Which is your Favourite Linux? [Archive] - Page 2

gore

July 23rd, 2010, 21:08

I'd use OS X if I could afford a Mac. I've wanted a Macbook for so long, but the price.... Can't do it. I'm still running on some MAJOR old hardware here.

My Laptop - Pentium 4 M @ 3.06 GHz and 512 RAM, and a 32 MB Nvidia Ge Force FX GO5200 with 30 GB HD
MY FreeBSD test machine - Intel Celeron @ 433 MHz - 192 RAM - 8 MB ATI card, 80 GB HD
Other Deskrtop - Intel Celeron @ 2.40 GHz - 512 RAM - On board crap video - 80 GB HD it came with with Windows XP Home, 160 GB HD I installed, with Debian Linux
Other Desktop - AMD Athlon XP 2600 + - 768 MBs RAM - Crap on board video - 120 Gb HD it came with - No OS because the stupid thing keeps randomly shutting off. Took case off, think Over heating is the problem. Can't fix right now.
First Computer I ever bought - Using it as my FTP Server - Intel Pentium 3 @ 733 MHz - 128 MBs of RAM came with it, I upgraded that to 384 MBs of RAM - Came with a 43 GB Hd (Yes, 43. When I had Windows 98 SE on it, it said 42.9) and then I installed another 160 GB HD - Nvidia Card with 16 MBs Video Memory....Basically barely works now, and if I try to load a GUI, either Linux, or Windows... (I formatted the drive back about a year and a half ago, and tried installing Windows to see if the OS was the problem, and the video still looked bad. Basically one day years ago, I woke up and the video had lines all over the place. I tried to check it out but I can't really. I ended up formatting the machine, installing a new OS, and realized it wasn't the OS and that when you move the mouse in a menu, it has a line across the screen that seems to follow the Mouse. In other words, the video card is crapping out SLOWLY) If no GUI is loaded and it's just a Shell, it looks alright though. So I decided to use it as my Server, and don't use X on it really.

Main Desktop - Dell - Intel Core 2 Duo Processor...Can't remember the speed - 4 GBs RAM - 750 GB HD - 256 MB ATI card - Dual Boots Windows 7 64 Bit and Slackware.

As you can see, I've made what I have work. And the new one, I got that for Christmas this past year.

lumiwa

July 23rd, 2010, 21:15

...
I'd LOVE to have a tool that updated everything. In Debian, it's this:

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

Done.

In Slackware, I can do a couple of things...

You like Debian, you like Slackware...Debian has this, Slackware has this and FreeBSD is as is. If you like it keep it if not install something different. I was Linux user from...I forgot...but on my computer is just FreeBSD which I use almost all the time. Yes, I have Arch on my wifes because I like K3b which is not yet on FreeBSD and I use Krita on Arch which works muuuuuuuuch faster than on FreeBSD.
BNTW I use FreeBSD for the desktop computer.

gore

July 23rd, 2010, 21:34

You like Debian, you like Slackware...Debian has this, Slackware has this and FreeBSD is as is. If you like it keep it if not install something different. I was Linux user from...I forgot...but on my computer is just FreeBSD which I use almost all the time. Yes, I have Arch on my wifes because I like K3b which is not yet on FreeBSD and I use Krita on Arch which works muuuuuuuuch faster than on FreeBSD.
BNTW I use FreeBSD for the desktop computer.

Umm, OK, here is the problem with posts like yours, and opinions like your opinion in that:

It's EXACTLY like those people who say "Well if you don't like something a lot of people use, then don't use it"... It fixes nothing.

I really don't think you realize how much Open OSs share with each other. FreeBSD uses GCC just like Linux. It's not like they don't share back and forth, as they should (When BSD and GPL / Linux people all share ideas, we end up with a better system).

I've been using FreeBSD on and off since 4.0, and I don't really care if someone is going to come on here and tell me that if I want it to update easy, I should just use something else. No. I will continue using FreeBSD, I will continue using Linux, and I will ...Sort of use Windows. (Wintendo). And I'll also continue stating my opinion, and eventually, someone will add to FreeBSD the things that make Linux more easier to update / patch / upgrade, and then, FreeBSD, will not be the "unknown" giant. Period.

I spend A LOT of my time doing IT / Tech stuff, for free, and one of the things I do, is install OSs for people, write HOWTOs on how to do it, and I even once spent literally 8 hours, with someone who had never used SUSE Linux before, basically spending all that time helping them get it installed, and then configuring it how they wanted, and so on. I didn't get paid for that, I did it because I wanted to help.

And every time someone asks me for help getting Linux installed, I almost always point out there is BSD. Why? Because I like BSD. I REALLY like it. That's why I've sent almost 5,000.00 to them. I want it to be better. I don't have a job right now and I still do the free tech stuff, because I'm not a greedy jerk. And I'm not the only person who wants things to work easier.

I doubt that if you had the CHOICE to use FreeBSD, and update it just as easy as Debian was, you'd decline. Who would seriously do that? I don't even get why anyone would be so rude they would actually post JUST to tell someone "If you don't like it use something else"...That's incredibly rude, doesn't fix anything, and, basically, wasted space.

I've been using this stuff for 10 years, and rarely do the Linux users I help out, ever want to use BSD. Well, let me rephrase that; They WANT to use BSD, and they'd LOVE to try FreeBSD out since it's the one I recommend, but at the same time, when security is brought up, they get all excited and Happy about the features FreeBSD has, until they see the section online about how you do updates. They think freebsd-update is fine, but once they see how Ports work, and how you update those... It's a deal closer.

This is the second time I've taken crap from someone who for some reason thinks it's totally perfect. I don't get that. No software is perfect, and the SECOND someone thinks it is, they stop trying to make it better. That's a problem. If you don't agree, that's fine, and that's your opinion, but being so rude as to say not only is it fine the way it is but if you don't like it hit the road... That's a bad attitude.

Eventually, some time, someone who works on BSD, will see that these updates, and how they work, IS slowing adoption of it, and they'll make a tool that updates the whole system, and then, FreeBSD will be able to compete with Linux on more than just servers.

It's not like I'm saying the way Ports work now should be taken out. I'm not like that, I don't think my opinion is so better than anyone else's that they should only do it my way (like you seem to think) I'm saying that the way it works now, could use another option.

I don't understand why someone would think that FreeBSD would work any different if another option was made. That makes no sense. The Ports could work just like they do now, it would just be nice if there was the OPTION to do it like Debian, or Slackware.

Wouldn't you love it if you could upgrade only the ones that have security patches? And not have to take the whole thing down for a week to do them ALL ?

DutchDaemon

July 23rd, 2010, 22:18

Guys, get off the Linux vs FreeBSD wagon. This thread is not about that.

dbi

July 24th, 2010, 00:03

Depends on the purpose and the circumstances.
If I have a choice I'd use the following money-free OSes in this order:

For a SOHO router I'd use Slackware ot Gentoo, because like FreeBSD they both give the option to install a base OS only and I have experience with them. I believe Arch Linux follows the same BSD-like installation method - "base system + everything else", but I've never tried it.
I'd use a BSD too, but only for very simple cases. While a little slower, Linux firewall and routing provide more features.

For a server I'd prefer FreeBSD. Then Gentoo, then CentOS or Slackware. servers don't need as many packages as desktops do. Compiling from source allows removing unneeded options and packages which brings better speed and security. The other approach is "install a base system and compile by hand". Then one should update by hand also which I'd prefer not to do.
Where does CentOS come in this mix? Well, CentOS uses the RHEL sources. This means one has the security provided by Red Hat and yes, I do believe that security-wise it is a good thing to have a company behind the distro because this means legal obligation to provide security fixes ASAP.

For a desktop I'd use Fedora - balance between easy installation and use on one hand and it works relatively fast and doesn't get in my way too much on the other. Gentoo remains my favourite but I don't like wasting so much time on compiling.

The bottom line is that I should try Arch Linux and it is in my to-do list.

:)

drp

July 24th, 2010, 11:06

Ubuntu/Kubuntu is very good for simple, quick, and has-everything. Constant updates, up-to-date versions, tons of packages in the repository. Apt-get and interfaces to it. It's the simplest, most kept-up Linux. Aside from the lack of big repositories and fast package management for everything, I liked Slackware a lot... not that it has everything up-to-date and in a repository, but what you do get is very nice. I was thinking about trying Arch, but I'm really done with Linux. FreeBSD is much better (as far as I know, and to me personally) in a lot of ways, and definitely what I want to stick with for the long-term. If I have just one operating system on my computer, it will definitely be FreeBSD... and I'm tired of Linux.
I haven't used Windows for around a year and a half, except for a few days a couple of times. I played Civilization III on it a little. I got rid of it less than a month ago, I think, and now I have nothing but FreeBSD.
OS X is nice, but Apple is too expensive to me.

gore

July 24th, 2010, 22:39

Slackware is VERY BSD like in how it operates. I don't just mean the BSD style rc stuff, but if you buy the Slackware Essentials book, it actually has a BSD logo on the back. "BSDI" is on the back of it just like some FreeBSD books. Also, the CD sets from Slackware, are almost exactly like FreeBSD. For example, I have the FreeBSD 6.0 4 CD set, and the Slackware 10.0 and 10.2 4 CD sets, and the cases are almost identical. The only difference in the logos and what they actually say, the look and style of the case, is the same, and so is the type of info you get. I thought it was kind of weird until someone from the FreeBSD Mall told me one day that yes they were involved with it. Made me Happy to see that not every BSD or Linux distro was at each other's throat and got along :)

I need to find Pat's Cell phone number and ask him when he's going to add a SlackPort's to Slackware or something. It's a neat idea, and would be something I think he'd like. And of course, you know, SlackBSD, which would be cool, to put a BSD Kernel on Slackware. Debian has does that already, as has Gentoo.

avkhatri

July 25th, 2010, 07:54

For my favorite Linux Distro it's a tie between Debian, and Fedora. Both are stable and have great features.

nestux

July 26th, 2010, 04:04

I use Slackware and Debian ]=)

bigearsbilly

July 26th, 2010, 10:33

I used SuSe first off when it was either that or redhat. all those years ago.
no broadband just a modem so I used to buy it! (remember?) suse came in a box with a book and 5CDs and loads of apps to play with. great fun exploring a real system compared
to DOS.
Back in the days when linux distros installed a C compiler and man pages.
sadly gone.

slackware was good too I used that for a while. got bored with
finding dependencies though.
Tried ubuntu, pclinux, debian. Solaris 10 I used for a year or so.
Now I use puppy linux in a virtualbox for youtube and suchlike.
debian to keep my hand in, because I've never worked anywhere that use BSD.

pkubaj

July 30th, 2010, 16:09

I like Debian and Arch. I also have Ubuntu on my laptop, but it's because almost no other distro has working GMA500 driver (only Mandriva, which I don't like and Fedora but 12 at best). As Ubuntu is Debian-based, I chose to use it. Though I'm planning to try Arch on it, there is supposedly poulsbo driver working. BTW is there any chance of porting poulsbo driver to FreeBSD? I'd like to try it on my laptop, but vesa has just too little performance.

Stringer

August 6th, 2010, 12:28

I may not be an linux distro expert but Archlinux and gentoo is the way to go if you ask me. Since gentoo aint really for beginners in linux it suits sort of with BSD, while archlinux is more of a choose if i wanted to quickly get an computer with it's purpose of being an educational, programming desktop pc.

Blackbird

August 6th, 2010, 16:18

If I had to choose a linux distro for my desktop, I think I would choose Ubuntu. Whenever there is the possibility of flexibility in the setting up of some linux distro, e.g. Gentoo, I can't stop comparing it with FreeBSD's flexibility and get depressive. :e

So I would choose Ubuntu, which I have nearly no possibility to change something by command line, so I'd use the GUI tools and could become happy.
But of course, I would hardly miss the flexibility of everything.

fronclynne

August 7th, 2010, 03:18

Blackbird

August 7th, 2010, 09:15

Ok, I know. I've used Ubuntu before as well.
But if I think about it, I think I would become depressive with these command line tools, and manpages, just more.

Vener

August 7th, 2010, 18:16

I still use debian on some servers, buts it's only for virtualization using xen and kvm.
I use ubuntu on my desktop at work. It works well, it's easy and really fast to install. I don't have a lot of time to waste at work and it's enough for me.

fx4

August 9th, 2010, 15:17

Fedora. yum is a superior package management system to anything else I've tried on Linux. The system itself is very flexible. Plus, RedHat gives a lot back to the community. My only beef is that SELinux is enabled by default, but it is easy to remove. Maybe not the prettiest distro out of the box, but certainly each release gives a working preview of what other distributions will soon be leeching.

Arch Linux is nice, very minimal if you stick to the packages + AUR. However, ABS is no replacement for the ports system and I wish they would stop branding it as such. I would probably be running Arch on my laptop if recent kernel changes didn't break thinkpad_acpi when using OSS for sound. KDEmod is the superior KDE4 implementation on the market.

Crabb

August 15th, 2010, 04:20

linux base f10

mauser1891

August 16th, 2010, 04:23

Hello Folks,

For a older hardware and simple graphical user interface I install Peppermint @ http://perppermintos.com/
My regular linux installs I use sidux @ http://sidux.com/
My first distro was Slackware back in 1998.

gore

August 18th, 2010, 03:05

I still use OpenSUSE and SUSE Linux. What can I say, I'm a German American ;) We make good stuff!

I still don't like Fedora Core, but that's just me. I mean if it works for someone and they like it, my opinion shouldn't matter anyway. I also still like Slackware and Debian, which is the other stuff I use.

