Linux Distro for developer and office productivity

Hey Hecluro, welcome to the club!

Although I am a Gentoo user myself (not something you want since you want to be up and running painlessly), I would definitely recommend giving Ubuntu a try.

You can try Ubuntu out by grabbing the free VMWare Player and launching the Ubuntu image: http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/ubuntu.html.

Mikhail

Glad to help.

You really be should quite well off with Ubuntu. I have found other "ready-to-go" distributions like Suse, Mandrake, and Fedora to be quite awkward due to their package managers. Ubuntu is Debian-based so you can enjoy the power and convenience of Apt.

Perhaps others can chime in... Abf is big on trying out lots of distros. I really can't say much more as I've been very comfortable with Gentoo.

Mikhail

If you like KDE, check out Myahos! I believe 2.1 to be released soon but 2.0 is Slackware solid and one of the friendliest distro's I have tried yet. Oh It is gaming based but has multimedia and serious software installed and running, plus it's Slackware so packagemanagent is easy too!

beaviskob1,

I tried kanotix on your recommend some time back and was pleased (I have an emachines m6805). Does this Myahos run well on this laptop, or do you now use another laptop? (I am currently running Suse 9.3 since that is rock solid and supports all my hardware.) Is Myahos Debian based, with apt-get support? That is the only thing that would lure me from Suse right now. (I guess I could Google for that info, but I am looking for someone who has already installed it on my laptop.)

Hi Oak,
Yes Myah 1.2 (slax) and 2.0 (slackware 10.2) ran on my m6811 3d and all! I always like Slackware the best out of all distros. Jeremiah said 2.1 torrent should be out next week if nvidia drivers passes muster. The web sites are www.mymyah.com and www.myah.org. I did not try to setup wireless yet. My lappy's going to college with my kid so I sent it out for new dvd as it stopped writing and was covered by BestBuy warranty!Oh by the way when I bought it the salesman said it covered batteries too. Well when I took it in I figure I'd call his bluff but low and behold they told me to call a 1 800 number and ask for one, well a couple of days later I got a new battery no charge.

NP,
I hope it works for you. It was sweet on my M6811. Works great on my GT5032 w/ 7800 gt/oc desktop. Oh did I mention how easy and fast it was to install. Run live cd then partition and about a five minute install . As with any distro some fine tuning will be needed. And remeber this is basically a ONE MAN distro, But is Slackware (so community is huge). 2.1 should be out in days but I say if you can get 2.0 quickly GO FOR IT!

i tried myah and it kept dying on me over and over and over, so i tossed that asside and now i am on Arch, which is great

although i dont have your lappy, i have essentially the same ahrdware, ati 9700, amd 64, i am even gonna guess you have a sis chipset. so you'll be fine, dont worry about it. most distros support this hardware very nicely. although for the love of god stay away from suse and fedora

I'm Going to go ahead and agree with you about the over complicated slow and Gnome based Fedora and suse. I get flashbacks of crashing windows constently and waiting for windows to do what ever it is it does.

But I would like to know of any errors or crashes you had on Myah. I do know there there where some bugs in 2.0 because it was my first whole OS kernel and all. But none should cause crashes. Just sound shut off and missing madwifi little things like that.

I wont tell you what OS to use but please let me know if you have problems with mine.

http://forum.mymyah.com

And remember Myah is the Only fully supported Multimedia OS. 3D drivers. Fully media intagrated webbrowser. Sound and video editing. 3D modeling. And oh the only Gaming linux system I have seen. Those other OS have the same base system but I haven't seen anything come close to a usable home system like Myah OS. I know because there was nothing to pull me away from windows, and I only tried couple hundred Distros. They where just toys though. So I made something that would do everything windows can, just alittle better I think :-)

Oh to answer 2 questions.

Can Myah OS do laptops: YES it's developed on a Dell inpiron 9100 3.4Gig, 512mb 800hz FSB, 128 9700 ATI card 1920x1200res.

Can Mysh OS do wifi: I have all the 2.6.15.3 kernel wifi drivers compiled, also madwifi. I have all the known linux firmware. And just to be sure I also have ndiswriapper installed with perl so it works right off the CD. I don't there there is any Distor out there that can do better.

