Benefits and Weaknesses of different Linux Distros?

[jediphx]

ok Im curious could someone explain to me the befefits and weaknesses of the following distros?

Mepis 3.3
Yoper
Xandros 3.0
Suse 9.2
CentOS 4
Slackware 10

 

[h2]

I'll give it a shot:

Mepis 3.3 - mepis is about as close to windows as you'll get unless you use xandros, it's very easy to setup, uses a slightly modified debian kernel, very very fast distro. Downside is the modified debian kernel. Other than the kernel you can use the debian apt repositories for software, my number one requirement for a distro. More downside is how much stuff they put on the desktop, too much for my taste. But they have some non-free stuff preinstalled that can make your life a lot easier if you are new to linux. This is my choice for a new linux user, that or SUSE 9.2 I think.

Yoper - was my favorite, downside is they have to make all their packages themselves, they don't use the apt repositories since they do things like prelinking etc.

Xandros 3.0 - If you want a painless Windows like experience, this is supposed to be close. Also debian based.

Suse 9.2 - If you are using a laptop, give this one some thought, it has I've read maybe the best laptop support out there. Currently available through ftp download install for free, they just released 9.3, which is not free. To me if I'm going to leave windows, I'm not leaving it for another proprietary commercial OS, even if it's linux.

CentOS 4 - If you need redhat enterprise server and don't need the support, and don't want to pay the support costs, this is a good choice.

Slackware 10 - You either love it or hate it. No comment. It's been around a long time, they do their own thing, deserve respect.

Check out Kanotix, that's a very friendly install, uses the debian kernel, not quite as fast as mepis, but decent. I like this one, it's my current favorite, full debian apt repository support for anything.

Be warned: ATI Radeon graphics cards will cause problems on the install of some of these, Mepis, Kanotix for sure.

 

[bjc112]

Suse 9.2 - If you are using a laptop, give this one some thought, it has I've read maybe the best laptop support out there. Currently available through ftp download install for free, they just released 9.3, which is not free.

Are you referring to the 9.3 Professional on the website?

I like using Suse 9.2 on my laptop except it's very difficult to get certain wireless cards ( most ) working.

I believe they already charge for the 9.2 professional. I would hope the next standard release of 9.3 is free as well.



Nice overall summary btw.

🙂

 

[halfadder]

ATI Radeon 9200 and older usually work fine with the latest linux distros. If you want to use the latest Radeon graphics cards you need to download the latest linux drivers from ati.com. Installation can be tricky sometimes, but it generally works well.

 

[Raincity]

Suse 9.3 has not been released despite what your reading on the net. Novell is shooting for April 14 ship date. The ftp install wont be up untill around mid June.

 

[OffTopic1]

Mepis 3.3 -- Quick to setup and have just about every thing that Debian have.

Yoper -- Haven't try the latest version, however the few that I tried wasn?t as stable or complete as Debian or other popular distro. I didn?t notice any speed increase when compare to Debian.

Xandros ? Haven?t try it.

Suse 9.2 ? Resently installed on to my main test rig, and it is the most polish out of the box distro that I have tried, however it didn?t have everything that I wanted. It was a pain to roll a few packages ++ dependencies (I would have gone with Gentoo or Slack if I wanted to roll my own stuffs).

CentOS ? Haven?t try it.

Slack 10 ? Haven?t try it, but has tried older versions years ago. It was a great experience till I tried Debian.

I haven?t look back once I tried Debian.

 

[h2]

Comments are correct, I hadn't read the SUSE release carefully, SUSE 9.3 is not officially released yet. 9.2 and 9.1 are available through ftp install, for free, but it's not a very user friendly experience, but it does work. I've found SUSE with KDE to be much slower than any debian based distro I've used so far.

The last stable Yoper I tried was not nearly as fast as Mepis, which is the fastest debian based distro I've tried so far, but again, it's a customized kernel so upgrading the system can be a problem in the future. Yoper definitely had stability issues, I only got one box running with it stably, the other ones would completely hang, force reboot, hard reboot too, unplug box, not much point in that. New version, 2.2, will probably be a lot better, we'll see, but still the package problem where you have to count on the yoper team to generate all your apt stuff for you.

The newer ATI radeon's have support, sometimes natively through included drivers, but the older ones don't, I have an ATI Radeon 7000 that won't work, or barely works, with kanotix or mepis. Situation is improving as posters noted.

To me Kanotix is pretty much just a user friendly debian install, I tried a debian install and never got it working. Just did an upgrade on Kanotix, 600 mB, and it all worked when I rebooted except for one little error, my fault, it's looking for ypbind nis server when I don't have it, makes boot hang for a while, fixable though.

Debian is great, I really like it, I like the Kanotix version just because it's easier to get going, but it's just debian unstable.