Yampress

August 18th, 2010, 19:10

debian

ath0

August 18th, 2010, 22:04

Hey @all

i only use ubuntu or kubuntu for test stuff since i changed to FreeBSD.
soon i will have a look at Debian because my last experience a years ago.

mauser1891

August 20th, 2010, 05:07

Hello Folks,

I suggest trying out sidux (http://sidux.com/), which uses Debian sid as it's core with some fixes.
Any rate you can read about more about it @ sidux (http://sidux.com/)

I used *buntu for awhile, but had better support for my BCM 4311 rev 1 wireless in my old Compaq C551NR laptop.
I never went back. I use the toram "switch" to increase my install rate.
The installer is extremely simple. My friend installed Debian as his first distro had a hard time since the installer was to simple... lol
I still use sidux (http://sidux.com/).

elimite

August 22nd, 2010, 04:59

i'm using arch on my low end toshiba laptop. great distro if you're not afraid to get your hands a little dirty - and a nice payoff in terms of performance, responsiveness, and customization.

Got the family desktop running Linux Mint on a 10 yr old machine. Very responsive, nice software selection, and easy for the tech-challenged to use.

ChickenWing88

August 30th, 2010, 16:17

MY personal preference is Debian .
Here is my lap top specs

Lenovo N500

Debian 5.0.5 Lenny With xfce and Openoffice 3.2.1 from Debian backots (http://www.backports.org/dokuwiki/doku.php)

/dev/sda
500GB Aftermaaket
Display: 15.4'' TFT
RAm: 3072MB
Intel Hraphics Media Accelerator

hrsetrdr

September 20th, 2010, 06:24

OK OK I know ALL of us LOVE BSD
But I am sure you all played with Linux before conversion?
So which is your favourite?

1.Debian
2.Arch

davidgurvich

September 21st, 2010, 00:51

My preferences are for ease of use, speed, and stability.

Linux Mint is very good and the fluxbox edition is very fast, comparable to Arch. The appearance is quite good. The fluxbox edition requires some configuration but not as much as Arch.

PCLinuxOS is the fastest KDE4 distribution I've ever tried. The hardware support is excellent. I don't like the appearance as much as opensuse but would suggest that for anyone having issues with speed on opensuse they try PCLinuxOS.

Debian is fast and requires almost as much configuration as Arch. I haven't seen the Linux Mint Debian version yet but that may be one of the better combinations that I've heard of.

Fedora is interesting but the rapid changes frequently cause problems and the distribution is not very friendly for individual desktop users. Too often some esoteric command line magic is needed to make various things work. That does not include installing drivers from source because the included drivers have too may bugs.

tty3

September 21st, 2010, 04:06

emulators/linux_base-f10, love *bsd systems, not change for nothing, is minimal, simply, fast and recognized all hardware

nekoexmachina

September 21st, 2010, 08:05

zspider

September 21st, 2010, 15:02

>emulators/linux_base-f10
+1 lol
Also i've come to hate ubuntu after trying to upgrade my fathers laptop from 8.04 to 10.04. After about a day of jumping around with timbrel in my hand, i've just reinstalled it.
While on his desk everything went smooth and cool.

Me too Linux Emulation does almost everything and well too, the family computer is Ubuntu and it works for the most part, but sometimes it can be a real PITA to work with.x( like the time I removed network manager to use the interfaces file to setup networks which broke it and I had to manually fetch packages and their dependencies from another computer to fix it.

captobvious

October 29th, 2010, 21:18

October 29th, 2010, 21:42

Although I'm just an amateur, I have been playing with computers since the 70's, yet I have never had the guts to run MS-Windows so I managed with DOS. When a GUI became mandatory, my only realistic choice was Linux. I've been running Kubuntu for some years now. Linux is trying to be popular by emulating everything about Macs and MS. I'm finding it just not stable enough any more. So yes, I'm with you captobvious:
I really want a stable system that once I learn how things work, it will for the most part stay the same.
Linux is good, and FOSS is the only way to go in my mind. However BSD is the logical next step. :)

gore

October 29th, 2010, 23:00

It's been a while since I posted on here last, but with all the talk on here, I figured I'd pop in to give my personal opinion on some of the things said. Of course, I'll point out clearly, that this is ALL my personal Opinion, and so there isn't much in the way of technical reason for MY choices anyway ;)

My start in Computers is much less than most around here. I didn't own one until VERY late 1999. That was when I got my very first computer ever. I'd always been fascinated with them, because whenever I saw one, I looked at the screen, and thought "Wow, this thing does SO much! It's nothing like what I've used, and I want one!".

Basically, all of two of my family members owned a Computer at that time, and the only other time I saw one was in school. These were Macs at school, and I didn't know a thing about them either. Well, I ended up being kicked out of high school for grades (They can do that, or at least they could then) because even though I'd been diagnosed with ADD, they couldn't get a medication to actually work. My teachers thought I was stupid, my family thought I was lazy, and it took years to find out that really, I had a very above average IQ (I have an IQ of 146, which when I read the results and the chart I got, is around Genius level) and so of course this was a shock and a half....

The teachers I had to deal with assumed I was stupid and that THAT was the reason I did poorly. My Family figured I was lazy and didn't pay attention, and it wasn't until some testing that the cause was found to be it wasn't that I was stupid, but in fact a Genius level IQ person, who oddly enough, will end up a lot like Bart Simpson....

Heh, if you guys ever watched The Simpsons, remember the episode where Bart is taking the IQ test in school, and switches his paper for Martin's? And the school finds out when the guy comes in and says "The reason BArt acts out and does so poorly is that he finds no challenge in his school work" and so on?

Well it was kind of like that. I ended up going to an adult learning center, and after about one semester, I learned that these classes were HALF credits... So it would take longer. I decided to try for a GED, because I wanted to have a diploma.

The State of Michigan at that time, was starting to change how those worked, and I had basically a month to start preparing myself for the tests, and pass them all, because the next month, they were changing how it all worked, and I'd have to start over again.

Well, I ended up going in when they had an opening, and to make it through, I'd do two tests each day. Not only did I pass, but I got such high marks that I got an equivalence instead of the standard GED.

A while later, I went to college, made the Honor's List, and became good friends with the Professor's in the Computer Science labs. I was part of the gifted group in the Computer Science department. All this within 4 years of turning on my first computer.

I think those of us with ADD for some reason learn through Computers better than other methods. But anyway, I'm rambling, sorry lol.

I personally don't like Ubuntu... But, at the same time, I have no issue with a Distro of Linux trying to be more like Windows. I don't care about that at all.

I've had very food experiences with certain versions of Mandrake / Mandriva Linux, and then some versions, were basically crap.

I haven't ever really liked Red Hat, or Fedora Core... But again, that's personal preference. I HATE Gentoo however.... I'm glad the people who like it found something they REALLY like and all, but I personally refuse to use it. I can't stand it Honestly.

The following, are the Distros I personally use and love:

SUSE / OpenSUSE
Slackware
Debian
NetSecL / The Security Enhanced Slackware
Mandrake / Mandriva (Depending on version of course...Some are just terrible)
A few smaller distros I've used, which I can't recall the names of... Mostly the Slackware based ones.

And of course FreeBSD, PC-BSD and all of them based on FreeBSD. I don't mind NetBSD, but I personally am more of a FreeBSD guy. OpenBSD... I don't like it, and I don't like the guy who makes it. I have no issue with his gigantic Ego, it's his personality and "We won't use ANYTHING that isn't open, even if it means being behind or our users suffering for it"... THAT bugs me.

As for Windows, and DOS, and all that... I do like Windows 2000, but don't use it anymore, and I do like Windows 7, which has a PowerShell which is a step in the right direction FINALLY. (Who here was EVER actually Happy Hacking in a DOS prompt? Heh).

Anyway, that's just my opinion, and I don't push my opinions on others, so you won't see me telling anyone here they're wrong in any way shape or form, unless they ask me what I think. That's one of the things people seem to like about me heh.

fronclynne

October 29th, 2010, 23:55

Heh, if you guys ever watched The Simpsons, remember the episode where Bart is taking the IQ test in school, and switches his paper for Martin's? And the school finds out when the guy comes in and says "The reason BArt acts out and does so poorly is that he finds no challenge in his school work" and so on?

That was a Dennis the Menace television episode from 1961, except that instead of switching tests it's a grading error from the "Do Not Fold, Spindle, or Mutilate" problem.

UNIXgod

October 30th, 2010, 00:11

Just started playing with funtoo. Might be one to check out. It's f0rkable =)

http://funtoo.org

October 30th, 2010, 03:06

. . . (Who here was EVER actually Happy Hacking in a DOS prompt? Heh). . . .

Me.

Hehe. Not to take this too far astray - but I couldn't leave that alone. :) It is noteworthy in this context that DOS is completely run by user written configuration files in such a way that every computer is highly personalized and extremely efficient to the user who set it up - much like a shell only *nix system. It is also noteworthy that it is trivial to do e-mail on a system with a single 360K floppy and no other storage beyond a flyspec of RAM. Yes, this is seriously fun "hacking". Try it!

I do all my writing and text file management on a pure DOS machine. I even use it for a fair amount of network stuff. I can't imagine any OS coming even close for text management. Yes, personal opinion of course, but my point is that I do use DOS in a serious manner and the files fly back and forth effortlessly from there to my *nix boxes. No, I don't use any of the original distribution files - just my own collection of utilities - which is the only way to do it in that world. So, yeah, I'm actually "Happy Hacking in a DOS prompt".

da1

October 30th, 2010, 09:24

Favorite ? Maybe Debian.
Using ? RedHAT/Fedora.
Reason ? employer & $$$.

sk8harddiefast

October 30th, 2010, 09:24

Funtoo? Based.... on Gentoo?

UNIXgod

October 30th, 2010, 19:22

Funtoo? Based.... on Gentoo?

Basically it's Gentoo with openrc and git backend for syncing. DR is also back in the picture with it. It's considered a derivative vs fork. Maybe because of this: http://blog.funtoo.org/2007/07/so-can-i-have-gentoo-back.html

zspider

October 31st, 2010, 00:11

Been using Slackware for the past 2 years, just switched over to FreeBSD a month ago. Just my 2 cents, I feel like the newer linux distros are trying to migrate in more mainstream users by emulating the Mac OS (yes I know it's technically a BSD) desktop environment. Prime examples: Ubuntu and any distro the defaults a GNOME or KDE desktop.

I'm not a computer guru, I'm a biologist by background; the switch to linux from windows XP was prompted by the annoyance of learning a new microsoft OS every 3-5 years - no thank you. I really want a stable system that once I learn how things work, it will for the most part stay the same.

So FreeBSD here I am ;)

But Slackware was a very nice distro and a good bridge distro to migrate from linux -> BSD

I agree, Linux was a good stepping stone, but I had to graduate sooner or later, happier here on FreeBSD which has worked far better than I ever imagined it would, Ubuntu is definitely changing to a desktop for non-computer people especially with the whole unity thing and that is one of the reasons I refused to use Ubuntu beyond learning the basics, you could say that I saw the writing on the wall.

kenorb

November 1st, 2010, 15:34

Pld ;)

swa

November 6th, 2010, 16:27

Desktop: openSUSE. Used Ubuntu before but once I tried openSUSE I never looked back.
For a server, if it really has to be linux for whatever reason, I would probably choose Debian.

sk8harddiefast

November 7th, 2010, 03:31

Pld
Pld?

davetrotteruk

November 7th, 2010, 09:06

Pld?

It used to stand for polish Linux distribution, but now its just PLD. Its an idependant distro that uses rpm packages.
That's my knowledge exhausted.

captobvious

November 7th, 2010, 19:11

Just a thought, would it be possible to repost this thread as a poll? Let's say with the top 15-20 linux distros from distrowatch.com ? I'm actually curious to knowing how many BSD users favor slackware.

ahavatar

November 10th, 2010, 04:19

Ubuntu because I can make my hands dirty with FreeBSD :-)

Thorny

November 10th, 2010, 09:10

I started with Mandrake/Mandriva-Linux. At some of my Desk/Laptops i'm still using it. Installing/Upgrading software is very easy (compared to yast :D) and it just works.

dulemars

November 10th, 2010, 14:50

oliverh

November 10th, 2010, 15:53

Regarding Slackware, it was my first "admin" Linux experience ever (i didn't count in playing with Ubuntu and Debian desktops). First servers I ever built in my life were on FreeBSD, and I learned it substantially before I tried any Linux deployment. I was very happy learning that FreeBSD and "hardcore" Slackware are very similar :)

Well, back in the good old times, Slackware counted as entry-level distro. Nowadays it's quiet different, but that's not the fault of Slackware or FreeBSD. So "hardcore" is somewhat wrong in my opinion.

rghq

November 12th, 2010, 01:06

Hmm - Slackware - pkgsrc runs quite fine on it. Problem may be some packages Slackware needs & ships cause problems with pkgsrc ones.
Still meanwhile, Arch is a nice one. Still not for use on Servers but that's not their focus anyways.

El_Barto

December 2nd, 2010, 20:36

It is hard to say. I started just for fun doing multiboot because it was to hard for me to choose ...
As I was and still am new to all of this stuff and I did not had to much time for doing a study on Grub(2). Lilo was no obtion for me (that is why I did not liked Slackware) because it only supports limited partitions (because at a certain moment I was running up till 38 distro's).
So I tried almost all (commercial) bootmanager on the market because I am still not into programming and that kind of stuff.

