On Saturday 06 January 2007 02:21, Bradley Hook wrote:

So, what distro(s) do you use on your primary system(s)?

Gentoo, Debian, OpenZaurus

What distros have you tried in the last year or two? In 10 words or less describe why you did or did not like them.

Gentoo-- I can make it do exactly what I need, most of the time Debian-- I can't use a package from unstable in a stable install Fedora-- Why do I need to go change my repository configurations??? Ubuntu-- eww, GNOME; ugly, slow, etc Kubuntu-- ok, I can deal with this while I don't have a HD; wtf? no Ethereal??

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So, what distro(s) do you use on your primary system(s)?

Debian (testing) - 8 servers Ubuntu running Enlightenment - 2 desktops and a laptop

What distros have you tried in the last year or two? In 10 words or less describe why you did or did not like them.

Debian - It's minimalist and just works

Ubuntu - They took the reliablity and quality of Debian and blended it with a nice desktop setup. My Mom has been using Ubuntu for two years, and she loves it.

Gentoo - I used it for a year or so, but I spent way too much time having to keep it up-to-date and fixing issues that came up when I didn't sync every day.

On 1/6/07, Bradley Hook bhook@kssb.net wrote:

There has been a lot of chatter about different distros on the list recently, and I just wanted to throw out a quick poll of sorts, and maybe encourage a little more discussion. I would prefer to avoid any flames or childish "xyz distro sucks" insults, but I would like to know what KCLUG members have and are using.

So, what distro(s) do you use on your primary system(s)?

What distros have you tried in the last year or two? In 10 words or less describe why you did or did not like them.

As for me, I use Slackware on almost everything. I have 2 Slackware machines at home: one for me to game on, one for my wife to dabble on.

At work, I have a triple-boot laptop running Slackware/OSX/WinXP. I have roughly 10 servers, all running some version of Slackware. We are also running some UML instances within these servers, which all use a Slackware root_fs. We keep a few machines around running various other distros, from DSL to Ubuntu.

Distros I have tried:

Slackware - I love it because "It just works(tm)" Ubuntu - I recommend it a lot, but I don't do GNOME Kubuntu - Easy to install, and I like KDE Damn Small Linux (DSL) - Name says it all Knoppix - Eh, it's cool RedHat - Fragged my bootloader more than once Debian - Bad experiences with dependency checking Gentoo - Novel idea, but installs take too long

Also, on every installation, I tend to download the latest kernel source (without a fourth number, ie 2.16.19) and build it specific to my hardware. I also usually compile my own Apache/PHP/PostGreSQL from vanilla sources.

~Bradley _______________________________________________ Kclug mailing list Kclug@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug

98 on my campground store box- locked in by Starband VSAT software. Dual boot laptop-Ubuntu/XP as some clients require XP dependent comwares.

My desktop is dual boot ME and Xandros. ME is to mirror wifey's ME box as that is what she uses- till she gets to retry Ubuntu next week.

On Saturday 06 January 2007 02:21, Bradley Hook wrote:

What distros have you tried in the last year or two? In 10 words or less describe why you did or did not like them.

I've run RedHat, mostly in console mode, from 2.1 through FC4. Lots of good points, but due to them dropping support for their legacy releases for the second time I'm probably not going back. I have two servers I still support remotely, migrated one off to Mandriva last month.

I've also run Mandriva, mostly for my desktop, since a fairly early version. Actually, since I corrupted my RedHat system by trying to install the more current Madrake packages on it. I think it's one of the best desktops available today, much better than Fedora, for reasons I've been discussing.

About four years ago, I upgraded my hardware so I could actually get work done under an Xwindows session, and have been glad to work almost exclusively in Linux since then.

I diverged into SuSE for a while because I had unreasonable expectations about what Novell would do for them. I never did like Novell, and they proved true to form.

I manage a Gentoo firewall and a samba PDC fileserver for a small office for about the last four years. Don't like it. See other discussion.

I recently migrated the former Gentoo workstation to Kubuntu, and now it does what I want it to do, including play streaming audio while I work, which was constantly failing in gentoo. I like the ubuntu systems, but don't know the apt/deb package management as well as I know RPM. There are things I have come to know and prefer about the way the RedHat systems manage startup and running software.

I've also used tomsrtbt, and knopix, and linux defender live CD's for various purposes such as rescuing Windows PC's (with NT filesystems no less), and I have a distro called Boot'n'nuke that is specifically for wiping hard drives on decommissioned systems.

I like linux because you can find out just about anything about how things work and how to fix them, and you are in such complete control of your environment, you're not running a bunch of spyware that benefits the company packaged it and their allies.