Distros of interest and why.

[mikhou]

I'm getting a new laptop soon, and I have been checking out everything I can to decide which OS to throw on there - Crunchbang XFCE, LM XFCE, AntiX, Bodhi, Debian XFCE, Debian E17, PCLinuxOS E17, etc. I'm struggling with which one to go with. It's fun to play, though.

mikhou

EDIT: (Ahem) (clearing my throat) My apologies. Edited to read "AntiX"

[AlbertP]

It is antiX, AntiX or Antix, but not Anti-X. It is not against the X server, it still uses X.org.

[kenetics]

Both Mepis 11 and PCLinuxOS have set up KDE 4 to look and feel a lot like KDE 3. While I haven't tried PCLOS, Mepis works beautifully and its KDE runs fairly fast. I prefer Deb, which Mepis uses, over RPM anyway.

Mint Gnome is still my favorite, but I'm worried about the future of Gnome. Mint will have to eventually use Gnome 3. Not having been a fan of KDE in the past, it now seems as a good alternative to Gnome the way those two distributions have implemented it. I haven't tried Mint's KDE 4 version yet, but I'm hoping the next edition will at least be as good as Mepis.

[MALsPa]

I am usually, an Xfce fanatic, but I love Openbox, as well/
Now, trying to learn about Fluxbox.
Surprisingly, Fluxbox is extremely well documented and has some great Wiki/Wiki pages.
Just as easy to customize as Openbox is. Light and super-fast.

I love all three -- Xfce, Openbox, and Fluxbox! I haven't ever used any Openbox or Fluxbox version of a distro, but I've installed both of those WMs various times in various distros. Your post reminded me that I've been meaning to add Fluxbox in Mepis 11, so I did that this morning.

In some ways, Fluxbox might be even easier to customize than Openbox. In either case, it really helps to keep good notes if you're going to add it to whatever distro you're using. In particular, making if you make a custom Fluxbox menu, it's helpful to keep a copy of it to refer to for later installations. Same with files like ~/.fluxbox/init.

[asymmetros]

I tried to get away from Debian, but at the end, i did not manage to

So, in a second, spare partition, i installed Debian Openbox. It was a minimal (net)install, no desktop selected, no graphics, no sound, nothing, When finished, i started adding a piece at a time: xorg-gdm, openbox, synaptic, wireless driver, wicd, alsa for sound, nvidia, flash, thunar, tint2, etc..
An amusing experience, after all -and now, everything works perfectly.

[lmintnewb]

Another interesting find and entry in the lmintnewb journal, lol.

CTKarch ... also sounds mucho good linux stuff. Still holding out atm. It's a live disk kinda deal with the option of doing a "nomad install" ... ??? Just did the live distro install pita. Making changes persistent, etc. Though skimming through info about it. Didn't seem all that big a deal to do that with it. Just don't have 2+ hrs to sink into distro hopping right now. Over all though, seemed to boast some interesting stats n features and darn good looking for something so light apparently. Anyone have experience and feedback on this one ?

[allengg]

Linux Mint , of course, but........(Knoppix)

my old friend Knoppix, which was very useful in checking computer hardware, or bug searching. Example if a system has a virus, but not obvious, I used Knoppix to check functionality.
Past tense. latest versions are screwy.
I have several very old versions but usually require hard wired net connection.
Any suggestions, please .
Good suggestions are rated in cervezas .
Allen

[Habitual]

lmintnewb:

Another way to try out OpenSUSE.... Create your own custom OpenSUSE ISO
Sign up is Free and no spam/adverts/marketing that I've seen.
You get 15G free so you can have all kinds of builds going.

Pretty slick and very sweet.
"You can export your custom operating system as a Virtual machine, Live USB Disk, CD/DVD-ROM, Hard Disk Image and..."
Add Software to the build before it's built.

The list of features is pretty long.

C'mon, you know you want to.

[lmintnewb]

lol ... Yep, ya got me Habitual.