I tried most out of Distrowatch. Really liked Hymera (Italian and Debian based but no longer active I believe), the standard Interface was not much but it had also a a very beautiful (http://www.dc-ict.be/wp-content/uploads/hymera.jpg) one included which could be activated in the extra options. Did not understood why it was not their general Desktop Environment, one of the most beautiful on the Linux market. Gos (http://www.thinkgos.com/gos/index.html) (Ubuntu based) was (was because I do not think it is still active) a OSX look a like.

I did not like Sidux because some updates messed up some other partitions, especially the grub part. That reminds me of another distro of which I do not remember the name anymore. It had a special updating system, I believe it was called Conakry or something like that. It tried to update all other Linux kernels if found too on the other partitions with the result I could start all over again...

I liked SuperOS and Ultimate Edition because all the stuff it had included from the start. Vector Linux, Black Panther, OpenGeu, Chakra and PC/OS nice to try and had each their own special blend. DreamLinux is still on the to do list, what ever I do I am unable to install this one because of some bug towards my hardware. Trisquel is a stripped version of Ubuntu, I like it because it really demonstrates how good a Linux Distro is capable of watching flash movies without the flashplugin of Adobe without any problems although this plugin still has to be installed after the installation.

On the end I had a few distros left of which I was unable to choose from ...
- Sabayon (http://www.sabayon.org/) and MoonOS (http://www.moonos.org/) (Very beautiful Desktop Environment)
- Linux Mint (http://www.linuxmint.com/) (Beautiful and out of the box experience)
- PcLinuxOs (http://www.pclinuxos.com/), Deephin (http://linux.deepin.org/), and especially Zorin OS (http://zorin-os.webs.com/) and YLMF (http://www.ylmf.org/en/) OS are very Windows Look a like as Desktop Environment (not everything of Windows is bad)
- Pardus (http://www.pardus.org.tr/) was also very nice to have, although sometimes buggy
- Ubuntu Netbook (http://www.ubuntu.com/netbook) I liked too to have as desktop.
- OpenSuse : what can I say about this one, is there anything left to be improved? I doubt it. Also the fact that it downloading the updates and installing them at the same time whilst working without any delay on the system was very impressive. 1.5 gb within 20 minutes was amazing.

My final observation was that 60% of Linux distros used is Ubuntu based. Ubuntu is actually a polished and user friendly version of Debian. So actually it is Debian which is running the show.

El_Barto

December 4th, 2010, 00:28

It seems I am unable to edit my own posts.

The package manager I was referring to and which tried to update all other Linux kernels it found on the other partitions is not Conakry but Conary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conary_%28package_manager%29) from rPath (http://www.rpath.com/corp/). There is another ditro based on rPath (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPath) I tried too, Foresight (http://www.foresightlinux.org/). Foresight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foresight_Linux) is completely closed as I remember, you have to give the admin password for every breath you take. Terrible to use if you know nothing about it. Even Arch Linux with their manual for noobs was easier to use.

DutchDaemon

December 4th, 2010, 01:23

It seems I am unable to edit my own posts.

Maybe you're able to read your signup email, or the Sticky posts in the General forum ;)

LeopoldP

December 21st, 2010, 09:08

my favorite is red hat

fat64

December 21st, 2010, 14:42

Scientific Linux (https://www.scientificlinux.org/).

"Scientific Linux is a recompiled Red Hat Enterprise Linux, co-developed by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)." --DistroWatch (http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=scientific)

sizemj

December 22nd, 2010, 18:11

I would also be put on the Slackware list. I have played with a lot of Linuxes, but loved Slackware and how simple it was. Slackware is what got me interested in FreeBSD. Slackware's handbook tells you to look in the FreeBSD handbook for more answers : )

graudeejs

December 22nd, 2010, 18:53

sk8harddiefast

December 23rd, 2010, 09:29

Ok! Now I am sure 100%! I use the most perfect OS! :)

YZMSQ

December 23rd, 2010, 15:24

ChickenWing88

December 26th, 2010, 21:41

For desktops : RHEL
Laptops; xubuntu

gore

January 3rd, 2011, 04:05

Really? :)

Yes it does. Pat actually tells people all the time to basically not even bother with Linux web sites, and that if you want answers for things, most Linux pages are PR based crap, and to look into BSD as you'll get actual technical information.

Also, if you order from the Slackware Store, and BSD Mall, you get your stuff in the same box. I had an order for FreeBSD books, software, shirts, and so on, and the same day, an order for Slackware software, shirt, books, and so on, and the next day they were on my porch in the same box.

Also, the Slackware official CD and the FreeBSD ones, look almost identical. I'm pretty sure they're made a few feet away from each other lol. I've also been told my people at the FreeBSDMall they like Slackware. And Pat seems to really love BSD. I've talked to him a few times, good guy.

troberts

January 5th, 2011, 19:07

I do not have a favorite Linux distro but last year I wiped FreeBSD, which I had been using since 6.0 was released, and installed Gentoo. I never had a problem with FreeBSD but something about the Gentoo 'g' icon kept calling my name. The one advantage to using Gentoo instead of FreeBSD is Flash support. On FreeBSD, nspluginwrapper would hang or there would be one instance per tab that was open in Firefox. The IMDb.com web site was where I had the most problems with viewing its content with Flash enabled. I do not blame FreeBSD in any way, shape, or form, but seeing how much nicer Flash runs with Gentoo I will be staying here a bit longer, although I do prefer FreeBSD as a whole. Gnash was hit-or-miss with a lot of miss.

P.S. Any word on when Adobe will offer a native version of Flash for FreeBSD?:(

DutchDaemon

January 5th, 2011, 19:32

Flash has been working fine on 32-bit and 64-bit FreeBSD for ages now. If it doesn't: PEBKAC, I'm afraid.

oliverh

January 8th, 2011, 00:41

@DutchDaemon well, most of the time. There are websites with Flash that fail on FreeBSD and I'm not talking of Youtube or watching movies. For the latter I use clive.

DutchDaemon

January 8th, 2011, 02:39

Can you give examples of those? Can't remember seeing that.

gour

January 25th, 2011, 07:56

Hiya,

After seeing that OS2 is going nowhere, I had installed SuSE in '99. Soon, found out about rpm deps hell and switched to Gentoo and fighting with it on ~amd64 for more than 5yrs...then switched to my current distro -Archlinux.

Now, I'm evaluating PCBSD-9 (under vbox) and soon plan to shrink my lvm2+raid-1 ext4 array in order to test with real hardware...hopefully making full switch by the time of 9.0 (maybe even sooner if everything will be ok). ;)

All in all, I believe that F/PCBSD is upgrade from the current OS and I'm going to put it on the desktop of several people believing I'll have less problems servicing and maintaing their machines. :-)

gore

January 25th, 2011, 09:25

Dependency problems on SUSE back then? I've been using SUSE since 8.1 Professional, and it wasn't really until around 10 that I ever ran into those. I'd go as far as saying that SUSE Linux 8.1 and 8.2 Professional were two of my favorite OSs ever. I've got a lot of them, and to this day I wonder if they'll ever make another as good as those two were. Literally everything worked out of the box on every machine I was using.

nakal

January 25th, 2011, 09:42

UNIXgod

January 25th, 2011, 11:06

I like Gentoo Linux best, but I already managed to break the portage system in a way, where no upgrade was possible anymore already 2 times. Which brought me back to FreeBSD again, because in all the years, I never had problems with ports (of course I don't mean single ports that occasionally don't work correctly, I mean the whole tree). And before anyone mentions it, yeah, I know there is revdep-rebuild on Gentoo (but it did not work!).

FreeBSD Ports Team is the best! I love you guys. Keep the good work!

Nothing beats FreeBSD stability. You gentoo guys should have a look at Funtoo. It's really what gentoo was before the mess.

Breakage is less frequent and fixable. No BS like "drop untested into stable and hope someone with some time on their hands comes along to deal with it.

gore

January 25th, 2011, 11:44

I personally haven't ever used Gentoo. I've used a distro or two that is based on it, but I haven't ever installed Gentoo on any of my machines. When I first read about it, I was like "WTF is this? They took BSD and slapped a Linux Kernel on top?" And of course that's not accurate, but it was my first thought.

A friend of mine started using it, and then became "The" Gentoo guy, because he loved it. Then he got annoying talking about how his Terminal Window opened up .3 seconds quicker or something. He wouldn't use anything else. After a while he seemed to calm down, and started using Slackware and FreeBSD along side Gentoo.

I've been contemplating downloading a CD ISO of it to give it a whack, but I'm still iffy. Don't get me wrong though; That "G" Logo is really pretty lol.

gour

January 26th, 2011, 08:45

Dependency problems on SUSE back then?

Iirc, although it was long ago, I started with SuSE around 4.1 and/or before 5.0 and left, I believe, after 7.2. :-)

gour

January 26th, 2011, 08:47

Nothing beats FreeBSD stability.

Heh, that's what my ears like to hear. :D

You gentoo guys should have a look at Funtoo. It's really what gentoo was before the mess.

Wel, drobbins is the key word here...and actually that guy which pushes 'alternative' to portage, was the main reason why I finally left Gentoo. :e

gore

January 26th, 2011, 09:06

It was probably 4.2, since there was never a SUSE before that. There wasn't a 1.0 or 2, or 2, as it started at 4.2 Mostly because "42" is, of course, the answer ;)

kpedersen

January 26th, 2011, 11:54

I now have a pet hate of Linux distros that have a "tweaked" kernel.

Tried to recompile a vanilla kernel on RedHat Enterprise 5 to get a newly supported wireless device working and... The new kernel just doesn't work lol (even though the kernel .config is the same as the original default kernel). Nothing would mount at bootup and then a kernel panic occurred. (ext2 and ext3 were compiled in (not as modules).

So I assume it has something to do with the whole system is set up to require the tweaked kernel. (Perhaps intentional vendor lock in?)

Moral of the story, linux is generally unusable :)

xibo

January 27th, 2011, 00:46

I found I can have fun with gentoo, somehow live with suse, and i decided to not touch ubuntu again unless being paid for it.
Of cause gentoo fun is mostly about having to modify the ebuilds and microtweaking the kernel config&makefile and of cause every-gentoo-user's-favourite CFLAGS.

Recently I'm often using Interix ( Microsoft's POSIX ), which here also uses GNU userland. Does that also count as linux?

gore

January 27th, 2011, 04:15

Software und System Entwicklung :) I know a lot of people who think SUSE is bloated, but I don't care, it's a great distro. I REALLY miss the old ones I was mentioning before; 8.1 and 8.2, I STILL love them. If my older box was up and running I'd probably install them on that. They just worked SO good out of the box.

Now you try and get a Linux distro working that good and it's like "Ach du scheisse! What is this thing doing?!?" because they have totally crazy stuff out of the box. I've heard that Red Hat even shipped a product once, that out of the box, couldn't use certain features....Like, broken by default.... Then again, they DID say they wanted to be like Microsoft.

gour

January 27th, 2011, 13:13

It was probably 4.2, since there was never a SUSE before that. There wasn't a 1.0 or 2, or 2, as it started at 4.2 Mostly because "42" is, of course, the answer ;)

Right...now I remember it was just close before 5.0 release...

gore

January 27th, 2011, 22:36

Yea, apparently they are huge fans of Douglas Adams.

laikexpert

February 16th, 2011, 09:24

Puppy Linux
is extraordinarily small, yet quite full-featured.

Akill

February 16th, 2011, 17:35

Arch ...simple, lightweight, nice wiki, rolling release, bsd init script...

v8skittles

February 21st, 2011, 09:35

Fedora/Ubuntu/Debian/Arch/Mint(I liked the colors)/Slackware/Slax/Puppy/Centos/OpenSUSE. I got really bored after a while..

mauser1891

February 22nd, 2011, 09:39

Various release stages and package selection has been the determining factor in my choice for Debian GNU/Linux. Everybody has their choice on what they want to use, so I will not get into the "mine is better than yours"...

I do have to be thankful of DistroWatch (http://distrowatch.com/) for providing me an introductory article and link to FreeBSD.

So I usually have a triple-bootable system with WinXP Pro (SP3), Debian GNU/Linux, and FreeBSD.

GreenMeanie

March 16th, 2011, 21:17

debian

alie

March 17th, 2011, 08:00

Arch

Zare

March 17th, 2011, 10:25

Debian on "homebrew" servers, RHEL on brand servers that require support, and Arch on desktop.

Every now and then, I google some Linuxism, and when I see the answer, I have a huge WTF?! Sign over my head. Some mechanisms and some solutions in general GNU/Linux environment are damn ugly.

zennybsd

March 17th, 2011, 16:48

Slack/debian/salix/arch/ubuntu for desktop (minimal with i3-wm and without and DM).

Crunchbang/archbang/ubuntu for laptop.

Debian/centos for servers (with tmux/screen).

x-com

March 31st, 2011, 11:53

Only Debian touches my harddisk :e

homemade

April 1st, 2011, 07:50

Debian for servers and Ubuntu for Desktops.

Ever since FreeBSD 8.0, I might be forced to leave FBSD for a more secure future; but I love FBSD.

It has been a 1 year and 3 months since I switch from FreeBSD to Debian. The best decision I have ever made as far as server OS. If you plan to use production servers for hosting different applications for yourself and others, then go to Debian. You shouldn't kill yourself maintaining servers. Don't become a code troll. HaHa.

My first distro was Unix at my local college during the early 2000's. And since then, it feels like I had tried every OS available. I must say try debian as one of your first Os's.

UNIXgod

April 1st, 2011, 19:40

If you plan to use production servers for hosting different applications for yourself and others, then go to Debian. You shouldn't kill yourself maintaining servers. Don't become a code troll. HaHa.

