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which distro should I try?

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tried installing both ubuntu and fedora today, but both error'd out on me >< going to have to take another crack at it tomorrow.

I'm right in using a 64-bit image for an i7 desktop, right?
 
I'm going to assume that an i7 is 64-bit capable, however to give any real advice we'd have to know the errors that you got.
 
Ubuntu definetly, even though I loooove Windows7, ubuntu is staying on my laptop 🙂

And I have 3 other computers at home, all running Windows7 and I run a windows network at work. Still ubuntu on my laptop 🙂
 
Mem said:
I actually went back to Kubuntu 9.10 from trying out Ubuntu 9.10 ,I know its bascially KDE via Gnome,however I found Kubuntu more snappier in general and looks a lot better(personal preference).
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after trying all 3, i prefer xubuntu. the xfce environment is much nicer to look at imo. though i do like the ubuntu loading screen.
 
Nothinman said:
XFCE is available in the regular Ubuntu universe repository...
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yeah im pretty sure none of the main pages say that for the variants, even though it would clearly save people some trouble and bandwidth.

i usually stick with gnome but i drop the bottom panel in favor of cairo dock and just use the top panel for a couple of things, like the system tray (last i used that on cairo dock it wasnt worth a god damn)
 
I find upgrading from one buntu distro to another (u to xu or ku) is rarely without problems. I don't do it anymore, I just install fresh. It's not like it's a big deal to burn a cd, pop it in, and just use the same user name and password so it takes over the home folder, just don't format your current partition.
 
I find upgrading from one buntu distro to another (u to xu or ku) is rarely without problems. I don't do it anymore, I just install fresh. It's not like it's a big deal to burn a cd, pop it in, and just use the same user name and password so it takes over the home folder, just don't format your current partition.
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Which is one reason why I won't touch Ubuntu for my own systems. I've never had major problems upgrading Debian stable->stable or stable->testing and since I run sid on my desktops I always have a current system anyway.
 
Nothinman said:
Which is one reason why I won't touch Ubuntu for my own systems. I've never had major problems upgrading Debian stable->stable or stable->testing and since I run sid on my desktops I always have a current system anyway.
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Ever have any particular issues with Debian sid?
 
Nothinman said:
Which is one reason why I won't touch Ubuntu for my own systems. I've never had major problems upgrading Debian stable->stable or stable->testing and since I run sid on my desktops I always have a current system anyway.
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Ubuntu was fine when it was just a repackaged Debian unstable (I won't touch debian stable, too far out of date). Ubuntu has more recently started bringing in things that are from debian experimental, or completely outside the debian universe, but these don't make the transition from one version of buntu to the other. Kubuntu and Xubuntu tend to just be debian unstable with whatever window manager they use installed, very rarely do Ubuntu's 'enhancements' make it over to them.

That said, I've been using the latest version of Ubuntu every-time it comes out, usually upgraded to one of the alphas shortly before release. I would like to try switching to debian-unstable at some point though, but I'm worried that the momentum and attention Ubuntu has brought to the linux world will cause proprietary software to be developed around it (drivers mainly, but possibly apps too) and that getting them to work on anything else will be a pain.
 
Satyrist said:
Ever have any particular issues with Debian sid?
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Of course, it's called unstable for a reason. It's where packages first enter the repository so there's going to be breakage. However, it's usually not very bad and with apt-listbugs installed it's usually easy to tell when there's a major bug that will/might affect me and I usually just cancel the upgrade and just wait a few days. Occasionally something big will happen like a major Gnome release that takes a bit longer for all of the packages to upload and build but those are fairly rare.

I wouldn't recommend sid to someone who doesn't have the Linux experience to fix their system should something break. Testing is much safer and stable even more so if you can deal with the older packages.

I would like to try switching to debian-unstable at some point though, but I'm worried that the momentum and attention Ubuntu has brought to the linux world will cause proprietary software to be developed around it (drivers mainly, but possibly apps too) and that getting them to work on anything else will be a pain.
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The only non-free kernel level things I have installed at home are the nVidia and VMware modules and both have always built just fine. Of course there's nVidia module source packages and those are maintained by Debian.
 
I know that sid is the branch that's truly considered 'rolling'.

Are any of the other branches (stable, testing) necessarily considered rolling as well?