Been there n looked that over too, suse studio deal ? Gotta admit, that's really slick, the distro's doing it. Amazing what the OSS people can do huh. Don't doubtcha a bit. Looks like it must be some great stuff. Still over my head as to what all would be needed to make a super light custom opensuse. There would be rampant borkage. Unless hours n hours were spent trying to figure it all out. Then there would still be borkage. Only probably not as bad. D:

Yeah though, would like to try that one too.

[Beardedragon]

Snowlinux is a debian-based free available operating system, that makes using Debian GNU/Linux more easily.



It is based upon Debian Stable Squeeze and uses its repository. It makes many things easier. For example, most-used software like Firefox and Thunderbird are preinstalled. And in the near future the hardware installations tool from Ubuntu will be ported to Snowlinux. And there are many other tweaks, too.
It has Linux-Kernel 2.6.32-5 LTS, GNOME 2.32, XORG, Firefox 3.5.5 and Thunderbird 3.1.0
Home Site and Download at: www.snowlinux.de/ http://snowlinux.de/index.php/blog/4-sn ... c-released Available in the following languages: German, German Low, Spanish, French, English, Belgium the primary language being German on the Site. There is a Forum already available.

[kvv]

Liquid Lemur (http://liquidlemur.org/) is another new debian based distribution that uses XFCE and Windowmaker. As of now, it is based on Debian Wheezy, and includes Liquorix kernel by default. He has apparently included a lot of small scripts to make debian easier to use.

From his about page:

Liquid Lemur is a custom Debian Squeeze distro that includes the latest stable Xfce4, Cairo Dock, Liquorix and Debian kernel, and lots of custom scripts/artwork. It was created to fill the void left behind by others in the same class. The goal was simple…create a fairly fast and functional Xfce distro, that was also pleasing to the eyes.

I haven't tried it yet, but it looks pretty interesting.

[tdockery97]

Liquid Lemur (http://liquidlemur.org/) is another new debian based distribution that uses XFCE and Windowmaker. As of now, it is based on Debian Wheezy, and includes Liquorix kernel by default. He has apparently included a lot of small scripts to make debian easier to use.

I haven't tried it yet, but it looks pretty interesting.

Thanks for the tip kvv. I just installed and set up Liquid Lemur and it's a great little distro.

[MALsPa]

I think that I'm going to eventually get around to trying openSUSE. I've read so many good things about it. The distro I've been most impressed with lately is the KDE spin of Fedora. The Fedora 15 KDE spin looks great. My main concerns are the 6-month release cycles and consistency from one release to the next. But the KDE spins of F14 and F15 both seem very good here.

[Beardedragon]

Linux Mint , of course, but........(Knoppix)

my old friend Knoppix, which was very useful in checking computer hardware, or bug searching. Example if a system has a virus, but not obvious, I used Knoppix to check functionality.
Past tense. latest versions are screwy.
I have several very old versions but usually require hard wired net connection.
Any suggestions, please .
Good suggestions are rated in cervezas .
Allen

Knoppix 6.4.4 Is no longer just a repair disk. Installed on a HD and run as System with 3D Compiz enabled it is fantastic.

[steev]

Porteus, because it's a continuation of Slax which was one of my favorite live distros.
https://porteus.org/

Another one I'm interested in right now (but haven't tried yet) is Kongoni
It's a free sofware-only Slackware derivative. I am mainly interested in is its ports system, PIG (Ports Installation GUI)
http://www.kongoni.org/

[sloebs]

I have been happily using Linux Mint 9-11 for many years. Just spent a few days checking out about a dozen distros on both virtualbox and an empty partition. The top three to make the short list were:

1) Linux Mint LMDE (DE: Xfce, WM: Compiz)
2) Chakra Linux (DE: KDE)
3) Sabayon (DE: Xfce)

I killed two birds with Chakra: checking out an arch derivative using pacman and an efficiently run KDE distro. The default KDE layout is pretty, but their main panel menu is slow. The Mint menu is more workflow friendly. A quickly noticed big bug with desktop context menu -- causes cut-out anomaly. However, the biggest issue is resource efficiency. RAM used after boot up is just over 900 MB. Not as bad as Win 7 at around 1.2 GB, but still too much. Also, the desktop is pretty, but not as workflow-friendly as I am used to with Mint.