Did you just tell people on a FreeBSD user forum to not use FreeBSD for production servers and shell scripting is a form of trolling? or are you putting down programmers?

How come I have a feeling your just a linux-bigot and not a real admin?

roddierod

April 1st, 2011, 20:11

My first distro was Unix at my local college during the early 2000's.

I take it computer science wasn't your major.

DutchDaemon

April 2nd, 2011, 00:29

Trolls should go hungry, folks, especially on April 1st.

nestux

April 2nd, 2011, 05:45

I use Slackware and Debian ]=)

Still like them but...now my favorite linux distribution is emulators/linux_base-f10/ (http://www.freshports.org/emulators/linux_base-f10/) :e

Prezadent

April 7th, 2011, 00:56

If I was forced to use Linux, I would try CentOS first.

But really asking me what is my favorite Linux is like asking who is my favorite male stripper.

timotheosh

June 8th, 2011, 04:07

I have been using Linux for fifteen years (Systems Administration, and programming web platforms). Started with Slackware version 2. Switched to Debian. Dabbled in Redhat and SuSE. Always returned to Debian.

Redhat committed unforgivable crimes distributing broken gcc and perl packages on RedHat 5,6 and 8 (before RHEL and Fedora releases). That, and broken X distro on version 5.2 has caused me to be leery of any thing labeled "RedHat". I'll even endorse CentOS over RedHat because it does not carry the tainted name. (Yes, irrational behavior on my part!)

I have been happily playing with BSD (the big four - NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, DragonflyBSD) for a year now. I like BSD more than Solaris 7,8, or 9 (forget 10, its not even UNIX anymore!)

For Linux, Ubuntu for the desktop (if you stick with LTS releases only, it is almost Debian), Debian or CentOS for server.

gore

June 8th, 2011, 23:57

I have a few questions for you about some of your post :

Redhat committed unforgivable crimes distributing broken gcc and perl packages on RedHat 5,6 and 8 (before RHEL and Fedora releases). That, and broken X distro on version 5.2 has caused me to be leery of any thing labeled "RedHat". I'll even endorse CentOS over RedHat because it does not carry the tainted name. (Yes, irrational behavior on my part!)

I've heard about this before but I don't know much about it. I remember reading about it. I was reading something or other online one day, and I'm not a fan of RedHat at all, and I was looking up something and found this article that talked about Red Hat shipping with broken products.

They didn't really go into much detail about it so I don't know much about what happened, and since I'm no fan of theirs anyway, I don't have a clue what happened. I wasn't using RedHat other than to try it out once or twice before deciding I didn't like it.

Do you have any details? I'm wondering more or less what happened, and WTF they were thinking. I mean if a Company like RedHat made a screw up that's one thing, but shipping an Operating System where the Compiler AND Perl are both broken, that's pretty high up there. I mean this isn't a simple mistake where they shipped and forgot to add something or they maybe had a last minute change that broke ONE application, this is like REALLY bad because then you can't compile, and Perl, as far as I know, you need that for certain other things to work in Red Hat, so that's a HUGE screw up.

Do you have any details on this? Like what happened or how they fixed it?

I like BSD more than Solaris 7,8, or 9 (forget 10, its not even UNIX anymore!)

What do you mean by 10 isn't Unix? Again, I don't really have much experience in Solaris, so I don't know much on that aspect. I've only got PC hardware, and I only have really the Solaris for X86 that was shipped out a few years ago.

timotheosh

June 9th, 2011, 02:59

Hi gore,

I don't remember all the details now. I can tell you that RedHat released a forked version of gcc (it was forked during version 2.95) and called it gcc 2.96. If you go to the gnu archives, you'll see, there is no version 2.96 of gcc. gcc 3.0 came after 2.95, a significant rewrite. I don't remember the version of Redhat that shipped with this broken gcc.

Perl was most definitely broken in RedHat 8. The fix, was to go and download the sources yourself and recompile.

I used to have a workstation at work with Redhat 5.2 installed on it. Every night, I would log out of that system, to the xdm screen, and go home. The next morning the system would be completely locked up, and I would have to reboot.

Every Redhat system I installed back then, including Redhat 5, 6, 7, and 8, I would have to tweak after the install to get everything running properly. If I installed Debian stable or Debian testing, everything would just work, with no issues.

Now to be fair, Redhat has matured into a fine product. But I still occasionally run into some nuance they added that they thought would add value to their product, and would more often than not, just be in the way.

Later, RedHat's mistakes were being done on Fedora, and even that is far more stable than it used to be. Debian has just always been very consistent. There are worse distributions, than RedHat, today.

CentOS is a carbon copy of Redhat Enterprise Server, but you get it free. People use it, so they can transfer to Redhat to get support. I say why bother. Centos has commercial support, and it will cost less and be of equal or higher quality than Redhat.

Technically, Solaris 10 (and 11) is still UNIX. But, they have done away with some POSIX standards on the system. They have totally revamped the init system (done away with inittab). I presume, much of these changes were in line with Sun's goal of making Solaris the ultimate Java platform.

I worked with Solaris 2.6, 7, 8, and 9, and have grown very fond of Solaris. My first impressions of Solaris 10 were all bad. Mainly because they had switched around enough stuff in the shell to where I no longer recognized the system.

If you need the iron, Solaris is still solid. However, with Oracle being anal about patches, it is a total waste on intel/AMD platforms. If you are not going to buy the Sparc servers, stick with Linux or BSD.

Something I have been doing recently with Debian, is use the NetBSD pkgsrc system on it. When Debian stable is only getting released once every two years, it is an effective way to keep up with the jones'

gore

June 9th, 2011, 06:29

Hey,

First off, thank you for taking the time to reply to all that stuff I asked about, I was trying to remember exactly what happened because, well, I'd read about it, once, but it was a really long time ago, so I couldn't for the life of me remember what had happened. So thanks very much for replying to everything:

Hi gore,

I don't remember all the details now. I can tell you that RedHat released a forked version of gcc (it was forked during version 2.95) and called it gcc 2.96. If you go to the gnu archives, you'll see, there is no version 2.96 of gcc. gcc 3.0 came after 2.95, a significant rewrite. I don't remember the version of Redhat that shipped with this broken gcc.

Wow.... That's actually incredibly shoddy of them to say the least. Lol I can't Believe they actually did that!

Perl was most definitely broken in RedHat 8. The fix, was to go and download the sources yourself and recompile.

OK now this is just priceless! I remember a while back I was reading an online article about Red Hat, and they were getting some crap from people because a very high ranking person in the company (Might have been the CEO actually) had said that red Hat wanted to be like Microsoft, and they were basically trying to down play it into "Well Microsoft is very successful and we'd like to be that successful! That's what it meant!" or something to that line.

Shipping a totally broken Perl.... And the fix being "Well download it yourself and fix it yourself" I think they've hit their goal of being like Microsoft lol!

I remember when I took Linux+ in college, the book you had to buy for the coarse, was one that came with two CDs of Red Hat 7.x something. I think 7.2 but I'm not sure since I didn't ever use it. But I do remember that this was literally less than 8 years ago, and even THEN that was out dated as crap.

Thankfully the teacher who did the class, was a good guy and actually knew what he was doing, and he allowed everyone to use something else. Like he even took the time to burn CDs for people who wanted to try something else but didn't have access to a high speed net connection. So he'd let everyone pick what distro they wanted, and then, he would let them download it at school, and then got a portable CD Burner to make the Discs for everyone.

I thought that was cool of him to say the least. At the time I took that class, I was using SUSE 8.2 I think... Anyway, I used SUSE on my Laptop, and then at home, I had a decent selection of stuff; I had SUSE Linux on a desktop, and then I had another with Slackware and FreeBSD, and then I had Ubuntu I tried ONCE.

I'm a little bit picky when it comes to Operating Systems, but, in my defense, I'll actually try them out before I bash them. I mean, I don't like Red Hat at all, but I did try it out first. In fact, when I bought "Linux for Dummies" I got Red Hat 6.1 or something with it, and I did try installing it even though it didn't work on my hardware very well at all, and actually failed during the MBR writing. Which was BAD lol.

But I then tried out Red Hat again for 9. I didn't have THAT many complaints with Red Hat 9, because for the most part, using it as a VERY minimal Desktop, it was kind of OK. I mean I didn't set up any services on it, but just using it very carefully for some basic desktop stuff, it was OK for that.

I mean, basically, I'd install KDE and Gnome, and generally use KDE, and then have Gaim (Which is now Pidgin) installed, and XMMS to listen to music, and some text editors and a web browser, and that was OK.

I didn't ever really keep it long though. I mean after 2 months I just said the heck with it and formatted the drive.

I don't like Gentoo either. Not sure why, I mean, I like the overall look of it, but the whole "Hey why not install EVERYTHING from sources in a manner that makes you wonder why you didn't just pick BSD which does this 10,000 times better and faster?" all that usually annoyed me lol. I mean I know they now have better versions, and you don't need to use the early stage ones, but I just personally don't like the installer.

Now, to be fair, being a Mod for AntiOnline.com, I do get a LOT of questions when it comes to the Operating System forum there, and when people ask, I generally won't talk about Gentoo, or Red Hat, or any other distro I flat out don't like.

I don't talk about them because I don't think it's right for me to make my opinion a decision for someone else. I mean, what if me saying it's crap means they don't use it, and then, they don't find one they truly like? So I just won't talk about the ones I don't like.

The few times I HAVE talked about those, I generally will say at the very least "Hey, I don't like this one, but that doesn't mean you won't. Distros work for different people for different reasons, and if you have a certain personality, you may well be a perfect match for this one" so that way I'm at least not trying to throw my opinion down someone's throat and force it on them.

I do the same with BSD too. I don't like OpenBSD, and I just don't talk about it. I haven't ever liked OpenBSD really. Theo is a doo doo head and annoying, and the OS isn't anything special, and I've always liked FreeBSD the most. That's why I'm here lol. FreeBSD has been my top BSD pick since... Well, since I got into Unix. Even wayyyyyy back when I got my very first PC; I'd never used a Computer much, and knew nothing about them, and when I got into it more, I started learning about different OSs, like Linux, and BSD, and I bought the "BSD PowerPak" which came with FreeBSD 4.0, and The Complete FreeBSD third edition, and I liked it a lot! I stick with FreeBSD, even though I do have NetBSD somewhere on CD, I just don't use it, like ever.

And I have PC-BSD, DesktopBSD, Freesbie, and the one from UnixPunx, which I liked a lot.

I used to have a workstation at work with Redhat 5.2 installed on it. Every night, I would log out of that system, to the xdm screen, and go home. The next morning the system would be completely locked up, and I would have to reboot.

Yea RedHat is weird like that. I mean, you'd think that any given Linux distro would work close to the same, considering the Kernel and all the applications are basically the same except for some versions using different versions and customized apps, but Red Hat seems weird in that it doesn't seem to be as stable as just about anything.

I remember once a few years ago, well, actually a number of years ago.... Anyway, a guy was doing some testing, and reporting his findings on one of the SUSE Mailing Lists, and, his test was taking two machines that were exactly the same; The Hardware was identical, and everything was the same. He then installed Red Hat on one, and SUSE on the other. Then he set up a little web Server, and then used more machines to give them load balancing and all that, and he then started generating Traffic on them.

He said that it was strange, because the SUSE machine almost never used the load Balancing machines at all, and out performed Red Hat by almost double. I always liked that because it made Red Hat look bad and SUSE look good lol.

Every Redhat system I installed back then, including Redhat 5, 6, 7, and 8, I would have to tweak after the install to get everything running properly. If I installed Debian stable or Debian testing, everything would just work, with no issues.

I've had similar happen; Debian works very well for me too. I've liked it quite a bit actually. One of my machines that I used quite often, was a PC with two hard drives in it, and it dual booted FreeBSD and Debian. I totally loved that machine, and as soon as I get the Power Supply replaced in it, I'll probably go back to Debian and BSD on it.

Now to be fair, Redhat has matured into a fine product. But I still occasionally run into some nuance they added that they thought would add value to their product, and would more often than not, just be in the way.

I personally haven't used Red Hat since 9. And Fedora... I did download Fedora Core 1, and I think I stopped not long after that for a long time. I grabbed a new release of it like a year or two ago, but I don't actually remember which version it was, and I didn't install it on anything. I wasn't really a fan of it.

Later, RedHat's mistakes were being done on Fedora, and even that is far more stable than it used to be. Debian has just always been very consistent. There are worse distributions, than RedHat, today.

Yea, I know of a few that I wouldn't use either way. I mean Red Hat isn't great, but there is worse out there.

Technically, Solaris 10 (and 11) is still UNIX. But, they have done away with some POSIX standards on the system. They have totally revamped the init system (done away with inittab). I presume, much of these changes were in line with Sun's goal of making Solaris the ultimate Java platform.

I didn't know about this at all! That just seems weird to me. I didn't like when Ubuntu did away with the usual Root Account, and so changes like this, are something I don't think is cool at all. I mean I don't pretend my opinion matters that much, but I for sure don't like that.

If you need the iron, Solaris is still solid. However, with Oracle being anal about patches, it is a total waste on intel/AMD platforms. If you are not going to buy the Sparc servers, stick with Linux or BSD.

I'm very partial to SGI. They make my dream machines. If I had like, no worries about budget or cost, I'd go with SGI everything heh.

sossego

June 9th, 2011, 08:16

If you are not going to buy the Sparc servers, stick with Linux or BSD.

