Tell us why your Linux distro is the best

Originally posted by IceDigger
It's the new emachines amd 64 laptop.

Get with the times ;)
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Haha.. Oops.

I've never been one to keep up with emachines...

That product name looks SOO much like an ancient motorola chip it isnt even funny..
 
Yup. Hard to believe it's an emachine. Most people shake their head when they saw the logo, but who cares. This puppy is a keeper. Got the livecd for x86 and amd64. I'm fire everything up when my school enter spring break.

Sorry about the model vagueness. Must have been a (huge) flash back for ya. :)
 
Originally posted by Fluxstream
Yup. Hard to believe it's an emachine. Most people shake their head when they saw the logo, but who cares. This puppy is a keeper. Got the livecd for x86 and amd64. I'm fire everything up when my school enter spring break.

Sorry about the model vagueness. Must have been a (huge) flash back for ya. :)
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Hah! Yeah. My first thought was, "funny... I didnt think gentoo had support for that platform..."

I was a big Amiga fan back in the day. Its too bad they more or less went under
 
have been fighting it to get things running. 99% of my mistakes were made becuase of my ignorance
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I'm headed there, gonna fire up my old PII 233 and try and get a firewall/terminal/Apache/e-mail box going. Don't want a desktop (but X capable so I can learn/program/run TK stuff). Only *n*x OS install experience I have is installing Red Hat a few years back (5 or 6) and wound up ENTIRELY PISSED OFF because I couldn't find a frigging driver for a 3com NIC! (WTF?? Eventually found a beta driver set that worked, but seriously...) The other problem was choosing exactly which packages to install out of the hundred-odd available packages. Installing this one makes your box unsecure, not installing that breaks [another thing]. I found the documentation inadequate esp. since I had basically zero knowledge at the time. It was a so-so learning experience--a reason n00bs like me use Windows. Insert CD, click next, enter CD key, install apps, start using. Drivers included or easily found. (Of course Macs were even easier.) Not quite bitching about it, learning is always good--but I'd rather set up a firewall than mess around with kernel mods/upgrades (if those are exclusive of each other--I don't know.) And finding drivers, making a secure box from the get-go (I heard SuSE was pretty tight about that). What's a good fit for me? Remember, no GUI desktop necessary, I like terminal sessions. :D

As an ignorant decision I'd say FreeBSD simply because I'm used to Unix vs. Linux (used FreeBSD, work on Tru64, HP-UX & now AIX with a tiny bit of Sun tossed in). Don't even know what the major differences would be though.

I'm obviously ignorant so indulge me in one more question. ;) Is a DirectX-to-Unix port possible? Or is it a copyright thing...?
 
FreeBSD does good in that kind of situation (I've used it on a P2-300 myself for much the same things).
It has a bit fewer precompiled packages, but the basics are there, and compiling something from ports is a complete no-brainer. (Besides, I doubt you'll upgrade the software for every .0.1 - increase, so even if it takes some time, it shouldn't be a problem.)
As for the differences, well, the filesystem layout is quite systematic, and slighly different from most (all?) linux distros, but it's not worse than what you see distro -> distro in linux. It's a whole new kernel, but it has the same functions. There's no native /proc. The default shell is tcsh.

In short: Not that different from an odd linux distro.

And directX-to-unix?
If you've got directX-using code you wish to port, you'll have to rewrite it for openGL/SDL/something anyway, so no copyright problems.
If you want to make directX-for-unix/linux, well, there's always wineX. I don't know about the legality of reimplementing it, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's ok. (They're not actually using anything belonging to MS). Much like Samba, really.
 
I know this has been said alot, but I am a total and complete Linux n00b. I dled and burned Knoppix V3.3 and that is as far as I have gotten. Id like to get to know Linux but Im a tad gun shy about it. Up untill yesterday I was afriad that Knoppix would screw with my laptop (Dell Inspiron 7500, yeah this thing is old). Now I know better and just have to figure out how to change my bios to get it to boot to CD. I think it's F2 I have to hit but im not sure.
Could anyone tell me what to expect to see when I boot up to Knoppix?
 
