What distro are you trying right now?

Gnafu the Great · #1 17th July 2007, 01:36 AM

So I'm trying Gentoo, just for giggles, and I wanted to share my experiences. I then realized that it'd be even better to start a thread where everyone can share their experiences in distro land

. Anyway, post what distro(s) you're trying right now, why you're trying them, and what you think of them. Feel free to make comparisons to other distros, but try not to do any mean-spirited bashing. I'd like to keep this light and happy. And who knows, maybe we can help each other out in our adventures

. So yes, I deem no particular format for posts, but I choose the following for my own:

Distro: Gentoo - http://www.gentoo.org/
Reason for trying: I was bored and it sounded like fun.
Other distros tried recently: DreamLinux, KateOS, SAM Linux, Debian, and others
Impressions so far: I really like the manual install (I'm still in the install process at this point). It's not difficult if you follow a guide like the one on the official site, but it's just very fun and unique. Downloading and unpacking "stages" and "snapshots." Anyway, I'll post again when I'm actually past installation.

JN4OldSchool · #2 17th July 2007, 01:49 AM

Well, Ironically I am downloading CentOS right now. Had some problems with my backup server today, it was accidentally running debian lenny. What happened was I had a pre-release iso of etch and when I installed and updated this install after etch's release it gave me the lenny repos. Well, I lived with it but some things were broken so today I redid my network and I am going to throw CentOS on it. I have never played with CentOS or RHEL before and figured why not? Other distros I am running: F7 and Etch dual booted on the big rig, F7 on the 2 work computers, CEUbuntu on my youngest boys and my second oldest boys computers (the oldest is married and has moved out but also running F7, this one needs to go too

), XP and various, fast changing other distros for my next oldest boy (this one is the geek) and Vista on my wife's laptop. Distros I have tried? lol, I have a file called "distro collection" which generally holds around 100GB worth of downloaded iso's. When they get more than a year old I start trashing them. I run these in VMWare for the most part and can pull any one up in seconds. This keeps me from burning excessive discs. So which distros? Heck, be easier to count the distros I havent tried...

stevenhr · #3 20th October 2010, 11:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JN4OldSchool

Had some problems with my backup server today, it was accidentally running debian lenny.

(RIM SHOT!!)

Not that I'm not a big fan of Debian, because I am, but this was very funny.

I just did tests of OpenBSD 4.7 and 4.8, both of which ran as well as I expected. I need to do more with 4.8 to see how suspend/resume works with my hardware. In 4.7 it suspended fine but wouldn't resume (making suspend rather useless, don't you think?).

Right now I have test environments (a fancy way of saying "bootable USB flash drives that I don't care about killing") set up for Ubuntu 10.10, which is working so well it just might be my next distro, and Debian Squeeze (jury still out).

***Dan*** · #4 17th July 2007, 01:52 AM

Pulling Solaris down tonight.

Plossl · #5 28th July 2007, 06:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TangledWeb

Pulling Solaris down tonight.

What were your impressions of it, Dan? I've wanted to use it, but I've heard hardware support is not good at all.

geminiguy · #6 8th September 2007, 05:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Plossl

What were your impressions of it, Dan? I've wanted to use it, but I've heard hardware support is not good at all.

I run Solaris, and I really like it alot. It's definitely different!! The Java desktop is the best way to go with it though.
There's been alot of mis-bloggin / reporting about how Solaris says its gonna blow Linux away... But don't pay it any attention. Alot of the articles are made using 1/2 sentences and twisting comments....
The only probs Ive had with Solaris are

.1 trying to dual boot it with my PCLOS 07 from seperate hard drives (Solaris WILL NOT WORK on the same HD as a Linux distro.... they share the same ID)

.2 Be sure to go into Java and set the screen resolution (remember Solaris is designed for Sparc machines, and this is just one little area they seem to have forgotten to address) and it slaps the screen all over the place

3. I recently had in issue where I actually could'nt log out and shut the machine down... (pretty wierd) but it only happened once

Solaris is designed with business use in mind.... so it may take them some time before they realize they need to fluff it up a bit, if they truely plan on going fully free with Solaris 11 (project Nevada)and appealing to the home / personal users

