Distribution for middle advance user
 

Hello,

I am looking for a linux distribution, I have always used Debian and I love it, but, I am looking for something more advance since I want to learn more on Linux, I consider my self a middle advance user on linux, so, I was looking for the following distros:

Slackware, Arch, Backtrack and Gentoo.

Personally I am throwing myself to backtrack and arch, can people please let me know what think since my objective is becaming an expert user on linux and all it has to offer.

Any other distros to keep in mind?


Thanks

Depending on how deeply you want to venture into the nuts & bolts of GNU/Linux, Gentoo is perhaps the most challenging of those listed in your post. Mainly because it's a source-based distribution. Slack, Arch and Kali (formerly known as Backtrack) are binary-based distributions. That's not to say you wouldn't learn anything in Slack, Arch and Kali because they do offer flexibility in terms of compiling from source in their respective systems as well. But Gentoo is purely source-based, so the whole project itself will take longer to get up and running versus binary-based distributions.

When I first learned Linux, I started with Ubuntu. Stuck with it for about a year-and-a-half before jumping into Arch. From there I went to Gentoo. Each process from Ubuntu to Arch to Gentoo took me deeper and deeper into the GNU/Linux ecosystem. My advice for you would be the same. Try Arch and see how that works for you. Then if you're still up for a bigger challenge, try a pure source-based distribution like Gentoo or LFS (Linux From Scratch).

Hey MCMLXXIII,

I personally want to use linux not only on normal laptop but also work one, I been using debian for like 3 years, I know most of its system and how it works and personally I love it, just wanted a challenge, so, which one is better Arch??

Why Gentoo is so hard? But, it seems that people love it since most of them once they tried they dont change distro. Why is that?

Thanks

Hi,

If you are looking for rock solid stability and willing to stay for long term, like you did with Debian, look no further than Slackware.
Arch, with it's ever changing, rolling release system may sound challenging but as far as learning traditional UNIX and getting work done is concerned, it won't do anything extraordinary.
There's nothing special about Backtrack(now Kali Linux), except for a good lot of penetration testing tools, which can simply be achieved by using plain Ubuntu plus extra repos.

Legends say if you learn Slackware, you learn Linux.

Regards.

If you have access to multiple computer systems, then what I would do is leave a stable OS on one system, and assuming you're currently using Debian stable, then stick with it since you're already familiar with it. Then I would use the other computer for experimental purposes so you can test out different OS'es and whatnot.

Personally I own two laptops, a netbook and a desktop PC. The desktop is currently running Debian Wheezy. It's my go-to computer for production purposes. Stability is priority for that particular machine. My Dell XPS 13 laptop I bought in March is currently running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. My 2008 model Acer Aspire laptop is an experimental machine. I like to test out different OS'es with it. It's currently running FreeBSD 9.1 stable and Gentoo in a dual-boot setup. The netbook is an Acer Aspire One and I also use it for experimental purposes. It's currently running CentOS 6.3 at the moment.

It's not about which is better. It's all subjective at the end of the day. What works for me might work like crap for someone else. You just have to try it to see if you like it or not. I can't make that decision for you. :)

Like I said in my previous post, try out Arch and see if you like it? If you conquer Arch and want to challenge yourself even more, then try out a pure source-based distribution. Source-based distributions are tedious by design, but you'll benefit in the long run from an educational standpoint. Once you've mastered installing a source-based OS from the ground up, then you'll have learned the complete nuts & bolts of GNU/Linux. :)

I always recommend Slackware first.

However if your looking to try a source based version of Linux I would recommend Lunar Linux to start with, it's slightly easier to set up than Gentoo and does provide a good system for everyday use. I would recommend it as a learning tool.

To me Lunar is somewhere between Arch and Gentoo, you start with a core system(no gui), then build a custom kernel, install X and whatever (if any) desktop Environment, then whatever else you want included on you system.

Everything is compiled from source so plan on long installations and upgrades.

For what you want, Slackware or Gentoo. Other than learning how to chroot into your system from a USB key to repair it when it breaks (and it will, quite often), Arch teaches you nothing that you don't already need to know from using Debian (until I got tired of the squirrels constantly breaking Arch, it was my second favorite distro after Debian).

