I've been using Ubuntu for 7-8 months and I love it. Now I'd like to try some more distros though. I think Ubuntu is slower than Windows, and that's my biggest concern about it.

I have tried a LOT of distros lately but either I don't get them to work, or I don't like them for one reason or another.

I want the distro to be:
- NOT bloated. I don't need 6 different text editors etc.
- Fast!
- A decent community is preferred as I tend to need a lot of help :#

I've tried these more or less:

- OpenSuse 11: I liked the install..It was pretty bloated and I found it hard to go from Ubuntu's beautiful apt-get to yast2.
- Gentoo: I've been interested in this one, but I always get stuck at some problem. Can't get my wireless to work, or it won't install at all. I've tried it on 3 computers. Can't get to the bottom of its install.
- PCLinuxOS: Boring imo..Too simple, and it's bloated.
- Sabayon: My closest experience with Gentoo..It worked, but it was the most bloated distro I've seen.
- Arch Linux: I really really WISH I could try this one out. Sounds great, but I never managed to get X installed. Always some errors with pacman. Guess I'm not experienced enough for this one.
- Fedora Core: Boooooring, buggy, and bloated.
- Debian Etch 4.0: Felt like a really bad replacement for Ubuntu. Slow, heavy and complicated.

Now..What's left to try? Any suggestions are very very welcome!

Did you try the debian net install cd rom. You should be able to build a light system from (almost) the ground up.

Obviously you don't know what you're doing.

Very strange--the usual reaction is that Debian's faster and lighter than Ubuntu, but the default install is too spartan.

That's funny. In Gentoo you are the installer. It installs exactly as you do it.

Yep, obviously you don't know what you are doing.

Regarding alternatives, with Slackware and a 2.6 kernel you can put together a very fast, current, high performance system, but almost everything has to be configured "by hand" via manipulating files or using a simple text-based GUI. If you are willing to go through the learning curve, you can see an increase in performance compared to Ubuntu. Documentation to give you a feel for what you need to do is in the Slackbook, with which you can start getting acquainted here:
http://slackware.com/book/

If Slackware looks too "fundamental," you are going to have to compromise to some extent, since you have to rely on the system to configure, monitor, and run your installation, and that adds overhead. Although you can try other distributions you have not yet tried like Mepis or Mandriva 2007, chances are they will not be significantly different from what you have seen already. In such a situation, as long as everything works to your liking in Ubuntu, I recommend reading up on ways to optimize it for your computer rather than seeking some other distribution's installer to do the work for you.

What's left to try??? Hmmm--last I checked on Distrowatch, there were over 300 options...
I don't find any version of Linux to be slower than Windows, but some Linux apps are certainly slower than their Windows brethren. My stance on this is "So What?"--Overall, Linux is so much more powerful that the relative speed of an app seldom gets on my radar.

For lean and mean, have you looked at Arch? (Ah yes, I see you have.---Stay with it--it is a pwerful learning tool)

I like Mepis--Ubuntu without the no-root-user nonsense. I've got 6.5 installed, but have not tested and decided to set it as the default. (v6 is the default and works beautifully)

I don't understand your comment about Debian Etch either. And, it is NOT a 'replacement for Ubuntu'. Remember, Ubuntu is based on Debian, not the other way around. The only way I can imagine someone having a bloated Etch install is if 1) they didn't know what they were doing and installed programs they didn't need or 2) they selected all packages for installation. You don't just 'jump' into Debian, Slack, or Gentoo, you have to examine them first, its not like Ubuntu where you just install and hope everything works.

IMO, you shouldn't bother with installing yet another distro. It seems to me your interests would be better served by sitting back and doing some learning first. The whole "bloated, buggy, boring" argument doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Linux will bend any way you like providing you know how to go about it. If you think something is bloated, remove what's unrequired. If you think something is boring, reconfigure the gui, the apps, etc. And as for things being buggy, that's usually a consequence of people just getting things wrong because they didn't bother looking into any documentation to start with.

If you really want to install Gentoo, I suggest you use small gentoo, which is a lot more up to date than the official live cd (which I have my doubts about, actually - that one definitely IS buggy). But just bear in mind you'll need the patience to do quite a bit of research and that you'll be compiling basically all of it - it will take you days of work and the result really won't be all that much faster than the other distros. And you do need some sort of internet connectivity to get anywhere at all.

IMO;

A distro is what you make of it. Don't want bloat don't install everything. Try DSL (Damm Small Linux) for small linux. Linux can run off a floppy if that's what you want or a file server. Go with a vanilla kernel this way you are in total control of everything and you end up making your own distro and call it gejr linux.

I personally love OpenSuse, works out of the box most of the time, good community, excellent corporate support, package update and management and is a little more stable that Fedora with regard to new features.

xor

Vector Linux
http://www.vectorlinux.com/

DSL
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

Puppy Linux
http://www.puppylinux.org/user/viewpage.php?page_id=3

Slackware
http://www.slackware.com/

SLAX Live CD
http://www.slax.org/

BeaFanatIX
http://bea.cabarel.com/

Elive:
http://www.elivecd.org/

Deli
http://delili.lens.hl-users.com/

Luit Linux
http://luitlinux.sarovar.org/

Thanks for all your replies.

I didn't mean to offend anyone's favourite distro. I was just pointing out my own subjective meaning/experience with the particular distros. So first of all, sorry for that.

I gladly admit that I'm not a very experienced Linux user, but I'm more than willing to learn. I've read heaps of tutorials, wikis, guides etc. since I started using Ubuntu 7-8 months ago.

I think Arch would be great if I could find some help on how to setup X and my wireless card. I tried the official Beginners Guide but the instructions didnt cut it for me. What was supposed to happen didn't++
I really don't care about XGL/Compiz and stuff. I'd just like it to work.

Edit: Oh, and I know there's 300+ distros at distrowatch, but seems 75% of them aren't active anymore, and finding help for those particular distros would be really hard. Which conflicts with my 3rd wish: "A decent community is preferred as I tend to need a lot of help."

Edit2: Thanks a lot jacook, your list was interesting. Especially Vector seems great. I'll try it soon..just want one more go with Arch

Moved: This thread is more suitable in Linux-Distributions and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

gejr,

If you want a distro that just works, Ubuntu is probably a good choice. If it was running slow, some options to consider are: increasing the RAM on your machine, shutting down services which are running unnecessarily, etc.

By all means, you should distro hop all you want - it's a great way to learn about Linux. On this thread, though, it seems you aren't giving these distros a chance.

What you will find is there isn't as much difference in flavors as you might think at first. Someone who truly knows a distribution can make it do what they want, regardless of its flavor.

If you like Ubuntu, and you're only problem is its slow on your PC, switching to Xubuntu will likely help. Xubuntu is just as easy to use as Ubuntu, but with a lighter desktop GUI.

What are the specs on this computer?

IGF