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Ubuntu is the worst distro of the better known ones out there. Use it for 3 years. Got worse from year to year. Each upgrade you have to fix sound, graphics etc from scratch. If a new install is used things will stop working after a while.
Indeed, if this goes on it'll turn into a flamewar in no time. I'm going to try to prevent a flamewar from starting, so I'll be on topic.
My nomination for Worst Distro Ever goes to Slackware. I can't believe people still use that atrocity. Package management sucks -and- is composed of shell scripts as I remember it. Is it supposed to be funny? I'm not laughing. The installer is simply garbage (probably a consequence of poor package management) - some Slackware users speak out against the bloat of Ubuntu yet forget to mention that obtaining a "minimalistic" Slackware installation is highly difficult (assuming you've not done it before and already know exactly what packages you need/don't need). The Slackware website is incredibly out of date. The number of official packages is very low compared to other, much better, distributions. To me this just says one thing: lazy developers. You can't get off your arse to create at least a half-decent package management utility -nor- provide a decent amount of official packages? The "KISS" principle is not supposed to be an excuse for lame software, sorry. Look at CRUX and Arch Linux, they follow KISS and don't suck. How many developers does Slackware even have? 5? That's got "interesting and fun to work on" written all over it. Not. And what about the users? Only two kinds of people use Slackware: newbies who think using Slackware will make them "learn", "real men", "good with the ladies" and give them "geek street credibility"; and regular users who consider themselves advanced and enlightened, always replying to posts as this one saying "i've been using linux since 1993 so i'm not a newbie and i still like slackware" - if 17 years of using Linux has not taught you that Slackware is a disaster.. well.. `nuff said. Surely, from a technical point of view, there are probably much worse distributions out there.. but none of them can be accused of poisoning the minds of young children with LIES such as "once you go Slack you never go back" and "omg use Slackware and you will be elite, don't use neWbuntu". So you see? Slackware is not only a technically-challenged distribution, it is also pure Evil. That is what makes it the Worst.. Distro.. Ever.., in my humble opinion.
wow, you mean I'm not a geek street ladies man? guess I'm going back to M$
This is kinda funny tho considering this is one of the discussions we got into on the #linux channel on freenode one night. But it was in regards to gentoo users being the rice boys of the computer world. I am rather proud of my comments regarding adding a rear spoiler and vtech sticker to the computer case. In regards to slack I used it ages ago and found it an interesting venture. However tho I find almost all distributions rather clunky and "their" way of doing configuration just ends up irritating me. This is why I use LFS and build it the way I want it.
Tho I have used Gentoo recently and I am interested in at least trying arch. I hear its sorta like alfs but staring the other way around.
Well, although this thread wasn't initially a waste of time, it was always potentially begging for nerds to fight therein. I mean, look at the title--it evokes Comic Book Guy, the most obnoxious nerd in the history of nerdhood.
Quote:
Originally Posted by exvor
However tho I find almost all distributions rather clunky and "their" way of doing configuration just ends up irritating me. This is why I use LFS and build it the way I want it.
Nahhh the way I do it is to my liking and even if its not the best way it is the way I like it setup. For me automation of anything on the system is not done. Like mounting external drives or shares have to be done all manually as well as setting up network interfaces. Tho I have written a rather simple script to setup my wireless.
Everything on my system is minimal. I have a minimal setup for X and I am using only icewm, rox-filer , and conky for my desktop. This is a netbook so I keep everything light even tho I have tones of disk space. Like I said tho I am "used" to the old way of things and having to manually manage the system software and hardware :P
I have enjoyed all distros of Linux as I think they fill a nitch but there are just some that irritate me too much to use they would include.
Redhat/ fedora - configuration is different then others
Mandrake or Mandriva whatever same people
(Gentoo) This has changed for me recently they have made great strides in cleaning things up.
These I would use.
============================
Knoppix - It fills a need but I wouldn't run it as a desktop
Slackware - I would use this if I needed something quick
Mephis - I really liked this distro first time I tried it
Ubuntu - One I would use before the others would be this.
Ones I find intresting and would like to try
================================================
Arch
Mint
debian
You'd use Slackware, an advanced distro, in a hurry? How strange. I also can't guess why you like a novice distro (MEPIS, which is less dumbed-down than the newbie distro Ubuntu) as much as an advanced distro. You must be not a Linux nerd but a Linux pragmatist.
Ones I find intresting and would like to try
================================================
Arch
Mint
debian
I can thoroughly recommend Mint - it's an astonishingly good out-of-the-box distro which I use quite a lot for insecure stuff (its major drawback is no Root account).
Debian is very, very stable but tends to be always dated.
Arch I have the latest burned to CD but have yet to try it. I think it needs compiling like Gentoo but I haven't looked into it as yet.
You'd use Slackware, an advanced distro, in a hurry? How strange. I also can't guess why you like a novice distro (MEPIS, which is less dumbed-down than the newbie distro Ubuntu) as much as an advanced distro. You must be not a Linux nerd but a Linux pragmatist.
I take them for what there worth. Ubuntu works on a lot of the system I have tried it on and include everything that I would want and don't want. As I stated before I really don't like or dislike any distro as they all install too much stuff that I really just don't use. This is why I compile my own LFS.
As far as im concerned I think its more important how much a distro gives back to the OSS community in general more then how "good" it is or how much "blind devotion" there members give it.
I'd say "worst" is a bit subjective, but I also have to say Ubuntu (tried 5.x and 7.x) but the one I was least "bonded" to was Linspire, the Electrolux of Linux, do you remember what they said about Electrolux ? Slax, Zenwalk, DSL and a few others didn't "stick" either but one man's/woman's poison can be another's pleasure.
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