What's your favourite distro? What should I use?

[condawg]

Hi there. =]
What's your favourite Linux distro?
I'm looking for a new one to try out.
I've been using Linux Ubuntu 8.04 for about 2 months now, and I want to move on, to try new things.
So, what do you recommend?

Also, do you prefer KDE or Gnome?

Please, no "there is no best distro, it's all on personal choice!" responses... I'm looking for opinions, not facts.
Also, nothing too difficult, please -- I'm not that great with Linux yet, but I want to explore a bit more.
Thanks =]

[a12ctic]

Zenwalk

/thread

[oz]

Welcome to the forums!

Check this poll for some opinions on what distro new users like:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/cof...rs-2008-a.html

...and this one for favorite desktop environment:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/cof...ll-2008-a.html

Hope you have fun with Linux.

[daark.child]

openSUSE has been my favourite for the last 3 years although I do like Mandriva, Fedora, Mint, CentOS and others.

[kveldulf980]

Kind of a vague question since you should probably use a distro that best fits your needs/wants. I typically use Fedora for personal use and Slackware for servers. Although, admittedly, Fedora always has its little issues, but they aren't anything too troubling if you have patience and don't mind a little typing. For the novice, Ubuntu is what I always recommend, it offers a lot of usability and requires very little prior knowledge. If you are feeling gutsy (Ubuntu pun intended) then perhaps give Fedora or OpenSUSE a go, they are usually pretty straight forward and have active communities for support.

As to Gnome/KDE I usually prefer Gnome because I find it is easy to get it to do what I want and doesn't have too much extra fluff, unless I want it. That said, I was a KDE activist for many years (since 1.1) so I certainly wouldn't say anything bad about it. Honestly, again, it's more about your personal needs/desires than it is about which is "better" by some standard. If you are feeling fiesty (another Ubuntu pun) I recommend you check out xfce, it's what I've been using recently and I find it gives me the best bang for my buck, so to speak.

Good luck and happy hunting.

[khafa]

my prefered distro i would say Fedora. this is just because i began using Linux with Redhat(7, 8 , 9 ) then when Redhat moved to Fedora I was like "im not moving anywhere". but at the end i had to surrender and Fedora was the natural way to go.
but i think the same thing would hold with Ubuntu , Slackware , Debian and others.

for Desktops i prefer XFCE. its light and i love the design.

[danbuter]

Currently, I'm back on Ubuntu. I also like OpenSUSE, but hate their package manager.
Lately, I'm thinking Gnome has a big jump up on KDE4. KDE3 is still better than Gnome, though.

[geniuz]

Arch Linux for me since a couple of weeks. At first I was a devoted debian user and I really adored its stability...yet Arch is just as stable but a LOT faster in my opinion. To be honest I haven't seen anything running my apps as fast as Arch.

Their package management is just as easy to use, pacman and yaourt are basically all you need for an up2date and perfectly customizable desktop or server OS.

About the desktop environments...I hate to say this but I hate both Gnome AND KDE. I used them both, but when out of the box they are far to packed and it will take you ages to remove all the apps and libs you will never use.

For me XFCE4 is best: lightweight, stable and lightning fast hence very easy to use, unlike fluxbox :/

[rbn14]

If you like Ubuntu I would say give Debian (Lenny or Sid or Lenny/Sid) a shot. I am a huge Debian fan but have been toying around with Fedora lately and am actually really liking it. I think I am going to go with Fedora on my "main" laptop now and start playing with Arch or Gentoo on the "other" laptop.

[oz]

What's your favourite distro?

What should I use?

Also, do you prefer KDE or Gnome?

Arch Linux

Whatever you'd like to use

I like them both, and use both but on separate systems