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Old 11-28-2004, 10:12 PM   #1
Triple5
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Difference between these Distros ...


First of all Hello to all and I'm new here. Second I like to say I'm a Linux Newbie, very heavy Windows User. Know Windows like if its eating food (prettymuch). I'm 18yrs old, I'm not a geek either, so I don't know no C++ , or Programming or Hacking. Basically what I know is how to use, how to break it fix it, how to take care of my computer, also antivirus, spyware, firewall, cookies, defrag,

I have 2 computers .

#1 Old Desktop (Have it for Linux now) since I want to learn Linux and don't want to do it on my new box. It's a Gateway Celeron Flex Case 634mhz 256mb sdram 20gb. =0

#2 New Laptop (XP)... Till I don't learn Linux I don't plan on installing Linux here, even though I already have not plan to anymore, I'm tired of reinstalling XP :P . Amd Athlon XP-M 2800+ 768mb ddr video card shared 64mb so really memory of 704mb. 30gb Compaq

So here we go, I been trying diff. linux distros since the beg of November, first went through CollegeLinux, Xandros Desktop OS 2.0 Open Circulation, Suse 9.1, MandrakeMove, KnoppixLiveCD, SimplyMepis, Slax, Ubuntu, Libranet, UserLinux (never works), Debian, VectorLinux, Slackware(never worked), Mandrake 10.0 (cds never worked), Mandrake 10.1 (Cds never worked, but I managed to find out about net-installer and finally worked), Kanotix (doesnt work on my linux box but did work on my laptop), Progeny (cds never work), Yoper, Gnoppix, Whoppix, OverclockIx, Sam, LormaLinux, Ignalum, a few others can't remember and last BeatrIx.

I've tried all those in the past 3 weeks . The only I got to really play with longer was Libranet, Suse, Debian, Kanotix, Yoper, Knoppix, Mepis, & BeatrIX. Since I'm a newbie, but some folks say I'm not but I'm really am its just that somethings are common sense to me :P being well knowledged with windows (even though windows and linux are very diff.) .

I want to compare the following distros that I still havent tried (Fedora) and/or have interest in. I also installed the livecds I used Knoppix, Mepis, Overclockix, Beatrix, and I was told Mepis is better for hd install than Knoppix is . So here's my deal.
 
Old 11-28-2004, 10:19 PM   #2
Triple5
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The distros that have worked for my celeron/linux box and I like are :

Debian
Libranet
Beatrix
Mepis
Yoper
Ubuntu
Knoppix
Mandrake (like a lil)

The distros that haven't worked or haven't worked for my linux box but I still like are or haven't used are

Kanotix (worked for my laptop)
Fedora (haven't used)
Progeny (cds havent never work)
UserLinux (never installs right)

Thanks

I would like to know the Goods/Bads of each distro please, anyone really advanced and knows what they talking about please can tell me.
 
Old 11-29-2004, 04:27 PM   #3
Jmcatch742
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holy sh*t how much did u spend on cd-rs? lol ok well I like mepis, its an amazing distro, its real easy to upgrade, download, and customize. It comes with synaptic and can be live or on your hd, get mepis it owns.

I personally dont like the new fedora, i think they needed another test release to get everything fixed and I dont personally go for rpms, mapis comes ready to go with synaptic and apt-get.

debian is good but is a little bit outdated now, wait for the new realese it shouldnt be that long.

I loved Ubuntu and only replaced it because of my new love mepis but it is a non rpm based distro and is really easy to configure, but it only comes with gnome. of course you can always download kde, but thats a pain.

Mandrake is a great starter distro and does almost everything for you. Not much customization and its rpm based if you like that stuff. ick

well thats my 2 cents
 
Old 11-30-2004, 07:19 AM   #4
Triple5
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Quote:
Originally posted by Jmcatch742
holy sh*t how much did u spend on cd-rs? lol ok well I like mepis, its an amazing distro, its real easy to upgrade, download, and customize. It comes with synaptic and can be live or on your hd, get mepis it owns.

I personally dont like the new fedora, i think they needed another test release to get everything fixed and I dont personally go for rpms, mapis comes ready to go with synaptic and apt-get.

debian is good but is a little bit outdated now, wait for the new realese it shouldnt be that long.