Originally posted by Kev

Could anyone tell me what to expect to see when I boot up to Knoppix?
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To be short:
If you're not unlucky (IOW, if it supports your videocard and mouse/trackpad), you'll have lots of scrolling text, a graphical loader, and end up in KDE.
 
Is there any way I can boot to Knoppix from windows, or do I have to shut down and rebot.
 
I've very little proficiency (just enough to operate my university shell account) so I'm pretty much a nüb when it comes to all of this. I've played around with Redhat a bit in the past in an attempt to learn more about it. I chose Redhat because it was supposed to be easy.

It was easy to install and many things were familar to frontal Windows cortex. I think that was my problem. It was just familiar enough to make it very frustrating when I hit the radically foreign bits. Things were nice and Windowy on the outside but as soon as I had to do anything, I was lost. I got caught in RPM dependency hell whenever I wanted to install something. I ended up scrapping it in the end.

I do not recommend Redhat to anyone who want's to learn what they're doing. It's a little too comfortable at first for those coming from a Windows environment.

I'm downloading Gentoo right now and I'm gonna give Linux another shot. The talk of the installation difficulty is a little scary but the description of the thorough documentation and friendly community makes me feel pretty confident.
 
Originally posted by Acceptable_Risk

I'm downloading Gentoo right now and I'm gonna give Linux another shot. The talk of the installation difficulty is a little scary but the description of the thorough documentation and friendly community makes me feel pretty confident.
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I am a linux newbie and I got Gentoo working just fine. Just follow the directions and search the forums at forumx.gentoo.org. They people there can be very helpful. But if you follow the instructions you have have little or no trouble at all.
 
Originally posted by Kev
Is there any way I can boot to Knoppix from windows, or do I have to shut down and rebot.
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You have to reboot. Don't worry, knoppix runs completely in your ram so as to not screw anything up.
 
I burned the ISO wrong and now I have no idea what I am trying to burn. Could someone help me out? I don't want to clutter this up to much so AIM me at vettesarethebest
 
hey all, I'm a Linux newbie. I'm currently running Mandrake 10 Community with KDE 3.1, and LOVE it. Mandrake really is a great distro for beginners, I was able to pick it up and go, right from the start. It works beautifly with my hardware, without much fuss or swearing. I hope to try many more distros in the future, but this has been a great start.
 
I just found out that the Student Book Store (Big Blue for thouse of you who know about PSU) has red hat for like $40. Im not sure of what version of it though. Would that be a good choice for a total linux n00b?
 
Originally posted by Kev
I just found out that the Student Book Store (Big Blue for thouse of you who know about PSU) has red hat for like $40. Im not sure of what version of it though. Would that be a good choice for a total linux n00b?
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you can get it online free....
 
My roomie is running redhat or atleast he was. He said if he can find the red hat disks he will give them to me. What else should I be looking at? Im gong to turn my old desktop into a linux box.
 
Originally posted by Kev
My roomie is running redhat or atleast he was. He said if he can find the red hat disks he will give them to me. What else should I be looking at? Im gong to turn my old desktop into a linux box.
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What internet connection do you have?
If it's reasonably fast, some of the more internet-happy ones (gentoo, free/net/open-bsd, to some degree debian) are good alternatives.

I would have gotten the freeBSD boot disks and done an ftp install, but there are things that are easier to set up if you're new to it all.

What do you plan to do with it?
 
I have a P2 box at home, 400 mghrtz chip, 144 meg of ram, old dell pc that I am going to upgrade to 98 from ME. I don't know what to do with it yet but I know I want to put linux on it.

edit, im on T1 at school and cable at home
 
*cough* knoppix *cough* what? *cough*

Fedora is pretty badass as well. Just because its... well... just so... open.
 
I have knoppix burned and I am gona run it when I get home. I was thinking of doing a dual boot if that is possible with 98.
 
Yes, you can dual boot Linux with Windows 98.