Wow Guys, thanks a lot for the useful information, I am very impressed with all your recommendations, personally I love Debian and always will for long, but, the only thing I hate about its the dependencies issues that sometimes happen because of using software from testing version, it happen to me with Libre Office once and some other essential software for desktop.

Slackware was always a distro I always have in mind since it was always a big debate between Slack and Debian, at least from when I began with Debian and as I start using it. What are the biggest cons with Slack?

About Arch, I am pretty disappointing that won't learn anything new with it, I always saw Arch as a distro for more advanced users that want to improve their skills from a distro like Debian or Slackware, I also feel the same from Backtrack.

About Gentoo so, far I been reading a lot about it and about 90% of all reading material I got from Gentoo users that uses this distro seem to stay with Gentoo, they say that its a hard distro for you to set up your desktop and time but, when you do it seems to make it the best distro ever since everything runs smoothly and for example its hard to have this dependencies issues like I had with Debian.

What you guys think about this? Since it really makes me wonder :D!!

Thanks for the help guys :D!!

Slackwares only MAJOR pitfalls are:
1. Lack of dependency resolution out of the box. But there are several things you can add on to add that feature.
2. Lack of official support for many software packages. Notice I say official, because you can find a slack package for just about ANYTHING, but many aren't official. Makes no difference to me, but some people are anal about only using official packages.

Gentoo has never managed to capture my interest. Once, before 64-bit processors, I probably would have liked it. But now, the difference in performance is minor from something like amd64 Debian to 64-bit Gentoo. And in the time it takes me to install and configure Gentoo, I can install and configure Debian, watch a movie, and go grocery shopping. Just not worth the time it takes considering I ENJOY reinstalling fairly often just to try something else on my machines (my desktops are the exception).

Well, Slackware users consider that a mighty important feature, not a pitfall at all.
I can't say about other Slackware users but I seriously started using Slackware for everyday use because of lack of *automatic dependency management itself, apart from the stability.

Regards.

Hello guys,

thanks a lot to everyone for sharing their experience and opinion on this thread, I am going to be honest with all of you and tell you what happened here it goes:

To start I had learn using linux from Debian about like 4 or 5 years ago when a lot of people consider to be a harder distribution if I am not mistaken the "etch" version or "sarge" I am not sure. Personally I choose Debian because of the challenge even that were easier versions at the time like Mandrake (Ubuntu or Mint weren't there yet), I keep using for about 3 years until more or less when Win7 came around, I bought my new laptop that came haunted with the nvidia optimus technology, so, I tried to install to it my personal love Debian to it and because of this technology it seems imposible to work with Debian on it because as many know at least in my experience my laptop over heat since linux did not recognize this new tehcnology and because of it the fan on nvidia video card won't work causing the over heat on laptop. So, I was force to go back to Windows, Win7 at the time since it was the only OS that would work with this technology even that bumblebee came out at that time since a lot of linux users had same issue as me, but, at least for me did not fix issue at all laptop would over heat less but, still over heat and it usually happens in critical times :( !!!!

It's been a year or a bit more since that I been force to use Win7 and personally I don't hate it because what I do for business is SEO, Marketing Online and Web Development and for much I hate to recognize for that kind of business Win7 in one of the best choices at least on my opinion because for me I use a lot of Adobe's software specially Photoshop, I know a lot of people would say wonders about Gimp but, for me I could never got use to it and I tried to install it on the past on linux with Wine but, for me did not work as good, but, as you know there is always a safe fail system for this kind of issues for me what I do, for all Windows software I need I just create a new Virtual Machine with Win7 or whatever version just to use that software.

So, like a couple of days before opening this thread I was reading a lot about linux, since for my surprise in all this time that I been using Win7 a lot of new Distros came out like Slax, Arch, Gentoo, Sabayoon, Mint, Backtrack, OpenSuse, Fedora, just for saying some, I know that lots of them might even have came out even earlier but, not for my knowledge. So, my interest on linux came back again :D, I miss it :D

So, after telling you my history I will tell you what I want on the Distro is the following:

1) To be secure, with high security since I manage a lot of sensitive information from clients

2) To be fast and effective since I run a lot of software at the same time because of work and not updating a lot new softwares or new versions that at the end gives you problem with dependencies and you end up paying for it.

