Distro To Stick With In 2003
 

I've been trying to find out what Distro I should stick with.

I started with Redhat 7.2, when I took a Linux class out of shear curiousity. I fell in love with it, aced the class, and went on to try 7.3 and 8.0. It was also nice to use something besides Windows.

I tried Lycoris, and liked it, however I noticed there were fewer possiblities than Redhat. Installing software was a chore, and things just got annoying. To top it off, I believe Lycoris isn't going to be a free OS for much longer.

The next Distro I tried was Mandrake. I fell in love with Mandrake 9.1, and decided that was the distro I would use from now on. Mandrake 9.2 was around the corner, then I heard the horrible truth on almost every Linux news site - Mandrake 9.2 has more bugs than an Indonesian Ghetto.

I decided to go back to Redhat, and installed Redhat 9. Redhat was my friend, someone I could count on, someone that never let me down. They decided to quit the desktop market and go after corporations, making my switch back to Redhat in vain.

I then actually tried Mandrake 9.2, decided to give it a shot to see if the reports of bugs were true. To my dismay, every bad thing I heard about MDK 9.2 was true.

Now I'm using Fedora, AKA Redhat 10. I like it, I like it alot actually. I find it to be a solid release, and alot of fun, with great features and less bugs than Mandrake. Do I keep this distro? I'm scared to get attached, considering there's no evidence there will even be a Fedora 2. (Who knows).

Now, I hear Mandrake might follow Redhat's shoesteps. Another Distro down the drain, if that's true.

My concern is this: I don't want to use Windows anymore. I'm tired of entering CD keys and reinstalling every time the registry gets corrupted. I'm tired of product activation invading my bios. I'm tired of paying $300+ every time a new version comes out. I want out!

With that said, I'm trying to migrate to a Linux version that will do everything my Windows box can do, but without Microsoft everywhere I roam.

With Windows, these are the things I rely on:

Gaming: I need to play my Windows games. But I wish I didn't have to have Windows to run them. I tried WineX, its just not stable.

DVD's: I have yet to find a DVD player in Linux to match that of Cyberlink. Is there one?

CD-Burning: Nero is great, but what is the Linux equivelent, is there one that has all the same options?

Ease of Software Install: Some software installations in Linux is almost a rite of passage. It really shouldn't be this way, is there a Linux distro that doesn't make me install a zillion other things before I can install something as simple as a multimedia player?

I'm sorry to drag on and on. I am having trouble finding a distro I can depend on and stick with. I want something that will still be supported in a few years, something to take the place of my Windows machine. Should I try another version, or can I trust Fedora?

Thanks you guys rock, even if nobody replies, I'm glad I got to let this out.

Sorry, you're stuck with windows.

As I've never succesfully played DVD's in winDOHs
I don't know the thing you're referring to... ogle and
mplayer cover all my DVD needs.

k3b ... not quite the same but a good enough match.

Free means free ... free to chose, to install ...
Personally, I don't find installing stuff in Slack
a hassle ... most programs are available as
Slack-packs, and I actually LIKE the fact that
things are modular. my DVD player doesn't have
to be 50MB in size because it depends on modules.

Slack is mega-robust and mega-fast. It's NOTHING
like windows, and probably not good for windows-
couch-potatoes ...



Cheers,
Tink

Slack. I could never recommend slack enough. It's super fast. It's Rock stable. And the things you hear about it being difficult to install...I found those not to be true. The install is about as straightforward as it can get. Installing packages is a breeze. Especially if it is a slackware .tgz package. Otherwise, just grab the source and install it. No more fooling around with rpms. And now that they have Swaret, keeping your system up to date is as simple as typing one command.

don't you mean 2004? :p

slack, slack, slack. odds are you will not stray far from slack once you try it. :D as Tinkster said, setting up software is basically pretty easy -- although maybe that is not saying much these days, because with apt-get, swaret, apt4rpm, portage, etc. that is becoming true for all the distros now. but if you want a distro you can really feel good about sticking with, definitely try slackware.

Thanks guys, can you guys please give me sites with information on Slack, like what packages you can install, etc? Does it have the latest Gnome and KDE?

And did I hear fast?! How fast are we talking, fast is good!

I tried google but I was unsuccesful...