I suppose that you did state earlier that you haven't run into problems doing an upgrade from stable-stable, or stable-testing. Would you say it's probably far better than Ubuntu at least?
 
Satyrist said:
I know that sid is the branch that's truly considered 'rolling'.

Are any of the other branches (stable, testing) necessarily considered rolling as well?

I suppose that you did state earlier that you haven't run into problems doing an upgrade from stable-stable, or stable-testing. Would you say it's probably far better than Ubuntu at least?
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Testing automatically gets packages from sid after a period of time with no critical bugs. So one might be able to consider testing rolling but slower.

But stable is virtually set in stone. There is Debian volatile and backports.org that are supposed to provide new versions of fast moving packages like FF for stable. But I haven't really used either since I don't use stable on a desktop.

Well statistically speaking, Ubuntu has already had more releases than Debian, since they do two a year, so they're more likely to have had more issues. But in Debian being able to dist-upgrade from 1 release to the next is a release requirement for Debian while I think it's more of a "would be nice" for Ubuntu.
 
Nothinman said:
Testing automatically gets packages from sid after a period of time with no critical bugs. So one might be able to consider testing rolling but slower.

But stable is virtually set in stone. There is Debian volatile and backports.org that are supposed to provide new versions of fast moving packages like FF for stable. But I haven't really used either since I don't use stable on a desktop.

Well statistically speaking, Ubuntu has already had more releases than Debian, since they do two a year, so they're more likely to have had more issues. But in Debian being able to dist-upgrade from 1 release to the next is a release requirement for Debian while I think it's more of a "would be nice" for Ubuntu.
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In the past I've had problems using dist-upgrade from Ubuntu, but several releases ago they started telling users to use update-manager which would help you through the upgrade process. Since then I've had no issues upgrading from one version to the next.
 
Crusty said:
In the past I've had problems using dist-upgrade from Ubuntu, but several releases ago they started telling users to use update-manager which would help you through the upgrade process. Since then I've had no issues upgrading from one version to the next.
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Which is an indication of the problem. We've already got apt, aptitude and synaptic so why add yet another tool into the mix?
 
I'm currently in the process of testing a few out. Been on ubuntu for awhile, but when I upgraded to 9.10 something went wrong and it didn't fully upgrade. Seems to take forever to boot these days, but afterward it runs fine. First time I've had a problem with ubuntu, other times it was my fault in doing something dumb.

Booted up Fedora 12 today in live cd form. It felt very much like ubuntu, but perhaps just a touch more polished. I might just try this for awhile instead of ubuntu.
 
DEMO24 said:
I'm currently in the process of testing a few out. Been on ubuntu for awhile, but when I upgraded to 9.10 something went wrong and it didn't fully upgrade. Seems to take forever to boot these days, but afterward it runs fine. First time I've had a problem with ubuntu, other times it was my fault in doing something dumb.

Booted up Fedora 12 today in live cd form. It felt very much like ubuntu, but perhaps just a touch more polished. I might just try this for awhile instead of ubuntu.
Click to expand...

If you're going to try Fedora, I'd say consider giving opensuse a shot as well. I just upgraded from 11.1/Gnome to 11.2/Gnome. 11.2 definitely seems more polished.
 
Last edited:
If you want to learn more about Linux, you should look into Archlinux. You will need to install and configure things, since they are not done for you, but you will learn from this. The Archlinux wiki is great resource of information. Here are a few links for you:

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Main_Page
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Linux
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_vs_Others
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners'_Guide
 
Gooberlx2 said:
If you're going to try Fedora, I'd say consider giving opensuse a shot as well. I just upgraded from 11.1/Gnome to 11.2/Gnome. 11.2 definitely seems more polished.
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Yeah, suse is what I started out on back in the 9.x range. Going to boot them up and see as well.
 
synth17 said:
If you want to learn more about Linux, you should look into Archlinux. You will need to install and configure things, since they are not done for you, but you will learn from this. The Archlinux wiki is great resource of information. Here are a few links for you:

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Main_Page
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Linux
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_vs_Others
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners'_Guide
Click to expand...

I <3 Arch and Mandriva.
 
I like Fedora better. Ubuntu is decent but Fedora seems easier to use. I think fedora works a little better on newer hardware as well. Either of those two should be fine. In all honesty Linux is Linux, only the user interfaces are different. And one more thing the updates on Fedora works flawlessly.
 
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