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Old 02-07-2005, 01:22 PM   #1
jaakkop
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Question choosing a distro


I'm going to change to another distro. I don't know what to try now so I'm asking for your experiences on different distros.

Here's my experiences:
RedHat 7.3 was my first and the best distro I've used so far. It's only that it got old and the later RedHats were not so good. Fedora would have been good but it didn't have those packages I needed and the media support was not good. SuSE was s-l-o-w (I've heard that this could be fixed with recompiling kernel but I don't have enough skills for that) and it reminded me more and more of Windows thou it had a good support for my hardware. Slackware was great, it was awesome but it didn't have tools and there wasn't much configured after installation + I couldn't get it working even when tried so hard. Debian was very hard to install and take so much time. It also had many differences with other distros so it was much harder to me to use.

Here's my requirements:
Kernel 2.6, KDE, Gnome, Fluxbox/Blackbox, some games, some kind of updater, pico/nano, support for my hardware (hardware listed below) and if there is not much software on CDs/DVDs then a website where is more packages will be needed (example: Slackware has www.linuxpackages.net)

I'm not afraid to use command line but I want to use X too. It has to be light and fast. I may be a newbie but I don't need much GUI tools.

My hardware:
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2200+ 1.79 GHz 512 MB of RAM
Graphic card: nVidia GeForce 4 MX 440
Sound card: SB Audigy
(post if more info is needed)
 
Old 02-07-2005, 01:38 PM   #2
jrtayloriv
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This question has already been answered countless times elsewhere on this site. Do a search for it or look in the section at the top of the page called "Reviews". There is also a site called www.distrowatch.com that can provide you with links to several distros that are not mentioned there.

Happy Hunting,
jrtayloriv
 
Old 02-07-2005, 01:39 PM   #3
perfect_circle
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Quote:
Here's my requirements:
Kernel 2.6, KDE, Gnome, Fluxbox/Blackbox, some games, some kind of updater, pico/nano, support for my hardware (hardware listed below) and if there is not much software on CDs/DVDs then a website where is more packages will be needed (example: Slackware has www.linuxpackages.net)
So... why don't you try slackware? It's the best distro I've evers tried.
I've tried suse 5.3, suse 8, mandrake 9, redHat 8, fedora core 2 and slackware 10.
 
Old 02-07-2005, 01:44 PM   #4
Blankwire
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Gentoo, Ubuntu (spelling?), or Arch Linux would be your best bets.

Gentoo, from my experience is extremely light weight, but requires a lot on your part. But once you get it running, it should do you good.

Ubuntu is based off of Debian (apt-get), but has a much easier installer.

Arch is a new distro that has its own package management system, called pac-man. I have no experience with it, but it could be worth checking out. The main thing that turned me off (even though it's not anything major, just a matter of taste) was that it organizes the file structure in a different way.
 
Old 02-07-2005, 11:45 PM   #5
jaakkop
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Quote:
Originally posted by perfect_circle
So... why don't you try slackware? It's the best distro I've evers tried.
I've tried suse 5.3, suse 8, mandrake 9, redHat 8, fedora core 2 and slackware 10.
I've already tried it.
 
Old 02-08-2005, 09:22 AM   #6
perfect_circle
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Quote:
Originally posted by jaakkop
I've already tried it.
And what was the problem?
 
Old 02-08-2005, 09:53 AM   #7
ShadowMetis
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Wait, what's the deal with Ubuntu? I've heard a couple of people talk about it. How does it weigh up to Gentoo? I have Gentoo now and except for a few problems installing UT, it's all up and going beautifully. I like Gentoo and I probably won't be switching for a long time, but I am curious about Ubuntu.

EDIT:
Also, what about Arch? How is that? And why don't Gentoo and Ubuntu have their own subforums?

Last edited by ShadowMetis; 02-08-2005 at 09:54 AM.
 
Old 02-09-2005, 01:59 AM   #8
jaakkop
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Quote:
Originally posted by perfect_circle
And what was the problem?
It's in the first post.
 
Old 02-09-2005, 07:17 AM   #9
perfect_circle
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Quote:
Slackware was great, it was awesome but it didn't have tools and there wasn't much configured after installation + I couldn't get it working even when tried so hard
Well slackware has great configuration tools. They just are console-based.
I just love the file structure which is really simple. All the starting files are in /etc/rc.d/.
Can you be more specific?
 
Old 02-09-2005, 01:31 PM   #10
jaakkop
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Ok, the problem is solved: I changed to Mepis.
 
  


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