On another note, I totally dig Gentoo. Portage is one of the best package managemernt systems I've used, and I really like the freedom of choice I'm given in choosing what I want to install.
 
I'm pretty much a linux newb, but i downloaded/fiddled with red hat 9 about a year ago but got very bored very quickly. I then got mandrake about a month ago and found that to be pretty banal as well. Not long after i decided to load up slackware which was a lot more fun than the previous two. This is currently where i reside but i plan to move on to gentoo soon enough.
 
I used Redhat and Mandrake and then switched to Gentoo.

One thing I didnt like about Red Hat or Mandrake was the RPM. The concept is great, but there are really not that many packages avalible and there is no way to (Natively) cause RPM to download and install dependent packages. With Portage, all you have to do is emerge the package you want and it will install what ever that package needs to run.

Another thing I like about Gentoo is the freedom to compile your packages using what ever compiler optimizations (SP?) you want. So, you can compile for an athlon-xp, mp, i686, what ever, and you can also specify compiler flags. So you can optimize the whole system for your computer.

Of the distros I have tried, on my system, non are as fast as my Gentoo.

Oh, and the kernel is not bloated with tons of features you dont need. I compile my kernel to use any scheduler I want, and hardware I want, and what ever options I want. And, I'm no kernel hacker, its just simple with Gentoo.

Love 2.6.7-rc3-love1 kernel is the FASTEST kernel I have ever ran. Sooo smooth, and my Fluxbox is great and tons of eye candy while being extreamly fast :)

Joe
 
I myself have tried Mandrake, Red Hat, Slackware, and I'm in hour 2 of installing Gentoo. I really liked Slackware, but I kept hearing about Gentoo so I figured I'd give it a try.
 
I've played with RedHat, IcePick, Mandrake, Debian, Progeny, Gentus, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and a few other specialty distros. FreeBSD was the best out of all of them, at least as a desktop. There hasn't been anything that I haven't been able to get going on FreeBSD. As for exotic hardware, usually, I find FreeBSD handles exotic SCSI RAID controllers and server class hardware better than Linux does. The ports tree is wonderful, maintainable, you can specify compile options, and it just never seems to stop. Whereas certain versions of certain programs don't seem to be in a maintainable package format depending on what version of what distro you are using, chances are the latest and greatest version of that software will make it to the FreeBSD ports tree faster than an RPM will be assembled.

Yes, it still sticks to Unixy commandline heritage, but all the tools are available if you want to install them. I know everyone will tell me the TCP/IP stack in the 2.6 kernel is the greatest, but c'mon, TCP/IP was invented by BSD. For example, NetBSD just set the latest Internet land speed record, most of Cisco's software was derived from BSD, and Juniper runs a cutdown version of NetBSD in their enterprise class switches and routers.

FreeBSD is easier to admin, I can't stand all that SysV startup script complexity, it just seems unecessary. With the handbook, you can do almost everything, it's that well documented. I like the fact that I know where software gets installed, I like the fact that the ports tree has over 11000 software packages that can either be compiled or installed. I like the fact that no FreeBSD user will tell me his OS is the greatest thing ever, and brook no discussion with others (Gentoo fanboys, are you listening?).

It feels polished and complete, it's fast as hell, it runs solid, it takes anything I throw at it, that's why I use it. I read somewhere that FreeBSD is what you get when you get a bunch of Unix hackers trying to make an OS for the PC. Linux is what you get when you get a bunch of PC hackers trying to write a Unix for the PC. Try it and perhaps you'll agree.
 
I tried FreeBSD, and I didn't have the same enlightening experience you did. While there wasn't anything in particular that really got to me, I think I'm so caught in the Linux way that a non-Linux Unix-derivative just didn't sit well with me. Also, I kept getting a strange error about how I only a few megs left of hard drive space, although I dedicated my entire 20 gig drive to FreeBSD during the install.

