What was the worst distro that you...

[Bully_Crist]

have ever used? and why?

also, which of the current distros available do you think is the crappiest? :p

[Derango]

Storm Linux...it wouldent even boot for me at least...I never got SuSE working either.

The two best I can think of are....Slackware and Debian. I like debian more though, for the ease of updates

[Stween]

the only distro ive ever got working is redhat -- so i guess i prefer this over most others. Mind you, ive only been using linux for 9 months or so...

hey, it was lucky that the only distro that seems to like my system from the word go is redhat, otherwise i would still be using windows... :D

[Webby]

definite linux was a bit crap. so dated, and old and basic and shoddy and generally pathetic.

slackware is soooo cool

[Bully_Crist]

hmmm... I thought Mandrake 7.1 blew goats... it was the first one I tried, and the installer baffled me (if I had tried to install Debian potato, I'd probably be using Windows right now)... Redhat was kinda OK, except the package management system really, really sucks... in fact, I think the whole RPM system should be sent to Hell.

Storm linux worked alright for me... I'm dl'ing the second Progeny cd now, so I'll get to see what the big deal is about soon :D as of yet, I'm too much of a newbie to deal with the real Debian install, but I want a decent Debian distro with support, so... (and I've heard so many good things about Progeny)

just my $0.02

[bdg1983]

A new twist to the 'What's the best distro?'.

Nothing better to do? ;)

[bdg1983]

Storm never worked for me either. And Corel was just generally sucky, IMHO. So now I use FreeBSD.

[Bully_Crist]

well, from what I heard, Corel was fairly dumbed down...an obvious ploy to attract some Windows users. I don't know why Storm didn't work for you (or you)...it was an OK distro, but lacking in support (the ftps were down, and I do believe Stormix declared bankruptcy a few months ago)... I'm dl'ing the second Progeny cd now...but, from what I'm hearing, it may be the Debian-based distro to try, if you try any linux distro...

it'd be nice if Debian could become more popular than Redhat/SuSe/Mandrake...

KumaSan, or anyone else who reads this; is FreeBSD better than Debian or Slackware? (being able to use unix *and* linux binaries, I'd think Free has something extra going for it)...

[bdg1983]

I'd be the last to say that any distro is "better" than any other, but FreeBSD is pretty sweet. It's nice that it can use binaries from other systems. The ports collection is pretty good for package management. It's my favorite of all Unix/Linux's I've tried (Mandrake 7.0-7.2, RH 6.1/6.2, Corel, Kondara).

[r0nster]

The Worst distribution...
I've used Redhat 5.2, 6.0
Caldera Openlinux 1.3
Mandrake 7.0 and now Slack 7.1 :cool:
Out of all of those, RH 6.0 gave me the most fits since I foolishly "upgraded" from RH 5.2. That was back in my newbiest days.
Mandrake 7.0 took forever to install and it seemed to do squirrely things. I'm running Slack 7.1 and I like it :cool:
And I've also learned firsthand to avoid all .0 releases from Redhat like the plague.

[ph34r]

Mandrake has always seemed to want to be so helpful as to not let me do what I wanted to do, especially where partitions and which ones to (not) format were concerned.

Best? LFS (www.linuxfromscratch.org) 'cause it teaches you sooo much about how linux works, and Slackware, 'cause Slack-current makes LFS easier to do for the lazy people (like me).

[PunkTiger]

I'll be perfectly frank. I love Mandrake 7.2 (which I'm using right now... playing MP3's off my windoze partition, hooked up to my DSL connection and downloading the ISO's for Mandrake 8.0 Release Candidate 1 :D ). I've used 7.0 before that... and 6.0 before that. They were the ONLY distributions that worked for me right from the get-go.

I've tried RedHat 6 and 7, but I wasn't thrilled with them at all. And RH7 with Xwindows was completely unusable on my Dell laptop (I kept getting huge chunks of the display blacking out on me whenever I used a scrolling window). Mandrake 7.2 worked very well on it. Even the sound worked with a little tweaking!

