What's yer distro?

digitalmouse · Post by **digitalmouse** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 6:22 am

being an old hand linux user from the RedHat 6.x days, i think i've just about tried them all from a down-n-dirty-console-who-needs-a-stinking-gui-ooohh-pretty-icons-gimme-more! standpoint. after about 5-6 years of tinkering, tweaking, cursing, crying, gleefully laughing to myself at a successful configuration, and steadfast determination at 3 a.m., i'm currently happy with the latest strains of debian and kubuntu/ubuntu server. for the most part, they just work - which is what an OS is supposed to do.

i'm getting too old and time is too short (or costs money) to futz with distro configurations for a great length of time, especially when i want to help convert people over to Linux. it's nice that i can just pop in a live-CD, show off a system, walk people through an install, and finsh up with a little orientation to show that, yes, Mrs. Smith, 90% or more of what you did (and how you did it) in Windows can be done in Linux, minus the price-tag and minus a majority of viruses/malware/spyware.

i am also an avid fan of DamnSmallLinux - my current spring project is to get it running on an old high-end 486 sitting in my basement (been done before apparently) so that i have a bed-side browsing tool.

no1important · Post by **no1important** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 1:36 am

I have the "Underground desktop" Arch on one hard drive and on other hard drive I have it partioned with Kanotix and Ubuntu.

kbrown3074 · Post by **kbrown3074** » Tue May 09, 2006 2:07 pm

I use Ubuntu Breezy on my main machine and Fedora Core 5 on my secondary.

comtux · Post by **comtux** » Tue Jul 04, 2006 12:25 am

Well as far as distros go i run a lfs based distro that uses slackware init scripts
with my own package manager that i have been working on.
The package manager works the same as slackware's with they exception that my
build scripts are different and i have dep handling.

My machines are.

This system is my all purpose server
-------------------------------------------------
1. Amd Sempron 64 +2600
512 megs ram
Ati Rage 128 16mb videocard
Sound Blaster sound card
17 mag monitor
Dvd Burner
40 Gig Seagate
Old Wintv card

This system i hate so i use it with wifi when im on the crapper.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Dell Inspiron 1100 Laptop
2.6 Ghz P4
256 megs ram
onboard intel gfx 64mb video card
onboard sound

This machine does nothing at all just sits there i keep it on because it
amazes me how idesk and fbpanel can bring it back to life.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Gateway 2000
P2 200mhz
64 megs ram
5 Gb seagate fireball
onboard sound
onboard video

I also have a epson cx3200 allinone works greate with cups and sane
the ink is super cheap i bought a 12 pack 6 black 6 color for $20 on ebay.

Every peice of hardware i have everything from the dial up modems to my old logitech webcam yatayatayat work great with gnu/linux and mostly with a bsd.

But only about 2/3 work on any version of windows.
With out my dell drivers windows doesnt even work right at all on my dell laptop.

Later

caleb · Post by **caleb** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 10:04 pm

Let's see, in rough chronological order from when I was using them:

Yggdrasil
Slackware 95
RedHat 4.2 (I think)
Slackware mumblesomeversionmumble
Mandrake..umm...6? Was still just RedHat recompiled with 586 optimizations
Back to Slackware
Debian
Umm...I forget...was Debian based, was the first Deb with a nice installer, around the time Gnome was first being developed.
SuSE (for all of a week)
Back to Debian
LFS
Gentoo
Ubuntu
VMware ESX running multiple VMs with a few different distros depending on what I am doing. Main "Desktop" VM is Ubuntu.

Bjerrk · Post by **Bjerrk** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 5:15 pm

I run emacs - err, i mean Slackware - on the three machines that i've got here in my house, one running 10.2, one running -Current and my laptop running 11.0 (though the -Current and 11.0 branches are really identical at the moment), and it's as stable and fast as always.

