[techieMoe]

Has anyone else read about this cute little thing on DistroWatch?

http://www.tuxs.org/chooser/

I tried it out a few times. They recommended Debian for me, which interestingly enough is one of my favorites. Their choices seem a little limited, but maybe they'll add a few more questions to it. For someone who just wants a quick "Tell me what to download" solution, this might be good. Unfortunately it doesn't offer pros/cons of the distros it recommends. I guess that's what this forum is for.

[jeremy1701]

Nice, I got debian!

I've never tried it, but maybe I will.

Jeremy

[techieMoe]

Originally Posted by jeremy1701

Nice, I got debian!

I've never tried it, but maybe I will.

Jeremy

Debian is great for updating and installing/uninstalling with the apt-get program. You can get a GUI frontend for it (synaptic) which makes it even easier. My only complaint as of now (this may change when Sarge comes out soon) is that the installer is very unpleasant and cumbersome. If you're into trying out Debian, I'd recommend a LiveCD distro that you can install onto your harddrive easily, like Mepis. I use Mepis as an easier way to install Debian on a hard drive. Once it's installed I can modify/update/remove packages with Synaptic. Debian in general relies a lot on an internet connection, however, so I wouldn't recommend it to someone with dial-up.

If you liked that little mini-review, perhaps you'll read other reviews that I plan on writing for LinuxForums in the future. ::end shameless plug::

[kriss]

It recomended Gentoo to me, even though I clicked on the "my computer is old" tab.

[techieMoe]

Originally Posted by kriss

It recomended Gentoo to me, even though I clicked on the "my computer is old" tab.

I think perhaps their criteria for "old" computers is to steer you toward smaller distros.. but then it is very limited in the number of recommendations. Gentoo can be as big or little as you want it to be, though, so maybe that isn't the best choice...

[U-Turn]

The chooser is wrong. No matter what I select, Slackware is never recomended. There is something seriously wrong with that. :smoke:

[dan@george]

I got Debian, which is what I already use on my laptop. However, I think I'm going to install Slackware on my new Athlon 64 machine. I heard it's relatively technical, but not ridiculously difficult to install like Gentoo.

[techieMoe]

Originally Posted by dan@george

I got Debian, which is what I already use on my laptop. However, I think I'm going to install Slackware on my new Athlon 64 machine. I heard it's relatively technical, but not ridiculously difficult to install like Gentoo.

That's been my experience. The installer for Slackware (at least in the last version I tried: 9.1) is not *terribly* technical; it has ncurses-based menus and pretty much walks you through everything. It also gives you as much or as little control as you want for package selection. You have to partition your drives before you start the installer, so you must have prior knowledge about how to do that (as well as proper sizes), but once the installer starts it auto-detects most everything. I usually choose XFce as my default desktop in Slackware.

[Hotwheelz]

I got Fedora Core because im lazy and dont feel like taking much time to install anything else

[xylex_blaiste]

i got Gentoo Linux. i would love to try this distro but it needs internet for its emerge features and i got a lousy dial-up. debian too i'd love to try. somebody share me some Gigs of HDD space.. . hehehe.. .