A close 2nd is SuSE 7.0... but I couldn't use a printer on it because there was a problem with apsfilter. Other than that, it was great.

I've tried Stormix (ummm... it was the distro that came on a Maximum Linux CD... I can't recall the version) and I was completely unimpressed by it.

So, yes, I'm a happy Mandrake user. (shock! horror!) Shall I add more fuel to the fire? I prefer KDE. I honestly don't see what the big deal is about Gnome. But, that's just me.

[Bully_Crist]

well, I suppose it depends on what you want in a distro... if you want something that'll do everything for you in a cool-looking GUI...well...

I just want something that'll do what it's supposed to, when I want it to, something that's STABLE, and something that I can take apart whenever I want to and fix something...

on that note, where can I learn about formatting my partitions for diff filesystems, like ReiserFS? also, does Progeny 1.0 give you the option of choosing what filesystem you want when you create your partitioning scheme?

[Molecule Man]

www.namesys.com (http://www.namesys.com) should have what you need to switch to Reiserfs. Of course SuSE and MDK could just do it for you during the install.

[snowgod]

I never had very good luck with SuSE. and I don't know about you guys, but I love Storm, thats what I'm using now, and have had no probs. Its too bad their going out of business.

[willk]

Debian....
Tried to get potatoe going...
Tried progeny....
Tried Libra....
tried Storm...

I just don't know what the fuss is about...can't even seem to get a simple ps2 out of the bag...

Slack has been the best so far out of RH, Mandrake, and the debian fiascos

[wincen]

mandrake 7.2
everything was great, except my mouse would never work in X. I know it's configured correctly, but it kept jumping around uncontrollably.

[slacker_x]

From what I can tell, a VERY large percentage of LNO users use debian and it seems that a great deal of the people here that use mandrake, suse, redhat say that they want to try debian.

Is debian the number of debian users going to increase rapidly?

[Bully_Crist]

Originally posted by slacker_x:
<STRONG>Is [...] the number of debian users going to increase rapidly?</STRONG>

I hope so :D

I think Debian based distros are among the most stable and useable... of course, if anyone disagrees with me, feel free to say so :mad:

[kuber]

Probably Redhat 7.0.. There are just so many rpms that need to be instantly updated it is insane.. Even gcc is messed up.. WTF?!

[sincka]

I just developped an inner hate for MDK... I just hate something that is so easy to configure. I ***** when I can't configure something in Debian but after I do, I feel smarter :p

hate: MDK
love: Debian (have been using it for about 9 months now :))

[MBMarduk]

I'll disagree with a couple of you (=plenty).

Debian was mindbogling. Installs EASY. good.
Configuring, fine. d/l-ing with apt, great. Very efficient use of space. (=minimal install :cool: )

Kernel recompile? Software compile? Changing keyboard mappings? FSCK NO!!!
These mindless Debby-zealots made me curious and I installed it.
Just to find out it was a PITA for me.

Just for me I guess, 'cuz THEY all love it.
&lt;RANT&gt; Fsck Debian. &lt;/RANT&gt;

So far SuSE6.4 was great and Slack7.1 IS masterful, EYELIKEIT!

-Mike

[Bully_Crist]

Originally posted by MBMarduk:
<STRONG>I'll disagree with a couple of you (=plenty).

Debian was mindbogling. Installs EASY. good.
Configuring, fine. d/l-ing with apt, great. Very efficient use of space. (=minimal install :cool: )

Kernel recompile? Software compile? Changing keyboard mappings? FSCK NO!!!
These mindless Debby-zealots made me curious and I installed it.
Just to find out it was a PITA for me.

Just for me I guess, 'cuz THEY all love it.
&lt;RANT&gt; Fsck Debian. &lt;/RANT&gt;

So far SuSE6.4 was great and Slack7.1 IS masterful, EYELIKEIT!