I loved Ubuntu and only replaced it because of my new love mepis but it is a non rpm based distro and is really easy to configure, but it only comes with gnome. of course you can always download kde, but thats a pain.

Mandrake is a great starter distro and does almost everything for you. Not much customization and its rpm based if you like that stuff. ick

well thats my 2 cents
Thanks I agree with you ..

And yes I use to like Ubuntu but it just doesnt run smooth on my Celeron maybe next time.
Mandrake also runs slow unfortunately. So that leaves me to

- Debian
- Libranet
- MEPIS
- BeatrIX
- Yoper

I hear instead of me getting Debian , I should get Libranet or Mepis which are debian based but instead of customizing everything manually , Mepis comes configured for the new or for the guru. So Yes I'm hearing a lot about it. BeatrIX is a Knoppix/Ubuntu based and runs very smooth on my celeron. Yoper no doubt is the fastest of all distro but I'm standing by their status. Libranet's 3.0 is still waiting (new version) but I can upgrade to Deb sid, and Mepis of course can be upgraded to sid too and I had it working like a charm. Unlike others you upgrade to unstable & is hell. Yes you are right installing kde on non-kde supported distro is not recommnended nor is good.
 
Old 12-04-2004, 11:08 PM   #5
EnigmaOne
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Registered: Aug 2003
Location: Long Beach, CA - USA
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Well, you can chop your list down to (in alphabetical order):

- Libranet
- MEPIS
- Yoper

Personally speaking, I like 'em all, for different reasons, and the most recent ones I've played with would be Mepis and Yoper.

Out of boredom over my old primary OS, I finally settled on Mepis as my new favorite.
 
Old 12-04-2004, 11:13 PM   #6
ror
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out of all of those, the only distro I respect is debian
 
Old 12-05-2004, 12:28 AM   #7
Triple5
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New List!!! and thanks everyboy.

But I'm gonna be running 3 distros though on my 20gb desktop linux box and learn them pretty much here we go..

--Kanotix (has a new version and works, I put Xfce4.2 since its my favorite environment to vary with Kde 3.3 ) Kernel 2.6.9 Optimized for i586 and i686 www.kanotix.com visit #kanotix on irc (irc.freenode.net) for their new version BugHunterXFix1 =)
-- Libranet (waiting for their new version 3.0 ) and since their kernel is 2.4.6 I'm not gonna use since I can use another distro with a more up to date kernel, even though I can recompile my kernel with libranet, but I gotta learn more so I wont mess it up first. www.libranet.com #libranet on irc
-- Mepis ( I love having everything latest testing/unstable so I updated it to Sid but its half unstable half testing but KDE 3.3 get slow on my celeron 635mhz after a while or a lot of work so I must get xfce4.2 or fluxbox and vary ) www.mepis.org (is it really the perfect desktop? ) #mepis on irc
-- Yoper ( has to be my favorite, since I'm reading more and more, but I gotta read on Linux so I can learn , but its made from Scratch its like if I made it because its for i686 also ) but their status has me thinking www.yoper.com #yoper on irc
-- Beatrix (ubuntu alternative and its optimized for slow pcs so its worth the having even though its young its already #35-36 on DistroWatch ) www.watsky.net #beatrix on irc
--- VidaLinux (Based on gentoo , made by my neighbors Puerto Rico ) I'm giving it a try . http://gentoo.vidalinux.com/
--- Vector Linux (based on slackware , but better and optimized so its faster ) www.vectorlinux.com #vectorlinux on irc
--- College Linux (another based on slackware and comes with slapt-get by default . www.collegelinux.com #cl


So yea I'm not a geek, I don't have that extra time for Gentoo, and I'm just not a geek at all im far from it , I also need time for school, work, family, friends, etc :-) can't be stuck in the computer the whole life with Gentoo or Slackware I know most people that use Gentoo/Slackware are Geeks =)

Reason I picked VectorLinux and CollegeLinux instead of Slackware because I like Debian's since its easy to install software, no need to download them or install manually, since the apt-get install with automatically download and install them and since 2 friends recommended me aptitude, I know use aptitude install instead of apt-get, to handle dependencies better, I already trialed around RedHat Based and MDK not for me and they're not free.
 
