Hello people. I'm new to Linux in general and I was wondering what type of Linux I should use. I'm not really looking for something that's just really easy for beginners. I'm fine with something that's a little more difficult to use or something that's not a very stable version. Anyway, basically what I'm asking is: which version of Linux do you personally like best and why. I'll make my decision from that. Thank you for your time.

This question is asked very often, and all the answers are already posted.

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

Read through that page. Look for interesting links as well as the primary reviews. Picking a distro is a philosophical and personal choice. All you can get here is people advertising their favorites. None is distinctively superior to the others in any technical sense.

You really should have just read one of the other 10,000 or so threads with the same title.

Hi Chronothread,

I don't think you would be any better off if we told you what we like best. I say go wild experimenting. I have settled on a handful but I must have tried out a few dozen at least to get there Just go to distrowatch to do some reading up. Linux comes in "families" really and most are just variations on the following:

Debian
Fedora
Mandriva
Gentoo
Slackware
Suse

Sorry to anyone if I forget something, not meaning to offend.

Kubuntu
http://www.kubuntu.org/


Mandriva
http://www.mandriva.com/community/mandrivaone


PCLinuxOS .92
http://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/metalab/dist...glish/preview/
ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/metalab/distr...glish/preview/

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.

Mephis
http://www.mepis.org/

Ubuntu has a very good community, but personall i prefer Fedora Core 6 (Zod)

I prefer SuSe Linux as it is very appealing and a really great distribution. It can upgrade from any Linux distribution. It can also install packages from any distribution with the alien tool. Also it is more user friendly than most Linux distributions for newbies.

MINE is best, MINE is best!!!!!

For newcomers, just get anything in the top ten on the Distrowatch "hit list". Pick at random and dive in---chances are very high you will try several before settling down.

the best distro FOR YOU is the last one you try

No it isn't, MINE IS!!

Well .. HEH! Unless he picks something like Gentoo, tries 5 times to install it and every time misses some step in the handbook (i.e. cd /mnt/gentoo; or whatever ; decides that he has had enough of this linux busyness and goes back to windows. In this case first_tried_distro == last_tired_distro != best_distro_for_him.

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Wowowow... hold on a bit.

How sure are you, on a scale of 0x0 to 0xf, of those statements?

jacook proabably gave the best recommendations. I suggest you also look at Distrowatch's page of most popular/supported distros. When you are starting, you need something that you like, but also something that works for you and have good support and repositories. Here you are:

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

I don't understand why our members can't relax a little on this type of post. If you can't defend your choice of Linux distro it's not a very sound choice, at least not yet. Here's a quick review:

Supports most of the latest hardware, and easy to use:

Fedora Core 6, Fedora is a machine hog, but is a Linux standard.

OpenSuSe, but isn't much like Linux. The whole Idea of Linux is if you learn one distro you pretty much know them all. Suse seriously breaks this rule, and departs from practically everything in standard Linux. I learned on SuSE, but it was definitely the slow way to learn Linux.

Mandriva, probably one of the best. It's smaller than some others, but it's got all the good stuff. Most people don't need to work with genetic algorithms, design radio telescope antennas, devise hybrid iterative algorithms in a little known interpreted language, run embedded systems, or any of the thousands of things that are are packaged with the big distros.

Xandros and PCLinuxOS, these are puppy, pay Linux. If you're a real mouse puppy these are what you want. Both are attempts to place an 4 cylinder engine and automatic transmission in a Chevy Corvette. These are also good for people with attention deficit disorder because no thought is required, and there is a lot of entertainment built in. But, they work without much fuss.

Sort of supports the latest hardware:

Redhat, not quite as modern, but pretty close. This is good Linux. If you have the newest notebook computer this is probably not a good choice. Redhat is a rock solid system, but Fedora comes from Redhat and it's free.

Centos, Redhat copy, a little behind Redhat, small, but awesome looks and function. Mostly standard Linux.

Hard to use distros:

Gentoo - This thing is really for the geek who wants total control of something because it gives total control. Has proprietary packaging system, and excellent tools and documentation. Gentoo has a strong following, and it really works well, if you can get it installed. I believe Gentoo uses the pristine kernel sources from kernel.org

Debian, this is what I use because I'm really arrogant. I want three DVD's of packages, all 15,000 plus, because I need a lot of specialized software. This is absolute standard file system hierarchy, and unless you have another machine to go online with, this distro will not work for a newbie distro. It is designed for work. It's lean, mean, and crisp. It's got power to burn. The way I install it it takes up 8 GB of HDD for the / filesystem. I put everything but /home in root. Debian has the largest following of serious Linux users, and has been around longer than most. They probably also have the biggest staff. I used CD 1 of the set, and did a network install on one of the newest notebooks in existence and Debian Etch installed perfectly, without one single error. I had to tweak the system a little, but that is phenomenal. Debian will be the number one distro very shortly because it is standard Linux, with a few tools to make life easier.

Slackware, this is raw Linux, and probably the first distro with any noteriety. Running slack is like building your own car from parts. I kind of get into that, but slack is pretty much different than anything else. It errs on the side of stability, and works well for a server with the 2.4 kernel, which is much more stable than the 2.6 kernel. On a server you don't need a gui, so there isn't much that won't work with the 2.4 kernel.

