What's your main distribution?

What's your main distribution?

  • Mint

    Votes: 4 11.4%
  • Ubuntu

    Votes: 20 57.1%
  • Mageia

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Fedora

    Votes: 2 5.7%
  • OpenSUSE

    Votes: 2 5.7%
  • Debian

    Votes: 3 8.6%
  • Arch

    Votes: 2 5.7%
  • Puppy

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • PCLinuxOS

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Any BSD

    Votes: 2 5.7%

  • Total voters
    35
Options selected from the Distrowatch top 10 (with CentOS removed since it's for running servers and Lubuntu since Ubuntu is only getting a single entry!).

Your distro not listed here? Add it as a post.
 


Yeah I found Fedora to one of the most unstable distros I've ever used. I think it was version 15 I tried (the one that introduced GNOME 3) so maybe not their most stable release... still hugely unimpressed though. Your first sentence was very cryptic... well played.
 


Haha maybe you do. That comment has erased any doubt from my mind though that I'm better off staying away from Fedora. Or would have done, had there been any doubt to begin with! I'm not very tolerant at all of bugs/glitches/instability and don't really have the technical knowledge to fix broken distros.

One of the faults in my Fedora 15 installation (brand new fresh install) was package database corruption. Found the command line instructions to fix it, but it just wouldn't do it. Any package I tried to install would complain about corruption. I get along very well with (K/X)ubuntu and Bodhi though, Ubuntu is the least glitchy Linux I've discovered (and I've tried a LOT of distributions!).

Part of the reason for my posting this poll is to see if Ubuntu is most used, or Mint. Distrowatch would say Mint, but I don't think the number of people reading about something will necessarily correspond with how many people use it. Infact I'd say the distribution you're least likely to be researching the basics on is the one you already use.
 


Hehe yeah, I think it's a big problem in attracting new users - it will just confirm their suspicions that the software is lower quality than Microsoft's when things don't work properly. I wonder if maybe that's the real reason that Linux users always point new users to Ubuntu first - more about first impressions than ease of use!
 

amdfangirl

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My point lies in that Scientific Linux/Cent OS are vital to the Fedora side of things, that's all.

They are considerably harder to use than Fedora thanks to insane repo management.

Looking forward to v7, which is based off the more modern Fedora 17/18 rather than Fedora 12/13.

:)
 
I see what you mean. I have wondered what would happen to Ubuntu if Debian somehow ceased to exist. Can't ever see that happening though with the Debian community being what it is, it's too big to die now! Definitely my second favourite distribution, will be running it on my Raspberry Pi when it finally arrives :)
 


Gentoo. I like it because of its extreme flexibility. Being able to set your -march in GCC is a big deal too, especially running Bulldozers. There is a world of difference in performance between no -march and -march=bdver1 on these chips, especially when compiling the kernel, glibc, and coreutils. It's about like the difference between running with NUMA off vs. on. :eek:
 


I loved the idea of Gentoo (same as I loved the idea of Arch), but as with Arch, I just can't get my wireless working on it, so the installation never progressed beyond a standalone command line system. I also couldn't help wondering if it was really worth the effort... besides, aren't there user-friendly distributions out there that still let you compile from source if you want? And that don't suck like Sabayon :)
 


All distrobutions let you compile from source 'if you want'. How do you think those packages are made :)
 

Dr_JRE

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Aug 12, 2012
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Personally, I prefer Xubuntu, lightweight distro that runs good on anything no matter how new or how slow and ancient. Plus I can browse the internet, send email, chat on IRC and do everything you would do with a computer while the OS is installing.

However, if the computer at least 1GHz w/ 768 RAM and intended for someone other than me, I would install Ubuntu then change the window manager from Unity to KDE. Lots of nice eyecandy. (Or for a quick install, just use Kubuntu, but I personally don't think this is as good of an option.) In a few cases I have seen Kubuntu run better on an old machine than Xubuntu.

All in all I have been exceedingly happy with Debian and Ubuntu derivatives.
 


Xubuntu is my favourite also - lightweight but at the same time (in my opinion) a really attractive, well-presented and designed interface. With Bluebird theme and Greybird or Moheli window decoration, a genuinely sleek and attractive looking interface. Although KDE and Enlightenment 17 have more eye candy and are polished to perfection visually, I find Xfce/Xubuntu even more of a pleasure to use.

Why do you prefer installing KDE over Unity instead of using Kubuntu? In my experience, several of the KDE visual effects don't work properly when it's installed onto a distribution that didn't bundle KDE with it. Kubuntu is by far the best implementation of KDE I've ever seen.

Agreed about Debian also - second favourite distribution after Ubuntu derivatives.
 

amdfangirl

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They make a LiveDVD which contains many Geographical information systems applications.

I can't be stuffed to manually package all those apps in Fedora LiveDVD re-spin, so I use OS GEO, which is based off Xubuntu, and from that, I don't mind the Xubuntu UI.

:)
 


Glad to hear it... so how come it's bad? I'd advise having a play with the settings (it's awesomely customisable) but if you can't save those settings then I suppose it's not worth the time.

Are you really 17 by the way? That's what it says under your more info link :p
 

amdfangirl

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I never said it was bad. I said that it was good. :p

It's just I think LXDE + Fedora is better. Though the sheer fact I decide to live with Xubuntu is testament to how good it is - that is I don't see the need to specifically respin something to fit my Fedora + LXDE tastes.