expanding my distro horizons & associated problems
 

Mid '03, when I went all linux here at home, I read the threads about 'which distro
should I use' and took the advice found in all of them - try them and see which
one works for you.

So I tried:
Redhat - no go.
Mandrake - thought it was better, but still, no.
Suse - ah , got it up and running, I could do stuff, my hardware was
supported, "nice" I thought.
(had a few problems, and.....)
Gentoo - had issues
Slackware -Slackware is where I've stayed since then. (I do keep a suse parition
for a few select things). Slackware has done its job day in and day out and has
gotten better as I've grow as a linux user. (still a noob though :) )

ENTER MY PROBLEM(s):

I start reading: Debin, Ubuntu, Mips, & 1 or 2 others I can't think of off the top of my
head. Not to mention my plan of someday doing LFS for the learning process.

1- Should I even bother? (Sure, why not!?)
2- If so, where do I start? (with a clean 20GB to test these ditros I guess)
3- But which one? (eenee, meanie, miney, moe?)
4- And on, and on, and on.

But I guess its better to have too many good options, then 1 bad one ;) (MS - if you
need that one spelled out)

Thoughts anyone? Anyone keep 1 drive just to test distros? How many distro's do
you actually use in a given 3 day period? etc. ? Sorry post is so long, I'll stop here.
I'm sure you get the idea. EDITED: This is NOT a 'which distro' thread, but about how
many ditros one uses and praticality of using multiple distors at once.
-tw

By all means do LFS. Yeah, I keep spare partitions around. Right now I've got nothing but Slack - most I've ever had at one time on one box is 3 or 4, I think. I used Debian once in a great while until I finally wiped it. I used Gentoo about a month and then off and on - I may put it back. I used LFS for awhile but never as a main thing. Oh, I forgot - I've got FreeBSD on here right now. I've booted it a few times but not lately (obviously, if I forgot it was on here). Most others only lasted a day or so. Basic and Vector lasted a bit, but those are Slack-based and were on different machines.

Anyway - I'd suggest LFS and to use as many or as few as you feel comfortable with. It's always good to learn from other methods. But I think it's also good to concentrate on getting a main one down well. In other words, people who only use one have a limited, narrow viewpoint. People who hop around constantly don't know what they're doing on any of them, unless they're *real* quick studies.

So, yeah - whatever you like, but LFS is a good plan.

And I'm going to give Ubuntu a spin myself sometime to see what all the shouting's about.

Still, I've got Slack and FreeBSD and partitions reserved for Gentoo and LFS again when I get around to it. Those 4 would be enough to keep anybody occupied and I've never found anything else worth occupying my time (to me). Slack is my distro - period. Unless I can ever build an LFS/DIY I'm actually happier with. Heh. So 'experience all things; hold fast to that which is good'.

-- My own edit - my post sounds like a 'which distro' which you said this thread wasn't about, but I didn't mean it that way. Just saying where I was coming from. The essence of my point is about doing whatever you feel comfortable with, but I was also advocating a range of experience. And, yup, keep a partition or few free, install one, use it - keep it or get rid of it. About all there is to it. :)

digiot,
Thanks for your reply. As you mentioned, although it 'sounds' like a which distro thread,
I don't think it is - fine line though, as with my question!

Glad to hear from someone about their experiences with trying multiple distros.
There is so much out there, I don't want to miss out on something really good.
But at the same time, theres so much to try.

You make a good point in users who only use 1 as they are a bit limited yet ones
who bounce around too much miss out on getting the details and intricacies of the OS.

thanks agina for the reply
best regards
-tw