View Full Version : "Desktop Linux" guys: what's your distro of choice?
No flame wars nor elitism please.
Just curious what you guys run on your laptop / desktop :)
Please don't vote with your server choices.
I dual boot my Internet PC with Win 7 Pro and Mint..... going to have a dabble with ArchLinux at some point as I have heard good reports...
I dual boot my Internet PC with Win 7 Pro and Mint..... going to have a dabble with ArchLinux at some point as I have heard good reports...
I'm basically a full time Arch user - both at home and work too now that I've been there long enough to dictate what OS I run.
So yeah, I love it. But what I like about it might well be what put others off (horses for courses and all)
unbuntu but i am thinking about switching to something else for the craptop :)
I'm a Linux server man for sure, but I find it just too hard to work with other businesses, file formats, support reasons to use Linux as a desktop full time.
My netbook, flits between Ubuntu Netbook and the default Xandros depending on what mood I'm in at the time, the built in storage is Xandros but Ubuntu netbook runs just as well off USB bootables.
It's too difficult for me of little brain to remember, Start>programs> etc etc when I'm typing /opt/...... :lol:
I'm a Linux server man for sure, but I find it just too hard to work with other businesses, file formats, support reasons to use Linux as a desktop full time.
Same here really, I use Linux for any servers, firewall, NAS etc. but have to use Windows for my desktop for practicality really. A few years ago I did go for several months without Windows but ended up working a lot harder trying to get certain applications running properly though WINE and alike
Ubuntu is for noob.
CentOS all the way!
Not a massive Linux user but I've tried Mint a few times and it ticked all the relevant boxes for me.
when i first switched to linux i started with ubuntu as that is what everyone recommended to start off with. iv been pretty happy with it so havnt changed since...
Ubuntu & BT4 are my weapons of choice :)
Ubuntu & BT4 are my weapons of choice :)
What's BT4?
What's BT4?
BackTrack 4, it was designed around penetration testing/computer forensics, I've always used it as i will be going into the computer security field, a really very brilliant OS, and it's free ! :thumb:
BackTrack 4, it was designed around penetration testing/computer forensics, I've always used it as i will be going into the computer security field, a really very brilliant OS, and it's free ! :thumb:
Oh that.
I've heard people rave about that before but to be honest i've not seen the point personally as Linux users can just install the networking tools they want into what ever distro they prefer (as there's little more to BT beyond that).
That said, I guess having everything you need in one install does have it's benefits.
Recently i used sabayon 6, ububtu, arch and mandriva. From all of them for my laptop i choose mandriva for server centos and for linux fun box arch.
Sent from my Desire S using Tapatalk
NOT A GREAT FAN OF LINUX BUT used it for a while at work.It's great OS .
Lorem-Ipsum
16-09-11, 15:15
Ubuntu is for noob.
CentOS all the way!
You are a N00B :D
Archlinux all the way here. Can't stand RPM's :D
You are a N00B :D
Archlinux all the way here. Can't stand RPM's :D
RPMs make me cry :'(
Ubuntu is for noob.
CentOS all the way!
and that just cheered up my dull Friday afternoon :lol:
http://forums.aria.co.uk/showthread.php?t=34047
http://forums.aria.co.uk/showthread.php?t=35527
http://forums.aria.co.uk/showthread.php?t=35393
in this thread, this quote in particular :lol:
< Yes i am noob>
http://forums.aria.co.uk/showthread.php?t=35947
shall I continue?
Gentoo is the real geeks distro, but there are just so few people who have a clue how to compile a kernel or support it after I've installed and configured it. In a way that's great, work for me, but I can't justify it in business as you can pickup Redhat engineers and support ten-a-penny :( Unix for me is falling in the same manner as windows, you have to pick a certain distro just for business continuity, Redhat you can pay for support, Ubuntu server is very common on hosts, so people now understand apt-get more ;) Same with centOS. It's the cheapest option on leasing servers, so the number of "experts" increases as the demand for these "experts" is greater.
Like asking for help on how to install and configure FTP users ;) http://forums.aria.co.uk/showthread.php?t=36681&highlight=centos
DT.
Gentoo is the real geeks distro,
Gentoo is just a dumbed down version of Slackware :P
Joking aside though, I don't think it gets any nerdier than LFS: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
nah, mustard is where it's at ....
For servers debian, but for my desktop I tend to get bored and try a new one every 3 months or so, so I couldn't honestly say I have a favourite. Generally prefer apt-based systems as far as package management goes. Currently trying mint.
Why I keep changing I have no idea tbh, as all I ever use really is a terminal window and a browser :P.
Ubuntu all the way, so many things included to make it just generally work nicer than other distributions.
Would love to try linux mint but the latest ubuntu based release was too buggy for me :(
Ubuntu all the way, so many things included to make it just generally work nicer than other distributions.
