Which linux next?

[JCool451]

I've tried RedHat, I've tried to install SuSe, but it doesn't seem to work. Which distro next? I'm thinking of Debian and Gentoo? What would you guys recommend?

[JamminJoeyB]

Yield to the power of the dark side Luke. Evil Entity Linux!

Couldn't resist.

[serz]

What dosn't work?

Give a try to Mandrake.. I don't know.

[RedMap]

What probs you got with those distros? Too new machine? Too old a distro?

Keep hearing Gentoo is good, if you really know what you're doing then there's many options on install and its very flexible. But not tried it yet myself.

[ookami01]

how about

slackware - mandrake - gentoo - or any of the other distros on distrowatch

[Kai99]

Hi JCool451,

Once you try Debian you will not go back to RH or Mandrake I assure you. Gentoo is cutting edge but takes forever to install.

I would recommend you download either Knoppix or Morphix. You can run them from the cd to check it out before you install. Knoppix has a script available to install directly on your hard drive and i think Morphix( based on Knoppix) has a gui interface to install to the harddrive.

GL

Kai

[plattypus1]

I only have one thing to say-
Slackware: For the True Geek!

[AlexPlank]

Originally posted by Kai99
Hi JCool451,

Once you try Debian you will not go back to RH or Mandrake I assure you. Gentoo is cutting edge but takes forever to install.

I would recommend you download either Knoppix or Morphix. You can run them from the cd to check it out before you install. Knoppix has a script available to install directly on your hard drive and i think Morphix( based on Knoppix) has a gui interface to install to the harddrive.

GL

Kai

Thats not true. I have used both debian and red hat 9. Unless you have tried RH9 you can't make the comparison. Red Hat 9 is better for me. Debian did have some advantages though(the apt-get) package system with more recnet packages available than RH9, but RH9 is nicer and works just as well. They are both Linux/GNU distributions!

[Tech1]

Slackware all the way baby, once i got it installed i love it, better then mandrake in my opinion, never could get debian to install :(

But slackware you need to configure everything from the console, which i love, that were books, this place, and online books come in handy!

[saturn-vk]

i haven't seen windows in a month thanks to slackware (and partially to the late loki of course :)).

once you try slackware, you wont want to change. it's the simple things in life that matter :)

[stoe]

If your looking to keep it lean and mean, try out gentoo ... i use it exclusively and i like it so much that i couldn't imagine ever wanting to switch to another distro.

heres my pro and con list for gentoo:

pros
-----
+ since everything is built from source, you have the potential to fully optimize everything.
+ there's no automated installer at all, so you have full control of everything on your system.
+ emerge system manages dependencies for you, and will download, build, and install any package you want.
+ :cool: (at least among nerds like us)

cons
-----
- since everything is built from source, it can take a long time to install everything
- there's no automated installer at all, so you must at least have some idea of what your doing
:eek:
- oddities that might annoy linux purists ... for example, it functions like a *BSD in certain ways, and it uses a strange (but better, IMHO) runlevel system.

i'm sure theres a lot of overlap in these pros and cons with debian, though i've never tried it myself, so i can't really comment on it.

so in short, i cast my vote for gentoo. :D

[Exodus2001]

I suggest Linux From Scratch so you can't complain anymore.:D

[ZAmodeo]

Originally posted by saturn-vk
once you try slackware, you wont want to change. it's the simple things in life that matter :)

I've seen so many people say that Slackware is great, but what really makes it so much better? Is it faster? It sounds harder from what people say.

[Kaligraphic]

I'm starting with Debian, and I find it eminently more fun than RH.

[sarah31]

Originally posted by ZAmodeo
I've seen so many people say that Slackware is great, but what really makes it so much better? Is it faster? It sounds harder from what people say.

small, bsd inits, very nice file hierarchy,.....

optimized to the hilt is not always the be-all and end-all. for example the distro i use while not having many packages and though it requires at least some linux experience has a very similar simple and straight forward file hierarchy. it is optimized to i686 but you can optimize and rebuild (much like slackware). but honestly the performance gains from "souping up" your flags like gentoo really gives such negligible performance gains i fail to see why one would bother.

slackware also does not force you to swallow a pile of pointless build only packages. there are alot of offerings out there that have certain necessary build dependencies but not run dependencies (such as pam in openoffice or mozilla libraries and includes in kdebindings) that gentoo would force you to install and trying to remove them later you would be forced to remove the desired app as well due to the ebuild having such packages as depends. (so i guess you could say that gentoo is not as light as it can be and you do not always install what you want alone.)

also slack is i586 optimized, if i am not mistaken, which pretty well guarantees that you can install it one anything above a 486. so slackware is a pretty well balanced distro all in all. it doesn't race to be the flavor of the month instead it is happy to play the course at its own pace ensure the stability of the project.

[terribleRobbo]

Originally posted by sarah31
also slack is i586 optimized, if i am not mistaken, which pretty well guarantees that you can install it one anything above a 486. so slackware is a pretty well balanced distro all in all. it doesn't race to be the flavor of the month instead it is happy to play the course at its own pace ensure the stability of the project.

Uh oh.

I'm a newb in comparison to the rest of the crowd here (heck, I've only installed Red Hat a few times!), and I'm currently downloading Slackware to whack on an old 486 DX2 66.

Is there an older version I should be downloading? Any tips?

Thanks. :D

[carrja99]

Try Dux Linux... dux.sunsite.dk

Sorry, I couldnt resist :D

[Brocket99]

I'm commited to install my own distro next!
It'll be my 3rd. Arklinux for 5 days. Debian since, crashed it only twice! therefore reinstalled twice :).

I'm getting pretty deep into everything i can, i think i'll have this rute guide done in a month at the most. after that i'm planning on printing out "The Art Of Assembly" reading/learning it and lifting up my C skills (while utterly destroying while playing of course). Then I'm going to tackle Understanding the Linux Kernel v2. After that, and everything in between, I think i'll be satisfied with myself and be able to call myself a Newbie Hacker. And hopefully get into kernel development.

My Debian is probably full of holes. But i really don't care! This is my crash course install, everything's on a single partition. If you got any linux distro, you got all you need.
But I'm determined to get my next linux from kernel.org. If i screw up.. oh well! i got to try again!

now.. back to the beer :P

[aNoob]

maybe Vector linux?

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Originally posted by sarah31
small, bsd inits, very nice file hierarchy,.....

<snip-snip>

also slack is i586 optimized, if i am not mistaken, which pretty well guarantees that you can install it one anything above a 486. so slackware is a pretty well balanced distro all in all. it doesn't race to be the flavor of the month instead it is happy to play the course at its own pace ensure the stability of the project.

If you like BSD inits, go with FreeBSD. But, being as I cut my teeth on Slack, that's all I'll say about that.

I would say that it all depends on your comfort level. If you couldn't get RedHat or SuSE to install, I have a feeling you won't have very good experiences with anything like Gentoo, Debian or Slackware. For one, at least RedHat and SuSE make an attempt to detect your hardware. With Debian and Slack, I don't know about Gentoo, you do end up having to know a bit about your hardware, and you might have to dig a bit to find out what modules you'd need to install.

Again, it's all about your comfort level. If you're new to Linux, you might want to try a distro like Knoppix first on your hardware. IMHO, its hardware detection is top-notch. If anything, you could make a list of what modules your machine uses from booting Knoppix and keep that for future reference when installing other distros.

And also, to sarah31: Slackware isn't i586 optimized, if I'm not mistaken. I've run it just fine on several 486's. I think it's actually doable an any i386 platform, but don't quote me on that.

[xerostatik]

keep RH9 ;) :D