I am having some difficulty in deciding which distro to commit to. I have been working with computers since I was 10 (I am now 23). I have a degree in Network Communications and work as a System/Network Admin for a medium sized company. I have used Ubuntu for about 2 years and I liked it very much. However, as of late it seems to be a little unstable and strange things happen more frequently. I would like to test out a few more distros to see if I would like any of them better. Other distros I have very minimal experience using are Fedora, Linux Mint, Sabayon, PCLinuxOS, Wolvix, Mandriva, and Sam Linux. I recently installed Mepis 6.5 on my HDD on a separate partition and I have been using it for about 2 weeks and so far love it (except I have yet to get my sound working). I was wondering, based on what I have told you above, what other distros I should test out. So far Mepis is amazing and I think it might be my choice! I have also been looking at Linux Mint, Sabayon, and Vector Linux. Can anyone else tell me some others that might be good to check out?

Requirements:

1. Fairly easy to use (Not a very technical distro)
2. Integrates with Windows (File sharing)
3. Good support community (forum) and documentation
4. Stability!!!!
5. I don't mind if it uses Gnome (I have used that for 2 years with Ubuntu) but since I installed Mepis I am loving the KDE desktop.


Thanks for any input!

Slackware.

Thanks! I think that might be a little too technical for my understanding of Linux at this point. Or am I wrong?

If you like using the Synaptic Package manager give Debian Etch a try. Slackware is good also but Debian has it together with their Package Manager system. I personally feel Ubuntu needs to slow up a little just for the reason you mentioned. Ubuntu has done a great job in drawing people to linux, but they are changing so fast they're becoming unstable. If you give Debian a try, do a netinstall and as it's booting to the install cd at the prompt hit F1 and take a look at the options, I think it's F3 will give you boot options pick the installgui option. That brings up a nice gui install menus to work with, a lot like the Ubuntu install.

ubuntu and opensuse are 2 of the easiest that do what you want.
though they are by no means the only easy to use ones...

try a few out and stick with one you like...

(i use ubuntu for most every day stuff as its really easy to use)

http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

gives all the major distros with their pros and cons

Depends upon whether you want to learn or remain ignorant. Seems like kind of an odd statement for someone who claims to be a "System/Network Admin".

Slack's reputation for being difficult is unearned and pretty much an urban myth.

I have to agree. As far as techincal know how, as long as you are familiar with disk partitions, and linux swap partitions its really not any more difficult than any other distro. Disk setup is probably the #1 thing I think is hard about slackware install, and it something other installations have to go thru as well but I think they put in pretty good vanilla settings where slackware doesn't even bother.

But if your any sort of real sys/network admin disk partitioning should not scare you.

Depending on how much you want to learn Linux, you may very well welcome the minimlist approach slackware takes to linux distros. Coming from redhat I know I did.

That being said I thought Ubuntu was great. I'd gladly use it as a desktop only OS, but all too often I'm trying to run quasi desktop/server machines.

Try to turn an ubuntu desktop install into a server, its a complete PITA, then if you get the Ubuntu Server distro, its a PITA to make it a good desktop.

With slackware accomplishing either or both is not any more challenging.

Although given that I'm a hardcore Slackware user, I'm not sure I'm the best authority on Ubuntu, but I know I tried it, and went crying back to Slacky.

Well, if would also depend on what you would use it for. If you need it to learn for work, you should really use Fedora/CentOS/RedHat or Suse (although I have some serious doubts about openSuse because of stability issues). I am always enthusiastic about new Mandriva releases - until they start dissolving into a dependency hell only two months later... Slackware is nice but, well, I'm sorry to say so, it's not the best choice from a professional point of view. When employers expect Linux skills, you know that they are usually talking about RedHat or Suse.