Spec me a new distro...

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Soldato
Joined
7 Jul 2009
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Newcastle/Aberdeen
Well my AWN 10.04 partition that i've been using recently just ran out of space, and my attempts to free some seem to have broken it... so, in that aincient Linux spirit (if it aint broke, fix it 'till it is then reinstall and start again ;) ) i've wiped my OS drive (WD360) and i'm in my Peppermint Live CD. Long story short - i'm looking for something new to play around with, preferably not Ubuntu based as that's what pretty much all of my Linux OS's have been to date. Not really sure what to go for, i'm looking at Sabayon, Arch (which i tried last year but for the life of my couldn't get my head round installing it), Crunchbang (or Archbang) and many others but i'm a bit undecided... suggestions? Thanks :)

And just to add, would be best if it could fit on a 700MB CD, not much of a limitation but still...
 
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Fedora
OpenSUSE

If you pick up this months Linux Format magazine it comes with 8GB (double-sided DVD) with several distros on, saves downloading and burning several different ones.
 
I'm using Archlinux with openbox and love it :D

This install has been on for 2years without any real problems.
I think it depends on what you want etc.

Out of all the distro's I've tried my favourites are: Archlinux, Slackware & Gentoo.

So far I've tried (since 1998): corel,redhat,mandrake,suse,slackware,gentoo,debian,ubuntu,archlinux

I think a lot of people use ubuntu/opensuse because they cba with all the configuring. I used ubuntu for a while ages ago because I was just lazy :D also tried opensuse and Yast2 broke the system so I removed that :(

With archlinux, just get the minimal ISO and download the packages you want (like gentoo/old slackware)
 
Need to learn from the ground up?

Debian Squeeze netboot from scratch without pre-installed GUI. The same goes for Arch.
 
Definitely give Arch another shot. The Wiki is full of information that will help you get it all sorted and usable as long as you don't mind getting your hands dirty. In my opinion it is the most satisfying distro to get up and running, then to use afterwards. :)
 
Well despite this i'm still not sure if i'm skilled (or just too lazy) enough to use something like Arch on a daily basis, i'm considering giving LMDE a go, playing around with it to get to grips.
 
It doesn't take much effort once you have it all set up and running, you just need to remember to update regularly (and check the Arch site for news before you do!). I've been attempting to get LMDE set up on my laptop over the past few days but it's not being very cooperative when it comes to using encryption (or I'm just an idiot). A standard install seems to be faster and smoother than the Ubuntu-based Mint, though.
 
Well i guess it's worth another try, relatively small .iso size is helpful for me too, with my abysmal internet connection. Main problem i have is not being able to see the wiki when actually installing it, but i think i could find a way around that... thanks, i'll give it a go when i get some free time.
 
Superewza said:
Well i guess it's worth another try, relatively small .iso size is helpful for me too, with my abysmal internet connection. Main problem i have is not being able to see the wiki when actually installing it, but i think i could find a way around that... thanks, i'll give it a go when i get some free time.
Click to expand...

Might be an idea to print out one of the beginners' guides so that you can at least get a usable desktop before tackling the tricker stuff. Failing that, text-based browsers are your friend. Links, elinks, lynx etc. :)
 
Crunchbang statler is a nice nimble XFCE/Openbox based distro, really light, and it's debian based so there'll be almost no migration time while you learn it. Arch is fantastic, as light as you want it, can set it up precisely how you like it, pacman is nice and the AUR is full or useful stuff not in the official repos. Arch official forums stink a bit so you're better off reading than posting unless things get dire. Think I started off with mandrake back in the day, moved onto suse, slackware, debian then gentoo. Took a break, came back to ubuntu, crunchbang and arch. Arch/Crunchbang/Gentoo/Slackware all get my nod of approval, in that order, as always keep the documentation handy if you're unfamiliar with that distro. Worst case scenario you'll have to ifup eth0 and links2 the wiki from the boot cd and even thats pretty tolerable.
 
I've been using Debian for a couple of years now, Lenny or Squeeze installed with as little software as it'll let me start with, then build up from there. I've rarely compiled anything as a result.

Next up is LFS, though not as a day to day OS. Perhaps thats worth a look if you've got some free time.
 
JHeaton said:
Might be an idea to print out one of the beginners' guides so that you can at least get a usable desktop before tackling the tricker stuff. Failing that, text-based browsers are your friend. Links, elinks, lynx etc. :)
Click to expand...

Well I've managed to install it, seems to be going well so far. I'm up to the point in the beginners guide about pacman mirrors, where it says:

Edit mirrorlist.backup and uncomment all
mirrors on the same continent or within
geographical proximity to test with
rankmirrors.
Click to expand...

And I'm not entirely sure what it means. I assume that a comment has something to do with the hash, is it telling me to delete the hash before all but one server in each group? Thanks :)
 
Comment constructs (usually something like a preceding ; # or // or surrounding by /* */) are usually for explaining the code or data on the line(s) below using English, but are also used to "score out" a line of code or data to stop it from being used without having to delete the line.

So removing the preceding hash in this case will allow the server to be used.
 
Well i missed the part that said it was optional so i'll skip it and come back to it later if needs must, thanks. I have to say i'm thankful for you convincing me to give this a go, it's far more fufilling than using a distro where everything is done for you. And OCUK in Links is just plain epic :p
 
Superewza said:
Well i missed the part that said it was optional so i'll skip it and come back to it later if needs must, thanks. I have to say i'm thankful for you convincing me to give this a go, it's far more fufilling than using a distro where everything is done for you. And OCUK in Links is just plain epic :p
Click to expand...

It's a good idea to, as only having one mirror available is a pain in the backside if you can't connect to it for some reason. :p

Glad to see that you're enjoying it. It took me a few goes to get the hang of it but once I did, it was really great to install, configure and use. I am far more productive in Arch than any other distro I've found so far. Hope you will be too. :)
 
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