There's More Distros in the Sea...

[ShleeDragon]

Arch on my laptop/desktop..

Archlinux-ARM (ALARM)... on most of my devboard stuff

 

[klapse]

For a long while I preferred Sidux (later Aptosid). Gives you debian sid with additional driver / hotfix support.  Don't know how good it is nowadays at keeping up.

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, I don't really have any issues with ArchLinux.

Even using testing, your system rarely breaks these days (and it shouldn't when using stable).

What I love here is the rolling release... every distribution upgrade is just a mess (tried with Ubuntu, Debian and OpenSuSE - Debian worked best so far, both Ubuntu and OpenSuSE managed to create an unbootable system after the upgrade on a few PCs I administrate).

With Arch, you never have a distribution upgrade, it's always recent with a normal upgrade

 

[ekianjo]

OpenSuSE managed to create an unbootable system after the upgrade on a few PCs

Strange with OpenSuse. I did several upgrades on mine from 11.4 to 12.1 and then 12.2 (current) and I found the upgrade process to be very smooth. By comparison, Ubuntu broke something every single time I upgraded. I'll see what happens with OpenSuse next time I upgrade...

 

[DatNOBoi]

(Just a quick warning- I'm gonna abuse the ever-living hell out of multi-quoting people. huehuehuehuehue)

Well, I don't really have any issues with ArchLinux.
Even using testing, your system rarely breaks these days (and it shouldn't when using stable).

What I love here is the rolling release... every distribution upgrade is just a mess (tried with Ubuntu, Debian and OpenSuSE - Debian worked best so far, both Ubuntu and OpenSuSE managed to create an unbootable system after the upgrade on a few PCs I administrate).

With Arch, you never have a distribution upgrade, it's always recent with a normal upgrade

Strange. I just updated Ubuntu on a friend's computer after installing Ubuntu 12.02 over Windows 7 and it went without a hitch. Maybe Ubuntu is tired of y'all talkin' all o' that noise lol.

OpenSuSE managed to create an unbootable system after the upgrade on a few PCs

Strange with OpenSuse. I did several upgrades on mine from 11.4 to 12.1 and then 12.2 (current) and I found the upgrade process to be very smooth. By comparison, Ubuntu broke something every single time I upgraded. I'll see what happens with OpenSuse next time I upgrade...

I find it odd how I'm having literally zero problems with Ubuntu while it's seemingly shitting the bed for everyone else. I'm just using it as I would any other desktop, nbut with Unity, and it's smooth sailing for me. Beginner's luck or simplifying the situaiton, perhaps? Idk.

 

[CrazyIvan]

Debian testing user here. Basically a rolling release and quite stable nowadays. A good distro if you want to learn linux and quite easy to administer (for example you still can use it without NetworkManager, all my stationary computers don't have it installed).

Lots of software in repositories and you can add aptosid (former sidux) repo for latest kernels if you want (you rarely need it if you don't have the latest hardware).

*buntu (and its derivatives) are great until the first major update. SuSe and Fedora are good enough but their official repositories are too small compared to debian's and Fedora likes to force the latest and the greatest (and the most buggy by the way) on its users.

Debian is quite small and can be fitted into 700-800 Mb with graphical desktop and everything for Qt development  

Too bad pandora have only 512Mb...

 

[DatNOBoi]

I'll get around to Debian soon enough. I do have a question about it though. If I do install Debian on my computer, can/will it access my Ubuntu's file system and be able to use my files/docs from there?

Also, I'm trying Lubuntu right now. When they said "minimalist," they sure as hell weren't kidding. It's not bad. It certainly does as advertised and then some. It's pretty pointless to have it running on my kind of laptop though, especially since Ubuntu takes up just a little more resources. Resources of which my computer has plenty to spare.

And I must applaud the folks behind Ubuntu for making it easy as hell to both install and switch between desktops (on login) all while being able to access the same programs and files. You hear that, Microsoft?!?! It doesn't force me to go to the Settings just to change out of your jank ass boxes!!!

 

[Exophase]

I used to like Ubuntu back when it used Gnome 2.0. Then for some inexplicable reason both Ubuntu and Gnome decided that they needed to convert their user interface to be tablet interfaces instead of the desktop interfaces they used to be.

For a while I used the Gnome Classic interface, but Gnome kept deleting features I used and started getting flakey.

