What is Your Favorite Distro of Linux?

[oakspringer]

What is your favorite distro of Linux and why?

[Phil Newton]

Mepis is my favourite because it's the only one that I could get working with my laptop. I'm still mainly an XP user, but I use Mepis for project planning (using TaskJuggler) and web programming work.

[norbert]

Debian because I'm quite well-versed in technology and I believe this is one of the most professional distros available. I used to run it on web servers and on my desktop PC under WinXP through coLinux (not to be confused with cygwin, you simply can't compare the two in terms of speed and compatibility. coLinux runs a real linux system).

[Mourner]

I chose Ubuntu because I use it the most - it's so elegant, beautiful and friendly and has a wonderful community, but Gentoo is a really great distro for me too.

[Nico Kempe]

Debian for sure. Debian Stable even, or Testing at most. It's to me the most professional and stable system, and it has a good spirit, not as commercial as Fedora or SuSE, and tried and tested.

Nowadays I'm starting to use BSD as much as possible for servers, because of the stability and security (OpenBSD as internet gateway/router/firewall/etc), but as for Linux, I'd go for Debian.
I'm using Ubuntu now for desktop, just for fun and newer software, but I have often gone back to Debian when I got tired of the system. Oh, and ofcourse Ubuntu is Debian based..)

[pi11]

I started with Redhat. Then moved to slackware and stayed with debian for a few years. But then I discovered BSD and have never stepped back. Sorry, but no linux for me!

I use OS X now (which is built on BSD). I am hardcore unix geek though, and I check up on linux regularly. In fact I got RHCE couple of months back for work purposes too. I think it is maturing in all sorts of directions (eg: I like SELinux), but it still isn't for me. Not yet anyway.

[Nico Kempe]

Originally Posted by pi11

[blah] BSD [blah] Linux [blah] certification [blah] BSD

sounds exactly like me, well, except that I still use Linux for my desktop, so not really exactly actually..)
But anyway, you just encouraged me to start a thread on certification..)

[Minishark]

Ah, yes, the obligatory "Favorite Linux Distro" thread. Every forum has one.
I've been using Ubuntu for my machines that run Linux all the time, and I love it. For other things, I use the Knoppix live CD. It's saved me countless times when XP decides to not boot.

[kthdsn]

My favourite is ubuntu, simply because it's the only distro I have used. I infinitely prefer it to windows, and I haven't found any reason to dislike it. I would like to have a play with some others at some point although for now I'm happy with ubuntu.

[oakspringer]

Originally Posted by Minishark

Ah, yes, the obligatory "Favorite Linux Distro" thread. Every forum has one.
I've been using Ubuntu for my machines that run Linux all the time, and I love it. For other things, I use the Knoppix live CD. It's saved me countless times when XP decides to not boot.

To be honest, I was just being curious! I had no idea this was a common thread, I don't frequent forums.

My favorite distros are Opensuse, and Ubuntu. I would recommend ubuntu to pretty much anyone wanting to make the switch.

[dcaldwell]

Absolutely Ubuntu. I've got it on my work system. While I'm a software developer, I was using WinXP until a short time ago. When I'm working, all I want is my OS to do its job properly. I have no time to fiddle around or try and work around an OS problem -- that's for after-hours testing and playing around. Ubuntu is the first distro to give me a clean experience and quick access to an expansive list of GUI-enabled utilities.

[Daniel Terhorst]

Arch Linux!

Great user community. Excellent package manager (pacman!). Minimal installation--I love the build-it-from-the-bottom-up approach. Be prepared to learn a lot.

Favorite WMs:
Ion3 (A tiled, keyboard-centric WM for all us mouse-haters)
Openbox3 (Good minimal WM)

-- Daniel Terhorst

[htmljenn]

It's currently the most popular, but it seems like it came on really fast, and I'm curious why I should switch from a stable distro to this new one.

[Nico Kempe]

Originally Posted by Daniel Terhorst

Arch Linux!

Great user community. Excellent package manager (pacman!). Minimal installation--I love the build-it-from-the-bottom-up approach. Be prepared to learn a lot.

Favorite WMs:
Ion3 (A tiled, keyboard-centric WM for all us mouse-haters)
Openbox3 (Good minimal WM)

-- Daniel Terhorst

Ah yes ofcourse, Arch. Seems to be known mostly for Dutch folks though, or am I wrong? Well maybe I should give it a try then.
Build from the ground up huh? Sounds like Gentoo, but Gentoo is just for masochistic people..)

And Ion3, I tried that once, I love the idea behind that, totally in contrast to XFCE, and nice window placement technique, but it was just too much trouble for me at the time, but still, maybe I'll try that one again.

