Then Arch would probably be good. Lots of potential for learning.

That is true! I tried Arch in VirtualBox and while I managed to get it installed following the ArchWiki, I couldn't get it to run any DE, so far. I tried the ways described in the Wiki on how to install KDE, but somehow (even though everything installs correctly) I can't start it with "startx" or via .bash_profiles, but I'll keep tinkering with Arch in VirtualBox from time to time.

To start KDE in Arch you have to leave it to KDM. So, find the instructions in the wiki on how to enable KDM.

Make sure you have installed X11, and works correctly.

Good luck to you!

Yes, I tried.

I installed the base system with this guide: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...e#Installation

Then XOrg with this one: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xorg#Installation

Afterwards KDM according to this: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/KDM#Installation

And finally the KDE-meta package like this: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/KDE#Installation

Then I tried two different ways of starting X/KDM/KDE on boot, firstly: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...arting_on_boot via systemctl

and secondly via a line in .bash_profiles like here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Start_X_at_Login

Both methods did not start X/KDM/KDE on boot but rather if trying the first method, typing "startx" as root or regular user would just output "startx not found". When trying the second method, every time I logged into the user that had this line in his .bash_profiles, the system would immediately log that user out and display the login again (in Bash even, not in any kind of X/KDM environment)...

Install the xorg-xinit package.

there is a file in /home called .xinitrc is a script, so make sure it is executable, make sure your user has the right to that file too

Ok, I'll try both things when I'm back at my main PC at home where my Arch-VM is.


Btw: I have successfully installed Debian Testing in a VM on my laptop and "upgraded" it to "unstable" via /etc/apt/sources.list, but package versions are still pretty much what they were in Testing, i.e. Gnome 3.4 or Kernel 3.2. is it supposed to be that way or did I do something wrong when changing sources.list? (I exchanged every mention of "wheezy" with "unstable", then:

)

You're over-thinking this. Rolling release and cutting-edge translates into bugs, crashes, and trashed systems, that's why nobody does it that way. Rolling releases stick with proven packages. Point releases that are cutting edge have tested what they release to some extent. I'm not sure why you think you need to be so cutting-edge, especially if, as you admit, you're not an expert. It's like asking for trouble.

When Testing goes into the frozen state, as it is now, changes in Unstable slow down usually. You will see huge changes (and the occasional breakage, especially in the first few weeks after release) directly after Wheezy is released.

Well, this problem kinda took care of itself since Sabayon 13.04 was released today which has all the latest stuff, is rolling-release and very easy to install/configure.

I'll keep tinkering with Arch in a VM, though, because I think that's a distro where you can REALLY learn all the good stuff about Linux, once you figure out how to do it all.

Thank you all for your suggestions and help!

You're guaranteed to have to learn everything, since the dev's break the OS every 6 months or so necessitating you basically rebuild it from a rescue shell. Reason I stopped using Arch. I was tired of having to convert it from 1 thing to another what seemed like more often than I could simply USE it.

I was curious to give Sabayon another try, see if Rigo has matured some, so I downloaded the Xfce version yesterday. I did a little playing around with the live DVD, but haven't committed to an installation yet. Maybe this weekend.

I have installed the KDE version today and it installed nicely. Rigo was a little weird, though. It kept "lagging" when searching for and installing packages. For example: It took around two minutes installing Gimp 2.8.4 on Ubuntu Raring with the Software Center and one minute with command-line YUM on Fedora. But it took more than five minutes installing it via Rigo. Maybe the Sabayon repos are less easily contacted from where I live? But I had the feeling, it was an issue with Rigo, since the download part of the installation process didn't take that long. Rather Rigo seemed to stall a little during the installation of the packages.

Overall, I really liked the new Sabayon release, well, until installing VirtualBox from the official repo made my system not boot anymore. ^^ I don't know what went wrong there, but I'll check out Sabayon on a different computer tomorrow and see if it's maybe just a special issue with the hardware of that particular PC or something else...

Much like any other distro with a GUI front end for package management, I will probably choose to avoid Rigo, and just use entropy from the cli. Last time I tried Rigo, that was my experience, too... SLOW.

That's cutting edge? GIMP installed in 20 seconds on my old laptop with Debian.