Your ratings of Linux distro's

[dangerstat]

Debian puts out EVERYTHING on CDs. Ubuntu has but one disk with installable packages on it. Seems that without 'net access Debian would win in spades.

I should stress that my machine is running Ubuntu so just being fair.

Debian only put libre software on it's install media, hence you can't play DVD's after installing Debian without getting VideoLan codecs.

Lol at a Debian user highlighting Ubuntu's adv's and a Ubuntu user highlighting Debians adv's!

 

[BigglesPiP]

Debian puts out EVERYTHING on CDs. Ubuntu has but one disk with installable packages on it. Seems that without 'net access Debian would win in spades.

I should stress that my machine is running Ubuntu so just being fair.

Yea, but who's offline these days? The future of operating systems is good online software sources, and linux got there 1st.

 

[.walls]

satb inst mod sup
Fedora Core 5 5 7 8
Ubuntu 7 9 9 8
Debian 10 9 3 1
Xubuntu 7 9 9 5
Puppy 2 1 5 6


My ideal distro would be Debian, with modern and nonfree packages, with more preconfiguredness. Or Ubuntu with root and more Debian like layout.

Interesting... Mine would be debian-like with modern and non-free packages and less preconfiguredness. Also having a decent amount of choice in the installer rather than "here - have some packages that you're never going to use" :-/

Actually - if Arch was a bit more stable it would be that...

Also as Oxy mentions above, pacman is very good and apt comes in second.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Yea, but who's offline these days?

It sounds like dangerstat is.

 

[craptakular]

Interesting... Mine would be debian-like with modern and non-free packages and less preconfiguredness. Also having a decent amount of choice in the installer rather than "here - have some packages that you're never going to use" :-/

Actually - if Arch was a bit more stable it would be that...

Also as Oxy mentions above, pacman is very good and apt comes in second.

hehe Arch hasn't broken so far! Admitted this is the longest I have hade it installed without re-installing because I balls'd it up lol.

 

[dangerstat]

It sounds like dangerstat is.

Mobile broadband dongle + Debian = FAIL. Hence the problem

 

[russ0r]

"here - have some packages that you're never going to use" :-/

This is the single thing that really really riles me with ubuntu. It's not just that it supplies you with all this useless rubbish out of the box; it's that nearly every piece of desktop software it comes with is depended on by gnome-desktop. So if you want to remove, for example, firefox, you can't because apt proceeds to uninstall your window manager as well. Nice one canonical :/

Mine:
stab inst mod sup
Debian 10 8 4 5
Ubuntu 7 1 7 8 (I like apt but...see above)
Arch 8 9 9 8

Pacman = win btw. Although I do miss the ncurses interface on aptitude :'(

 

[pingwing]

Mobile broadband dongle + Debian = FAIL. Hence the problem

Theres a Linux format article about that some where.... Havnt tried it out yet though...

Anyway,
Gentoo [A] 6 10 [C] 6 [D] 9
Arch [A] 5 9 [C] 9 [D] 8
SuSe [A] 7 7 [C] 8 [D] 6
Debian [A] 9 6 [C] 4 [D] 7
Ubuntu [A] 8 5 [C] 7 [D] 10

Yeah i cant think of any more, and i dont actually enjoy using Ubuntu desptite the highish rating (its all about portage and pacman for me really)

 

[cb_linus]

categories (mark out of 10)
[A] Stability
Package installation and management
[C] Modernity of packages
[D] Support whether official or unofficial (forums etc.)

Some of you are giving distributions 5s and 6s for stability!! I take it this generally applies to the de/wm and packages supplied (including graphics card module where applicable) and breakages due to updates rather than the distribution rolled kernel itself which should be pretty solid underneath?

Been a while since I used it (gonna put that right hopefully soon!!) but I always got on with portage (Gentoo) more than what the other distributions supplied at the time (inluding Pacman, C····nomnomnomyum····) - I generally found the difficulty of installing the os be be almost inversely proportional to the ease and amount of control to maintain the system, but then I do enjoy the command line. I won't give it a rating because I still need to look into putting together a new system to install Gentoo on first, though I could never feel fully frustrated when an update broke the system as I often used to choose to run '~unstable' & beyond

 

[.walls]

This is the single thing that really really riles me with ubuntu. It's not just that it supplies you with all this useless rubbish out of the box; it's that nearly every piece of desktop software it comes with is depended on by gnome-desktop. So if you want to remove, for example, firefox, you can't because apt proceeds to uninstall your window manager as well. Nice one canonical :/

I've got kubuntu on my laptop these days - I figured that for my laptop at least, I just want everything to work out of the box... I was quite surprised by it during the "post-install-clear-out-the-rubbish" phase where I removed something in the region of 600MB of junk that I knew that I was never going to use... and it only came on a 700MB cd!! (I know, the packages are compressed!).

SNIP

I like gentoo as well and portage is a very, very good system... however, my main gripe with it is it gives you too much control (well, that and weird-ass blockers like bash_version_whatever is blocking xorg_version_something). Mostly because I'm getting pretty lazy these days!

 

[cb_linus]

(well, that and weird-ass blockers like bash_version_whatever is blocking xorg_version_something). Mostly because I'm getting pretty lazy these days!

cue flashbacks of looking up fixes to stuff like that (with no GUI) on a fresh install using Links or Lynx to navigate Gentoo forum pages in glorious text only!! Just when I think I am getting lazy it's stuff like this that weirdly draws me back in, but then I don't work in IT so it's how I get my fix

 

[BigglesPiP]

So if you want to remove, for example, firefox, you can't because apt proceeds to uninstall your window manager as well. Nice one canonical

That's more likely a product of meta-packages.


It's not ubuntu that supplies the ****, it's GNOME. The Xubuntu standard install is quite sparse.

 

[mortals]

I'm not sure rating distro's based on stability etc is that accurate

I've seen loads of people post saying gentoo/archlinux is unstable or crashing etc and most of the time it's because they have installed unstable packages which are in testing or even that they have messed about too much without knowing what they were doing and broke something

I've ran loads of distro's over the years and the only 'stability' issues I've had have been down to hardware.

I also think different people like different distro's depending on what they want from the system and how much time they are willing to put into learning, updating and setting up the systems.

I like the 'Linux Distro Chooser' page seems pretty accurate as it asks exactly what you want and what knowledge you already have of linux (if any).

 

[Meridian]

Puppy 2 1 5 6

Not a fan? I must admit I loaded it in order to review it (long story), decided it was all very clever, but far too annoying to actually use.


Sabayon was the biggest disappointment: looks brilliant, loads of features (at the price of a colossal install), and the world's slowest updater.


I agree that the lack of a root is a major annoyance with *buntu, but that's the only real flaw I can see. Now all I have to do is find a use for it...


M

 

[BigglesPiP]

Not a fan? I must admit I loaded it in order to review it (long story), decided it was all very clever, but far too annoying to actually use.

Exactly my feelings, I use is as a rescue USB. Although I know someone who actually uses it.