Slackware is definitely something I will try. However, what's up with Lindows, is it free? If it isn't, is it even worth paying for?

no offense, but if you can't find information about slackware with google, you'd better go with lindows, or stay with microsoft. again, i'm not trying to insult you. you might be better off with windows because of your gaming needs, as well. gl

Sorry but I don't see how google skills have anything to do with if you can use Linux. I'm such a busy person I barely have time to use Google.

Lindows, I was just asking. I know nothing about it. I've only used Redhat since 7.2 up to recent. So I don't know if Lindows is a Windows rippoff or an actual OS.

When it comes to gaming, there has to be an emulator or something that can let me run my windows games. I'm not asking for miracles because I don't play much of the newer games. All of mine are at least a few years old.

Sticking to Windows? Nah. Too limiting. I'm also preparing myself now for if and when "Trusted Computing" goes into effect, in which case I would abandon Microsoft and never look back.

i would say about half of learning to use linux these days is having good google skills. :) (or good LQ skillz :D )

lindows is cr@p from everything i've heard. at the least, i've never heard any knowledgeable linux user recommend it.

trusted computing is a good reason to move away from MS, indeed.

afaik, wineX, or maybe wine (?), should allow most games to be run in linux, if you can get it installed and configured properly. i got wine to work, it wasn't too bad, though not for gaming. i think part of how lindows works is with wine, so imo you're better off just installing a better distro and using wine yourself.

WineX lets you play a lot of WinBloze games in Linux. You can have a look at a list of games and how well they work here:
http://www.transgaming.com/dogamesea...king&showall=1
{Quote]
"lindows is cr@p"
I would have to agree with that. Their whole idea when they first started was to be able to run all winbloze programs....but it turns out that was too big of a job for them so now it's basically just a linux distro with pretty fonts and is pretty expensive.

Info on slack can be found at:
http://www.slackware.com/book/
and installation help can be found at:
http://www.slackware.com/install/
And you can just check out:
www.slackware.com
There is quite a bit of info on their site.
I've rambled on enough I guess.
Good luck!

Lindows is also bad because it runs everything as root. Just like windows. Why buy a distro when there are plenty of most excellent ones out there. Slackware is good though I have only some experience.

The install may seem a little daunting at first but you will get over it. Slackware is also great for learning how things work if you want to get your hands dirty.

My 2 Cents...

I'm still amazed at the number of Slackware advocates out here, considering basically one person makes it - Patrick Volkerding. That said, the distro is awesome - get it now! The latest version has gnome 2.4 and kde 3.1.4, but swaret will let you update kde to 3.2 REALLY easily (I did it). Get slack, and you don't go back.

As for games, all distros are basically the same deal - Wine. Works just as well on any of them, but you won't get the same compatibility as with straight windows. One option is dual booting (which I do).

Praise be to you.

I started out with RedHat back around 5 and liked it. I then moved on to mandrake for an unreasonably long time, then went to NetBSD, then FreeBSD, then to Plan 9, QNX, then finally found Slackware. It just didnt come with crap you didn't want, administration was easy, and it didnt "crap out" after being used as a desktop for a long period of time. If you really want to use Linux and LEARN Linux, Slackware is the ONLY way to go. Also, after a while you really should try other window managers in X11 (if you use X, I usually don't) like XFCE! They're so much faster and more usable than Gnome or KDE once you get used to them that you'll never want to use Gnome or KDE ever again!
:D

What? no-one is going to meantion debian for ease of install?
(apt-get install program-name)
I have never yet broken a debian system (even using dpkg --no-depends) whereas I somehow managed to break Redhat 7 (was quite a while ago) and also Mandrake 9.1 (not majorly, but it was irritating)

www.debian.org

I don't know if this is the place to bring this issue up but I'm going to do it anyway.

I have a test machine around here that I use just to mess around with. I decided to give Slackware a go just because it seems that every person who uses slackware never uses anything else.

Now my problem is this. I made the two bootable floppy disks. I forget which one is first but after I put the second disk in it just hangs. As I was very eager to give slackware a try I thought to myself 'why doesn't slackware just make a bootable cd-rom'? Well they do but you can't download it.

I'm not asking for an answer to why the second floppy disk doenst work. I'm just wondering why the powers that be at slackware would behave this way. This really irratates me. If you wanted people to use your distrobution why would you force them the create two seperate floppy disks(using various images) two install it? You have the capability to release a bootable-cdrom so why not do it?

crashed_again: http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=17

One set of Slack install cds, coming right up!

;)