Re: linux distro recommendations?

[Anthony W. Youngman]

In message <address@hidden>, Graham Percival 
<address@hidden> writes
> On Fri, May 08, 2009 at 03:03:12AM -0700, Mark Polesky wrote:
> > I'm thinking about finally running the
> > (windows->linux me) procedure, and I'm
> > wondering what distros you developers
> > prefer to use (and why).
>
> Developers: debian, because it's the only sane choice.
>
> New users: ubuntu, because it's shiny.
And Ubuntu is a debian derivative, so they're just one choice anyway :-)
> Honestly, any answer you get will either be "well, they all have
> their strengths and weaknesses, so it's really up to you", rampant
> flamebait and mindless self-cheerleading, or thinly-veiled
> flamebait and very-slightly-thoughtful self-cheerleading.  I just
> decided to cut to the chase by including all three in my email.
> :)
Well, I'd say gentoo (or similar) was the only sane choice for 
developers :-) But it wouldn't be a sane choice for you, if you're 
thinking of leaving Windows. It's NOT a good "first distro" choice.

As a first distro, I'd agree with Ubuntu or Kubuntu (try and have a play 
on someone's system with both Gnome and KDE - see which one suits you 
best). Or (and it's not very popular at the moment) try and get a copy 
of SuSE 11. I've long been a SuSE fan. You can get liveCDs of all three 
to try out and see what you think.

And if you want a "learn the hard way" distro (which I *would* 
*strongly* recommend, but you really want a bit more experience than 
just Windows), then try Slackware. Oh - and the thing about Slackware - 
it has the reputation of booting and installing on pretty much ANYTHING. 
A lot of liveCDs and distros have trouble booting on some hardware - 
they'll recognise anything modern, but often will choke on something a 
bit older. I could never get liveCDs to work on my system.

Cheers,
Wol
--
Anthony W. Youngman - address@hidden