Plus I have the largest asortment of single package game. no mess no fuss just 1 command and play.

are you talking crap about gnome? you better not be!

that said, although i give you props for putting in effort on making your distro you will not spot me using it any time soon. first of all, its KDE-centric and i am more of a GTK fan so if you had it running XFCE or Gnome, hell, even e17, i'd be more likely to give it a whirl. Secondly, when I did try it, the livecd booted fine. its the installer that kept crashing and dying on me. Another reason why you won't see me on Myah soon is that i just got a pretty l33t (won't say its polished yet, still figuring a few things out) Arch installation going. Xorg7, Gnome 2.14.1, kernel 2.6.16...all the packages up to date. And well, what can I say, its fast.

This may help you somehow maybe, i dont know. you're the expert.

Oh I'm sorry I guess I wasn't being clear. Yes I absolutely HATE Gnome.

The installer will only work if you have a partition set up for it. Read the FAQ and it will tell you. Or just be a linux user and you will already know. It has to be an ext2 or 3. Then the installer is fine. That is why there is QT parted right next to the installer. I know the installer is simple but it works.

KDE is absolutly hands down the best looking and most functional Windows Manager I have seen on any system including windows. But since it is that top spot some one will always dislike it just for that reason.

XFCE kicks ass to. It's very very small and very very powerfull. I love it. But I don't mind the extra space so I choose KDE. But for it's size XFCE is top in my book. Although the colors and drab and depressing to look at. But that is a GTK thing. Also use the current slackware packages and there you go.

Enlightenment is also very cool. It's still more of a toy then a usable Desktop. But it can be used for advanced users. It's not as functional as XFCE and it's bigger. Also there Icons and Backgrouns are overly complicated. But all that aside it's greate and I have a download package for it I setup just for Myah OS on the myah.org website.

Gnome. I didn't know much about gnome because I refused to be depressed looking at it all day. But I test things out anyway to see if others might like a verions of mYha with it. So I downloaded it all and installed it. Now I was thinking it would be like XFCE but more powerful. WOW was I wrong. I was HORRIFIED that people have been subjecting themselfs to such a terrible peace of crap. Getting past how 1970's it looks and how grey and dismal the colors are. That is just looks. I wanted to know how functions all it was. What functions. It's not usable at all. It's bigger then KDE but yet it's doesn't do anything. I couldn't even brows files. I tried but it's not usable and every folder I want to look in opens a new window. There was no directory tree at all. Ok so I want to open a console. I cann't find it. Ok I find it but it isn't functional eather. I don't even know where I am. I'm typing pwd to find out. Ok so I want to try and change anything settings. There is no consolidated program for it. So I pick one of the little apps. Oh it doesn't work. Says my gconfig is messed up but doesn't tell me what's wrong with it. So I cann't trouble shoot it. Ok so the Idea of a desktop is a GUI that's (GRAPHICAL user interface) and a file manager. Well the GRAPHICS are terrible and you cann't change them. And the file manager is the worst in linux. And nothing is functional. I guess that is why when I go to gnome.org they look like there going down in flames. And that is why Most Distros are cuttins support for Gnome. But I know no matter what I say you will still use gnome. And no matter how bad it is you will still use it. Because people are stubbern. But as for me I don't care what Desktop I use or if I use several. I will use the BEST no matter what it is. And I cann't find anything to even come close to KDE so that is why I use it. But I wouldn't force myself to use the WOREST.

But if my commonsence installer app got the better of you I probably should try explaining things with commonsence.

