[LUNI] Seen any good distros lately?

[Branko Kotur]

I currently use Gentoo on my main computer and Kubuntu on my laptop.  I got 
sick of always recompiling/configuring everything on the laptop when I just 
want it to work right away.  Gentoo isn't for everyone, but it's my favorite 
at the moment.  Kubuntu is nice, but there are things about it that I don't 
really like.  

Ever since I read a review of Fedora Core 6 in Linux Format magazine, I've 
been wanting to try FC 6 on my laptop, but I'm just too lazy to do it.  And 
for some reason I like YUM more then apt-get.  However, if you like SUSE, you 
might want to consider OpenSUSE.  Technically, you won't be supporting Novell 
(at least with money).  

For the server, I'd suggest either Debian or CentOS.  I'm assuming you want 
the server to be stable and just plain work which is why I suggested those 2.  
I know that everything I suggested is free, but those are the only decent 
ones that I can think of besides the non free SUSE and RedHat Enterprise 
Linux.  

As far as the filesystem, I've always used ReiserFS on my personal computers 
and ext3 on my servers.  The main reason I use ReiserFS is because SUSE used 
it by default in previous distro's (my first real Linux experience was with 
SUSE), however I hear that they've switched to ext3 with the latest distro.  
As far as with the servers, I use ext3 only because RHEL and CentOS don't 
allow you to use ReiserFS when installing/partitioning/formatting and I don't 
feel like doing a completely separate partition step while setting up a 
server.  

On Sunday 07 January 2007 4:04 pm, Mike Scott wrote:
> I am considering changing Linux distros and wondered what your thoughts
> are.  I realize that this is a bit like asking which religion is best,
> but wanted to get some input.
>
> I used to use Red Hat, but got tired of having to pay a subscription fee
> to easily recieve patches and updates.
>
> I migrated to SuSe and have been happy for the most part with it's ease
> of installation as well as being able to handle my peripherals without
> having to go on an easter egg hunt for obscure drivers.
>
> However, given SuSe's current "deal with the devil" (Microsoft), I can't
> in good concience continue to support them and ver 10.1 will be my last
> SuSe purchase..
>
> I have basically three systems that I would like to run on and all three
> have different requirements, so a "one size fits all" approach may not
> be the way to go.  Since I try to pay for distros that I use
> (developers have to eat too), I have no problem paying for three
> distros.
>
> I have a Sony VAIO laptop that I dual-boot between XP (a necessary evil)
> and Linux.  I need good support for the usual laptop hardware, including
> wireless.
>
> Another is a P4 desktop system with nothing special, though I am
> considering buying a DVI video card for the LCD monitor I picked up
> last month, but will probably go with ATI on nVidia which seem to be
> widely supported.
>
> Both of the above run GUIs (KDE) and are used for the usual stuff like
> word processing, email, web etc.
>
> The third is a server which I want to use for ripping audio and video
> (though the audio will probably be ripped on the desktop box using
> ABCDE, and DVDs with whatever tool I get to work, since I didn't have
> room for a CD/DVD drive, but may install vid capture cards for MythTV)
> as well as general file storage.  There is no GUI installed on this
> system, but will probably look at something like IceCast and MythTV on
> this as well as the SlimServer to run my SqueezeBoxes.  This is a dual
> Xeon box (2.8G) with a 3Ware RAID card and 8, 250G SATA drives.
>
> This also brings up another decision as to which filesystem is best for
> this. Since I will be dealing with small (FLAC) audio files, as well as
> large (MPEG) files, there are pros and cons to each (JFS, EXT3,
> ReiserFS).  Though that may be a separate thread altogether.
>
> - Mike Scott