-Mike</STRONG>

try Progeny Debian 1.0... from what I hear, it's an "enhanced" version of Debian potato, with lots of 'current' goodies in it (ie. X 4.x.x, 2.4 kernel, etc., etc.), not to mention a more user friendly graphical installer...I'm going to try it out myself in a little bit... I've been tinkering with FreeBSD for a little bit last night, and I'm just about to rip my hair out...I've had so many problems with X that it's not even funny

[ 15 April 2001: Message edited by: Bully_Crist ]

[sincka]

Just freakin' use unstable/testing/stable (in your sources.list) with Debian and you'll get everything you want.

[milanuk]

Originally posted by slacker_x:
<STRONG>From what I can tell, a VERY large percentage of LNO users use debian </STRONG>&lt;snip&gt;

More like just the most vocal ;)

<STRONG>
Is debian the number of debian users going to increase rapidly?</STRONG>

It'd be nice to see, but unless they get on the stick and work the kinks out of their 'boot floppy' section, i.e. the part that causes the big delays btwn releases, I think maybe not... Tracking 'testing' or 'unstable' w/ a home box is fine, and some people do it w/ production boxes, but in my mind, the majority of people that aren't just doing this for ****s and giggles, i.e. non-hobbyists like businesses and people who _need_ their data available and their machines 100% functional, are going to track stable if they use Debian. But stable releases are so friggin' far apart that I think it turns a lot of potential users away. Is there anything 'wrong' w/ the stable distro right now? No. But in six months or more, people are going to look at it and wonder why in the hell they should move to Debian when it appears so far behind. Nothing a little apt-get cant' fix, but if you've never used it before, it can be hard to believe.

Monte

[Strike]

I haven't really been displeased greatly with any of the ones I've tried, to be perfectly honest. The thing that has bugged me the most in working with any of the distros so far was when I was using Mandrake 7.1 and it had a bunch of cruft in the config files and my RPM dependencies were all weird (what is up with .mdk.rpm RPMS thinking they are better than every .rpm RPM anyway?).

[Bully_Crist]

Originally posted by milanuk:
<STRONG>But stable releases are so friggin' far apart that I think it turns a lot of potential users away. Is there anything 'wrong' w/ the stable distro right now? No. But in six months or more, people are going to look at it and wonder why in the hell they should move to Debian when it appears so far behind. Nothing a little apt-get cant' fix, but if you've never used it before, it can be hard to believe.

Monte</STRONG>

well, I'd assume that if you're willing to spend the time and energy, it wouldn't be too hard to update anything on Debian... then again, if you want a 'modern' stable release of Debian, there's Progeny...Ian Murdock said in a PR that he doesn't really consider this a distribution, per se, at least not in the way that Mandrake is a distribution of RedHat... I want Debian potato, but I also want some of the current goodies, like the new kernel, a stable X, updated WMs, updated programs, etc., so I'm grabbing Progeny, which appears to contain the best of both worlds... sadly, I can't say the same thing about FreeBSD 4.2...it's stable, but the included software is dated...(and hard to work with)

[milanuk]

Originally posted by Bully_Crist:
<STRONG>well, I'd assume that if you're willing to spend the time and energy, it wouldn't be too hard to update anything on Debian... then again, if you want a 'modern' stable release of Debian, there's Progeny...</STRONG>

True. I've been considering checking out a Progeny iso when I get the chance. I recently changed jobs, so my free access to d/l'ing and burning iso's is toast :( For me, it's partly the outright zealotry that I've seen associated w/ Debian, especially on this board, that turns me off of it. Some things about Debian are really cool, like the apt-get update, or apt-get dist-upgrade, and the kernel compiling method is interesting, to say the least. But some of the way things are done in Debian... I can't say that they are wrong, since I'm not that much of a guru to be able to say who is wrong or right, but RedHat just feel better to me in some ways, probably just because I have been around it a while. It's hard to come up w/ concrete examples of anywhere that Redhat is better than Debian, other than it doesn't take forever and a year to get a release out a door, but some of Redhat's releases have been... ah, questionable? ;) I guess the installer, even the text based installer, is world's away more friendly, but then, the debian one is a good bit more flexible, and that way on purpose. Arrgghh. Here I am, talking myself into Debian again. Last time I did that, I nearly lost what's left of my hair trying to get the fscking onboard sound to work. Works great in SuSE, Mandrake, or Redhat (using sndconfig). Debian, holy fscking crap. tried for literally hours every night for _weeks_, recompiling kernels, trying alsa, getting sndconfig for debian from unstable, nothing worked right. Arrrghhh. I'll shut up now.

