Which GNU/Linux distro to try?

F

freemason

Good morning, users.

Don't some of you have any suggestions on what GNU/Linux distro to try after swimming in FreeBSD?

I generally chose these: Gentoo, Slackware, No distro (a so-called "Linux From Scratch").


So, which one is more fundamental (simpler, causes less headache, is more controllable) and more FreeBSD-like in some aspects to your opinion? (years ago I've already tried tons of really stupid and useless distros like Ubuntu, Debian, ArchLinux (was favorite), Fedora, Mandriva, ASP, and so on - so please don't suggest them until you really need to)


Thanks.
 
Slackware. It's more like BSD than the others. New release this week too.

Like FreeBSD, Slackware has minimal distro hacks on the software they include, it is as "true" to the original source for each app as possible.
 
Will I be able to rebuild kernel and base system, and build everything by hand with my own compile options instead of just installing precompiled packages in Arch like I do in FreeBSD???
 
This is a startup of a same thread which is also the same as a million others all over the internet and also quite a few on this board. I suggest you ask this question on a Linux forum, not here, or at least Google for the countless same ones.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
This is a startup of a same thread which is also the same as a million others all over the internet and also quite a few on this board. I suggest you ask this question on a Linux forum, not here, or at least Google for the countless same ones.
Click to expand...
No, this is not the same thread!

Have some non-FreeBSD related questions, or want just to chit-chat about anything that is not related to FreeBSD? This is the forum for you.
Click to expand...
So, here we are.
 
I've been running Funtoo (a better Gentoo) on my laptop for a couple of years now. I'm pretty satisfied with it.

Definitely out of the few that I have played with gets close to the FreeBSD experience.

Here is a link:

http://www.funtoo.org
 
I second using Debian Sid. It's not totally like FreeBSD but it is reliable, pretty easy to use, and hardly ever (if ever) has broken on me.
 
jwele said:
If you are going to rule out Arch and Debian (Did you try Debian Unstable?) then I would say you will like Slackware the most in terms of it being "arch like." There is also a "Debian GNU/kFreeBSD", or Debian with a FreeBSD kernel you might want to try out.

http://wiki.debian.org/Debian_GNU/kFreeBSD
Click to expand...

I never really understood those projects. I've run gentoo/alt/prefix on OSX and understand why one would use something like that there. But for all practical purposes kFreeBSD makes little sense than just running FreeBSD or DragonFlyBSD.

Also Debian Unstable is called Debian Sid. Sounds like it's popular. If I ever tire of Funtoo I may give that a try.
 
Used arch for a while on linux desk, then switched to Ubuntu due to continious breakage, and then they've adopted systemd, so I was pretty right at that decision :)
Love the 'just works' attitude it has, however if 'just working'' thing works not like it should had, thats much more disturbing & hard to fix than something that you configure by yourself. Thinking of moving to bsd or funtoo.
 
I ran Debian sid for ages (about 5 years), and when it is working, it's great.

If you're only running a desktop, all good. If your desktop is occasionally broken for a little while, who cares, right? The breakage isn't /often/ but it does happen occasionally.

However, if you plan to run services on it - be careful. Sometimes the package tree will break in interesting ways, and you need to be pretty cluey with the package management tools to un-fubar it.

I still think that if you're a BSD guy - Slackware is probably the closest in terms of philosophy, packages, init scripts, etc.
 
Trying arch now. Well, practically everything (I mean hardware) works well after fine-tuning (especially "videocard" - full acceleration (2D and 3D) + Kernel Mode Setting (nice and smooth for console-only work), ACPI works well, so do sleep and hibernation). Powersaving is really amazing: battery life is longer than it is on Windows (6-7 hours now and I think that even more is possible, but 5 hours in Windows), unlike FreeBSD which is only about 2-3 hours.
Some final steps in polishing the system still remain (fonts, applications for daily use, and so on).

Thanks everyone!
If I'll need server for something I'll definitely try FreeBSD on it (for its logic and simple configuration), but stick with Linux on laptop for now (for its hardware support).
Cheers.
 
slackware is good but community has an awful mess with distro's evolution, slackware still lacks an official automatic package manager, slapt-get works, but it is almost a roulette. one of the nice things is its installation, you can install the latest-non release packages when installing, and also is one of the fastest and complete installations of GNU/linux world, you can install a complete software set (near 5gb of software) in only 20-30 mins, and it's ready to use.
also has the rescue mode
 
I guess, every Linux distribution that does not use systemd is less annoying. I am running Arch, but since they have migrated to systemd, both my PCs are broken. And running Arch on compatibility mode (init) has lots of side issues which are less broken than systemd but still annoying.
 
Actually, I just installed Mint last night.

Seems nice for a desktop - automatically could use my afp shares, fonts all look nice, the UI (cinnamon) looks clean and unobtrusive.

Sure, it's still Linux and comes with the associated baggage, but so far it looks fairly slick in the limited time I've spent with it.
 
Looks is the best (and only?) good thing about Mint. I have used it once, and couldn't even install the updates, it just broke.
 
Please note that I have tried it a few years ago, around the time the first version was released. Things might have changed.
 
TinyCore! It quite rocks... Gets plenty of customisation and it's fast. (although it didn't even boot on my asus1005ha netbook, don't know why - but on my older system it ran perfectly). Also, there's INX, entirely in console, no graphical interfaces. It's pretty cool & fun, if you want to try something new, I guess :)

Why did you say Debian, Arch and Fedora are stupid and useless? Anyway, it's all about what you need of a system and which one better covers as much of your needs as possible. E.g. I had switched to Arch for: speed, integrity, neat documentation, customisability, and the fact that along with these I could get a variety of apps.
 
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