I have to recommend Debian. This is the setup I use at home. Mepis on the desktop, and Debian stable (Sarge) on my server.
If I had to recommend just one, then I'd say Debian Etch (testing). Yes, it will be a bit more to configure in the beginning, but it is usable on the desktop. It would then be a natural transition into a server by the time you're ready to use it as one.
Wow, quite a few choices. I'm going to have to look deeper into them. Debian seems to be a popular one for the most part. Hey, thanks all for your help. It's a pity I'm having to look for a different distro..... Ethically, I just can't justify supporting Novel/Suse anymore. Frankly I'm rather embarrassed to have it on my machine right now. Bill has repeatedly proven himself to be the enemy of Linux, and I'm a firm believer that "united we stand...divided we fall." Thanks again.
Kanotix is based on Debian Sid; which gives you the latest bleeding edge apps and the power of APT. Plus a great community and all the nice scripts Kano and team come up with to help install things like video drivers. Why I use Kanotix.
PCLinuxOS comes with more multimedia configured out of the box, although you will still need to install a package or two to get dvds to play, it does have a smaller assortment of packages last I checked around 5k.If you liked Mandrake you will love PCLinuxOS, Texstar does a great job.It also uses APT/Synaptic for its package manager, making it very easy to keep things updated.
I completely agree with everyone who suggested *ubuntu. Stable, fast, and plenty of support pages. I personally prefer Gnome or Xfce, I hate KDE. All 3 however, are stable and fast for me.
Mandriva/Mandrake O7, is the worst Linux distro Ive ever tried. It was slow, crashed a lot, etc. YMMV of course. Fedora Core 5 is also a good distro in my opinion. When people ask me about Linux, I always suggest either *ubuntu or FC 5...
Ok, Kanotix and PClinuxOS also sounds interesting. Ubuntu I've found several positive opinion on it, but haven't experimented too much with Gnome. Fedora, on the other hand, pissed me off a few years back. Hmm...I'm starting to think there are too many choices out there. Perhaps that is why Bill hasn't been run out of town yet. He plays to the fact that most people don't want to think, they want to be told what to do. Personally, I love choices, but like my choices more clearly defined. I'm seeing only vague differences in many of the linux options out there which only serves to impede my decision to the point of becoming a bit frustrating.
Of course there are many hundreds of distros, but most are based on either RH, Mandrake, Slackware or Debian. So while there may seem like too many choices each distro tends to offer something to the devs and users of that particular distro that makes it worthwhile to run.
Personally I choose Kanotix over pure Debian, basically because of the easy with which it can be configured, and the fact that the people in the Kanotix IRC channel are actually helpful and don't just say RTFM.
Freedom of choice is what makes Linux great, it wouldn't be any different from Microsoft if there was only 1 version of Linux to choose.
Ok, Kanotix and PClinuxOS also sounds interesting. Ubuntu I've found several positive opinion on it, but haven't experimented too much with Gnome. Fedora, on the other hand, pissed me off a few years back. Hmm...I'm starting to think there are too many choices out there. Perhaps that is why Bill hasn't been run out of town yet. He plays to the fact that most people don't want to think, they want to be told what to do. Personally, I love choices, but like my choices more clearly defined. I'm seeing only vague differences in many of the linux options out there which only serves to impede my decision to the point of becoming a bit frustrating.
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