Old 12-05-2004, 04:07 AM   #8
RoaCh Of DisCor
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I'm no geek...at all, but slackware is a simple distro. Easy to install...and easy to configure.
 
Old 12-07-2004, 06:45 PM   #9
Matt Barnes
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Slackware runs great on my celeron. I love it.
 
Old 12-07-2004, 08:09 PM   #10
drj000
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Quote:
Originally posted by Triple5
New List!!! and thanks everyboy.

But I'm gonna be running 3 distros though on my 20gb desktop linux box and learn them pretty much here we go..

Reason I picked VectorLinux and CollegeLinux instead of Slackware because I like Debian's since its easy to install software, no need to download them or install manually, since the apt-get install with automatically download and install them and since 2 friends recommended me aptitude, I know use aptitude install instead of apt-get, to handle dependencies better, I already trialed around RedHat Based and MDK not for me and they're not free.
Don't forget to try Fedora. I love Fedora. I've rarely had any problems with it, and the problems that I have had were pretty easy to figure out. For those that weren't easy to figure out, it wasn't hard to find someone who could tell me what I needed to do.
And installing software on Fedora is nice and easy with yum, just as easy as apt-get.
 
Old 12-07-2004, 08:22 PM   #11
MylesCLin
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Slackware will sparkle speed on your machine if run appropriately.
 
Old 12-08-2004, 10:40 AM   #12
gotmonkey
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distro hopping

Triple5, I am pretty much like you with linux and windows. I have done the distro game as well, although I have not tried Mepis yet (it is on my list of things to do).

Since I have been playing with linux much more over the past months, I have had more of an interest to find my one true distro (so far, it's Slack10).

I have tried (in order):
MDK Community 10: Never ran stable
Fedora Core 1
Debian
Fedora Core 2T3
Fedora Core 2 Final
Suse 9.1 pro
Xandro 2 pro
Gentoo 2004
Slackware 10
Yoper 2

I did like the FC2, my only beef was that I didn't like the pachage install options and rpm's can be a pain in the @ss. I never could get MDK10, Debian, Suse to run proper or stable. Xandros gave me the impression of a better "noobie" distro over some of the others with doing stuff for you. Gentoo was a pain to install and took way to much time (Portage was cool though). Gentoo is not a "fresh into Linux" distro. The only complaint with Slack I have is installation. If you do anything other than full tilt boogie install, it is a long process. Setting DHCP doing install never works for me. I set it up during installation and never works at initial boot, only after I give it the dhcpd command does it work proper. Yoper 2, I really like the distro, although I haven't been able to get my ATI working under it.

Slackware has been my favorite distro and it is the one that I currently use. It has its quirks, but it has been the most rock-solid and supported distro that I have been running.

I will try yoper again though, It worked just as well Slackware & I like the minimal
installation & performance enhancements.

Other distros that I plan to try:
Vectorlinux
Simply Mepis
Vidalinux
Novell Linux

I am looking forward to trying mepis. I have heard good things about it.

Last edited by gotmonkey; 12-08-2004 at 10:42 AM.
 
Old 12-08-2004, 05:04 PM   #13
Triple5
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Re: distro hopping

Quote:
Originally posted by gotmonkey
Triple5, I am pretty much like you with linux and windows. I have done the distro game as well, although I have not tried Mepis yet (it is on my list of things to do).

Since I have been playing with linux much more over the past months, I have had more of an interest to find my one true distro (so far, it's Slack10).

I have tried (in order):
MDK Community 10: Never ran stable
Fedora Core 1
Debian
Fedora Core 2T3
Fedora Core 2 Final
Suse 9.1 pro
Xandro 2 pro
Gentoo 2004
Slackware 10
Yoper 2

I did like the FC2, my only beef was that I didn't like the pachage install options and rpm's can be a pain in the @ss. I never could get MDK10, Debian, Suse to run proper or stable. Xandros gave me the impression of a better "noobie" distro over some of the others with doing stuff for you. Gentoo was a pain to install and took way to much time (Portage was cool though). Gentoo is not a "fresh into Linux" distro. The only complaint with Slack I have is installation. If you do anything other than full tilt boogie install, it is a long process. Setting DHCP doing install never works for me. I set it up during installation and never works at initial boot, only after I give it the dhcpd command does it work proper. Yoper 2, I really like the distro, although I haven't been able to get my ATI working under it.