Would love to try linux mint but the latest ubuntu based release was too buggy for me :(
yaaa iv come across loads of bugs with the upgrade. samba just stopped wortking completely and blocked all other installations of anything. banshee crashes a lot (and i tried installing their version of Genius for itunes...didnt work, although i dont know if that is just a problem with the program rather than ubuntu), load up times seem to be noticably slower too :(
Are you talking about Ubuntu or Mint? I was talking about Mint being buggy...
After all the time wasted editing Conf Files and compiling things over the years the world can fall in and hell freeze over before i go back to anything other than an idiot friendly version of Linux with Apt-Get and alike.
Learn to love the thing you hate.
Point and click is a beautiful thing. :D
.
Are you talking about Ubuntu or Mint? I was talking about Mint being buggy...
ahh i was talkin about ubuntu :/
Point and click is a beautiful thing. :D
.
To be honest I generally find command lines easier than GUIs.
All the functionality is exposed via a command line and easy to find where as many GUIs are just a complete mess (Microsoft, I'm looking at you!)
That all said, I get sick of the CLI vs GUI flame wars. They both have their place (eg it would take a sadomasochist to browser the net on lynx.)
To be honest I generally find command lines easier than GUIs.
All the functionality is exposed via a command line and easy to find where as many GUIs are just a complete mess (Microsoft, I'm looking at you!)
That all said, I get sick of the CLI vs GUI flame wars. They both have their place (eg it would take a sadomasochist to browser the net on lynx.)
it does take a while to learn CLI though, especially if you have used windows all your life and then switch to linux. i chose ubuntu cos i wanted to be eased into the process :D
@DoubleTop
That was like 2 years ago.
I am pro now.
Toonshorty
18-09-11, 14:39
@DoubleTop
That was like 2 years ago.
I am pro now.
All those threads are about 11 months old.
:picard:
Lorem-Ipsum
18-09-11, 15:26
To be honest I generally find command lines easier than GUIs.
+1. I've been switching to command line as much as possible. The only things I have in a GUI now are firefox and thunderbird as I need html support in email. I would like to use mailx but it scares me XD.
@DoubleTop
That was like 2 years ago.
I am pro now.
OK. Install Gentoo then..... :D
OK. Install Gentoo then..... :D
easy...
it does take a while to learn CLI though, especially if you have used windows all your life and then switch to linux. i chose ubuntu cos i wanted to be eased into the process :D
Windows didn't exist when I got my first computer. :P
Windows 7 and Ubuntu duel boot all the way :)
Windows didn't exist when I got my first computer. :P
hah! i remember using windows 3.1 when i was about 7 or so, and the acorn computers at school had their own OS...also seem to remember RM computers. but soon afterwards windows 95 was out and it was the start button ever since...
Windows didn't exist when I got my first computer. :P
Although Windows existed at the time my first PC came with OS/2.
Although Windows existed at the time my first PC came with OS/2.
Oh nice!
That's one of the few OSs I've never used but from what I've heard it was epic.
For example: it's MS-DOS emulation was so sophisticated that it could run the whole of Windows 3.1, which for the time was something amazing.
OS/2 was nice. The dean of computing at the university I went to was a massive OS/2 fan.
It had some really nice object-based desktop features for it's time, e.g. 'dynamic' symbolic links (i.e. you could move around or alter the 'target' object without breaking the link object).
OS/2 was nice. The dean of computing at the university I went to was a massive OS/2 fan.
It had some really nice object-based desktop features for it's time, e.g. 'dynamic' symbolic links (i.e. you could move around or alter the 'target' object without breaking the link object).
Nice.
It's just a pity IBM had little interest in pushing it otherwise desktop computing now might be an entirely different landscape. :(
But then I guess the same could have been said about the numerous other OSs that had also fallen by the wayside.
big blue could of ruled the world if they had wanted to, instead they wanted to play chess.
Well, it was co-developed with MS as I recall, and MS basically dropped the project. By which point it was so patently obvious that windows had 'won the desktop war' that IBM would probably just have been throwing good money away if they'd kept plugging away at it, and it's not really the market of 'Big Blue' who are still doing very nicely selling mainframes.
what, ms got into a deal to learn all they could then took the info and ran with it??? :eek:
i would of never expected that xD
they still have their fingers in a lot of pies ibm, they just go about it in the background and dont go after the headlines. thats the thing, ibm could rule the world and we wounldn't know about it :lol:
Well, it was co-developed with MS as I recall, and MS basically dropped the project. By which point it was so patently obvious that windows had 'won the desktop war' that IBM would probably just have been throwing good money away if they'd kept plugging away at it, and it's not really the market of 'Big Blue' who are still doing very nicely selling mainframes.
I think Windows was far from ubiquitous when MS & IBMs partnership broke down. Plus MS's code from OS/2 went into NT; back then desktop Windows was still just a DOS shell.
A while back there was an interesting article about IBM's (lack of) interest in OS/2 written by one of the developers. I'll see if i can dig it out.