3) Not to waste my time, what I mean is that I don't mind at all learning and even expending a couple of days setting up the system, but, what I cannot affort is to have future issues with distro that takes time to install new software or something in critical moments, mostly because I have a lot of work to do and I deal with a lot of clients and I cannot affort that happenning with client. So, maybe Gentoo or Arch or Lunar Linux mentioned by "itsgregman" is not the right choice for me at least on working laptop.


4) But, my biggest issue is really compatibility with Adobe Software specially Photoshop as mentioned before since Dreamweaver I don't mind since I love Netbeans for that and also, it concerns me Libre Office mostly because like 90% of clients are Windowzers and use MS Office 2007 and I don't know how it is now but before with Open Office compatibility was a real issue when clients send you documents. And also making PDF's or editing like with Acrobat and last but, not least Blue Stacks since I have installed to use my Whatsapp from there when working. Those are my real concerns since everything else runs smoothly on linux even SEO Software has a linux version for it, and I really want to migrate because maybe its just me but, Windows crashes a lot and does not keep up on critical moments. Are those issues solve in linux?

For what I been reading on your recomendations and over the net I think that the best choice for me is Slackware as mentioned by most of you, so, what I am going to do to be sure everything works is to install it on a Virtual Machine.

I know this is a linux forum but, I also have my eye on FreeBSD or OpenBSD, what you think of those for what I want? Remember my main concern is work.


Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think, I am open to all suggestions or recommendations.

Security is a process, not a product. How secure your system is depends on your habits when using the machine and how you set up your OS. A properly set up and maintained Windows machine is as secure as a properly set up and maintained Linux system (or more secure than a not properly set up and maintained Linux system).

Go for a stable version, like Slackware, RHEL/CentOS or Debian.
See my answer to 2).
If your work is dependent on the proper function of Windows software than by all means use Windows to run that software. You will never get Windows software run as stable on Linux as it runs on Windows. If your Windows crashes a lot you have either faulty hardware or your system is not setup properly. Usually Windows (especially the newer versions) is as stable as Linux, if you maintain it properly.

Hey TobiSGD,


thanks a lot for you answers, I just made a new virtual machine using slackware and I have to say so, far I am loving it, I just install system and now I am trying to install all software and how its system works for it. Once I do it, I am going to try to set it up on my flavor, just to make sure I can work with it.

Just one question is there a tutorial to encrypt my system with luks from which I been reading since that is one skill I want to grow migrating to linux and that is encription that is what I mean with secure.

I have to say I install KDE on Slackware with only 1GB of Ram on virtual machine and I have to say that runs smothly, I am very impress so far.

I am going to play a bit with system before doing anything and later I will try Gentoo, Arch and some BSD like OpenBSD and FreeBSD and I will let you guys know what choice I will make. But, Slackware so, far is great and I am comparing a lot of things with Debian and it seems to be better in my opinion so far, I want to see how package system works and lets see if I end up in a dependency hell like Debian, but, for what I had read this does not happen with Slackware.

Personally I really want to increase my security skills on my system and understand everything that is going on and Slack seems to offer it. Is there a good blog or website with tutorials on Slackware that you know? Since I want to really mess with system to see how it responses.

Thanks again guys!! Sorry for the long info on previous post but, I wanted you guys to understand my needs.

The only bad thing of virtual machines is that I cannot try Bumblebee project on it!!

IMO, Bumblebee = DA DEVIL. :D

Too much work to get it working, when it works. I like to change kernels entirely too often (I usually keep up with whatever's current or just barely past being current, such as I have 3.9-5 right now), and it's just too much work. I actually disabled the Intel graphics on my system that has Optimus technology, figuring it's a quad core i7, it's not going to get good battery life REGARDLESS, so I'll just keep the discrete graphics all the time.

You can find it right on the install disk.

Official Slackware documentation project: http://docs.slackware.com/

If you like tinkering with your system and become the boss on your machine, Gentoo might be worth trying. I'm using it for quite some time as my main OS after long years of distro-hopping and i won't look back.

Gentoo is not really much more difficult than other distros, but you need to learn a couple of things about sofware (package) management using Gentoo's Portage system, as this thing offers endless flexibility and therefor means going thru' a learning curve at the beginning.