Also, I think FreeBSD feels more 'professional' because only the developers can implement fixes or something. Linux fixes generally are quick fix hacks to begin with and then tested and worked upon, whereas FreeBSD fixes are tested to ensure that they function properly before being integrated into FreeBSD. No clue.

Anyways, I'll stick with my Gentoo; it seems Unix-like enough, and has Portage, somewhat similar to FreeBSD's ports system (compile from source, repositories, etc.).
 
Clockwork said:
FreeBSD is easier to admin, I can't stand all that SysV startup script complexity, it just seems unecessary. With the handbook, you can do almost everything, it's that well documented. I like the fact that I know where software gets installed, I like the fact that the ports tree has over 11000 software packages that can either be compiled or installed. I like the fact that no FreeBSD user will tell me his OS is the greatest thing ever, and brook no discussion with others (Gentoo fanboys, are you listening?).

It feels polished and complete, it's fast as hell, it runs solid, it takes anything I throw at it, that's why I use it. I read somewhere that FreeBSD is what you get when you get a bunch of Unix hackers trying to make an OS for the PC. Linux is what you get when you get a bunch of PC hackers trying to write a Unix for the PC. Try it and perhaps you'll agree.
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I enjoyed reading what you said since I like NetBSD and have after many times trying Linux went back to it. But to me you sound just like the ordinary bitter and fanatic BSD user I have run into on the web and on IRC.
To tell you the truth I cant stand visiting places where BSD people discuss things anymore because in the end everything discussed seems to be about BSD beeing better than Linux and the world doesnt notice it so you must be a really bitter and angry BSD user because the world doesnt notice all the BSD systems that are better than Linux.
 
SUSE. They do things the right way most of the time. I need something that I can deploy quickly and know it is going to work long term without much direct attention. I have to babysit Red Hat (tm).

SUSE is not perfect... so you who like to play with your machine for days on end will find that SUSE has some flaws. It just has fewer flaws.
 
cv643d said:
I enjoyed reading what you said since I like NetBSD and have after many times trying Linux went back to it. But to me you sound just like the ordinary bitter and fanatic BSD user I have run into on the web and on IRC.
To tell you the truth I cant stand visiting places where BSD people discuss things anymore because in the end everything discussed seems to be about BSD beeing better than Linux and the world doesnt notice it so you must be a really bitter and angry BSD user because the world doesnt notice all the BSD systems that are better than Linux.
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Ok, so perhaps the Gentoo fanboy comment was over the top, I'll admit. Naw, I'm not bitter, I just found what I needed out of an OS. I spend most of my work time adminning Windows boxes, and Linux, I don't mind working with Linux at all, it's just not as polished, and the gear shifting from one distro to another can be frustrating. Younger BSD users, perhaps they are just as bad as some Penguinistas, I haven't noticed. I've actually noticed the opposite, BSD users tend to be more openminded about OS discussion, but YMMV.
 
It feels good to fall back on BSD (in my case NetBSD) when running Linux on PC's. Many times I have decided to try out Linux (again) and face the question which distro do I choose. Its not easy to pick a distro. And depending on what distro I pick I need to learn how this distro differs from the last one I used.
It was easier in the 90'ies, then you picked Slackware because it was the "standard". Or Red Hat because that was what companies running Linux used. Or Mandrake because that was the distro newbies should use.

I dont have anything against Linux really, there is just one thing and its Tux the Linux mascot, I think he looks really gay :)
 
I just have to say that recently I have switched over to ClarkConnect for my file server and it is fantastic. I'm still a Linux novice and have found that I really don't need Linux as a desktop OS, but simply for a server platform. After fiddling with slackware (an incredible distro, I would reccomend above Red Hat any day), a bunch of failed gentoo installs (gentoo hates me, there is no other explanation) and Red Hat (nice and simple) and looking into setting up samba manually, I found ClarkConnect. I had heard of ClarkConnect, but never really gave it a try, instead opting to try and "do it from scratch". Well, I finally through it in and it works flawlessly. Samba & FTP install automatically and the WebConfig interface is excellent. There is a bug with the SSH java applet, to I have to use putty to SSH to the box, but other than that, I have found that it serves all my needs. There is no KDE/Gnome environment to play with if you attach a monitor to the box, but eveything can be controlled through a browser and any config file editing can be done via SSH, so I never have to hook a monitor up to this box ever again. I think I have finally found a simple, yet effective distro that meets all my needs. I might even install some custom modules and use it for a photo gallery.