I've been playing with OpenSuse the last few days as work project. It's also the first time I've opted for a KDE desktop environment, and I'm liking what I see so far.
GSVRasputin
20-09-11, 09:28
I have used OpenSuse for years, just recently moved to PCLinuxOS for the laptop and and CentOS for home file server. As for desktop environment KDE all the way, gnome has always seemed clunky to me.
I used to like (Open)SuSE until I started my new job and are now using SLES everyday on our server farm. Now I just find SuSE a PITA.
For my personal servers, it's a mash up of ArchLinux and FreeBSD (which I know isn't Linux). I do have one CentOS webserver, but I'll need to upgrade that soon due to the installed version of CentOS not having Apache 2.2.20 (the one with the recent DoS attack fix) available in it's repositories. So I might as well just switch that to Arch as well and have all of my Linux servers on a rolling release distro.
+1 on KDE though. In fact GNOME is the only DE I don't like. Each to their own though :)
so Kubuntu is just ubuntu with KDE rather than gnome? support for drivers, installatio of things etc is all pretty much the same?
so Kubuntu is just ubuntu with KDE rather than gnome? support for drivers, installatio of things etc is all pretty much the same?
it has a few other differences, but the differences are mainly skin deep
Yeah most of it is the same, you can install Kubuntu from Ubuntu and the other way around too, it's basically the same base with a different GUI.
You can install the KDE libs and run KDE apps inside gnome. Not used KDE for a long time, but I'd guess you can probably do it the other way around too.
Andy what we are talking about is quite different.
I am talking about installing Kubuntu from within Ubuntu, at login you can then choose what desktop you want.
Andy what we are talking about is quite different.
I am talking about installing Kubuntu from within Ubuntu, at login you can then choose what desktop you want.
Yeah I know. I'm just pointing out that it's not necessarily an 'A or B' choice as some people assume, because you can run apps for one platform on the other. It's not like choosing OSX vs windows, because the apps are all binary compatible so long as you have the supporting libraries.
Keep meaning to give enlightenment another go, it's a very long time since I used it, will probably give 'bodhi linux' a try at some point in the near future.
Ah i thought you just got confused on what we meant :P
Ah i thought you just got confused on what we meant :P
Haha no, it's getting close to the end of the day but a recently-consumed doughnut (courtesy of the purchasing team) and the resulting sugar-rush means I'm not quite that dozy yet :P.
Lorem-Ipsum
21-09-11, 16:57
easy...
Managed it yet then?
Andy what we are talking about is quite different.
I am talking about installing Kubuntu from within Ubuntu, at login you can then choose what desktop you want.
Actually it's not that different, it's just using Metecity instead of Kwin as the Window manager and GNOME shell / Unity instead of Plasma as the desktop environment. But they're all just apps that run on top X anyway. They all support the same messages (for system tray icons, window resizing, etc)
In fact, you can run KDE4 with GNOME's shell and window manage if you wanted (not sure why you would, but the option is there).
so is there any real point in switch from gnome to kde? it takes me a while to sort out everything as i like it!
so is there any real point in switch from gnome to kde? it takes me a while to sort out everything as i like it!
Not unless you refer KDE to GNOME.
You can run them both side by side anyway (I do this with KDE4 and Awesome)
thebennyboy
28-09-11, 17:08
Has got to be Ubuntu, easy to use and a user friendly interface. For me anyway.
ubuntu or fedora for convenience/laziness
Looks like the poll has a clear winner and it would most likely be the same everywhere, we all know Ubuntu is the most popular. The popularity of Ubuntu should in theory make the other distros also gain more users from people who got into Linux and want to look around a bit and try something new again.
GSVRasputin
29-09-11, 14:51
Looks like the poll has a clear winner and it would most likely be the same everywhere, we all know Ubuntu is the most popular. The popularity of Ubuntu should in theory make the other distros also gain more users from people who got into Linux and want to look around a bit and try something new again.
I would agree with you, I would say that linux in general is gaining some ground from Microsoft in the home computer market, especially with the creation of Android the masses are seeing what an open source OS can do.
the chrome os will be a linux distro too?
the chrome os will be a linux distro too?
Yup
12345
I would agree with you, I would say that linux in general is gaining some ground from Microsoft in the home computer market, especially with the creation of Android the masses are seeing what an open source OS can do.
Agreed, with the exception of gaming there isn't too much that an average home user can do with Windows that they can't with Linux/Android etc.
im guessing then that when chrome os comes out it will take a relatively large share of the market, like the browser did. not exactly to rival windows, but large relative to the other linux distros.
im guessing then that when chrome os comes out it will take a relatively large share of the market, like the browser did. not exactly to rival windows, but large relative to the other linux distros.
I doubt it will.
ChromeOS is a rather pointless OS. The only people likely to adopt it are those who are already following the project.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.1.12 Copyright © 2012 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.