You gotta admit, Ubuntu has one of the biggest support forums I've ever seem! Bar NONE...
Mepis doesn't even come close - at least not yet.

I personally think its #1 Bcause of its ease of use, stability, they send U the CD's Free and its Debian based. I think that pretty much sum's it up.

Still being a noob, having only converted to linux for the last 6 months, I'm still in the experimenting with distros stage. I was curious about Ubuntu for many reasons and went for an installation on my laptop. Firstly, the install was different to anything I had come across, having installed win95,98,ME,2000, & XP for myself and friends/family on numerous occasions and then ventured into Mandrake/mandriva & Suse. It actually worked! Definite kudos for Debian here getting such an efficient installer! So many times have I installed windoze then spent the rest of the week sorting out drivers (always soundcard, modem, graphics cards etc) then setting up a workable system, locking down the various security problems, updating patches, installing virus/adware/firewalls software. Installing HUGE office packages (then updating them) etc etc It was a blessed relief to find something that just worked. The only other installer I have been more impressed with was the Slackware one, just for it's configurability from the onset (haven't dared touch Gentoo yet, maybe when I have a week or two to spare!) Just from this I can see why Ubuntu has stormed up the popularity charts in such a short period of time! I was so impressed with it I installed it on my Dad's and In-laws systems just so that I could have an evening's peace without endless "tech-support" questions. It's been 2 months and not a peep, bliss! So yes it is a "noob" distro, in that a noob can use it but it's flexible enough to do more if you want it to, just like all linux distros really. My wife happily uses Slack everynow and then and doesn't even notice the difference between it and the Ubuntu and Mandrake boxes! I have to say though that not everyone is going to love it, and i'm not surprised, it's different in lots of little ways from all other distros, but so are they, so find one you like, and use it. All this "which distro is best" stuff seems like an incitement to argue to be honest, and rather pointless too.
I like Linux, period.

yeah.Mepis Lovers is quite good.

Go and check www.mepis.org Forums and you will come to know what "sucking" exactly means.

I think that Mepis.org should purchase some commercial Forum Software for that purpose!

Sorry, if somebody is going to give up on a distro just because they can't be bothered to look in the users guide if they have a problem with it, then maybe Linux really isn't for them.

Ubuntu is only number 1 because of its hardware detection. Other than that, everything else that it offers is typical of any other distro. A Desktop Environment, OpenOffice, general software, ect. If it wasn't for Ubuntu's hardware detection it would probebly be one of the worst distros ever simple because of its installation process. Not only is it confusing, but you have no idea wtf it's doing. Ubuntu time and time again leaves you with a blank blue screen, giving no information as to what its actually doing during the install process; to top it off, it does a terrible job of finding XP on the machine... if you plan on duel booting you STILL have to tell the damn thing where XP is located becasue if you have more than one partition (that isnt for XP or Ubuntu) then it will try to identify that empty partition as XP, when its clearly not.

As for this Mepis discussion; I can understand where some confusion might come in with the default passwords. First time I did Mepis I had no idea I needed to know a password, but guess what? I guessed and got it correct. Is it really that hard to figure out that the username and password are going to be the same on a fresh install?

Mepis is the few distros that actually offers something INSIDE the OS thats different from other distrobutions. Not to mention its installer is clear and just as easy as Windows. Knoppix and Mepis have probebly the best installers. Ubuntu and RedHat 7 (havnt tried the other Redhats or FC) have the absolute worst installers of all time. Redhat 7 being the worst though; I had horrible nightmares with that one, atleast with Ubuntu I was able to fix it in a reasonable time frame.

I agree with Megaman X we are all on the same side, no need to get ugly.




KUBUNTU OWNS YOU ALL!!!!!!!!

Thank you allforcarrie! . Well, I've reinstalled Ubuntu and now I am an official user too. Three machines running it now. I'm even testing a server with it, for fun. No problems whatsoever, even though it's aimed at Desktop usage. What I liked the most is the integration with applications and the desktop. I'm not sure if Kubuntu is as well integrated as Ubuntu, but since I always liked to play with gtk programming and my favorite applications are gtk-based, Gnome it is

A default package that comes with Ubuntu and that I never used (or heard about) before is rhythmbox. Even though I've found it's name complicated to remember, write and say, it made me dump xmms all together. I can keep everything organized as I want with it, nice touch adding this package, imho .

I might post a screenshot later from my Zero-machine. My machines are named after Mega Man X characters

Regards!

Hey, that is shipped with Fedora Core too. I used it long before, but i do remember!

It ships with most distros that include GNOME in their package list.

Hmm....I don't use GNOME much.

I was forced to do that with Ubuntu.

But that wasn't bad.

The Ubuntu installer is exactly like the Debian Sarge Netinstaller and showed me what it was doing all the time. It's not a fancy graphical installer but if you read everything it's actually very simple.

I have an extra partition and the installer didn't identify it as being XP cause I told it not to use the partition during the manual partitioning.

I started with Ubuntu installed KDE so i ahve Gnome and KDE packages installed. Rythem box is a great program but i still perfer Itunes

What are your talking about? I personally thinks the installer does a pretty good job in informing the user what's happening. Okay, maybe it doesn't show all the packets it's installing, but (for me) this isn't necessary. And if it returns an error, it does clearly show the package filename in which the error occured. Also, detecting XP on my harddisk went smooth as a charm.

And who cares anyway? This is only the installation part. Even if it does not provide all the information or if it's a bit complicated, it's over in less than one hour. What's left is a nice, smooth, well-rounded operating system which is a pleasure to work with.

That was funny. Seriously, I think I finally figured out why Ubuntu is holding #1 at distrowatch. Now keep in mind since the day I installed it I am a DEBIAN ZEALOT! I recently built the machine below, and ran through the normal commercial/common distros for 64-bit to find one that would actually work. Here is the synopsis

SuSE 9.3_64: Pretty....bloated....and unstable. What did you do Novell???
Fedora_64: Same old Fedora... Red Hats leftovers once again. Won't waste that amount of time again.
Debian64: Not quite ready to try this one untill a few things get worked out at HQ.

Kubuntu (Sorry, I just can't do Gnome anymore): A little work at first but damn. Stability, 64-bit, and the look and feel of Debian Sid.

Summary: Ubuntu appeals to all the people who either love Debian but don't have the time or skills to set it all up, and for those looking for a quick desktop solution that works (95% at least). Me, I am building a Jeep from the ground up, so I just didn't have the time to do a complete Sid installation right now. I am glad I gave (K)Ubuntu a second look......But Debian still rules (as evidenced by Ubuntus success, and Knoppix, and Mepis, etc..)..