Those who know and love Gentoo have been attracted to Arch since the time it takes to compile all updates with Gentoo's Emerge is painful. Arch fit that middle ground by providing binaries. However, Sabayon has now created a new binary package manager called Entropy to also position their distro in that middle ground. Very nice distro for Xfce in every way but one. It is sluggish in comparison to LMDE. That was suprising.

I did three cartwheels after setting up Linux Mint LMDE Xfce. I AM THRILLED! First, the ISO is old and required hundreds of package upgrades. That allowed me to test the rolling upgrade system in a big way. I used the command line to update and upgrade first. That upgraded all but 62 of the packages. Next I used the Mint Update Manager to finish the last of those packages. It was a massive update/upgrade with even a kernel upgrade from 2.6 to 3.0. It all worked perfectly!!

Next I substituted the non-free NVidia driver for the Nouveau. Piece of cake. BTW, RAM usage at boot up was under 300 MB. Next I installed Compiz Fusion and then switched to that window manager. No bugs!! Next I fixed the usual vertial sync screen tearing problem with my NVidia hardware by turning off the refresh autodetect in Compiz and manually correct it from 50 Hz to 60 and turning on Sync to Vblank in both Compiz and Nvidia-settings. Lastly, I installed the elegant Mint Menu to complement Xfce's desktop right-click context App menu.

So I am happily using LMDE/Xfce/Compiz with RAM usage at boot up of less than half of my former Linux Mint 11/Gnome2. I have all of the benefits of the Linux Mint elegance and fast workflow as well as the eye candy of Compiz Fusion with many plugins turned on with a DE that is more efficient and lightning fast.

I think I will go out on the front lawn and do some more cartwheels!

[minitrucker]

#! openbox is my new main and i've been enjoying it so much, but i still have love for Mint in all its forms except KDE. One distro that i've been wanting to spend more time with is backtrack 5. Great security testing distro for security freaks like me. Maybe one day after I graduate college I'll fool with Gentoo or Arch....

[Zukaro Travon]

Linux Mint
Ubuntu
JoliOS
Arch Linux

The reason I like Linux Mint is because it's similar to Ubuntu and has gnome3 plus all that extra stuff that makes it 10x better (such as the bar at the bottom of the screen (I forget the name of that thing)).

The reason I used to like Ubuntu is because it was an overall good operating system. It worked and looked pretty nice also. The reason I no longer like it is because of Unity and because it's headed for tablet computers. If I get a tablet PC I'll use Ubuntu 11.10 again (provided Unity is set up better, otherwise I'll use Linux Mint 12).

The reason I like JoliOS is because it's a cloud operating system that does it right. I'll never use it, but it looks nice, can access local files, is easy to install alongside other operating systems, and doesn't even need to be installed (as it can be accessed from any Internet browser at the Jolicloud site). Everything Chromium OS does wrong JoliOS does right (and personally, I think it looks better too).

The reason I like Arch Linux is because it's all text based and you learn a lot about how Linux works from using it. And also CLI is just cool to use. AND AS WE ALL KNOW, CLI IS THE FUTURE OF COMPUTING (as many of todays inventions are based of ideas from sci-fi movies, and in old sci-fi movies CLI was in the future and used by everyone who used a computer).

[minitrucker]

Has Haiku been mentioned? Seems interesting.... but I haven't personally actually booted it yet.

[mikhou]

I've been a fan of Debian XFCE and #! XFCE for awhile now but when #! stopped supporting their XFCE version recently I began to consider other alternatives in that realm. I still use #! XFCE as my primary OS, but I just want to have other options in the future. I've been really impressed with Saline OS so far. It's pretty quick. I'll probably give it a #! look (remove the fancy wallpaper, move the panels around, remove unnecessary apps), but so far it's a nice little distro.

mikhou