OpenBSD and FreeBSD run quite well on SPARC64 systems.

gore

June 9th, 2011, 08:56

I think he meant that the non Sun Hardware isn't the best option for running Solaris.

timotheosh

June 9th, 2011, 22:33

I think he meant that the non Sun Hardware isn't the best option for running Solaris.

Yes, that is what I meant. But after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on new Sun equipment, I am not going to blow it away to install another OS.

However, if I were to buy a Sparc pizza box off Ebay, BSD is going on it.

Ubuntu did not get rid of the root account.
sudo passwd root
is all you need to activate root. A minor inconvenience, for better desktop security. The way Ubuntu handles root, is one of the reasons I highly recommend it to the "un-initiated".
I use sudo su - on every *nix system I work on anyways. The way Ubuntu does things does not interrupt my flow at all.

Gentoo made a lot of sense back in the day when intel had released their Pentium MMX. There were mighty good performance reasons for recompiling all your i386 binaries to take advantage of the expanded instruction set. Now that almost every distro comes with pre-compiled i686 binaries, there are not many good reasons to do that any more. In spite of this, I tried a Gentoo install from scratch four years ago. Could not get it to stage3 over a single weekend, and then abandoned the project. That was the end of that experiment, and I never have been interested enough to go back.

What year did you take Linux+ in college? I taught that certification class six years ago. But not at a college, I did it for Avaya. We used Fedora Core 2 CD's which worked well enough at the time.

UNIXgod

June 9th, 2011, 23:45

Gentoo made a lot of sense back in the day when intel had released their Pentium MMX. There were mighty good performance reasons for recompiling all your i386 binaries to take advantage of the expanded instruction set. Now that almost every distro comes with pre-compiled i686 binaries, there are not many good reasons to do that any more. In spite of this, I tried a Gentoo install from scratch four years ago. Could not get it to stage3 over a single weekend, and then abandoned the project. That was the end of that experiment, and I never have been interested enough to go back.

If you ever felt the need to reevaluate Gentoo again look into Funtoo. It's DRobbin's effort to take back his own project. Also for the most part everything seems to work. I, like yourself, had issues with Gentoo years ago.

sossego

June 10th, 2011, 10:32

Yes, that is what I meant. But after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on new Sun equipment, I am not going to blow it away to install another OS.

However, if I were to buy a Sparc pizza box off Ebay, BSD is going on it.

I bought two Sun Blade 1000 workstations off of ebay used. One had 512M RAM, two UltraSPARC III CPUs. The other came with 8G RAM and a single UltraSPARC III CPU. I had to buy the drives separately. Both have a Mach64 video card, no Sun type.

I don't have a "pizza box" nor can I afford any new sparc64 system.

Oh, FreeBSD/SPARC64 will not work on the SPARC (32) systems. OpenBSD and NetBSD have support for those systems.

knk

June 11th, 2011, 00:10

From my limited experience, Ubuntu is such a nightmare in a server environment. Anyone who used Ubuntu (or Debian, there isn't really a big difference, is there) probably knows what I mean. Outdated packages. With Ubuntu you end up with "importing" one or the other "ppa" from launchpad (most probably several).

I don't know how up to date SuSE packages are; and I'm afraid to look (rpm based distributions are offlimits at my work place ...). But if they were, I would use SuSE in a heart beat. Their security team is quite amazing, judging from CVE's that can be attributed to them.

Plus there was this whole OpenSSL fiasco. I'm not sure if Ubuntu was affected. But Debian isn't an option anymore. Not ever. Even now, how would you sell that to your boss? You can't ... (and yet, Ubuntu is "the way to go" at my job ... drives my crazy).

But for use at home, Ubuntu is quiet nice. Boots fast, works out of the box. Whats not to like - except that it's not FreeBSD, of course.

pkubaj

June 11th, 2011, 14:22

rusty

June 11th, 2011, 17:15

Can someone clarify what similarities Arch and FreeBSD share?

gore

June 11th, 2011, 22:14

Hey all,

Wow, got a lot of replies to answer huh?

OK, I'll start by quoting what I'm talking about, so that way you guys can actually see what I'm responding too, because I'd like to bring up a few things on like at least 3 of the posts made, so I'll quote first to make it more readable :)

Yes, that is what I meant. But after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on new Sun equipment, I am not going to blow it away to install another OS.

Yea O figured that was what you meant :) I can't blame you heh, if I'd spent THAT much money on ALL that stuff.... I'd be hard pressed to just format the drives to put basically anything else on there.

Don't get me wrong; I use FreeBSD and Linux on almost every machine I have... We currently have 11 Computers here, and that's mostly because both my Wife and I are Computer Science Majors, and, in terms of what we like, we both like very similar things; My Wife has more experience in Programming than I do, and She's also stronger in Hardware, where as I'm stronger in Operating Systems in general (I can go into lots of boring crap about more of them) and I also have a stronger BSD skill set, and I'm stronger in Security. Other than that, we have very similar skills. So our skill set compliments each other's skills very well I think.

We both don't like Ubuntu for multiple reasons, and we both like Slackware. My Wife also has watched "20 Years of Berkeley Unix" on DVD with me a hundred times or so, and we're both huge fans of M Kirk McKusick.

We both have a Laptop, and mine currently runs FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE, and my Wife's Laptop currently has Windows XP I think, because my Mom's Compute had died a while back, so, we installed Windows XP on my Wife's Laptop so my Mom could use it for work while Her new machine was being sent.

Then, there is the VERY first Computer I ever bought. It came with 128 MBs of RAM and a 43 GB HD. I upgraded the RAM to 384 MBs, and added a second HD in it so it has close to 200 GBs of Disk in it now, and since the Video card in it has been dying on me for a long time, I haven't run a GUI on that thing in a long time. I ended up installing Slackware 12.0 on it, and setting up VSFTPd, and then, I decided instead of tossing the machine, I could just use it as my FTP Server.

I have another Desktop machine too, which is a Compaq Presario 6000 with an ADM Athlon XP 2600+ (A small Frying Pan with a Heat sink if you ask me) and that is running FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE as well.

So that box has Slackware Linux and is basically an FTP Server. We use it to back up files to it, and then from there, I have a USB External HD that is 80 GBs I can put the most important stuff on, and also a Thumb Drive, and a ZIP Drive I hook up and put more stuff on ZIP Disks.

It's the last time I had to reboot, which was a hardware issue, the Video Card finally went on me, but it still runs, so I just log in over SSH to do Admin tasks. Then there is this machine, which was my Christmas Present the year before last; It's got 4 GBs of RAM, an ATI video card, and an Intel Duo Core 2 Processor. It dual boots Slackware and Windows 7. I use it mainly for games that I actually play, like League of Legends, and FPS games from id Software, and Unreal Tournament (all of them) and the Unreal Series, and a few other things. Basically, Wintendo with Opera for Browsing and SOME Email. I rarely use Windows for Email because I'm picky.

My Mom's old Gateway Essentials recently died on me, but that was running FreeBSD 8.0 and Slackware. It's a POS Celeron Processor @ 433 MHz, and 192 MBs of RAM. My Medion PC also died on me recently which had two HDs, and had Debian Linux and FreeBSD on it too.

My Wife's main Desktop has Windows 7 on it, and then the other two desktops She has are Linux and Windows.

If I had $100,000.00 to blow on a machine, I'd buy an SGI. I'd probably have to buy an old one though, since I'd want IRIX on it. I've never gotten to use it before, and the other option seems to be Linux. I can run Linux on PC hardware, so I'd rather buy a slightly older SGI and get to use IRIX. I do admit that after getting some SGI Workstations and Servers I WOULD buy an Alpha Workstation too. I've had a chance to look at those a little, and though I've never gotten to use one, they look amazing. I'd prefer one of those running Tru64 Unix.

Wow, sorry about that wall of text!

However, if I were to buy a Sparc pizza box off Ebay, BSD is going on it.

My Wife LOVES Sun. It's a shame Oracle seems intent on destroying what Bill Joy has done to make great machines. I remember reading about Oracle buying out Sun, and then seeing what they've been doing. All I can say when I think of that, si that basically; "The Sun has Set".

Ubuntu did not get rid of the root account.
$ sudo passwd root
is all you need to activate root. A minor inconvenience, for better desktop security. The way Ubuntu handles root, is one of the reasons I highly recommend it to the "un-initiated".
I use $ sudo su -
on every *nix system I work on anyways. The way Ubuntu does things does not interrupt my flow at all.

Yea, I know that, I should have clarified what I meant about that a little better, but the last few weeks have been REALLY long for me, and I haven't been sleeping as much, so basically, I know that Ubuntu does have a root account, and that it's set up that way for a reason, I just meant that I don't like the way they did it, that was all.

What year did you take Linux+ in college? I taught that certification class six years ago. But not at a college, I did it for Avaya. We used Fedora Core 2 CD's which worked well enough at the time.

Honestly, I don't remember the exact year I took the class, but I know it was probably 7 years ago. I want to say it was around 2004, but I could be off. I rarely had any issues with the class other than the fact that I was kind of shocked to see so many people who didn't know a thing about it being in there. I mean to be Honest, I was sort of waiting for two of the people in the class to ask where the Start Menu was. There were two people in my class who just seemed totally lost, and my teacher had to spend a LOT of time with them, so normally, if anyone else had an issue they needed help with, I normally would step in and take care of it.

My Teacher for that class was the guy who was in charge of all the IT / tech related courses, and he was and is, a really good guy. We still talk to this day, and see each other now and then at a gaming store. He likes to use me in examples when he does the Security + class. I consider us friends. He actually gave me more than 100% in the class because not only did I do all the work and get straight "As", I also got extra credit a lot for helping him out in class.

He more or less gave me the extra credit when I was helping him out. I mean, I did a lot of student help in the class as I was saying, where I'd help out everyone who had their hand up while he was stuck working with the two people who knew nothing, and he saw me helping out a lot. So basically, yea, he enjoyed having me in class lol.

I don't know how up to date SuSE packages are; and I'm afraid to look (rpm based distributions are offlimits at my work place ...). But if they were, I would use SuSE in a heart beat. Their security team is quite amazing, judging from CVE's that can be attributed to them.

SUSE is very up to date. I'm one of the biggest SUSE fan boys you'll probably ever meet. I can say quite a lot of good about them. I DO miss the old SuSE Linux 8.1 and 8.2 Professional Distributions, as they were incredibly well done, well thought out and they just worked so well, and when I heard Novell was buying them, I was pretty worried considering it was my favorite all purpose OS.

SUSE has very well updated software, and Marcus Meissner, the head of SUSE Security (Or at least he was the last time I checked anyway) is an awesome guy. I remember one time, I had SUSE Linux running on my main desktop, and the Nvidia Video Card I was using in that machine, was supported by the Nvidia Driver, so I had actual 3D and all that, and, well, one day, I did a Kernel Upgrade because there was a new Security Patch.

After doing the upgrade, I knew I had to drop down to run level 3 (Just Text, no GUI) to re-install the Driver, and there was some weird issue. I happened to know Marcus was on IRC at the time, and I sent him a PM on IRC asking him a few questions, and telling him what happened. He basically asked me what hardware I had in the machine, which Video Card it was, and which drive I was using from Nvidia, and then said in the Room he was in on IRC that he was leaving for work a little early to fix something. He sent me a message saying he would take care of it, and a few hours later, I saw a brand new patch for the Kernel to "Address an issue with certain video cards" and him telling me he fixed it.

The guy literally left for work early, and fixed MY HARDWARE ISSUE for me, and had it done within a few hours. I got the new driver, and everything worked fine again. So yea, needless to say, I was impressed.

timotheosh

June 12th, 2011, 03:06

I think you're wrong regarding the GCC part. I've searched for it and found this: http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-2.96.html So it seems 2.96 is a development snapshot of GCC 3.0, incompatible with GCC 2.95 and 3.0. It's not a fork.

Yes, I remember, now. There was a "branched" version of GCC, called egcs. This was being used in the "2.96". It was forked for the c++ portion, mainly for greater ISO compliance. The gcc team made this a seperate project, and released this compiler as the egcs compiler (http://gcc.gnu.org/egcs-1.1/), so technically was a fork, until it was merged back in in gcc 3.0.

Other distros packaged this as the egcs compiler, only RedHat packaged it as the gcc-2.96 compiler, which was very misleading.

My Wife LOVES Sun. It's a shame Oracle seems intent on destroying what Bill Joy has done to make great machines. I remember reading about Oracle buying out Sun, and then seeing what they've been doing. All I can say when I think of that, si that basically; "The Sun has Set".

The "Sun was setting" as Linux took more and more of the market share in the server room. Sun hardware was like a lot of the classic cars. Built to outlast its owners. With the rate of replacing old hardware with new, Sun's sales model was not fitting the market. Cheaper hardware, and cheaper software replaced steady and stalwart.

I had begun using SuSE for the Desktop back when 6.4 was released and loved it. I never had to tweak anything to get it running. I even bought the boxed editions of every release until 8.2. I found it cumbersome to use as a server over time. SuSE for the desktop, but using it as a server is like trying to use Fedora as a server (by contrast, though, at least SuSE provides security backports for two years after an OpenSuSE release).

freesbies

June 20th, 2011, 00:29

I use Debian 6.0.1 on old computer that has 128 MB RAM and runs smoothly with Openbox and Opera. I'm running on it right now. Debian is really stable and light.

gore

July 1st, 2011, 08:28

I personally stayed with SUSE longer, as I always loved it, though I do miss the older ones. They just seemed to be the best product.

I also miss SUSE's firewall, and the other stuff they made back then. Novell REALLY should have kept that stuff going. It's a shame they didn't. I still have my catalog somewhere here where it shows the other products they made back then.

