differnces in distros

Um... that is a loaded question.

ABF you wanna field that one?

My opinion is that the distros really come down to what software is installed on them. Some of the distros like Gentoo or Debian(Or Debian Based ones) will be idientified in part by their software management solutions, Portage or APT in the case of the two above.

However all of this comes down to, linux is linux. The distros all run linux, and thus any distro should be able to run any linux software, though some have proprietary software on top of Linux to 'help' with various aspects of things. Suse with the Yast software is a good example of this. Sometimes this does help, sometimes it beccomes a serious hinderance. Personally I believe it is important to learn the config files, at least the basics before using GUI based things for this nature as you will know more and have more control/flexibility than the GUI typically offers.

Some distros are known for installing everything and the kitchen sink, or being tuned for a certain window manager, or other quirks about it. Personally I prefer a slightly lighterweight distribution that I would install my own software on top of myself, that is why I tend to reccomend Ubuntu for newcomers, it is relatively lightweight, typically a good installation, but with all the config files that you can play with you can still learn things.

Suse, Madrake(Mandriva), Fedora, and the like I tend to think install to many things to be worth it. My experience has been less than plesent when compared to other distros, and they tend to be slower by default than some other distros, though Fedora especially this can be remedied to some extent in.

Um other things, well it really comes down a lot to personal choice among other things. Obviously I support Ubuntu and Gentoo myself, others here support Fedora, or Mandriva, or Knoppix(Live CD based distro, meaning it is designed to run off the CD), or one of a million different things. Primarily personal choice for the most part.

Seablade

Before others join in with specifics, I'd like to mention the golden phrase: Linux is about choice. The best distribution is the distribution that you feel most comfortable with. This not only applies to the software itself, but to the philosophy behind a particular distribution. Whatever it may be, the best way to know what's best is to try out a few distros. For beginners, http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/ seems to be a good place to start. Once you have an idea of what you might want, grab yourself an evaluation version of VMWare Workstation and install a few distros in a virtual machine, without affecting your Windows installation (VMWare simulates generic hardware so you will be able to see what the distributions are about, instead of facing hardware issues and never finding out what's what) . LiveCDs could be of help as well.

Mikhail

seablade...i think you covered all the basics.

in the end: LINUX IS LINUX

now there are degrees of things, and "best" depends on what you want.

if you want speed, source distros like Gentoo or Souce MAGE are probably the way to go. They are by far NOT n00b friendly, but they are godly fast.

For an everyday user something that uses RPM or DEB binary packages for software instalation is probably what makes sense. You can install pretty much anything very easily these days.

For n00bs i have 2 picks.
1 - ubuntu. great hardware support, huge community, and apt-get in the sh*t

2 - PCLinuxOS - comes with ati/nvidia drivers by default, pretty fast, great apt-get for RPM usage. pretty good hardware support.


Then there is Mandriva SUSE and FedoraCore....don't like either one. SUSE and FC have always been hell for me as long as I can remeber, and they never work right, Mandriva....2006....its great when it works, and if it works it works flawlessly, but then again, most of the time it DOESN'T even work to begin with.

So all in all, i say try Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS and move from there...see what you like.

this question really frustrates me.

its ALL personal taste, nothing more.

They all use pretty much the same tools from the gnu repositorys.

The differences is

a.) how they are packaged: eg: rpm, dpkg, portage etc
b.) some of the locations of files, hdparm in /usr/bin or /sbin for example
c.) some of the patches they apply (eg redhat applies some propritary patches to fix bugs, others wait for a later version and upgrade the version)

Thats about it

its just personal choice on what you like / what you don't like out of the box.

That is not true, especially of the larger commercial distros. They tend to try to package things on top of Linux, custom applications for system management and the like. Yast on Suse is a good example of this.

Another good difference is software they come with and how they are configured by default. For instance Dyne:Bolic, DeMudi(And ReMudi if it still exists), Studio To Go, and a variety of other distros have kernels that are compiled in a certain way for use with audio. Other distros can do this, but it takes some work and recompiling the kernel. Of course doing something like this may break the auto-update feature in said distro as well if there is one, and depending on the distro(Again typically referencing the larger commercial distros here).

That is the thing, yes it comes a LOT down to personal choice, but it also comes down to, what are you planning on doing with it? I wouldnt for example use an enterprise distro for an audio workstation. Nor would I do the opposite. Either can be made to do the other's job, but if the other is already out there exactly why would you spend hours(At least) of work converting one into the other? There is more to it than personal choice.

Seablade

community, support and compatibility.

Some distros are very basic .. made for people who program in their sleep while others are made to be true windows alternatives.

Download a live cd and try out different distro's too if your serious about trying out linux .. a live cd gives you the opportunity to run the operating system from the cd without hurting your current windows isntallation. This can also be very useful for recovering infromation from a broken windows/linux setup etc.

Personally I reccomend ubuntu, suse is also really good for beginners.

not in my lifetime

hey, dont h8 on suse.

ya, suse or ubuntu.

Well ABF lemme rephrase that for them... Suse can have the capability of working easily on various platform. However if it dont work, good luck fixing it Plus I hope you dont mind a LOT of bloat.

Ubuntu does have it beat hands down IMO.

Seablade

Speaking of which, I just tried out Ubuntu on my PPC Powerbook... The live CD ran pretty dang on well actually I was pretty surprised, and since the wireless driver for the Powerbooks is going into Dapper, I will definitly be putting that on my Mac. Probably will put Breezy on as well in the meantime and try out MacOnLinux and see how well it does.

Seablade

im running dapper here and it is surprisingly stable. might as well try it out. hey, if it breaks, you still have osx.

Heh tried the daily snapshot of Dapper earlier today actually and it didnt finish booting on my powerbook. Unfortunate, but as I said the Breezy distro ran good enough I amy just isntall that one in the meantime.

So glad that driver is being worked on, even if it is after the fact almost. At least maybe itll get some use on x86 as well.

Seablade

the best way to install dapper is to install breezy and then open up /etc/apt/sources.list and change anything that says breezy to dapper. then update it in synaptic and it ***should*** get a working dapper for you.

Yea I have heard about doing that, not real sure I want to for the time being though.

Seablade

last time i tried doing that.....from hoary to breezy... it died a very very sick death!

Red Hat(The version you have) was kinda like Suse at the time. It was entierly a consumer distro completly bloated, didnt always work, and tried to hide a lot of linus from you with fancy GUI tools that may or may not have worked It got discontinued in favor of a community supported project named Fedora, which after version 2 has gotten fairly respectable I keep hearing, And the enterprise edition of Red Hat still exists.

In all honesty try out Ubuntu when it gets there

Seablade

same here, but breezy to dapper works fine. for me at least...

For beginers who want a pain free transition a pay distro would be easier . But not all pay distros and then some are slooow. So here goes my choices. Pay Libranet ( out of production ) , Linspire 5 ( It rocks on my equiptment ) , Xandros ( kinda slow ). For Free distros PcLinuxOs ( My favorite distro ) , Kanotix
( modified Knoppix ) , PHLAK ( a small fun livecd ). The bottom line is it is subjective alot of peoples best gentoo (too time consuming for me ) , unbuntu ( too bland and unpolished gnome for me plus hardware issues).
PcLinuxOs new uer or not !!!