I switched to Cinnamon, but on the update to Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu decided it just had to delete Cinnamon while I was installing the update using Cinnamon. The result was a crash that left my hard disk full of garbage (thakfully my home drive was on a different spindle, and I made a backup before I started the upgrade)

I'm now running Mint, and am mostly happy with it, but I really wish I could get click to focus working instead of the default click to front.

Similar story here. I was okay with Ubuntu until Unity, which I simply can't stand. When they removed Gnome 2.0 as an option I switched to Mint and have used Mate since (which is a Gnome 2.0 fork)

The only thing I don't like about Mint is the lack of rolling upgrades. I'm way behind now. But the only compelling reason I have to update anything at this point is to get a newer kernel that has updates for my sound card to let me use the headphone amp.

 

[Grench]

I used Ubuntu until Unity - left for Mint, used that until I wanted to use the default Steam installer with Debian testing (Jessie).  Still with Jessie and debating on whether I want to follow with that through when it goes stable or switch to Mint Debian Edition - which should be based on Jessie now.

Decisions decisions...

 

[WizardStan]

Well, I don't really have any issues with ArchLinux.

My only issue with Arch so far is that when doing an upgrade if there's a conflict it doesn't tell you what package it was trying to upgrade that introduced the conflict.For example, I was trying to do an upgrade and for some reason it was trying to install libgl-mesa which was in direct conflict with libgl-nvidia: if I'd been able to figure out which package it was trying to upgrade which felt it needed libgl-mesa I could have at least blacklisted it to get everything else upgraded. I eventually solved it by just letting it remove libgl-nvidia and then I installed it myself afterwards, once I'd remembered.

 

[F_Slim]

What I love here is the rolling release... every distribution upgrade is just a mess (tried with Ubuntu, Debian and OpenSuSE - Debian worked best so far, both Ubuntu and OpenSuSE managed to create an unbootable system after the upgrade on a few PCs I administrate).

Really? I went from Fedora 18 to 19 to 20 without any issues. My expectation was that it would break my System, but it worked like a charm.  And it was incredibly easy to do as well.

So far I used OpenSuse, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora and Debian (ok, and Slackware on the Pandora, but I didn't do much with it ... recently also tried Pandian, which I managed to break within an hour or two). Until it breaks I will probably stick with Fedora on my personal computers. During normal use there isn't much of a difference in my opinion though ... also if I google how to do something in Linux I often end up in the Ubuntu-Wiki, and the answer still applies to Fedora as well (I have to get things at different places, but the basic "what needs to be done" is the same, and the Ubuntu-Wiki is actually quite good at telling you that).

So in my opinion all distros have their pros and cons, at some point you just stick with one that works best for you (even if it's just because you got used to its quirks and know how to fix them)

 

[ekianjo]

And I must applaud the folks behind Ubuntu for making it easy as hell to both install and switch between desktops (on login) all while being able to access the same programs and files.

All distros do that. It has nothing to do with Ubuntu.

And you can always access the file system in Linux independently of the windows manager. Because it's dissociated from the file system. 

 

[Yoyobuae]

And I must applaud the folks behind Ubuntu for making it easy as hell to both install and switch between desktops (on login) all while being able to access the same programs and files. You hear that, Microsoft?!?! It doesn't force me to go to the Settings just to change out of your jank ass boxes!!!

As said above, the normal thing is for desktop be easily switchable like that. They are just programs which can be installed and used, like any other (only that they need a selection interface before login).

Problem is, MS has zero interest in allowing other parties to develop custom desktop environments for Windows. They want to push their own desktop onto every single user.

Also I imagine it's not that easy to implement a complete desktop environment replacement for Windows. And it's likely that MS would try to shoot down any such attempts.

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, I don't really have any issues with ArchLinux.

My only issue with Arch so far is that when doing an upgrade if there's a conflict it doesn't tell you what package it was trying to upgrade that introduced the conflict.
For example, I was trying to do an upgrade and for some reason it was trying to install libgl-mesa which was in direct conflict with libgl-nvidia: if I'd been able to figure out which package it was trying to upgrade which felt it needed libgl-mesa I could have at least blacklisted it to get everything else upgraded. I eventually solved it by just letting it remove libgl-nvidia and then I installed it myself afterwards, once I'd remembered.

Eh? Whenever that happens it asks me whether I want to remove the conflicting package and even names it.