I also tried Openbox and most of those other known WM's, yet still I'm hanging on to good old familiar Gnome.

[Nico Kempe]

Originally Posted by htmljenn

It's currently the most popular, but it seems like it came on really fast, and I'm curious why I should switch from a stable distro to this new one.

It sure came on fast, true, but it is a rather good distro.
The thought with Ubuntu is mainly licensing and human friendlyness.
Ubuntu aims to be totally free, not only for the package but the licenses too, so you'll find all the happy licenses in it (you may modify everything), unless you go for the other packages, in which case you might get limitations layed upon.
Ubuntu features rather new software too, and it's all pre-installed, so basically you'll get a brand spanking new desktop with just about all the basic software you'd want, it's all userfriendly and stuff, and you are allowed to modify it by the licenses.

So it's just for fun really, and newer software, really the kind of thing you'd expect on desktop machines. But if stability is your thing and you don't care much about having new software or extra userfriendlyness, then Debian is what you want.

[sourceofmiracles]

I like the live Unix CDs such as Knoppix. Lately (due to my profession) i've been into Backtrack, Whax and Knoppix STD.

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by htmljenn

It's currently the most popular, but it seems like it came on really fast, and I'm curious why I should switch from a stable distro to this new one.

I dunno if you should switch because its popular, but Ubuntu is probably the closest Linux experience to "no muss, no fuss", at least that I have ever had, and I have been wanting to switch for a long time, trying out infinite variations of SuSE, Mandrake, RedHat for the last 3 years. I still had a learning curve, but it just worked.

The 6.06LTS release is extremely stable too, at least, on my system (what other system is there, really?).

[Daniel Terhorst]

Originally Posted by Nico Kempe

Ah yes ofcourse, Arch. Seems to be known mostly for Dutch folks though, or am I wrong?

I've personally never heard it used in relation with the Dutch, myself.

Originally Posted by Nico Kempe

Well maybe I should give it a try then.
Build from the ground up huh? Sounds like Gentoo, but Gentoo is just for masochistic people..)

I've never used Gentoo myself, but I'm pretty sure I've heard it's a source distro--lots of time spent compiling. That's nice if you're really into optimization. Arch is a binary distro, so you don't usually have to compile anything unless you want to, and installation is typically fast and easy. As for building it from the ground up, all I meant is that it installs almost nothing for you. If you want Xorg and other X stuff, you've got to install and configure it yourself.

Personally, I love it, and it has helped me learn a lot, but admittedly it takes time. I consider my use of it more along the lines of a hobby.

Originally Posted by Nico Kempe

And Ion3, I tried that once, I love the idea behind that, totally in contrast to XFCE, and nice window placement technique, but it was just too much trouble for me at the time,

Yeah, it's still not as refined as I'd like. My biggest gripe is the way it deals with transients. But having used it for a good while, I have a really hard time being satisfied with the "failings" of other WMs.

-- Daniel Terhorst

[Christine]

Debian for me, but I'm kind of biased in the fact that I happen to be a Debian maintainer. Ahem.

[Nico Kempe]

Originally Posted by Christine

Debian for me, but I'm kind of biased in the fact that I happen to be a Debian maintainer. Ahem.

Don't be ashamed, you're a good person, we of the Debian appreciating public applaud you..)

[rvgrinsven]

That has got to be Ubuntu, just too damn easy

[Kiba]

Ubuntu. Simply because it is the first linux distro I ever use. However, I didn't use linux 99% now because of winmodem issue that I been lazy to fix.

[Henry]

Ubuntu if I had to choose one. I don't use Linux but I hear about Ubuntu all the time on Lifehacker and digg.

[Matt]

I use Arch on my laptop and one of my servers. I use OpenBSD on my internet-facing server.

I used to use Gentoo and still miss some of it's features (useflags in particular) but compiling everything is annoying.

[Gonzo]

I really love slackware, I have 3 servers running on it and my own pc.
Almost got my home network Windows free, exept my parents computers, they are too used to windoze and dont want to switch.
Me, my brother and my little sister are all using Slack

[Sean.M.Connelly]

Fedora... because it works. And it looks nice.

No real reason other than that. Some distros just don't work for me. Mandrake screws up my sound, Red Hat screws up my networking, Fedora works.

I haven't tried Ubuntu... don't really plan to because Fedora is fine for me. Maybe in the future.

~Sean

[AlexN]

The latest Fedora Core 6 is nice. What I like about FC is that you can choose between KDE and GNOME each session, so if you're bored with one, you can just switch to another. Nice.

[child]

Debian because it is a great system and i like its main policy and rules about free software.
I am gonna start another thread for Linux PD software in Personal Effectiveness board.