The one other thing is that all software is compiled from sourcecode, therefor software updates for bigger packages take quite a while, so i'd recommend a fast machine in order to keep the fun of it.

The more you get to know about Portage, the closer you move to the captain's seat with this distro. Eventually, if there is any problem regarding Linux or any software installed, if there's a possible solution, Gentoo provides..

..and it's very fast and also bloat-free. You decide what gets installed, not the distro.

Thanks for the info TobiSGD :D love it!!

Hello Bloody,

wow you really got my interested, Gentoo was always a distro that pop on my ear, mostly because of the reviews I read about it, everyone says the same that it has a hard curve to learn but once you learn it, there is no other distro you want to use and all people that use it are always happy. How you recommend me to start with it? specially about the package management, since it seems to be awesome.

I am trying slackware and I have to say I am really happy with it, and was not as big of a challenge like I thought it will be since, if you are avaliable to manage Debian you can manage Slackware it just changes a couple of things, but, I have to say it runs very smoothly.

I would really like to give some of my time to Gentoo to compare it with Debian and Slackware, so far Slackware is my first choice.

Just a question I know this is a linux forum but, but, I am really interested in secure systems and I have been reading also about OpenBSD it seems to have same effect as Gentoo or Slackware is a OS that when people try it they don't want to change, have anyone ever try it?

Can someone give me some comment about it and how its different between Slackware or Gentoo?

Thanks again everyone, really lerning a lot. I am happy as a hippo :D !!!

Well, there's a "hardened" (extra-secure) branch for Gentoo Linux, but i never used it myself. About starting with gentoo, i'd suggest to take it one step at a time. You won't learn everything in one day, so i'd suggest to go with the flow. Each time you upgrade your system, the pending changes point out lots of information as to how & why a package is installed/upgraded/replaced, and sometimes there is an issue being pointed out. If it's an important one, you'll receive a news msg which can be read using "eselect news read 1", followed by "eselect news purge" to flush msgs you've already read.

After some time, i've meanwhile created a bunch of small scripts for tasks like system updates, kernel selection/compiling and so on. For example, i always maintain that huge portage tree in a ramdisk and otherwise have it stored as a .tar.gz when i'm not working with portage. Same with the kernel source: mine is a squashfs archive which is mounted during system upgrades and unpacked when i build a kernel. Things like that.

What i really love about gentoo is the sheer endless flexibility when it comes to package management. There's not just one version of a package available, but multiple versions one can easily choose from. Also, gentoo is a rolling distro, but still with a stable and a testing branch, both of which can of course be mixed at will. To mention one example of how far the configurability goes, you can even add your own user-created patches for certain software packages just by putting them in /etc/portage/patches/<package_name>/mypatch01.patch or some such, and the patch(es) will automatically be applied when you install the package..

The main issue I've always had with the BSDs is hardware compatibility, make sure ALL your hardware is compatible before wasting you time on an installation that won't boot. Most BSD websites have a hardware compatibility list you should check, if your hardware isn't listed it probably won't work.

Arch is great if you want to learn how the system is assembled together, during the installation. Later it's just "pacman -Syu" most of the time. Slackware is excellent for the day-to-day administering. I would stay away from Gentoo; it has its uses, but it takes too long to setup (watching things to compile doesn't make you smarter, you can install Arch four-times instead) and you will learn nothing you wouldn't with Arch except the Gentoo specific bureaucracy like portage and USE flags anyway.

If you want to learn more, maybe start fixing your dependency problems - Libreoffice is in the backports (i have no idea why you pull it from testing) and the rest you can try to compile for your stable. Or go with Slackware.

Personally think you'll become a better expert Linux user with Slackware. It's akin to Linux from Scatch, has the most minimal package manager (all packages are put together with a script), is more strict about the Linux standard, and full of common sense.

You'll learn most traditional linux commands, how to get into the X window environment (it boots to command prompt by default), scripting, and coding if you get more familiar with a particular language. You can also download the source dvd and have a source tree of slackware on your drive and manipulate it however you want. From there you can re-compile every package with custom cflags (custom script can edit and run every packagename.SlackBuild), change options, or do whatever you want (taught myself a lot of commands, scripting and how a linux system is pieced together this way); if you're new to scripting and manipulating bash commands, you'll learn a lot if you attempt something like this. If something goes wrong with a Slackware install you can re-install original packages off the install disc by booting off the disc and chrooting to your system (always found Slackware to be more fixable and restorable compared to other distros when broken; and I've broken it many times). You can make your own dvd's with custom packages too.

