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General discussion

Best distro frustration..

Aug 20, 2005 1:03PM PDT

Why so many distros? Is there any real advantage to having dozens of linux distributions? I would have preferred that the linux community pull resources together on just a couple of distros, create drivers for more hardware, improve quality, etc.

Every time I turn, there seems to be another name I've never heard before.

Frankly, the more choices there are, the more difficult it becomes for beginners to know where to begin. I think even for experts, it's time consuming to try every distribution out there.

Discussion is locked

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One reason.
Aug 20, 2005 1:05PM PDT

It's a free OS. Even you could pick it up, slap some graphics on a frontend and begin marketing it.

-> Many listed at linuxiso.com

For myself, I just buy the latest Suse.

Bob

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Linux is too versatile for one distro
Aug 20, 2005 4:36PM PDT

You have to understand that Linux is used in many many, MANY places. Desktop is only one avenue, and many distros aren't even concerned with beginners. Linux is used in small microcomputers, it's used in high-end servers and super-computers, it's used by scientists, programmers, and normal desktop users too. Those are just a few of those things. Try to find a style of OS and design that will make all those people happy. It's impossible. Thus the various distros have sprung up with various goals. I know it's confusing, but after a while, you may learn to appreciate that you have many choices in it. I've tried about three and settled on Debian for example. If I had to use Mandrake all day I'd go crazy, but I'm happy now, and glad I have the choice.

As Bob said, it's a free OS. That's the major benefit of it. As for a beginner, I'd recommend Mandrake.

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Some of the user-friendly distros are....
Aug 21, 2005 5:29AM PDT

Suse, Xandros, Mandrake(Mandriva), and Lindros. I started on Red Hat (now Fedora) but have been underwhelmed with it lately and abandoned it. Have been using Mandrake since 10.0, although I am not confident about the future since it became Mandriva. If you have broadband of some kind, download one or two and try them. First check out your hardware compatibility under each (maybe a weakness of Lindros). Good luck. chuck

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Social Experiment
Aug 26, 2005 10:47AM PDT

I currently had Ubuntu 'Hoary Hedgehog' and SUSE 9.3 after wiping off XP Pro in a vain attempt to try Sun's Solaris 10 on a free drive. Solaris apparently didn't have SATA drivers and could only see my 128mb thumbdrive, which it promptly ate and hasn't worked right since.

But anyhow, I had a clearance bin dvd of the 80s group Asia I wanted to play on either distro. Ubuntu started churning away sending stuff from the dvd to the HD with no sound or video soon to be offered. I thought surely SUSE would have a better dvd player program, but it told me I didn't have any codecs and wouldn't play said dvd. I'm sure I could download some codecs online but I didn't want to bother, so I loaded Windows XP back on and it played the thing with PowerDVD with no fuss.

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Don't forget
Sep 15, 2005 11:51PM PDT

Some distributions were named, but there's one I found to be best. I built a computer with both old and new hardware. After trying each distro (distribution), I found Ubuntu to match the hardware the best, and also Ubuntu has the best documentation I could find at Ubuntuguide.org. If one follows that guide, they can easily set up, tweak, and have a robust os going, with quite a few packages they can install to do most anything.

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lineox
Aug 21, 2005 6:43AM PDT

After installing the 64 bit version of FC4 successfully, I started considering RHEL, since my machine is going to be a webserver.

I first thought about whitebox, then I stumbled upon Lineox. Lineox is simply the latest rhel under a different name.

I've installed it flawlessly. No noticeable difference compared to FC4 though.

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The Linux community need direction
Sep 11, 2005 3:18PM PDT

Well, there is Xandros 3 and it is up to now the only real easy distro for a wider audience of users. The problem with the Linux community is that it is a tweakers community and tweakers don't care about personal productive computing in the real world. They are content with being stuck in "dependency hells" and being impressed with the flourishes and flexibility of this Unix variant.

After working with many distros I found Corel innovative Linux offer which has come back as Xandros. It is a distro for productive users and if the Linux community has any direction, it would consider Xandros philosophy of "Less is more."

The only thing that the LSB compliance has created is more confusion. Obviously Linux is all over the place and it is not ready for prime time. Meanwhile Xandros is giving us a hint of the direction that Linux should take if it wants to be a viable option for the desktop.