August 10th, 2011, 15:50

Slackware

d_mon

August 10th, 2011, 18:26

Debian is really light

more than slitaz i do not think so!

Which is your Favourite Linux?

Gentoo...far from 'others' unix/linux

fonz

August 10th, 2011, 21:29

more than slitaz i do not think so!
He said it was light, not necessarily the lightest. I remember having told you before that not everything in life is a competition.

Gentoo...far from 'others' unix/linux
As far as I can tell Slackware, Gentoo and ArchLinux appear to be the most popular (or tolerable, as the case may be) among BSD people. However, I do remember that when I first got started with Linux in the mid '90s, I found RedHat very friendly for beginners.

Fonz (just for what it's worth)

Bellum

August 27th, 2011, 21:54

Couldn't run FreeBSD on my laptop, so I installed Arch. I love it. It's very solid. There are a few annoyances, though. On FreeBSD, /home is by default a link to /usr/home and all my software is installed on the /usr partition. This method shall be henceforth known as "the common sense solution". /usr is its own partition and everything is right with the world. With the Arch setup, software is installed on the / partition. Which I suppose makes sense considering what's haphazardly tossed there. Also, I'm swimming in a sea of GNU and it's a very scary place.

Still, perhaps not quite as scary as FreeBSD's package manager/ports tree. That's one big thing I wont miss.

d_mon

August 28th, 2011, 00:36

Arch

Arch rocks man!

ramonovski

August 28th, 2011, 09:44

Which is your Favourite Linux?

Binary-based: Archlinux
Source-based: Gentoo

LateNiteTV

August 29th, 2011, 21:35

Bellum

August 30th, 2011, 08:32

Well, to get up-to-date software (for instance, Firefox 6), I had to go through ports. Actually, I installed quite a bit of software through ports, and upgrading ports is a complicated, error prone process. I remember following the UPDATING instructions to the letter, failing, and ultimately having to delete everything and start fresh.

Not to mention, I never quite knew what options to take during compilation. :/

jb_fvwm2

August 30th, 2011, 18:04

You'd probably be served with the command,
#example...
portmaster -d -B -P -i (category/port) sysutils/tmux x11-servers/xorg-server etc etc, as it has seemed to streamline most every upgrade except those mentioned in UPDATING. As far as options during compilation, usually the defaults, give or take a few, if they compile, suffice for the usage of the port (exceptions of course. )

from_mars

August 31st, 2011, 02:55

I like Arch Linux, but there is no portsnap and it scared to updates.

b7j0c

August 31st, 2011, 05:41

although i use arch where i have to use linux, it isn't a good choice for environments that demand stability. its the only linux i have used in the last few years that will periodically explode after a package update...although its getting better.

i doubt many freebsd users would recommend ubuntu, but i think it has its place

da1

August 31st, 2011, 07:13

i doubt many freebsd users would recommend ubuntu, but i think it has its place

I consider Ubuntu to be ok for non-technical-orientated people (like my boss for instance) but like you said, I wouldn't recommend it. Centos is my weapon of choice if I must use Linux (although I do have a mental problem using yum and rpm).

d_mon

August 31st, 2011, 16:39

there is no portsnap and it scared to updates.

You are TOTALLY absolutly wrong my friend!

and for "flash" reasons i'm going to quit bsd world[installed gnash and never could it see anything] it is annoying that matter of flash!

while they do not see that point[flash] u people of BSD will remain at idle on OS's world!

bye return to arch(downloading 57%)...

fonz

August 31st, 2011, 16:54

for "flash" reasons i'm going to quit bsd world[installed gnash and never could it see anything] it is annoying that matter of flash!

You are totally, absolutely wrong. Flash works perfectly fine on recent versions of FreeBSD.

Fonz

Maredelamer

August 31st, 2011, 18:20

*blinks confused* People like flash?

But as for the topic, erm, I've only used RH5 then two iterations of Mandrake (7.1 being the last as I recall) in that order before I ended up with FreeBSD 5 and I've yet to have any desire for any other OS. So, my favourite linux would have to be a BSD I am afraid.

sT4k3

August 31st, 2011, 18:38

At work I use RHEL and Debian Linux and some servers work under FreeBSD

Oxyd

August 31st, 2011, 18:53

while they do not see that point[flash] u people of BSD will remain at idle on OS's world!

Flash is a pain to install right, but once you get it working, it works about as well as Flash ever worked.

Anyway -- another +1 for Arch from me.

UNIXgod

August 31st, 2011, 18:54

*blinks confused* People like flash?

Some people enjoy surfing the internet. Flash is a byproduct of that need.

expl

August 31st, 2011, 20:11

Some people enjoy surfing the internet. Flash is a byproduct of that need.

With advances in javascript engines (performance, multithreading, canvas, high performance/cross browser frameworks) and incorporation of HTML5&CSS3, most serious design companies are cleverly shifting away from Flash and similar technologies that are suffering from many design flaws and at same time cost a lot in licenses. In next couple of years (when most people have modern browsers) I do not see any big web projects still relying on flash or anything else based on binary plug-ins (which is terrible invention of the 90s).

fonz

August 31st, 2011, 20:28

With advances in javascript engines [snip] and incorporation of HTML5&CSS3, most serious design companies are cleverly shifting away from Flash and similar technologies
True, but this is a gradual process. I've never liked Flash but I still see it a whole lot. The problem with JavaScript btw is that many people have it disabled.

Fonz

fonz

August 31st, 2011, 20:32

Flash is a pain to install right
For what it's worth: maybe it's just me but although installing Flash used to be a royal pita indeed, especially with something other than Netscape/Firefox, I think there has been significant improvement lately.

Fonz

d_mon

August 31st, 2011, 21:41

I like Arch

You like Arch...I "adore" Arch! �e

DutchDaemon

September 1st, 2011, 01:03

I thought you 'quit the BSD world'?

dbsd

September 4th, 2011, 05:50

You are totally, absolutely wrong. Flash works perfectly fine on recent versions of FreeBSD.

But you install separate X libs and GTK...it's like double versions for FreeBSD and the Linuxulator. Then there's the whole darn Fedora base, and all the other F10 stuff. Seems like a real buzzkill for 'minimalism'. Can I install the whole Linux kernel too? I got rid of it all, and turned off the Linux support. It seemed super silly. I can live without it. At least until there's a native one (probably never). :(

I considered going to Arch, but why? Learn a whole new system for a plugin? I'm too comfortable with FreeBSD now. Everything else on my laptop works perfect. Flash drains my battery super fast, and I get most distracted by YouTube videos anyway.

JuniperSprouts

September 4th, 2011, 08:30

BackTrack

Honorable mention:
Tiny Core Linux
Slackware
Puppy OS

jb_fvwm2

September 4th, 2011, 19:04

One can use flash without the linux layer... (seamonkey and some other port... my other post somewhere should mention it. Principally just for youtube though).
Also multimedia/gxine, multimedia/xine for local flv avi etc.

vermaden

September 5th, 2011, 06:28

About Arch ... they made several really bad decisions and are losing their users now a lot:
http://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/jy2l0/how_i_learned_to_stop_worrying_and_love_the_gentoo/

Maredelamer

September 5th, 2011, 12:22

Just to mention this as another data point, multimedia/vlc will play (local) flv files as well.

vermaden

September 5th, 2011, 12:43

Just to mention this as another data point, multimedia/vlc will play (local) flv files as well.

Same as mplayer (and many other players), FLV is just a codec, what Your point? :)

drhowarddrfine

September 5th, 2011, 14:07

while they do not see that point[flash] u people of BSD will remain at idle on OS's world!

Um. Flash is a web/browser thing, not an operating system thing. It's also an Adobe thing. It's not BSD's fault if Adobe won't cooperate with it.

Maredelamer

September 5th, 2011, 14:41

Same as mplayer (and many other players), FLV is just a codec, what Your point? :)

Yupper, I was just expounding on the two mentioned by jb_fvwm2.

hitest

October 8th, 2011, 17:02

Updated reply.
I run FreeBSD 9.0 Beta 3. My favourite version of Linux is Slackware. Arch is nice, but, it is too unstable for day to day use ( I run Arch in a VM).

kpedersen

October 8th, 2011, 17:15

All Linux OSes completely tie the user down to the distro's package server, which is probably due to large company influences such as RedHat who want to "be in control" of their users and customers. For this reason, Linux pisses me off.

Having said that, my favorite Linux is Fedora Core 3&4... because it had a nice background.
The RedHat EL5 theme looks pretty nifty and so does the beta version of RHEL6, but unfortunately the release version of RHEL6 looks crap with it's wannabe Vista black theme.

hitest

October 8th, 2011, 17:28

All Linux OSes completely tie the user down to the distro's package server, which is probably due to large company influences such as RedHat who want to "be in control" of their users and customers. For this reason, Linux pisses me off.

That is true up to a point. The Slackware package managers pkgtool and slackpkg offer a high degree of control for the user. All configuration steps done on a Slackware station are done with a text editor. Slackware is very Unix-like in set-up and use. You can set-up a Slackware box exactly the way you want it.

kpedersen

October 8th, 2011, 18:00

Both those package managers still rely on the central server (either 3rd party or official) to work.

"Real" ports systems (such as FreeBSD ports) obtain the source files directly from the upstream vendor so you don't need to rely on a distro vendor to not screw up.

"Fake" ports systems (such as Arch pkgbuild) can just about make a package, but still need to get the dependencies from Arch's servers (which is pretty half-assed and useless IMO lol).

Since upstream vendors rarely provide binaries for *nix, a ports collection is the next best thing to the standalone packages for Windows and MacOSX.

Edit:
Being tied to an external server (online activation server) is the reason I left Windows in the first place... So you could say that I have a bit of a hangup ;)

hitest

October 8th, 2011, 19:34

"Real" ports systems (such as FreeBSD ports) obtain the source files directly from the upstream vendor so you don't need to rely on a distro vendor to not screw up.

Slackware does not modify the upstream source from the vender, the source is provided as is (the source is put into the Slackware package format...that is the only modification). Slackware provides vanilla source code.

Carpetsmoker

October 8th, 2011, 20:40

FreeBSD. Sometimes OpenBSD :)

kpedersen

October 8th, 2011, 21:08

Slackware does not modify the upstream source from the vender, the source is provided as is (the source is put into the Slackware package format...that is the only modification). Slackware provides vanilla source code.

This isn't quite what I meant.

Basically, when you add new software using Slackware's native package system, where does it download software from? It doesn't download it from upstream, it fetches it from slackware, one of it's mirrors or a third party site. If all of these go down (i.e in 5 years) then you are pretty much stuffed.
Afterall, I don't even think the Apple appstore will be around in 5 years.. It will have evolved into the next biggest gimmick.

Bellum

October 9th, 2011, 22:09

You aren't forced to use the package managers, but I'm not sure why you wouldn't. At least, not for a desktop computer. I can see how something like Arch Linux would not be ideal for a server.

As for sites going down, yeah it happens. It's only an issue if Arch Linux itself no longer exists and there is nobody maintaining the repositories. Which could happen, in which case you'll be stuck doing everything manually or switching distributions.

hitest

October 9th, 2011, 23:58

This isn't quite what I meant.

Basically, when you add new software using Slackware's native package system, where does it download software from? It doesn't download it from upstream, it fetches it from slackware, one of it's mirrors or a third party site. If all of these go down (i.e in 5 years) then you are pretty much stuffed.

Granted. But any distro can go belly up and you will be pretty much hosed if the mirrors go south. There are many mirrors for Slackware.

gore

October 12th, 2011, 18:54

I'm gonna go ahead and chime in here real quick. I already said my favorite Linux distros, but this Package Manager stuff is something I have an interest in, so with the last page or so being almost all that, I read through them.

First, Slackware and BSD are actually pretty similar. In fact, if you pay for the actual FreeBSD and Slackware CD or DVD sets, the packaging is even almost identical.

Years ago when 6.0 was the newest RELEASE, I had been in college for Computer Science, and I had gotten my check from the school I was going to, to help pay for things I needed. Well, that particular year, I'd been on Honor Roll, and I got a pretty good sized check, and I decided I'd use a good chunk of it, to catch up on my BSD stuff, so I started looking around for what I wanted. I went to the FreeBSD Mall, and the Slackware store.

I ordered basically everything from the FreeBSD Mall; When I got a phone call for a Confirmation on some info, I remember the girl asking exactly what I ordered, and when I finished telling her, she was pretty shocked at how much money I'd spent. I basically ordered one of everything I could.

I got EVERY book they sold except for The Complete FreeBSD 3rd Edition because I already owned that one, and instead got the O'Reilly version, and then The FreeBSD Handbook, both the second Edition, and both books from third, "Teach Yourself FreeBSD in 24 hours", a FreeBSD 6.0 CD set, which I ended up getting two of those because a book came with the first disc of it as well, so I kept both of the CDs, and then I also got the FreeBSD Mouse pad, which, even though this was a while ago, is what I'm using right now, and the Stickers I got a bunch of, and the Case plates, and the Tee Shirt I'd wanted, and Boxers, everything. And of course; "20 Years of Berkeley Unix" on DVD!!!! (I HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY Recommend ANYONE here, to order this. It's a talk by Marshall Kirk McKusick, who to me, is a Legend, and incredibly funny too. I have watched this thing probably 400 times or more, and I still love it, order it !! You can get it from his web site, but back then I saw it on the BSD Mall site).