Overall...., I think it's a really nice OS already. I like the Java desktop because it's a refreshing change of environment. It's definitely a bit different to install from the live DVD, but it's alot simpler than it seems.... If I can do it..... "anyone" can!!!!
When it first begins, it will go into a hardware search (for quite a long period) then it begins... Be sure to install it as "networked" or you wont have any internet.......
If anyone has any questions on the install, I can try to help.... I have had a few people tell me it would not install on their machines But there is a link on Sun.com for a hardware compatability pre-check
Ill get it and post it here over the weekend

geminiguy · #7 8th September 2007, 05:47 AM

Has anyone checked out the new FreeSpire????

ashtonford · #8 5th March 2013, 05:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan

Pulling Solus down tonight.

iam doing solus also. Whats the trick to get chrome stable to show up in the menu so I can add the icon to the pannel?

pparks1 · #9 17th July 2007, 01:58 AM

I had moved over to Ubuntu for awhile, but am now back on F7 and have been extremely happy. It's working great, and everything that I have wanted to get working is working.

kathera · #10 17th July 2007, 02:43 AM

I have tried debian, ubuntu, and kubuntu, and now I am downloading fedora 7 to try, so what is fedora like?

JN4OldSchool · #11 17th July 2007, 02:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kathera

I have tried debian, ubuntu, and kubuntu, and now I am downloading fedora 7 to try, so what is fedora like?

Good question and quite honestly, you will either love it or hate it. It is just a little different, especially from the deb/ubuntu side. I have always preferred the feel of the RPM distros myself and Fedora is the granddaddy of these (considering it's RH lineage). I will give you the advice that you shouldnt judge it too hastily, give it a legitimate chance. Get it to work right, if you run into any snags dont give up. It isnt a hard distro but it is one that will make you think. Hope you enjoy it and if you dont, well, dont feel too bad. It isnt for everyone.

ryptyde · #12 17th July 2007, 03:11 AM

DSL 3.4 (DamnSmallLinux), DSL has always been a favorite of mine. It is lightweight under 50MB, incredibly fast, portable, expandable and will run on or from just about anything.

I have been trying/using it since version 0.7.3, and there's a reason it has been on the "top10" list at Distrowatch for quite some time its (DGL) "DamnGoodLinux" just like Fedora.

premudriy · #13 9th March 2008, 08:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pparks1

I had moved over to Ubuntu for awhile, but am now back on F7 and have been extremely happy. It's working great, and everything that I have wanted to get working is working.

I tried the latest Ubuntu, which is 7.10, and came to the conclusion that it has some issues. Let me tell my little scary story. I have a system with two HDDs. WinXP on primary and one partition on slave is for Win swap, the rest of space on slave is free, where I tried to install Ubuntu. I've tried to install Ubuntu probably more than 10 times using different guides with no result. For some reason Ubuntu simply doesn't want to get installed on secondary drive. After installation there's no "grub" folder in the /boot (I've tried many different variants and specified implicitly to install grub to /boot partition and MBR of slave). So, system is unbootable! No matter what I did! I've even tried their Alternative CD with no result. There must be a bug in the install scripts. After boot it always shows "Error 22: something someting." No clear answers on Ubuntu forum. That is my experience with Ubuntu.

joe.pelayo · #14 10th March 2008, 05:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by premudriy

I tried the latest Ubuntu, which is 7.10, and came to the conclusion that it has some issues. Let me tell my little scary story. I have a system with two HDDs. WinXP on primary and one partition on slave is for Win swap, the rest of space on slave is free, where I tried to install Ubuntu. I've tried to install Ubuntu probably more than 10 times using different guides with no result. For some reason Ubuntu simply doesn't want to get installed on secondary drive. After installation there's no "grub" folder in the /boot (I've tried many different variants and specified implicitly to install grub to /boot partition and MBR of slave). So, system is unbootable! No matter what I did! I've even tried their Alternative CD with no result. There must be a bug in the install scripts. After boot it always shows "Error 22: something someting." No clear answers on Ubuntu forum. That is my experience with Ubuntu.

It would seem that Ubuntu, in its attempt to appeal to Windows users, has copied that odd behavior Windows has upon installation of not installing anywhere else the first partition of the master.

Thanks.
Joe.

***Dan*** · #15 17th July 2007, 02:06 AM

Hey pparks! Good to see you again.