If you use Arch Linux, Gentoo or similar, you can find different ways to learn scripting and commands. Their package managers do all the work for you so if you edit a particular package, you go through the package manager (you'll have to learn their package management system). Also, it might be tough recovering a broken system since they don't include a disc with every package and require the internet (personally broke a system in Gentoo when I did an emerge -e world; couldn't fix it).

If you want to avoid breakage, then be careful with Slackware's package manager. The more I learn about it (by studying the scripts) the more insane it seems to me. It overwrites everything that comes in its way, including changing permission and ownership of existing directories. One bad package can easily break the whole system. It carefully checks for symlinks - and removes them, instead of following them. The postinstall scripts runs rm -rf /path/to/new_link before it creates symlinks. But it doesn't even give a warning before overwriting existing files...

Once I installed one package twice, the only difference was the build-tag. (I forgot that I should have used upgradepkg instead of installpkg.) When I removed one of those packages, it carefully checked and found that another package used some of the files, so I got a message that it left those files in the system. Well, those files were not exactly the same, they only had the same name... Why did it check at removal, but not check for file conflicts at install??? It's ridicules...

Don't get me wrong. I like Slackware because it stays out of the way, and let med do the configuration, instead of trying to guess what I want and try to do it for me. It doesn't hide anything, and it's very "KISS". Except from the lack of security with the package manager, it's a great distro!

Same thing happened to me quite a few times except I used upgradepkg --reinstall (had duplicates with one having the word "upgraded" added); re-installed those packages after removing duplicates. Also broke my desktop when re-installing aaa_ series packages. Didn't know they gather existing libraries to form a package when building them, so I essentially overwrote new-rebuilt libraries with old ones upon re-installation! Lost lib directory at some point and had to get that back (great stuff!). Right now figuring out a script to auto-rebuild and install a package including all dependencies in the right order. Hopefully I don't go blind in the process :P

I take back what I said (literally). If you want a binary distribution go with Arch Linux. You'll have way more time to learn coding, scripting, etc this way. You can do the same thing if you want a source based distribution and go with Gentoo; you need a really fast machine this way though (your system will probably run faster overall after installation as a result), but their community and documentation is the best I've found for learning and getting help in the 4 years or so that I've used Linux (probably the most technical and positive community I've ever seen).

Another satisfied Slackware user is born. :D

One great way to simplify software installations on Slackware is to install sbopkg, for accessing SlackBuilds.

Also like Slackware myself. It gives you more to swallow compared to anything else I've seen (except LFS). My definite system of choice (I guess).

It's basically LFS already built and setup for you; but it doesn't restrict what you do with it unlike all other distro's (except LFS). If you really decide to be a dedicated Linux user, I don't know if Slackware will be your best bet. You might end up coding, scripting or something else.

IMO new users will feel Slackware is too much. They might be a serial killing terrorist, or someone that worships the devil of course.

I don't see how any distro restricts you. Sure, others give you tools, but you're free to ignore them. You could install Fedora, install the build tools, and then compile all your packages from source without issue. You could manage the entire distro never touching yum, the various system configuration managers, etc. They just make it so that you've got tools for management if you so desire to use them.

You're right. Didn't realize this but I wasted my time with Slackware. Building from source is the same thing with Gentoo except you don't waste your time managing an entire tree of scripts and you do have better fine grain control from the very start (all you need is a single make.conf file with desired use flags and settings). Way more simple and the scripts in Slackware are so basic you won't even learn C code syntax or anything similar (only seen very few from Alien Bob that have advanced C code like syntax). Slackware doesn't even have any kind of dependency tracking which is a serious let down for building from source.

You do learn more with Gentoo and/or Arch linux in my opinion since you have more time to code and learn other things much faster; at least for those who want to customize their OS. I guess I should've thought that from the beginning. Then there's Fedora and Ubuntu for extreme simplicity and operation out of the box. I guess I'm embarrassed for using Slackware the way I have really...