hi guys
well just installed PCLinuxOS. everything went smooth. detected all hardware on my acer aspire laptop, running smooth now, all media running, even detected my windows partition.

well i was thinking to give Ubuntu latest version a try. what do you guys say. which is better out of two.

No one can answer that question except for you. It all depends on your personal preferences. I say go ahead and install it as a dual boot setup and see if you like it. If not, you can delete it later. Tip: install the Ubuntu bootloader to the / partition instead of to the MBR. Then use the PCL bootloader to chainload the Ubuntu one. You might have to use the "alternate" CD for this type of installation.

Lies! I can firmly say which the best distribution in the whole wide world is: Debian GNU/Linux [Unstable/SID].

--
It's a joke, laugh.

Funnily enough, but that's what I was going to say! Although I prefer my MythTV box a bit more stable. That way I don't have to keep fixing it when I get a package upgrade....

I prefure PCLinuxOS, more stuff works out the box and its based on KDE.

Just try them both yourself IMO

Ubuntu is more widely used, so there is the material advantage of having a large potential pool of people to ask questions of. Having said that, if all your hardware is working OK in PCLinuxOS, that can't be a bad thing. Have a play. I'm sure both distros have their moments.

I doubt PCLinuxOS can compete on the cheese front, what with Ubuntu's Nelson Mandela video

Use what works for you, if PCLOS works with your hardware then use it.

The one drawback to PCLOS is that it has fewer packages, last I checked only 5k, compared to 15k in Debian/Ubuntu repos.

As a newbie distro I think PCLOS is one of the best as the multimedia all works out of the box.

PCLOS saved me a few months back when my harddrive died, I ran it as a livecd for 2 months until I could buy a new HD. It is very easy to use a usb key as your /home.

Ubuntu and Kubuntu both install off of a live CD so there is no reason to not try it, unless of course you dont have a spare blank CD lying around.

even if you don't have a spare CD, they'll post you a copy for free anyway!

Naturally the better one will the be the one you don't pick.

In my quest for a usable Linux desktop, I have probably tried almost every major version of Linux there is, and a number of oddball ones.... Red Hat, Fedora, Ubuntu, Mandrake/Mandriva, Linspire, Suse, PCLinuxOS, VectorLinux, Knoppix, Kanotix, Gentoo, Mepis, Xandros, Centos, Ark, and I've probably missed a few to be honest. Some I've used for quite some time(Ubuntu, Fedora, PCLinuxOS, Xandros), others, Got little more than a few hours after I gave up trying to get all my hardware to work..(Ark, Vector). Most I would say got at least 4-5 days before I got sick of them, or gave up trying to get something to work.

In my opinion, the Top 5, w/o question..

1. Ubuntu.. Or Kubuntu, if you prefer the KDE interface(which I personally hate)
2. Fedora Core 5
3 Xandros Pro
4. PCLinuxOS
5. Mandrake 10.0 Official(note, Mandriva 07 sucks)

Ubuntu only gets the nodd over FC5, because support seems to be more available, not to mention the repositories are packed with software that can be installed with ease. Both are fast, and have offered me little to no trouble. Ubuntu also has a slightly easier Install if you ask me. Xandros Pro is good, comes with Crossover Office included, which is basically a commercial version of Wine. Xandros is a commercial version however, and while there might be a free version out there, I paid for mine($55 I think, but when you consider Crossover is $39, it works out fair) The newest version of PCLinuxOS, gave me problems, but the older version(I think it was .91), gave me no probs, but it was slow. Mandrake 10.0 Official was a pretty good version, Mandrake/Mandriva 07 is probably the worst version of Linux I have ever tried(yes, even worse than Linspire..lol)

In the end, like others said, its all gonna depend on what you want. Go buy a pack of 50 CDR or DVDRs, and start burning till you find one you like.

IGF

No experience with PCLinuxOS.

Mainly used slackware in the past two years. Recently installed Ubuntu Dapper Drake (6.06) on my new desktop machine.

Pro:
Easy software updates and software installation.
Con:
Absolutely no clue how it works under the hood; Slackware is a lot more transparent from that perspective. I've spent two evenings trying to figure out how iptables are configured during pppoe-startup and I still don't know. Took me two minutes to figure it out in Slackware.

PS 1
Some may say that that's inexperience with Ubuntu. I think that that's only partly the case. I used the same approach in both situations (search for files that have the word 'iptables' in them).

PS 2
I hate the feeling that I don't have control over my machine

I'm a slackware user, but since you asked about PCLinuxOS and Ubuntu, I'd personally recommend PCLinuxOS. I like it for all of the opposite reasons I like slackware. I love slackware because I prefer the command line, I like to tinker, I love to configure things manually, without GUI help.

The difference for me was that as much as I like slackware for the reasons I mentioned, for my laptop I wanted something that just worked, and I didn't want to spend time configuring very much on my laptop. PCLinuxOS easily was the best I tried. Literally just about everything worked right after install. The only issue I had was that my USB mouse was sluggish, and this was easily corrected by enabling ACPI. I have had some issues getting WPA Supplicant to work, but that is more module/app related than PCLinuxOS related.

I've tried Ubuntu a few different times and I just didn't like it. I'm sorry, I can't give a good solid reason why, I just didn't. It just didn't feel right for me.

PCLinuxOS hands Down

PCLinuxOS .92
http://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/metalab/dist...glish/preview/
ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/metalab/distr...glish/preview/

This is the distro I use and recommend, Why because it works right out of the box. No need to configure Everything, everything just works. It also comes as a 1 CD install that is a live CD that you can install later if you wish.


Jake

(K/X/Ed/)Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS? I would vote for PCLinuxOS, but that's mostly for just working, not that Ubuntu doesn't but statistically(including my cases) works out of the box. Also I hate sudo cause I can't use [tab]..