That's not all I ordered, but it gives you an idea of how big of an order it was lol. I even spent the extra to over night it. Then, I went to the Slackware store, got the second Edition of Slackware Essentials, the 4 CD set of.... I can't remember if that was 10 or 10.2, but one of them; And then I got the Slackware basic tee shirt, Mouse Pad, a couple of the Case Plates, and, a few other things.

I couldn't over night this one, so I got second day shipping.

Now, about 12 hours or so later, I noticed a package on the Porch. I could see it was from the "FreeBSD Mall" so I grabbed it and brought it in, and it was HUGE. I knew I'd ordered a lot, but I didn't know it was THAT much.

Then I opened it up and it made sense; Inside was all the stuff I'd ordered from the FreeBSD Mall, AND everything from the Slackware store! All in the same box. Then it hit me; I'd already realized that the Official CD-ROM Sets from FreeBSD and Slackware looked A LOT alike, but then I checked my first edition of Slackware Essentials; Sure enough, there was a BSDi logo on the back of the book.

So, long story short, if you order stuff from both stores, you're probably going to get it at the same time, in the same box. I was told by someone who works for the FreeBSD Mall that they actually do in fact do the Slackware store, as they like Pat, and Slackware.

I also got Free Sticker from BSDMall once because another order was having problems and got VERY delayed. I was NOT rude to them about it, I was understanding, but DID tell them that I wasn't exactly happy about it, and because I made my point in a more laid back not freaked out way I ended up with like a BUNCH of FreeBSD and generic "BSD" stickers which literally cover my Laptop.

Actually, BSDMall, MAY be where I got the DVD of Kirk. Either way it's great so buy that!

And also, if you don't know since I'm on the topic; If you go to Kirk's Web site, and check out the stuff you can buy, not only can you get the DVD, but, you can get the CSRG CD set! THAT is what I'm currently aiming at. I REALLY want it. I mean the Historical aspect alone is cool.

Anyway, Slackware and BSD seem pretty close for the most part, and again, because Slackware doesn't do their mods like a lot of other distros do, you really aren't screwed as on person said, if Slackware went under. I mean you could just as easily build the Packages yourself, and do it all yourself, as they aren't modified anyway.

Personally I've used quite a few Package Managers, and the ones I liked best for all around installation, and removing, were FreeBSD's, SuSE Linux (Using Yast, or YAst2 if you have X loaded) and Debian of course.

kpedersen

October 12th, 2011, 19:14

You aren't forced to use the package managers, but I'm not sure why you wouldn't.

In most linux based distros you pretty much *are* forced to use a package manager. For all but the most simple of applications you do not want to be spending days learning how to compile the software. Also, if you look at all the patches in the Arch AUR, the FreeBSD ports or in the RHEL5 SRPM system, you really don't want to be compiling from source because without these patches you may leave the software open to things like memory leaks or build issues.

The reason not to use package managers is just one big one. What happens when the package server goes down?

The distfile system that FreeBSD (ports) uses ensures that no central package server is used. Meaning that nothing could ever go down.

Microsoft Windows users don't need to download every bit of software they use from Microsoft's servers so why should linux users be any different. It is hardly freedom.

Carpetsmoker

October 12th, 2011, 19:26

The biggest problem with Linux packaging is that there's usually a lot of patching and prodding done by the package people.

For example, CentOS ships with OpenSSH 4.3p2 (From 2005, IIRC). It backports some fixes and even some features. It's not entirely clear *which* features it exactly backports or if they are done correctly. The end result is that you've got some sort of woefully outdated FrankenSSH.
In any case, it seems like a whole lot of wasted effort to me. It also makes stuff damn inconsistent across distributions and OS's.

gore

October 12th, 2011, 19:58

Just for sake of argument (As no one is really playing bad guy it seems) since you DO have the source anyway, in theory, you could keep it going yourself if you really wanted. I mean if McDonald's goes out of Business, which has about the same chance and Novell going down, I could still make a Big Mac for myself if I had the Ingredients, and Source Code is nothing more than an Ingredient list for Software much like "This type of dough, made this way at this temp" and "this meat seasoned this way and cooked this way at this temp" would let me keep making or even selling Big Macs if McDonald's ever went down.

I mean, I DO agree that quite a few ways you deal with installation and management of software on a lot of Linux distros is outright stupid, but, not all are like that. And, of course, there's also ease of admin work like how when you do upgrades and patches on Linux VS BSD, it's REALLY different. I don't always love the BSD way with Ports, as I'm more of a Packages kind of person (I don't want to Compile anything if I don't have to, and would like Packages more which is why I use them).

Just a thought.

geodni

October 13th, 2011, 08:29

Hi,

I do not have Favorite Linux, just the habit of using Debian, Red Hat and VMware at work.
When I install a new Red Hat server at a client office, I use graphical interface but selects none of the options and verify to deselect all preselected ones. I prefer add myself what is needed after first reboot. Deployment is easy using Red Hat kickstart and pretty configurable (pre and post scripts). PXE is also available for most Unices.
Sometimes a new package I want to install needs more than 20 dependent packages, and I have to check it by hand and old systems, but that's not too hard to do, just annoying.
I don't like install any server with X11, I prefer install minimal requirements to run remote graphical applications through SSH, such as Red Hat cluster interface (XML configuration becomes a bit hard to manipulate with vi).
About VMware based on Red Hat, I use command line for advanced configuration tasks for network (like remapping ethernet card to reorder themwhen you make an upgrade) or SAN.
Both Debian and Red Hat made improvements to manage packages, but when you want to had recent and/or custom services, it's often made by compilation tasks.

For personnal use, it's FreeBSD on my desktop, a sandbox server and a hosted server. It was FreeBSD on my laptop Thinkpad T60 but for several reasons (like flash port not working well and proprietary VPN client runing only on windows), I tried MAC OS X for a while and failed back to Windows, version 7. Perhaps I'll give another try with FreeBSD.

mobleyc

October 14th, 2011, 02:50

I guess my favorite would have to be red hat. I am partly biased because I was part of the conceptualizing team who build a good base for that release. Though Fedora is also a good contender for that crown.

I think each one has their own favorite but they all generally work good.

gpatrick

October 14th, 2011, 16:03

Linux is nothing more than Frankenstein's monster.

I work for a large company that is using Linux because of its perceived cost savings. This is a fallacy.

For one thing, the vendor - Red Hat - has unacceptable technical support which lets tickets languish for months or even years with no resolution. For one ticket Red Hat was able to find out what the problem was, but failed to submit a fix themselves, but rather released it to the community hoping someone would provide a fix for them (which nobody has). Servers reboot or crash and there is nothing indicating what caused it to happen. We have clusters and are taking them apart because the nodes constantly crash and Red Hat for years has provided no answer, so now everything will be standalone. Then you put Linux on crap x86 hardware, and you have physical hardware that is constantly being replaced.

It is a now win situation, because management asks why there has been so much downtime for servers. Crap hardware constantly gives up the ghost and Linux just decides for whatever reason it doesn't want to run anymore and reboots or crashes. I added a new VLAN on a Linux hypervisor one day and did a network restart and the entire server rebooted. Have done it countless times without incident until that day and took down some production virtuals. There are even some Red Hat servers that are constantly getting out of memory errors and have to be rebooted and they are production servers! Those OOM problems I guarantee would not occur using Solaris or BSD.

But we are stuck. Red Hat is our sole technology solution provider. If they don't have it then it isn't needed or even if someone has something better like Veritas Cluster or HACMP, we are stuck with a useless, broken, pile of crap from Red Hat.

Linux is really nothing more than a bad joke perpetuated upon the IT world, given steam by clueless senior management who believe that "it's less expensive" bullsh!t. It's cheap, not less expensive.

Give me an entire operating system any day, whether it is BSD, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, because then you don't have to deal with the inconsistencies of something bolted together piecemeal and expecting it to work even remotely well.

Carpetsmoker

October 14th, 2011, 18:12

Red Hat - has unacceptable technical support which lets tickets languish for months or even years with no resolution.

This is also my experience. I submitted a ticket once, granted, it was without patch, but I described the problem clearly and described what should be done to resolve it.
No reply what-so-ever. Not even a confirmation or mark as "invalid".

rusty

October 14th, 2011, 19:26

Scientific Linux does what I need on the Linux front.

Slurp

October 14th, 2011, 20:30

All Linux OSes completely tie the user down to the distro's package server, which is probably due to large company influences such as RedHat who want to "be in control" of their users and customers. For this reason, Linux pisses me off.

I don't like it either, but I don't see FreeBSD as something considerably better. As far as I know, it still uses a centralized server maintained by distro-related people to fetch ports from.
I've been thinking about writing a truly decentralized package system that would store software in a decentralized database (i.e. Kademlia for files + DHT for metadata), where anybody could just add anything w/no formalities and anybody, not only a distro, could act as an authority signing packages they consider trustworthy.

gpatrick

October 15th, 2011, 01:35

One other thing I failed to mention is how Red Hat changes commands and paths when a new version is released. Cases in point. ext2online to resize an ext3 filesystem in RHEL4 is resize2fs in RHEL5. We have administrative scripts developed for our enterprise and some of them are now broken because in RHEL6 they changed some paths from /bin to /sbin.

What kind of nonsense is that? In AIX, if they add functionality to chfs, they add an option, but IBM doesn't change the name from chfs to chjfs2.

Linux is just a sad, worthless hack.

hitest

October 15th, 2011, 03:38

The biggest problem with Linux packaging is that there's usually a lot of patching and prodding done by the package people.

Slackware does a very good job of delivering unmodified vanilla packages to users. Slackware is and always will be my favourite version of Linux.

drhowarddrfine

October 15th, 2011, 04:56

where anybody could just add anything w/no formalities and anybody, not only a distro, could act as an authority signing packages they consider trustworthy.I'm sure that would go over well. :\

tingo

October 15th, 2011, 14:15

Linux is really nothing more than a bad joke perpetuated upon the IT world, given steam by clueless senior management who believe that "it's less expensive" bullsh!t. It's cheap, not less expensive.

Give me an entire operating system any day, whether it is BSD, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, because then you don't have to deal with the inconsistencies of something bolted together piecemeal and expecting it to work even remotely well.

gpatrick, it sounds like you or the company you work for is doing it wrong, in all possible ways.

Keeping a system up and going has more to do with planning, education, testing and change control than the actual technical parts chosen (operating system and so on).

The company I work for uses Red Hat, CentOS, AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, Windows and a few other platforms. We manage to keep them all running, with the occasional service disruption now and then. Granted, various platforms require different amounts of "attending time", but all are serviceable as production platforms. The company I work for is a large IT company in Norway, so I guess it is what Americans would call "small and medium business".

And why do you continue to buy crap hardware? You're only hurting yourself.

drhowarddrfine

October 15th, 2011, 15:04

Doesn't Linux have their own forums? Why is this thread going on for so long?

hitest

October 15th, 2011, 16:35

Doesn't Linux have their own forums? Why is this thread going on for so long?

Yes. This thread is rather extensive. However, this forum is the Off-Topic Forum where it is perfectly proper to discuss non-FreeBSD topics of interest.

fonz

October 15th, 2011, 23:28

Doesn't Linux have their own forums?[sic]
There is of course LinuxQuestions. And most distributions seem to have their own forums, too. The quality varies considerably, as far as I can see.

The biggest problem with LinuxQuestions in my opinion is that, no matter how clearly you state that you're using distribution A, people still feel compelled to post answers that only apply to distribution B - very annoying.

Why is this thread going on for so long?

Because people keep contributing to it. Does it bother you and, if so, dare I inquire why?

Fonz

drhowarddrfine

October 16th, 2011, 04:20

Does it bother you and, if so, dare I inquire why?

Three reasons. 1)

most distributions seem to have their own forums

2) I see this exact same question on virtually very forum I go to.
3) What purpose does it serve to answer the same question for now three years but to repeat the same answer over and over without going off topic which it does at times?

fonz

October 16th, 2011, 17:53

What purpose does it serve to answer the same question for now three years but to repeat the same answer over and over without going off topic which it does at times?
I see your point. This thread has probably long outlived its purpose. But having said that, it's just one thread in the off-topic forum. If you don't care for it, isn't it easier to just ignore it?

Fonz

drhowarddrfine

October 16th, 2011, 22:39

It's the principle of the thing.

DutchDaemon

October 17th, 2011, 01:25

It's a nice magnet that keeps pointless Linux talk out of all the other threads, really.

Carpetsmoker

October 17th, 2011, 03:32

Sometimes frustrations need to be vented :)

fluca1978

October 17th, 2011, 11:11

I use (K)ubuntu at work, and I've got FreeBSD and Ubuntu on the servers. Not to say that BSD is the most stable, but for the end medium-skilled end user ubuntu is probably the best and the package management is awesome. Anyway, I would suggest also pcbsd for non-technical users. Ubuntu is right for me because I try to keep it under control, and if you avoid some unneeded updates, your system will run fine.

DutchDaemon

October 28th, 2011, 13:17

Great rant, and it does sum up many FreeBSD users' frustrations with Lunix as well.

New motto: For all of us who have lives, there’s Windows.

This is a rant. But I’m so angry and frustrated right now that you’re just going to have to live with the rant. And, for you Linux people, you who know it all and look down upon the people who don’t spend day and night breathing in the insane arcana of all the little fiddly bits that make up modern distros, I have this to say: I don’t have your kind of time.

I’ve had it. I’ve had it with all the patched together pieces and parts that all have to be just the right versions, with just the right dependencies, compiled in just the right way, during just the right phase of the moon, with just the right number of people tilting left at just the right time.

