I have moved from clicking to root@localhost. I was preferring the main distro's since they tend to have a larger collection of packages and tend to be tested upon for major software releases. The problem with mandriva is the same as the one you pointed out with ubuntu. they tend to focus on windows too much that you feel that you are back to windows, but this time with more complex problems. so i was looking for a linux distro that has a developer in mind, but also easy enough to some extent such that i don't have to manually compile all the packages i need. as for the desktop environments, i prefer Gnome to the more flashy KDE, which tends to be heavy and buggy. but you really gave a very insightful post Jonathan. I haven't thought about the smaller distros, since most of them look like specialization efforts (media player, multimedia production etc) On 08/06/2009, Jonathan McLean <jmmcl2@gmail.com> wrote:
Have you ever thought of moving out of mainstream distros? Personally, I like distros like Ubuntu and Fedora for when other, non computer people need to be using them, but often times I find them clunky, non responsive, and prone to many many bugs due to their large codebase. Therefore, I often prefer to use more trimmed versions.
In recent years, this approach has taken the added benefit of package management systems and lightweight desktop environments. With package management systems, you get the benefits of dependency generation and easy package installation as with the large distros, but a much more trimmed selection of initial packages. Fedora especially takes the "Here's everything approach," which leads to bloat and function redundancy.
Lightweight Desktop Environments like XFCE and LXDE attempt to provide the same functionality as bloat like KDE and GNOME, but without the monolithic sub systems that you find underlying KDE and GNOME. Heck, if you want, scrap the desktop environment completely and maybe try your hand at a simple window manager approach: Fluxbox, Blacbox, OpenBox, IceWM, etc.
As for ubuntu, they lock everything down that your basically just not using Linux anymore. I am wary of any distro that tries its hardest to lock me out of the root account. However, as I am running a lab of machines I don't want people mucking up, I appreciate it. I also appreciate that everyone seems to be gravitating towards generating .debs for it. As much as I dislike ubuntu, I greatly appreciate its dedication to packages.
So what distros do I like? Well Slackware for one. Someone has mentioned Gentoo as well. There is ArchLinux, MEPIS, EnGarde for dedicated servers, and my personal Desktop Distroy of choice is Zenwalk, a Slack-deriv.
Or, if you are really, really, adventurous, whip up your own, complete, custom system using the Linux From Scratch project.
I just hope you aren't afraid of the command line!
-- jonathan mclean us peace corps volunteer ict specialist mtongwe, kenya _______________________________________________ Skunkworks mailing list Skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks Other services @ http://my.co.ke Other lists ------------- Skunkworks announce: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks-announce Science - http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/science kazi - http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/admin/kazi/general
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