Monte


<STRONG> sadly, I can't say the same thing about FreeBSD 4.2...it's stable, but the included software is dated...(and hard to work with)</STRONG>

[milanuk]

Originally posted by milanuk:
<STRONG>True. I've been considering checking out a Progeny iso when I get the chance. I recently changed jobs, so my free access to d/l'ing and burning iso's is toast :( For me, it's partly the outright zealotry that I've seen associated w/ Debian, especially on this board, that turns me off of it. Some things about Debian are really cool, like the apt-get update, or apt-get dist-upgrade, and the kernel compiling method is interesting, to say the least. But some of the way things are done in Debian... I can't say that they are wrong, since I'm not that much of a guru to be able to say who is wrong or right, but RedHat just feel better to me in some ways, probably just because I have been around it a while. It's hard to come up w/ concrete examples of anywhere that Redhat is better than Debian, other than it doesn't take forever and a year to get a release out a door, but some of Redhat's releases have been... ah, questionable? ;) I guess the installer, even the text based installer, is world's away more friendly, but then, the debian one is a good bit more flexible, and that way on purpose. Arrgghh. Here I am, talking myself into Debian again. Last time I did that, I nearly lost what's left of my hair trying to get the fscking onboard sound to work. Works great in SuSE, Mandrake, or Redhat (using sndconfig). Debian, holy fscking crap. tried for literally hours every night for _weeks_, recompiling kernels, trying alsa, getting sndconfig for debian from unstable, nothing worked right. Arrrghhh. I'll shut up now.

Monte


sadly, I can't say the same thing about FreeBSD 4.2...it's stable, but the included software is dated...(and hard to work with)</STRONG>


Ye Gads! I didn't think I'd ever hear a BSD'er admit that w/o a gun to their head!!!

Monte

[Space-Cadet]

RedHat 7 is the worst I've used, honestly. I've used RedHat 6.2, Mandrake 7.2 and Slack 7.1

Sadly, I'm using RedHat 7 now. As soon as Slack 7.2 is released I'm gonna switch to it.

[The_Tobb]

I think Redhat 7.0 is really bad its full of out date software.
I use SuSE 7.2 and KDE 2 now

[ 15 April 2001: Message edited by: The_Tobb ]

[milanuk]

Originally posted by The_Tobb:
<STRONG>I think Redhat 7.0 is really bad its full of out date software.
I use SuSE 7.2 and KDE 2 now

[ 15 April 2001: Message edited by: The_Tobb ]</STRONG>

Whoa!! Listen to the man. He's comparing a distro release that has been out over six months w/ one that won't be released for another six months!! ;) Hint: SuSE is at 7.1, and FWIW, RedHat will be releasing their 7.1 in a short while, I believe. There are 7.1 directories popping up on their ftp sites, though still unaccessible as of yet. Lets just wait a bit and compare apples to apples, shall we?

Monte

[bkurt]

Yeah, I would have to agree that Red Hat 7.0 kinda of sucked in my opinion. They give you a crap compiler, which I couldn't believe that red hat would do. I started on Mandrake 7.1 and it was pretty good distro to start with, but the boot scripts were pretty ugly and bloated out so I switched to slack 7.1 and I have been so much happier with it than any other. Yes, you do have to do a little bit more on your config wise but in the end you are much better off because of it. Can't wait for Slack 7.2 and Slacktool to get done.