I’ve had it with all the different package managers. With some code distributed with one package manager and other code distributed with other package managers. With modules that can be downloaded on Ubuntu just by typing the sequence in the anemic how-to, but won’t work at all on CentOS or Fedora, because the repositories weren’t specified in just, exactly, EXACTLY, the right frickin’ order on the third Wednesday of the month.

Rest of rant: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/diy-it/why-ive-finally-had-it-with-my-linux-server-and-im-moving-back-to-windows/245

Crivens

October 28th, 2011, 14:35

"... disorganized, unsupervised, chaotic craptasm ...", epic!
Thank you for sharing it.

nighttime

October 28th, 2011, 15:29

I like to try to keep some of everything running so i have breadth of knowledge (though i fear i may not know much about anything sometimes, just a little about many things).

I run a Win7 desktop at home, i have a OSX laptop (that i really should use more), a Ubuntu netbook, Backtrack on a 32G USB, FreeBSD on my work box, and a Ubuntu Server at home (that i may rebuild as Debian). I used to also work at a couple labs at school, one being 20 Fedora machines, the other a mix of Ubuntu, Debian, and FreeBSD.

Depending on what I'm working on, each has it's own little set of advantages.

Bellum

October 29th, 2011, 07:35

Great rant, and it does sum up many FreeBSD users' frustrations with Lunix as well.

Rest of rant: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/diy-it/why-ive-finally-had-it-with-my-linux-server-and-im-moving-back-to-windows/245

Call it a hunch; I don't think this guy would be happy with FreeBSD. :P

frijsdijk

October 29th, 2011, 11:25

Servers: Debian/Ubuntu
Desktop: Mint

Btw, a pitty actually why most can not just give a straight answer without bashing Linux. Of course most here will prefer BSD, but if BSD would have such a wide support for hardware and software as Linux did, there would be no Linux would there. Unfortunately we need Linux now and then, and if used the proper way, I think it runs good enough!

UNIXgod

October 29th, 2011, 20:30

Bellum

October 30th, 2011, 09:12

Linux does have the upper hand for PC hardware anyway. FreeBSD, for instance, will not install on my laptop at all. Also, the Arch Linux i686 build seems boot and run significantly faster on the old desktop than i386 FreeBSD.

Otherwise, I'd probably be using it, because, got to say, even for a "casual"* user, I could tell that FreeBSD was the better put together OS in a lot of ways.

*(In that I don't have the expertise to run a server.)

calande

October 30th, 2011, 09:14

Ubuntu even though I have been disappointed by the 11.x series...

gpatrick

November 26th, 2011, 14:41

"VFS is supposed to abstract the underlying file systems and provide a well-defined interface (originally created by Sun Microsystems in 1985 for SunOS 2.0, to allow UFS and NFS to coexist).

Storage device details are not part of the VFS read interface, so to examine them in VFS read context is immediately suspicious. Perhaps Linux does it anyway (what some may call a “layer violation”)."

(The above is from a post on SystemTap by Brendan Gregg. http://dtrace.org/blogs/brendan/2011/10/15/using-systemtap/)

TroN-0074

December 19th, 2011, 22:54

Hey, I love Linux, I have used Ubuntu and OpenSuSE and I love them both. I would like to try more distros but there are so many and they all offer different stuff for each user.
Now I just installed FreeBSD and I am finding some difficulties however I am very positive about this experience and hopefully I will feel like home here too.
I am very thankful for the Open Source community and I show my respect to them by not making negative comments about their work.
With that said I wish you all happy holidays.

shepper

December 20th, 2011, 04:16

As a desktop user the criteria I use are stability, security and simple to understand administration guidelines. Stability wise, I have had the best luck building the desktop I want, multimedia codecs, libdvdcss, flash (can't rationalize linux emulators and need flash for cme lectures) with Debian followed by Slackware. My Debian Squeeze system is over a year old without a hiccup. Security and bug updates are a breeze in Debian and not too bad in Slackware.

Out of interest I will periodically try out a new feature in Arch Linux - the rolling release model tends to work very well for being bleeding edge and the documentation is up to date. Arch can give one an idea where development is heading, why KernelModeSetting has yet to find its way into any BSD, and what the all the heated discussion about the Gnome3 shell is about.

Simba7

December 20th, 2011, 05:09

Servers - FreeBSD 9
Workstation - Windows 7 Ultimate
Laptop - Windows 7 Ultimate with Gentoo, FreeBSD, and Ubuntu in VMs (Hey, it's an Asus G53SX with 24GB of RAM and 1.5TB of disk space)

I moved back from Gentoo to FreeBSD last month. I basically got sick of the mentality of "Why do you need that?". If I didn't need it, I WOULDN'T BE ASKING FOR IT. The ZFS filesystem was basically the final nail in the coffin and I returned to the FreeBSD world.

I actually started on FreeBSD back in 1998 while I was active duty Navy. My friend, in 2005, exposed me to Gentoo and caught my interest almost immediately. Unfortunately, the reason that turned me off Linux in the past (freakin' script kiddies and "I'm so 1337" BS) started to enter into the Gentoo community. So, I'm back in FreeBSD and staying put.

fluca1978

December 20th, 2011, 08:12

Laptop - Windows 7 Ultimate with Gentoo, FreeBSD, and Ubuntu in VMs (Hey, it's an Asus G53SX with 24GB of RAM and 1.5TB of disk space)

What a laptop! I would rather do a Linux/FreeBSD running Windows as virtual machine, eh eh.

asapilu

December 20th, 2011, 09:18

I like debian more than other linux but not using that for about 1.5 year since i reduce my desktops/home server from 3 to 2 :)
but currently i use Android with root and terminal emulator and i like it. It is use a linux kernel after all.

hitest

December 20th, 2011, 15:44

Slackware 13.37 and Slackware-current.

fonz

December 20th, 2011, 16:11

If I didn't need it, I WOULDN'T BE ASKING FOR IT.
Fair enough if you know what you're talking about, but you'd be surprised to see how many people are asking for things they don't need due to not knowing what they're doing (not understanding the problem rarely leads to a correct solution).

What a laptop! I would rather do a Linux/FreeBSD running Windows as virtual machine, eh eh.
+1 on that :h

Fonz

nuxthrou

December 21st, 2011, 10:28

...I would love the Debian based - is my #1. Redhat is my #2 and Freebsd FreeBSD is #3.
...Debian, because, the arrangement of the files and the structures are easy to determine and understand.
...Redhat would be the second because, they are fairly stable, regardless of the file structure.
...Freebsd FreeBSD because the file structures are uniquely challenging, and fairly tough when it comes with SMTP-relay Server role or smarthost role, DNS role, firewall role, and router role. though, this can be also configured on some other disto but freebbsd is really unique.

gore

December 21st, 2011, 12:39

Red Hat and Stable in the same Sentence? Wow.... And on a FreeBSD Unix Forum???? Wow!

jake

December 21st, 2011, 18:58

Ubuntu even though I have been disappointed by the 11.x series...

What were they thinking with Unity, I really liked Ubuntu 10 and it's been ruined. Still using it now for desktop, but as soon as PC-BSD works out of the box like Ubuntu I'm moving.

Crivens

December 21st, 2011, 19:13

Red Hat and Stable in the same Sentence? Wow.... And on a FreeBSD Unix Forum???? Wow!

Why not (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mine_helmet_2.jpg)? Stabillity is what you make of it ;)

asapilu

December 21st, 2011, 20:43

...I would love the Debian based - is my #1. Redhat is my #2 and Freebsd is #3.
...Debian, because, the arrangement of the files and the structures are easy to determine and understand.
...Redhat would be the second because, they are fairly stable, regardless of the file structure.
...Freebsd because the file structures are uniquely challenging, and fairly tough when it comes with SMTP-relay Server role or smarthost role, DNS role, firewall role, and router role. though, this can be also configured on some other disto but freebbsd is really unique.

FreeBSD is not linux :P
FreeBSD is FreeBSD :stud and always #1 :e

gore

December 22nd, 2011, 02:59

Why not (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mine_helmet_2.jpg)? Stabillity is what you make of it ;)

Well, yes, to an extent; But I've never seen someone use Windows ME as a Server for what I'm assuming, is that reason ;) Heh. That and Oracle is on my crap list right now.

Crivens

December 22nd, 2011, 15:23

Well, yes, to an extent; But I've never seen someone use Windows ME as a Server for what I'm assuming, is that reason ;) Heh. That and Oracle is on my crap list right now.

You did follow the link, did you? :e

And I know of a company which used '98 for the server because there were not so many problems for the PHBs when they wanted to manage the files - like "permission denied" and stuff.

gore

December 22nd, 2011, 18:15

Crivens

December 23rd, 2011, 14:35

Hahaha, I can't imagine Windows 98 as a Server, I mean, really, WTF would they be thinking? Windows 98 can barely stay up long enough to play a game.... Windows Servers need Viagra and a Wiener Pump to stay up at all.

Now that is a bit harsh ;) Windows can be like an erection, true. It can stay up some time when you do not screw around with it and it needs loving care to stay up just a bit longer.

And what that company was thinking was that administration was so much easier without all these safety features against messing up the projects. What they are thinking now I do not know, but it would not surprise me to learn about them joining the belly-up brigade. You know, when you mention the B* word and look into a sea of dumb faces. Then you just know.

Returning to the topic of this thread, my favorite Linux is currently debian. It used to be Ubuntu, but they went a pretty insane direction IMHO which I refused to follow. So I picked the distro with a good deal of similarity and less nanny ambitions. I know I can not sort out the working of the system like I can with FreeBSD, so the Linux with the least friction is nice.

*: B word, noun: Backup.
verb: to backup, performing the steps necessary to create a backup

gore

December 25th, 2011, 21:11

Heh, I enjoy poking fun at Windows now and then. Windows 7 isn't bad or anything, it just isn't great. They're still not ripping off the right AREA of Unix.

My Personal choice for Linux is very simple; SUSE, Slackware, Debian, and sometimes Mandriva. Depends a lot on what they did to any given version. I don't have a current installation of Mandriva on anything, and Debian isn't installed on anything currently because all my machine are in use right now, but Slackware has been running my FTP Server since.... Well, when Slackware 12.0 came out, I installed a new HD in the machine, and installed Slackware 12.0 Fresh, and it's been up and running ever since. It's fully patched too.

OpenSUSE is running on my Laptop with PC-BSD making it's appearance now and then and FreeBSD too. I like Slackware, and always have. It reminds me of BSD basically. And if you order something from the Slackware store, try this:

Order a bunch of stuff from the FreeBSDMall, then, choose next day for shipping.

Go to The Slackware store, and order stuff. Choose Second Day Air for Shipping.

In about 12 to 15 hours, look outside. You'll see a huge box. It's both orders.

I asked about this, and one of the people from FreeBSD mall Confirmed for me that they do in fact run the Slackware store's orders. I kind of had a feeling about that already considering that both my 10.0 and 10.2 Slackware 4 CD-ROM sets looked like the 6.0 CD ROM sets from FreeBSD, AND of course, the Slackware book has a BSDi logo on the back of it.

When I did that, my order was over a grand. I basically had a lot of money given to me finally from my college, and, instead of blowing it, I went to the FreeBSD Mall, and the Slackware Store. I ordered EVERY book, software, and more, from the FreeBSD Mall. My order was about 800 dollars. Then I go just about one of everything from Slackware. Then, because of the excitement, couldn't wait, and overnighted it.

I'm sitting here right now in my brand new FreeBSD tee shirt I got for Christmas. My Mom agreed to let me pick some stuff and She'd order it for me for Christmas; I got the Classic oldschool FreeBSD tee shirt (The Power to Serve one) and, the Black Pull Over Hoody, some stickers, the CD Case, two issues of BSD Magazine, and a few other things.

If anyone here has ever thought about ordering from the FreeBSD Mall, but wasn't sure, I can vouch for them; I've not ONCE had a problem, and Believe me, I've sunk some pretty large sums of money into orders. I've got basically every FreeBSD book you can get except "The best of" one they have now. And I have the PowerPak, and I have both version of "The Complete FreeBSD" and... I've got the FreeBSD Mouse Pad, Boxers, and more. I've had excellent service, and my orders are always on time, and I can't say enough good about them.

If you ever need ANYTHING that has to do with FreeBSD, check the FreeBSD Mall out; They have excellent stuff, excellent staff (I spoke to a girl who worked there who called simply to ask about my order and if I was Happy with it and so on, and she was pretty shocked at how much money I spent heh) and to me; Being called PURELY to make sure I was Happy with my Order, was great. Oh and the stickers, are AWESOME. The Tee shirts.... I LITERALLY wore my first FreeBSD tee shirt so much, that in 4 or 5 years, it had holes in it. I wore it like every chance I had. It was always being washed. I wore it so much that I had to wash it 4 times a week. I wore it all the time. I LOVED that shirt. And now, I finally have another one :) And yea I put it right on lol.

For whatever else it might be worth; The FreeBSD Pull Over Hoody, the Black one which costs 35 dollars.... Believe me, I'd tell you if I didn't like it, but I LOVE it. I had Hoodies I've spent hundreds on, and I've got Hoodies and Jackets that costed more than 200 dollars, and this one is just as nice. The material, and the way it's made... I'd pay double what it costs and STILL think it was a deal. BUY ONE OF THOSE THINGS! The Black Pull Over. VERY Comfortable, VERY nice, and my Aunt, who knows nothing of Computers, Unix, or BSD, even she wanted one. They're THAT nice.

Shameless plug, yes. But that's OK. You know why? I don't work for FreeBSD, I don't work for FreeBSD Mall, I'm just someone who loves FreeBSD, and likes to tell people when I've seen a company go the extra mile to make me Happy. So buy something!