The Best Linux distribution?

[Whaleboy]

What is in your view the best Linux distribution?

Please post your reasons, and what you use your Linux box for.

Please dont use this to flame microsoft, there are other threads for that, to which I will happily join the bbq, but lets keep this within Linux!

[Whaleboy]

I'm a Slacker myself. Fantastically stable, secure and fast. No BS really. If you're comfortable with being left close to the silicon, want to muck about with the system with no bad repercussions, and don't need a mouse to use a computer, then Slack is the way to go!

Knoppix is good too, but as an on-demand "out of the box distro", rescue tool (not that I need it) or freeciv platform!

[chequita guevara]

Debian is the commie distro!

[Urban Ranger]

All GPL stuff is commie

[Ari Rahikkala]

Hey!

Really, I think I could call Debian a commie distro... if "commie" stands for committed . apt is the best package management system out there, it still beats even Portage IMO - you usually get binary packages but can build from source if you want to (`fakeroot debian/rules binary`), both forward and reverse dependencies are handled well ("What do I depend on?" = forward dependencies, "What depends on me?" = reverse dependencies. Generally forward dependencies are required when installing stuff and reverse dependencies when removing stuff), and the system of syncing to several package repositories works very well*. Outside of the technical side of apt, Debian has great QA, is free both as in speech and as in beer, is stable if you want it to be stable and bleeding edge if you want it to be bleeding edge, and is known well enough that it's generally one of the first distros to get official support for stuff after RedHat.

* Portage has none of these. You sync with a mirror of the one Gentoo repository (you can, however, have a local Portage overlay tree, which synchronizing does not change), there's no handling of reverse dependencies (and probably won't be for a while since USE flags obfuscate dependencies) and there's usually no way to just quickly download and install a binary version of a package inside the package management system.

[Rasbelin]

I voted for Debian GNU/Linux which I'm just about to install, but I definetly give my moral support to SOT Linux.

[OliverFA]

Voted Windows XP

Being serious... If I had to choose I prefer SuSE.

[Patriqvium]

Most non-commercial *ix machines in my circles use not Linux but various flavors of the Fancy Kernel from Berkeley Software Development (aka the BSDs) but of the Linux distributions I've tried/seen in action Debian simply works best with me. Not that I would prefer it over my trusty FreeBSD.

[Ted Striker]

Well said.

Linux sucks.

Go with BSD

[Harovan]

When it comes to Linux, it's Debian hands down.

[Panag]

hi ,

SuSE red hat aint bad neither

have a nice day

[Whaleboy]

Could it be argued that linux/bsd or any OSS is an example of communism working?

It would be possible, considering that the economics are different, with software, one has essentially infinite resources (disk space etc, for all intents and purposes). Interesting thought.

Debian is good, Slackware is good. Slesbian is great!! Install dpkg and apt from source onto Slackware, copy the necessary files from a doner Debian install, and sort out the apt list, and your sorted!

[Pekka]

red hat is pretty nice, I'm currently running win98/red hat combination and it's pretty sweet.

[Angelo Scotto]

Originally posted by elijah
Could it be argued that linux/bsd or any OSS is an example of communism working?

It would be possible, considering that the economics are different, with software, one has essentially infinite resources (disk space etc, for all intents and purposes). Interesting thought.

Are you really trying to stick a political label to a software development methodology?

Anyway,
I voted for Debian:
Aside from Ari's points (apt rocks ), Debian is the only distribution (AFAIK) with a clear and well defined
policy about programs (installation, documentation, packages structure, location of files, etc...) which saves a lot of time when you're tring to understand what you've installed and where .
And Debian is also the only distribution to fully support HURD...

[Inverse Icarus]

i've used RH 7.1, SuSE 8, and Debian i forget what version, and i used RH the longest, if that says anything.

RH is the "newbie distro" though. maybe now i'd me more apt to take on Debain, which i hear is extremely flexible / powerful, but not as user-friendly.