Slackware has been my favorite distro and it is the one that I currently use. It has its quirks, but it has been the most rock-solid and supported distro that I have been running.

I will try yoper again though, It worked just as well Slackware & I like the minimal
installation & performance enhancements.

Other distros that I plan to try:
Vectorlinux
Simply Mepis
Vidalinux
Novell Linux

I am looking forward to trying mepis. I have heard good things about it.
Thanks. Well I'm very advanced in windows, and that helps for linux. So I'm a novice in linux. Have tried a lot of distros live-cds distros , live-cd installs, and non-live- cds

In Order since NOvember
- CollegeLinux 2.5 (Based on Slackware 9.1 + slapt-get is default ) but its dead to me
- Xandros Desktop OS 2.0 Open Circulation - limited
- Suse 9.1 - - Knoppix - Mepis - MandrakeMove - Slax - LormaLinux - Libranet - Yoper - Ubuntu - Debian - Mandrake 10.1 CE - Ark Linux - Kanotix - Beatrix - Sam - VidaLinux (Based on Gentoo)

Tried to install Arch Linux, Gentoo, Slackware, VectorLinux, Userlinux, SourceMage but I have xorg problems wth Arch, Slack, Vector, & FrugalWare , Userlinux just doesnt install properly and says some packages were not installed and it doesnt ask me to pick packages to install as it does on Debian installer (d-i) . and SourceMage its just too long to wait for the sorcery to finish. Gentoo was too complicated.

So for now what I can say is that I liked arch's attitude with pacman -command I loved it. even though couldn't get into X because of xorg, but i isntalled xfree86 and it worked but I got tired of the bullcraps and isntalled osmething else. so my list

Arch Linux (I did a lot to fix it) even sshd into my pc ( a friend did) and he uses arch/gentoo hes no newbie
Slackware 10 (maybe)
VectorLinux 5.0 (definately) since its faster than Slack for my pc
Libranet , Debian, Mepis, Kanotix, Ubuntu/Beatrix, Yoper and VidaLinux also are in my list.

Last edited by Triple5; 12-08-2004 at 05:13 PM.
 
Old 12-11-2004, 01:54 AM   #14
SlackerLX
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Wink

Pretty much the same resume for my AMD 2600+.
I'm recovering distro junkie so:

Mandrake (All) - Just keep crashing
Debian Sarge - Solid
Yoper - install hangs after partitioning
Suse 9.1 pro - Solid German BMW, bit a slow though
Libranet - Graphics really suck
Knoppix - just for rescue
Gnoppix - same
Mepis - very solid and fast but no Gnome
Ubuntu - fstab problems
Vector - fast, reliable, video issues
Red Hat - solid, licence issues however
FreeBSD - "Mountain of God" of hackers, incredibly secure, very solid, stable
Slackware 10 - Never failed me with exception if ATI 3D acceleration issue

Verdict : I stand for Slackware and FreeBSD
 
Old 12-11-2004, 02:42 AM   #15
Triple5
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I dont use linux on my amd athlon xp-m 2800+ though
Only through vmware sometimes.

As for now I'm trying to see why Xorg doesnt work on my celeron. All the Xorg distro clients dont work on my celeron too

Right now I was just runnin Ubuntu and its just slowpoke so thats out of the list for good on my Celeron. But anyways I'm installing SourceMAGE GNU/Linux . the help is great and I wanted to try a source distro, other than gentoo (too complicated to install and too long , i tried vidalinux (gentoo based) it was ok. Very nice lookin though

And Progeny Debian , the fastest debian distro I ever used. I just gotta get the debian sources and erased the whole source.list progeny has and add the debian testing or unstable to it and check how it works
 
  


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