I'd still like to learn how to tweak the samba config, which can be done, but I no longer have to worry about hosing the system, because the install only takes about 10-15 minutes.
 
I think DEBIAN is the best choice for everyone, minus the source tweakers who can handle 48 hour installs and want to squeeze that extra % out of every process.

Debian, it's not simple but there's loads of free support and it updates with one command, you will learn to love.

apt-get update
 
What: Arch Linux
Why:
- very minimalist
- simple install (CD or FTP)
- excellent packaging system (pacman -Syu updates the whole system, pacman -S package gets you a new proggy)
- packages get updated extremely quickly
- cleanest rc system I have ever seen
- extremely easy configure (everything is in /etc)
- Good (not excellent) docs at http://wiki.archlinux.org
- Nice community at bbs.archlinux.org
Where: http://www.archlinux.org
 
I'm a FreeBSD user. Why? Cause it works how I want it to and works consistently. It's not the best tool for every job, but for my *nix-y needs FreeBSD fits the bill 99% of the time.

I wrote a little page about FreeBSD that might help explain why I like the OS so much.

I ran Linux for five years before starting to run FreeBSD (four years ago).

In the past I've used SuSE, Red Hat, Mandrake, Slackware and currently my work machine is FC2. My Dreamcast and a few old Sun machines I have run NetBSD. I installed Debian on my Alpha, but during the upgrade process the bootloader managed to get hosed and honestly I just don't care enough to bother fixing it. I'm not used to bootloaders breaking...I'm used to things "just working" under FreeBSD.

cv643d: most *BSD users probably come off as elitists cause they are probably tired of all the n00bs coming over from Linux and expecting the answers to be handed to them. I'm "guilty" (but have no remorse for my actions) of kicking new users that ask simple questions that are quickly answered by a trip through the Handbook or just an instant spent with Google. I like it that way. :D
 
I used freebsd for a couple of years, still use openbsd (admittedly just for a router / server), though I'm starting to abandon it too.

The BSD's move slower than my grandmother through the grocery store, and just feel ancient. I loved FreeBSD until 4.7 came out and I felt that the ball had been dropped (4.6.2 was the best fbsd ever)

OpenBSD makes a fine router, but so does a hacked WRT54G. :D

Try linux again. :D
 
I continually use Linux every day at work, and every day the sheer relief of having to take care of FreeBSD machines at home instead of Linux is a refreshing reminder of why I don't run Linux on my personal machines.

FreeBSD may move slow at times, but it moves deliberately, carefully and with a purpose. IMHO, that beats the hell out of the rather spastic, unmanaged Linux development process. I don't think any of the FreeBSD -RELEASEs have ever corrupted file systems on unmount (Hello, anyone ever heard of QA?), nor have there been any -RELEASEs cause one of the main developers went on vacation for a month.

Don't tell me to try Linux again. I've been there, and unfortunately I have to keep at it for work.
 
[H]EMI_426 said:
FreeBSD may move slow at times, but it moves deliberately, carefully and with a purpose. IMHO, that beats the hell out of the rather spastic, unmanaged Linux development process. I don't think any of the FreeBSD -RELEASEs have ever corrupted file systems on unmount (Hello, anyone ever heard of QA?), nor have there been any -RELEASEs cause one of the main developers went on vacation for a month.
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And that's why I have a soft spot in my heart for both FreeBSD and Solaris. Open is quite useful as well, but feels cramped with heavy security and fewer scripted features than Free. I need to call up a buddy of mine and see if he still has a spare RS6000; he's always going on and on about how AIX blows everything away, but I've yet to really dig around inside its head.
 
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