I've been using VIM right since i began using GNU/Linux, but i'm in the process of getting used to GNU Emacs, as i like it's "full-featuredness" and configurability, and the fact that it's Free Software, while the VIM developers emphasize that VIM is "Open Source Software". Though the latter is not really a big deal to me - i use the two terms almost as if they were interchangeable - it's a nice side effect.
Oh yeah, and emacs has got a great Python Mode, which is a huge benefit when coding Python, obviously

.

davijordan · Post by **davijordan** » Sun Jan 21, 2007 5:17 am

I am still an amateur with linux, but I started out on slackware. I love dsl on my old laptop. Like most people I play with the distro of the week. I loved suse till ms comingled with novell. I just inherited a mac g3, so I am playing with kubuntu on it. if i can get a biger hard drive, I might try fedora or ydl.

davijordan · Post by **davijordan** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 4:54 am

I just bought two slow blue g3's cheap. After not liking xubuntu, I put kubuntu on and them they work well so far, Thanx for the tip about suse. I might try rh or on of it's derivatives also eventually. have you tried Yellowdog?

dann wrote:Slackware, slackware, slackware!

I also use Gentoo on PPC. That's a great distrobution. Very involved though.

I used to like SuSE, but the last few times I used it, it was just too damn slow and pokey. Kind of going the way Mandrake went.

Linc · Post by **Linc** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 8:01 am

davijordan wrote:I just bought two slow blue g3's cheap. After not liking xubuntu, I put kubuntu on and them they work well so far, Thanx for the tip about suse. I might try rh or on of it's derivatives also eventually. have you tried Yellowdog?

dann wrote:Slackware, slackware, slackware!

I also use Gentoo on PPC. That's a great distrobution. Very involved though.

I used to like SuSE, but the last few times I used it, it was just too damn slow and pokey. Kind of going the way Mandrake went.

Do NOT try gentoo on those G3's. It will be 6 years before you can actually log into an x-session. Depending upon how much memory you can cram into them, try Ubuntu (high mem) or Debian (128+). I actually have run several G3's with Debian, graphically and as a server and for the money, I don't think you can beat it on that platform.

davijordan · Post by **davijordan** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 10:15 pm

One of the machines has 400+ meg and the other has 256 meg ram. they are at least minimum requirements?? A friend tried a network install of debian and it was not too shabby.

Linc wrote:
davijordan wrote:I just bought two slow blue g3's cheap. After not liking xubuntu, I put kubuntu on and them they work well so far, Thanx for the tip about suse. I might try rh or on of it's derivatives also eventually. have you tried Yellowdog?

dann wrote:Slackware, slackware, slackware!

I also use Gentoo on PPC. That's a great distrobution. Very involved though.

I used to like SuSE, but the last few times I used it, it was just too damn slow and pokey. Kind of going the way Mandrake went.
Do NOT try gentoo on those G3's. It will be 6 years before you can actually log into an x-session. Depending upon how much memory you can cram into them, try Ubuntu (high mem) or Debian (128+). I actually have run several G3's with Debian, graphically and as a server and for the money, I don't think you can beat it on that platform.

flickerfly · Post by **flickerfly** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 6:09 pm

I'm a big fan of Gentoo as a way to really learn linux, but I think I've gained a pretty good understanding (at least from a sysadmin perspective) of linux. Now I just want it to work so I can play with other things. My current interest takes me more the direction of web development than anything else, but I see things like Asterisk and other great open source software with a communication bend being useful to me soon enough. For this reason, I really enjoy the cleanliness, stability and flexibility that Ubuntu gives me without a significant amount of work. Gentoo is a lot of work, no matter how you look at it, but so much fun to play with. The possibilities are endless. About 6 or 7 years ago I was distro-crazy and tried about everything that was out there from RedHat to Mandrake to Slackware and even stuff by Corel. That was a short-lived distro.

pthread · Post by **pthread** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 1:50 am

I agree with flickerfly's recommendation for Gentoo as a good way to learn. Although I'd say once you have it isntalled, take it off.

I run Debian on all the servers I manage (that I can get changed over), although I'm still managing a CentOS box and a few Suse boxes.

On my desktop I'm running a BSD based, uh, "distribution" that doesn't seem too popular around here.

pthread · Post by **pthread** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 1:52 am

Ha, just realized I originally replied to this thread like 3 years ago.

Wally Balljacker · Post by **Wally Balljacker** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:43 pm

If you want to learn Linux, install Slackware. If you simply want to get your work done install Debian or Ubuntu.

thelinuxlink.net

What's yer distro?

My systems.

Lots