Which other distro's would I like / should I try?

[JBorneu]

Hi there

I'm trying to find the distro that suits me best, but I'm still looking and considering. I think summing up my Linux experience will be the easiest way to help you understand what I am looking for in a distro. If you don't want to read it all, skip to my criteria at the end.



Jan2010: I installed Linux Mint on an older laptop because my good one was temporarily broken. I had no linux-experience before this. I liked it as nice plug-&-play desktop, but when I installed it on my good laptop (when it was repaired) I disliked the fact that I barely noticed a performance difference between mint on the old and the new laptop and Mint and Vista on the new laptop. So I removed it, if I put Linux on this thing (my good laptop) I wanna see it fly.

Feb2010: I installed Slackware, fully aware of all the warnings about the "learning curve". I actually found the installation very easy. More options than the Mint installer, but not more difficult, even though it was text-based. Two things drove me away from Slackware:
1 The package manager which does not check dependencies. I get how it can be a feature, but I don't like it. I want an advanced package manager which checks dependencies and installs them.
2 The KDE 4 desktop environment in Slackware 13 is buggy as hell.

March 2010: I heard about Gentoo but the installation looked like a horribly complicated process so I tried Sabayon. Buggy as hell. Nothing worked untill I re-emerged (re-installed for non-gentoo people) it. Very pretty, much eye-candy, which I liked, but way too buggy and slow. So I installed Debian, because it's generally considered to be a very stable distro. I didn't like it, but to be honest I didn't give it a fair chance. Most things didn't work out of the box so I just formatted my linux-dedicated partitions again. During my holiday I installed Gentoo Linux from inside a live Mint environment. It took 24 hours until I could boot (with my own kernel configuration, no genkernel for me, no sir!), 2 days before I had a working GNOME desktop and a week until I had wireless, but I enjoyed every part of it.

APRIL 2010: However, I accidentially let my system update itself from the unstable branch of the Portage tree (my fault, I know why and how I did it and what I shouldn't have done). About 80 unstable package installations later Portage refused to go on with the updates, and thank god I realised what I had done. It took me a couple hours to fix most of the damage and re-emerge the affected packages from the stable tree, but a lot of my configuration files are still messed up which gives a lot of errors and I think I have to do a clean reinstall to fix this mess (which I created myself). I still like Gentoo very much, but I'm not looking forward to reinstalling it, and cleaning out my configuration files is probably above my head.


So, these are the options I'm considering now:
- Clean reinstall of Gentoo
- Trying out Arch Linux
- Installing anything you might recommend with the following specifications:

* I want the distro to support Gnome and I want AMD64 support.
* An advanced package manager which is good with dependencies.
* Fast, 3 years ago this was a high-end expensive laptop so I wanna see it fly. No Mint / Sabayon slowness please.
* I prefer distro's which keep as close to the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard and other Linux standards as possible. I wanna learn to use Linux, not Ubuntu
* I'm not affraid of using a command line and editing configuration files.
* I prefer a source-based rolling-release distro, but I realize there are few of those around, so I'm open to any suggestions.

Should you know a distro without these features wich you really like and you think I should try, tell me why and there's a chance I just might do it.

Thanks for your time

[jayd512]

Hello and Welcome!

Sounds like you've already done most of your homework on what you want and what you like!

That being said, I have a handful of suggestions for you. Arch and Gentoo are both rolling release, CLI heavy if you prefer. CRUX is not a rolling release, but the speed and stability are amazing!! Like Gentoo, it's source based, and the package handler is outstanding (prt-get).

I'd say try the ones that you haven't dabbled with yet, and draw your own conclusions.
And, most important... keep having fun with it!

[oz]

Welcome to the forums!

Some users experiment with different versions of Linux and distro-hop for years before deciding to stick with any particular distro. Others leave Linux only to return and start the search all over again for that ultimate distro. The only way to find the best distribution for you is to keep on doing what you've been doing. Even then, distributions change, our computer hardware changes, and our personal tastes in an operating system can change, so there might not ever truly be any end to the cycle.

Over the last 9 or 10 years, I've found that I prefer those distributions that allow for a minimal base system install, then I install only what I want or need on top of that. Some of those distributions would include Arch, Crux, Debian, and Gentoo. Of course there are others that you can use the same way.

Best of luck to you with whatever route you decide to take.

[trutheality]

I'd say go with Arch.
You get the speed, the rolling release, excellent package management, and a straightforward installation process.
And there's a wiki that helps with configuration and troubleshooting of the most common programs.

[reed9]

Based on your description, I would also say Arch is a good choice for you.

I would note, however, that GNOME is GNOME whichever distro, and you may not see quite the speed increase you're hoping for. There should be some performance increase in Arch, and it's certainly possible to tweak things to improve performance, but I wouldn't expect drastic increases.

[hazel]

I wouldn't recommend Crux if you want gnome; it's not officially supported. There is a private repository from which you can load it, but they're less reliable than the official Crux ones. I love Crux - it's blisteringly fast - but it is rather fanatical about simplicity and gnome is irreducibly complex.

[JBorneu]

I ended up doing a clean reinstall of Gentoo. I love portage too much to give up on Gentoo yet. Portage, and my < 30 seconds boot time to a gnome desktop, ethernet / wireless network configuration included. Fast enough for my taste.

But I've still got that old laptop around ... maybe I'll put Arch on that to check it out.

[Rubberman]

Gentoo, in the right hands, can be awesome! It was my first real Linux - took me 2 weeks to get installed and functional on an old Dell PII-450 worksation. I also liked it a lot, and it worked well for me for a couple of years. Over time, I (and my hardware) have changed. Now, I have a workstation with enough CPU and memory that I'm not too concerned wtih how fast it boots, or how few/little resources it takes. I'm more interested in stability, reliability, and compatibility. As a result, I run CentOS (RHEL) on my 8 core workstation/server, and Ubuntu 9.04 on my 3 laptops. I also run Debian on an embedded ARM processor board I'm developing software for. So, as I have said in other postings, go with what works for you - and ENJOY!

[PDR60]

I guess I'm a bit different. With the proper tweaking any distro is as fast as any other. I would recommend you find one that suits your basic needs and then really get into the nuts and bolts of it. You've already been running Gentoo and seem pretty satisfied.
I haven't seen anyone recommend Debian. Its the base for a whole bunch of distros. Any distro that uses a .deb package has its roots in Debian. Its pretty fast and if you start with a minimal install you can customize it pretty well. All the *buntu's are Debian based.

[minimike86]

gentoo ftw