Myah. That review was so out of freaken context its not even funny. First of all, I gave KDE a chance, it was the first WM i tried, but I didn't feel comfortable with it, I also found QT apps (especially thsoe using kdelibs) to be slow. Thats when I tried Ubuntu Warty 4.10 and gnome 2.8 (i think it was) just grew on me. Now with 2,14 its more useful than ever before. Now lets analize your gnome-bashing line by line. Desktop > Preferences > Themes. There you go. You can change the GTK engine theme and all the goodies to make it look the way YOU want, be it the default gray, ubuntulooks orange-brown, or some other random off-the-wall color. You customize it to look the way YOU want. here is an example. SLEEK PROFESSIONAL SIMPLE. (my current config. and look! there is a terimal there too) can you specify what options were lacking? you never cleared this up for me. Yes, to open a new window is default behavior, however its easily changed if you prefer a browser mode like seen here: to get to the browser you go to Applications > System Tools > File Browser. And to make it your default behavior you go to Edit > Preferences > Behavior > Aways Open in Browser Windows. DONE! Applications > Accessories > Terminal. How hard was that? Or press ALT+F2 and type in gnome-terminal either way works jsut as great. look in its feature list. it has more bells and whistles than any other terminal out there. Neither does XFCE and you happen to love that. In XFCE there is an app which links you to other smaller programs, but its not an ALL-IN-ONE. Gnome is much the same way. You can pick these settings separatly in Desktop > Preferences (for local) or Administration (for global). Or you can launch gnome-control-center by pressing ALT+F2 or through a terminal. thats why there exists Applications > System Tools > System Logs. look at them to find the errors. Nautilus 2.14 in my opinion is the best thing since sliced cheese. It browses files in 2 modes (new window per folder or browser), burns cds/dvds using nautilus-burner, does not pretend to be a bloated SLOW crappy web browser (pointing finger at Konqueror here), allows for easy file preview by simply mousing over the media files icon. and so forth. Go to distrowatch.com and check out their top 50. Look at #1: UBUNTU which is the god of all Gnome-centric distros. And trust me, Ubuntu isn't going anywhere any time soon. Also there has been word that SUSE, due in part to XGL developement is planning to switch to Gnome from KDE as their default, although they'll still offer support for both. And as always, made-to-order linux like Arch, SourceMage, Lunar, Gentoo all currently offer, and will keeep offering Gnome support. Wiat! there is more... Kororaa XGL...GNOME! I use gnome because it works. Like i said above, I gave KDE a try and it failed me horribly. I like e17 but like you said yourself, its still "a toy". I also like XFCE but as great as I find it, for every day desktop use gnome is simply more powerful and more full features, although a bit more bloated. If KDE 4 comes out to be the greatest thing since sliced cheese, sure i'll give it a run, give KDE another chance, but till then KDE3 just doesnt do it.

It's so cute how you made your gnome look like KDE in the picture. I like that.

Any way you can argue till the cows come home. I don't care. I said I like XFCE for a small WM it's 10mb easy to install just one package and your good to go. It's drab looking but does good for it's size. If I was limited on space I could manage with it. Gnome is 300+mb and accually works wores.

And you said you tried KDE awile ago. If you weren't so close mined and tried again you might find what everyone else found out. It's evolved very fast.

I don't care what subpare software you use. Or how you think QT or GTK is fast or slow. I notice them both being the same speed just GTK looks bad is all. But it's coding is simple so it's ok for some apps.

I'm not here to sell you on KDE I don't care. I don't have stock in KDE I only use it because it's the BEST. If something else comes better then I will use that. Gnome is the only one I can say I Don't like because like I said I was shocked at how bad it is. And even more shocked at how bad software always has fanatics backing it up. I guess KDE wont get fans like that till they start sucking alot.

Anyway I have tried Ubuntu several times. I also tried Kubuntu as well. Ubuntu is just a Debian branch with nothing intresting to me at all. And also they use the HORRIBLE installer that does NOT work at all on my Dell. But Ubuntu is just Debian by another name. So I have no use for it. Kubuntu is nicer because it's KDE and alittle more usable but I need something more then just a kernel and GUI.

I want something that works and works right the first time. I want to boot up and have the system find my hardware even my ATI and set it all up with nothing from me. I want a WM that I can use. I don't want to have to use the comand line for every day tasks. I don't want to have to change something ugly or adjust settings to make it usable. Why don't they do that before the create the OS. I want to be able to play my store bought DVD's. I want to go on the internet and not only have java and flash support. But I want it to also handle all musice and video on the net. I want to go to yahoo musice videos and watch them. I want to listen to internet radio. I want all my office needs taken care of. I want my WIFI to work. I want to also have many other tools if I ever feel like doing anything.

And I don't want to have to MAKE it work. I just want it all there right out of the box and work.

You tell me 1 Just 1 OS other then mine that can do that. Just 1.

What good is haveing the latest kernel or lates xorg I don't care if I cann't do anything with it.