The rest of the pack:

There are specialized distros for people who either get bored, or want a certain thing. Many of these are live CDs.

Please explain to us what a "Linux standard" is. And if you're referring to LSB, then simply say "LSB compliant".

It runs on top of the Linux kernel so it's a Linux distribution. It's as "standard" as your lovely FC.

No it's not.

"mouse puppy"? I don't get it. Are you bashing "mouse-oriented" distributions as opposed to command line oriented ones? What's up with all the fedora/mandriva praising then? Those two are amongst the top distributions I think of when someone says "GUI-oriented".

No, it's for the user who wants a higher degree of control over his system. Why would I have printing support if I've never own a printer in my life?

The installation handbook is one of the best documentation resources I've ever found online.

Ahem. You have the option to easily run the original (i.e. no 3rd party patches) Linux kernel. This doesn't mean it's the only option, heck, it's not even the option "used" in the installation handbook. At this point I have to ask you: have you ever installed & ran Gentoo?

As for the debian part .. it's just a bunch of opinions presented as facts. Actually your whole post is like that.

"Raw Linux"? What the heck is that!?

Funny, most people say that about Gentoo rather than Slackware.

The rest of the pack .. meaning distributions such as Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu/etc ; Arch Linux etc. Quite the "specialized distros".

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Anyway, perhaps you should have started your post with "OPINIONS ALERT: This post is full of opinions which to average newbie might appear as being facts.".

I prefer using Gentoo because it does not mess with pre-compile crap that other distributions provides. You tell it what feature to include and what feature to not include and it will compile it for you, so you never have to go through the steps of compile which are ./configure, make, make install. The only problem with Gentoo, is you need a stable and reliable system to compile 24+ hours. Gentoo's utilities to install and uninstall programs are not proprietary. Anybody can see the code and change it. The utilities are written in Python which makes it easier to port it to other systems. Gentoo's config files are well organized and you do not have to depend on GUI programs to re-configure when something goes wrong. Gentoo's standard and strict package policy makes maintainers create ebuild files to be correct instead of incorrect or mostly correct. For each program, it is tested several times before gets unmask or be stable for production systems although it does not stop many adventurous users. All programs that Gentoo has in its program database is directly from the developers site. Gentoo developers may include patches to compile a certain gcc versions or change where the program saves its config files.

Slackware and Gentoo has similar installation procedures. They both are tedious (a lot of steps) but easy to install. If this is your first time using Linux, I suggest go with Ubuntu. Sooner or later its pre-compile packages will give you a headache and you may have to be force to compile. Gentoo solves the compiling problem because it does the dirty work for you.

Slackware in my opinion is not finish or does not provide a near finish product. Its scripts are very, very basic and config files are everywhere.

Fedora and Redhat Enterprise Linux are distributions that I hate. It uses proprietary utilities for everything and it requires you to use GUI to use these utilities. The config files are cryptic even for an expert and the files are scattered through the whole system. I do not recommend these two distributions because they do not teach you anything about Linux.

SUSE and OpenSUSE are the same as Redhat's distributions. It uses proprietary utilities that makes installing nVidia drivers harder than it really is. I suggest avoiding these distributions like the plague.

Mandrake or now Mandriva is ok, Mandriva 10 lost a lot of screws and it falls apart easily. I used Mandrake 9 as my first distribution and I liked it, but 10 and up is horrible. I switched to a distribution that provides freedom to dependencies and pre-compile packaging. Gentoo the distribution that I have now settled on for two years and counting.

Obviously you can't relax. This is opinion based-if the person starting this thread wants to know about a given distro, it should be from an adept user who looks at it from an objective standpoint. Not a biased, critically driven opinionated person who may never have liked or installed a given OS.

As for the rest it like asking what flavor do you prefer. buy a set of blank cd's, login to distro watch, start downloading iso's, surf screen shots and such. Gluck and welcome to Linux .

I think someone has finally summed up Gentoo in the same manner that I see it...

Yeah, it takes a while to install (which, oddly enough, is a blessing. First time I went to install KDE and Gnome on a Gentoo system, I said "Hrmmm...do I really need all this garbage?" I later found fluxbox, and learned quite a bit about how the system works through doing more from the commandline...in addition, my first Gentoo install was a Stage 1 install on a 333Mhz system...I got to read the ENTIRE handbook before I was done! Yay.)

If I ever branch out into other distros, it'll be Slackware or LFS.

Oh, and if you've ever tried a custom compile of virtually any package for your Linux system, you'd appreciate a Gentoo system's "difficult" setup routine. I can modify a USE flag and rebuild the entire system to drop compatibility for a single program that has a security flaw, or I can add support for a new security feature. Total commands: 2 (one to change the USE flag, one to tell portage to rebuild with the new USE flags). Can't beat that for efficiency...and you can't beat the gentoolkit package for system maintenance (equery, revdep-rebuild and glsa-check are all amazing).

Linux is something like your immune system. The more you use it (i.e. not point-and-click, as this teaches nothing...I mean LEARN the system and use it), the better job it does in the long run...but if you neglect (learning) it, it'll fail you when you need it most.