[FRIAM] Distro, distro, .. which is best!

[Tim Densmore]

I've probably tried any distro you could name that has an available English 
locale.   I've been using linux for several years, and have been using it as 
a desktop exclusively for about two years, though I have both Mac and Windows 
at my house (Windows sees the light of day about once every three months).  

I've settled on Arch linux after a long, very hard road of trying several 
distros that were "almost right" but still had too many irritations for me to 
continue using.  Arch is more in the Slackware and Gentoo camp than the 
Ubuntu or Fedora camp.  I've discovered that I enjoy doing a certain amount 
of stuff myself, though managing packages isn't one of them.  Arch features 
what I believe is the best package manager available - pacman.  Arch is 
a "bleeding edge" i686 optimized distro that features a "rolling release 
system" which means you are always running the latest version, assuming you 
are fully up to date.  It also negates the need to reinstall, well, *ever* 
unless you blow up your box.  I've certainly had my ups and downs with it, 
but after all's said and done, it's home.

I've also really, really been enjoying playing with a new distro called 
Frugalware.  It's a very well put together mixture of Slackware and Arch that 
has a surprising amount of polish for such a young and relatively small 
distro.  It's a pleasure to use, and the devs are a pleasure to work with - 
questions are answered quickly and with enthusiasm.  Many if not most of the 
devs are not native English speakers, though, if that's an issue for anyone.  
It's not for me, and I can't see why it would be.

Using linux as your primary, and basically only OS can certainly be a 
challenge, but I'm fairly dedicated to not running software encumbered by 
DRM, etc.  Sometimes it takes some digging to find software that replaces 
what you're used to, but often I'm actually happier with the new software 
I've replaced my old faves with.  On the other hand, sometimes devs change, 
and a project you really loved becomes a nearly unusable mess - kaffeine is 
this way for me.  A year ago I'd have told you it was hands down the finest 
video player available.  Today, I can barely stand to use it - technically it 
still great, but the UI has become seriously horrible.  Freedom in both its 
senses is never the easiest road to follow, though, and tradeoffs are always 
part of the game.  IMO it's worth the effort, though.



On Friday 20 October 2006 22:27, Owen Densmore wrote:
> OK, Doug has brought up a point I've wondered about.
>
> Friamers .. another question .. well three actually .. for you all:
>    - Which Linux desktop distros have you used?
>    - Which distro do/did you like best?
>    - What hardware did you run it on?
>
> Years ago at Sun I was a RedHat + Gnome user .. indeed in 2000-2002,
> it, on the Thinkpad hardware, had taken over SunLabs.  We even put it
> in our JavaCar and found it worked with most of the weird drivers we
> needed.
>
> It was a bit hard to get going on laptops, however.  Audio was quite
> difficult, requiring rebuilding the kernel with new drivers, and
> getting the Sleep function to work correctly was tough.  But all in
> all, RedHat + Gnome + Thinkpad was quite successful.  Gnome was even
> available on Solaris, so the interoperability was great between the
> Sun servers and the laptops.
>
> So anyone else out there taken on the Linux desktop challenge?
>
>      -- Owen
>
> Owen Densmore   http://backspaces.net
>
> Begin forwarded message:
> > From: "Douglas Roberts" <doug at parrot-farm.net>
> > Date: October 20, 2006 6:26:33 AM MDT
> > To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group"
> > <friam at redfish.com>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Leopard vs. Vista
> > Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > <friam at redfish.com>
> >
> > Mandriva 2007 'la Ora' with KDE 3.5.4 (and a slew of whatever other
> > packages you prefer)..
> > http://www.mandriva.com/en/linux/2007
> >
> > On 10/20/06, fromm <fromm at vs.uni-kassel.de> wrote:
> > What do you think is more impressive,
> > advanced and useful, the new..
> >
> > ..Mac OS X Leopard with "Time Machine",
> > "Spotlight" and "Ruby on Rails"..
> > http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/index.html
> >
> > ..or the new Windows Vista
> > with Aero, WPF and WCF ?
> > http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/
> >
> > -J.
> >
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Doug Roberts, RTI International
> > droberts at rti.org
> > doug at parrot-farm.net
> > 505-455-7333 - Office
> > 505-670-8195 - Cell
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org