 

[DatNOBoi]

And I must applaud the folks behind Ubuntu for making it easy as hell to both install and switch between desktops (on login) all while being able to access the same programs and files.

All distros do that. It has nothing to do with Ubuntu.

And you can always access the file system in Linux independently of the windows manager. Because it's dissociated from the file system. 

O_O?

I didn't know all distros do that. That's pretty cool!

And I must applaud the folks behind Ubuntu for making it easy as hell to both install and switch between desktops (on login) all while being able to access the same programs and files. You hear that, Microsoft?!?! It doesn't force me to go to the Settings just to change out of your jank ass boxes!!!

As said above, the normal thing is for desktop be easily switchable like that. They are just programs which can be installed and used, like any other (only that they need a selection interface before login).

Problem is, MS has zero interest in allowing other parties to develop custom desktop environments for Windows. They want to push their own desktop onto every single user.

Also I imagine it's not that easy to implement a complete desktop environment replacement for Windows. And it's likely that MS would try to shoot down any such attempts.

As said above (in this same post), I didn't know that. Well props to everyone. "And YOU get props, and YOU get props,..."

Does that mean I can just install Linux Mint, Ubuntu, and ArchLinux to the same hard drive, go to the login screen, and pick which one I want?

 

[mcobit]

No, not the distros, just the desktop managers installed in a distro.


You can have different distros on different partitions though that you can switch using the bootloader.


Edit: If you have your /home on a separate partition you could theoretically configure multiple distros to use it.


There might be some conflicts with different configurations though.

 

[wardred]

As said above (in this same post), I didn't know that. Well props to everyone. "And YOU get props, and YOU get props,..."

Does that mean I can just install Linux Mint, Ubuntu, and ArchLinux to the same hard drive, go to the login screen, and pick which one I want?

Err. . . not quite.

It's more like you could have KDE, Gnome, Unity, Desktop of choice from distribution of choice and choose which desktop to login to from the login screen. If you try to install multiple distributions on the same / partition, even if the installer didn't delete the other distributions files you'd run into software and library conflicts.

If you wanted to try Ubuntu, Arch, CentOS, and other distributions on one system there are a bunch of ways to do that. Probably the easiest in the short term is a live CD/Thumb drive approach, for those that offer it. Another way would be to install one Linux distro, and use a virtual machine(s) to try the other distro(s) out. Finally you could dual boot into different distributions, but this does involve setting aside hard drive space for each distribution. (You'd have to do that with the virtual machines too, but once you're done with them, you'd be able to remove them without having to re-partition.)

 

[DatNOBoi]

No, not the distros, just the desktop managers installed in a distro.


You can have different distros on different partitions though that you can switch using the bootloader.

Oh. Well, I already knew that I could install a distro on a different partition. I was gonna partition a 600GB portion on my hard drive for Ubuntu 'til I said, "Screw it," and just completely got rid of Windows 8. Still have my music and Firefox profile tho'!

 

[DatNOBoi]

As said above (in this same post), I didn't know that. Well props to everyone. "And YOU get props, and YOU get props,..."


Does that mean I can just install Linux Mint, Ubuntu, and ArchLinux to the same hard drive, go to the login screen, and pick which one I want?

Err. . . not quite.


It's more like you could have KDE, Gnome, Unity, Desktop of choice from distribution of choice and choose which desktop to login to from the login screen. If you try to install multiple distributions on the same / partition, even if the installer didn't delete the other distributions files you'd run into software and library conflicts.


If you wanted to try Ubuntu, Arch, CentOS, and other distributions on one system there are a bunch of ways to do that. Probably the easiest in the short term is a live CD/Thumb drive approach, for those that offer it. Another way would be to install one Linux distro, and use a virtual machine(s) to try the other distro(s) out. Finally you could dual boot into different distributions, but this does involve setting aside hard drive space for each distribution. (You'd have to do that with the virtual machines too, but once you're done with them, you'd be able to remove them without having to re-partition.)

Yeah, I had that much sorted out by now.

Like I said, I'm aware of how to partition my hard drive for other distros. I just thought for a second that there was the possibility of booting up each different distro from a login screen.

 

[ekianjo]

I just thought for a second that there was the possibility of booting up each different distro from a login screen.

There's not much difference to choosing your distro from the grub screen.