feelgood

Hey Guys,

Continuing from the Solaris 10 thread, I started a new thread since it wasn't about the Solaris OS anymore. I was convinced by some of my peers to go with Linux OS rather than Solaris and I'm doing some research into which core version of Linux to use. So far, I've been looking at Mandrake and Fedora and I'm leaning toward to Fedora but I wanted to hear from linux users on TFP on which distribution to install.

http://www.linuxiso.org
http://shots.osdir.com/

Are some of the places I've been getting some of my information. Basically what I wanted to use Linux for is mainly programming, I find that using Unix based operating systems tends to be better when it comes to running java based programs that I'm doing for school and career. Windows is too flaky when it comes to running java programs but that's just my opinion.

__________________
Looking out the window, that's an act of war. Staring at my shoes, that's an act of war. Committing an act of war? Oh you better believe that's an act of war

spectre

Well, I'm using Mandrake right now, and I really like it, but I think it's really up to your level and what you plan to use it for.

__________________
"Fuck these chains
No goddamn slave
I will be different" ~ Machine Head

bendsley

I'm a die hard Debian fan.

__________________
"You hear the one about the fella who died, went to the pearly gates? St. Peter let him in. Sees a guy in a suit making a closing argument. Says, "Who's that?" St. Peter says, "Oh, that's God. Thinks he's Denny Crane."

Etarip

Second to Debian, I actually started with Red Hat, moved to Mandrake, and eventually switched to Debian. Biggest pro's are an awesome repository system and updates are gradual, if you use testing.

Martian

Do you have any experience in a *nix environment? I get the impression that you have, but I want to be sure. I always recommend Mandriva (formerly Mandrake) as the number one hands down best noob distro. All of the Drake tools make setup and installation a breeze and it's a fairly robust environment to learn your way around.

Having said that, choosing a distro is a pretty personal thing. I'm partial to Fedora myself, but it's worth remembering that there are so many distros out there for a reason. Slackware gets good press for the minimalists, Fedora and it's parent are pretty popular, Debian has a pretty good following. Hell, I know a few hardcore BSD guys, although they're less common. My advice? Pick a direction and go; the worst is you won't like it, so you'll choose another distro to try.

Having said that, my personal preferences are definitely either Mandriva or Fedora.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

feelgood

Yeah, I'm pretty familar with Unix based operating systems, especially Solaris and since most of my school work and programming are done on unix environment, I wanted to change my laptop's OS to Linux. I would prefer to use Unix systems since in my experience, java programs tend to run more smoothly than they do on Windows OS.

__________________
Looking out the window, that's an act of war. Staring at my shoes, that's an act of war. Committing an act of war? Oh you better believe that's an act of war

cyrnel

You'll find larger communities with Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, but I like <a href="ubuntu.com">Ubuntu</a> overall for a workstation box.

I still prefer FreeBSD for server use.

__________________
There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195

phukraut

If you are comfortable using Unix, then you are not afraid of the command line, or editing configuration files by hand, and so on. In that case, I recommend Arch Linux. At least, that's what I use. Although you may want to wait until version 0.7.2 is officially released, as it will contain the new modular Xorg, and save you the hassles of upgrading it manually.

theFez

real programmers dont do windows

I use Debian, apt-get is (in my opinion anyways) the best package manager.
If you like the down and dirty compile everything yourself and forgo gui installers and configuration tools then Slackware is a great choice too.

I started using linux with redhat 7.2, 7.3, 8, 9, fc1 then switched to slackware (for work) then decided to give debian a try at home and love it.

__________________
# chmod 111 /bin/Laden

ratbastid

I find that that's frequently the opinion of those who haven't tried Gentoo's Portage system. It's the slickest thing ever. It resolves conflicts like it's got ESP.

I've been using Linux ever since the copy of Corel OpenLinux I bought at Best Buy eight years ago. Gentoo's far and away the best distro I've ever seen in terms of flexibility, customization, and power. Used to be if you really wanted to KNOW your system, you installed Slackware. These days, you install Gentoo, and you do it in 1/10th the time.

Latch

Just to self-promote.. see the sticky New To Linux? Want To Try It? Read here!.

I used Gentoo for about 2-3 years, and I still love apt-get more Gentoo's system is great, but it takes a lot of patience to install everything. That is... unless you go with just binary copies, but there aren't a lot of those out there in the (main) portage tree.

I use Ubuntu now, just for ease of use. It does what I want how I want without a lot of screwing around, and when I want to have fun/dig deeper into the system, I can.

sailor

Ubuntu. I've been trying Linux on the desktop for several years now, but never have I found a distro that "just works" as much as Ubuntu does. And it still retains the power of a Debian system.

Projects such as Automatix for Ubuntu will also setup and install all the programs, codecs, etc, that you need to make a good desktop. It's a lifesaver.

__________________
"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
--Plato

feelgood

Well, I'm gonna download and try out Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian and SUSE.

I'll get back to you guys on what I've decided on

__________________
Looking out the window, that's an act of war. Staring at my shoes, that's an act of war. Committing an act of war? Oh you better believe that's an act of war

bendsley

If you're using apt-get, then you obviously haven't tried "aptitude" for debian. Use aptitude in place of apt-get and see if you like it any better. Also, from the command line, you can just type aptitude and go from there.

__________________
"You hear the one about the fella who died, went to the pearly gates? St. Peter let him in. Sees a guy in a suit making a closing argument. Says, "Who's that?" St. Peter says, "Oh, that's God. Thinks he's Denny Crane."

JStrider

i've been using ubuntu for the past couple months... like it a lot...

need to reinstall tho i think i messed something up with all that experimenting and learning i was doing the first few weeks

__________________
-=JStrider=-

~Clatto Verata Nicto

connyosis

I'd say try Ubuntu if you want something that just works, or Gentoo if you like to fiddle with things. Both have excellent package systems.
I'd stay away from any RPM-based distro. Maybe it's just me but I've always had problems with those (Except Mandrake 7 which kicked ass).

__________________
If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.

xepherys

Well, I may as well jump into the frey... For me it depends on what the end application is. For business-class servers, I like to run Debian. It's solid, fairly slim and has a decent port system. For highly secure servers, or whenever I can get away with it, I prefer BSD to linux (usually FreeBSD or OpenBSD... never been a fan of NetBSD). For my home system, I LOVE SuSE linux. I'm not sure why, but SuSE always just seems to work the way I want it to every time.

Gentoo is great for hobby system, Ubuntu is good for people with light linux experience. *shrug* There is no "best system" in my opinion. Everyone likes the look and feel of different things. Remember that, unlike BSD, linux all uses the SAME kernel, and therefore the only difference in distribution is the defauly applications. You can install SuSE and the install apt-get to download packages. It's really just preference. BSD, however, uses different kernels and systems per distro, so things are not always cross-distro usable (actually, they rarely are 100%).

theFez

so i checked out aptitude last night, not bad, but honestly if i want to get away from pure command line, ill use kpackage instead.

__________________
# chmod 111 /bin/Laden