Which Distro? Poll 2005-2006

[psic]

Just tried out Mandriva and Ubuntu. Both are very user-friendly, but not my cup of tea

[fitzso]

I've spent most of my life using Windows. I feel like I know it backwards.

I use SuSE 10.1, and I love some of the features it has in common with Windows XP. I love the automounting, the sysinfo page in Konqeror where I can see all about my machine. I like the plug-and-play of USB devices (I have an iriver T30, 2Gb that runs fine under SuSE). I also love the background if you log in as root.
It was very easy to install and doesn't take anywhere near as long as Windows (thank $diety for that!).

Downsides: Amarok keeps crashing on me, and I still haven't finished getting everything I need to install VLC player on it. Until that happens, nothing else will play my videos.

[Juan Pablo]

Gentoo primarly and Debian second

[Redman]

Downsides: Amarok keeps crashing on me, and I still haven't finished getting everything I need to install VLC player on it. Until that happens, nothing else will play my videos.

Although offtopic, you might want to try out Xine.
You can download the files needed here.

[masinick]

I have LOTS of distros that I test, but frankly, for every day use, I just use the user friendly, easy to set up and run distros, and there are two that I use more than any others lately:

1. SimplyMEPIS 6.0

Once my backup desktop distro, this has now become my every day favorite. It has everything I need, period.

2. Freespire

This is the up and comer. I really think that if Kevin Carmony and the fine people at Linspire keep up the good work, this could become a distro to crack into the mainstream.

To do that, I think that they will need to do two things really well going forward:

1) Make sure they have seamless support for the iPod. Let's face it, nearly every techno savvy kid has one or wants one, and many adults like them as well. To make it big time, you HAVE to have iPod support.

2) 64 bit support. Linux was first on the block to get 64 bit Pentium processor support and first on the block to get AMD 64 support. Linus Torvalds put 64 bit support into Linux at least ten years ago on the DEC Alpha chip, so it can be done. Make sure you have 64 bit desktop support, a good set of apps that people routinely use, connectivity to those popular apps, and that iPod support, and as people migrate their desktops to 64 bit processors and find it painful with Windows, the time will be ripe to move.

Do it right and you can at least get a fighting chance to become dominant. Eric Raymond, Open Source Software evangelist, developer, and analyst, believes, based on personal research, that major shifts in popularity and use of apps happen only when there is a major shift in hardware, and you have to be ready for the shift with immediately useful products that are perceived that way and marketed that way.

64 bit desktop adoption is coming. Vista is blundering. Linux has a great chance to capture much market share, but if it blows this opportunity, it may never get another chance like this, and will always be a second tier alternative at best, and fade, at worst. I believe it can make that move, and I hope that the big iron vendors get behind it like never before on the desktop to dethrone Microsoft from dominance.

Just as Microsoft and Intel took IBM out of the driver's seat when they took over mass appeal of the early PCs (which, ironically enough, IBM helped to VALIDATE!), IBM, HP, Dell, and Sun all have the chance to help dethrone Microsoft at least, and possibly Intel as well (with AMD and other hardware vendor cooperation) by banding together, donating manpower, hardware, software, and marketing expertise to make sure they, for once in their lives, cooperate and get it right.

In the late 1980s, had IBM, HP, Digital, Wang, Sun, and Data General cooperated in working on open UNIX standards, both for servers and the desktop, Microsoft could have been squashed or kept as a second tier player. Instead, they fought with one another. Meanwhile, Microsoft had crap for software, but worked on it and gradually fixed one part, then another, then another until they ultimately came up with the first killer app: Microsoft Office, with Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, which they have since expanded. MS/DOS and Windows were mildly popular before that, but once Office did well, stuff like Word Perfect, Lotus 1-2-3, Wordstar, etc. were history. Computing has never been the same.

Then when Microsoft added networking to their products, that put the death grip on other alternatives, and further incremental changes only cemented their position. From there, Microsoft used the revenues gained by dominating the desktop to dominating in other areas, until we reached the present situation. Ironically enough, it was Microsoft's hacks into the Internet world that have so greatly compromised the security and robustness of computer networks. Their time is past to be displaced. All that is needed are people with enough vision to do it and the backing to get it done.

Linux has all the technology necessary to win, but the unanswered question is whether their is enough manpower, marketing, and tenacity to do it amonst a consortium of companies? I give it a fair chance, but if it doesn't happen in one to three years, I predict it will never happen. I hope it does.

It's not that I want to kill off Microsoft, I just want a really strong alternative to Microsoft so that I have a chance to go to work and use something other than Microsoft desktop (or even worse, Microsoft server) based products. I want to see about three strong options and alternatives, with none holding over a 40% share of the market. Something like four alternatives, with the leader owning a 40% market share, number two and three battling it out between 20 and 25 % each, and a fourth at around 10% market share would result in a really healthy computing market - both in hardware and in software. I hope we get there soon!

[derekr54]

At present I am using Mepis 6,very pleased I am with it as well.I was using Ubuntu which I also like very much,but I find the dual boot screen easier to log on with than the Ubuntu one.