And don't even try to list something. Unless you really know it can do it all.

Wifi
3D accelerated
Office
Firefox with full multimedia support for everything.
DVD support. (licensed)
Working WM that I don't need to ajust color to stop suicidal thoughts.
Complete support for QT and GTK
Simple boot right into the WM.
Not a text installer that needs a doctors degree to get through.
A complete Development environment.
All the needed libraries installed so when ever I want to try a game I don't need to hunt for things.
Listen and recored internet music.
Edit audio.
Edit Video.

And on and on. No mess no fuss. If I don't have it all, then I have to ****ing use windows and what's the point in using linux if I have to switch back and forth.

And when you get errors in Gnome you cann't trace them down. Not even running them from console still no usable info. I tried FreeRock gnome. the same version you use. And It wasn't even usable enough to try and find out what the problems where.

But your a true FanNatic so keep fighting that loosing battle. What is gnome percentage on desktops right now. about 20% and falling. I wonder why. Well I know why. But you stand your ground. Make your Gnome look like KDE and let the world pass you by.

hey myah - Does your Linux have PHC undervolt patch incuded inside the kernel?

If yes I'll give it a try straight away - if no I'll have to stick with windows because up to now on 10 linux kernel compile tries I never got Wifi and PHC working. It's either one or the other with Dapper Drake.

I would love a up and go run linux that does not need kernel patching just for undervolting, wifi out of the box (2915ABG intel), Dell quick buttons (well not really needed, and support for my ADS Tech Dual TV USB tv card - which is unluckily still not supported in any linux version or anything linux related (even their windows drivers don't get completely recognised by any program - even their own. - every program gets acces to some other hidden settings of grear hardware with unconform BDA/WDM drivers)

No the kernel isn't patched I actually know much about it. Some one asked me before but I was just starting so I didn't get to it. But I am always looking for improvements in the system aslong as it doesn't hurt the operation for anyone else.

If you would like to see and OS support it I would be happy to work with you.

And about the wifi. I have everything compiled into the kernel plus madwifi. And I tried to find all the firmware. But if it isn't see you can still load the windows driver for you wifi with ndiswrapper.

If you are really intrested in using Myah or making it support you Hardware then please post it on my forum so everyone else will have to info aswell.

I'm not saying my OS is perfect it's not and is always growing. But there just in no other linux os that I can use for more than just a cute toy. Like I said before if I have to switch to windows just once for anything. Then why use the linux at all.

But anyone who want's to work with me make a better system I would love to have.

I would also like more info on the kernel patch needed for you processor. Please post it to my forum.

http://forum.mymyah.com/

Thanks

Wow there is a lot of opinions being tossed around here.

Myah I give props for making your own distro, however understand your viewpoint isnt the only one


I can assure you ABF is a linux user, and has tried more distros than even I have in his shorter time here, going through quite a few installs it seems on a weekly basis. Trust me if he didnt get this right off maybe you might want to find a better way of explaining this, or accounting for it in your installer.


That is certainly a valid opinion, however even my experience in gnome disagrees with your assesment of it. It is what you make of it.


I definitly agree to truly use enlightenment(e17) at the moment you have to be a more advanced user typically. However on the flip side of that they arent even in a beta stage yet, nor have they made half of their config apps, though they are increasing the number of these on a regular basis, however I am not certain I would say it is not as functional as XFCE, the difference comes down to the amount of epplets written for it vs similar objects for other desktop environments. So if you need a functionality it can probably be done, just hasnt been done yet, thus why the more advanced users for the moemnt as it is still before even beta test stage.

At any rate it is also important to note that sometimes simplicity is attracting, something i have yet to see done correctly in KDE. Sure it has all the big flashy things, but some of us find those outright ugly and distracting, not to mention taking away resources from other important apps that we use, for me this is realtime audio and 3d modeling, two things that need as many of the resources on my computer as I can dedicate to it, I find KDE to be a bad choice in my experience for this, Gnome is better, but still not great. XFCE I never really liked myself, at the moment I am sticking with e17 as I probably would be considered a more advanced user and CAN tweak it to my hearts desire, it is faster than either gnome or KDE on my machine, and is more flexible than Fluxbox which I used to use.

Seablade