KDE-Forum.org

SUSE: the GRUB menu is preety and it s easy to manage

I first entered the world of Linux about 2 or 3 years ago using knoppix, but that only lasted a month or two. I was new to LINUX and needed something simpler, plus something that would work with my old system at that time. I then tried to install Mandriva, but that didn't work with my ancient graphics card. I then tried Simply Mepis 6 and was very pleased. I had some great help from their forum, too. A year went by that went while trying a new computer (iMac os X) and then I went back to Mepis, but the disc was out of date. I have dial-up serial modem, so getting a live disc wasn't easy, unless I had my husband make a copy of one of the distros and send it to me.
So, then I decided to try Ubuntu, and didn't like the layout too much, and the lack of dial up support with their network-manager. I did learn to use wvdial via the terminal, but still, ubuntu wasn't application rich like the KDE environment. So I tried Kubuntu, and that was buggy (gusty), I have since updated my system to a AMD64 fx-57 processor, used Asus motherboard, and tried LINUX Mint KDE CE Edition, which I really liked, except it didn't recongnize my new cmedia graphics card. I switched over to LINUX Mint 5 rev.1 Elyssa and couldn't be happier, except for the lack of KDE desktop. I am waiting for Mint to release it's latest KDE version, but until then I have installed several KDE apps on this gnome desktop. The Mint boot splash looks tops, and it was like it was made for my particular system - everything works fine except for certain webpage printing (uclick puzzles) . I'm a big fan of K9copy and Amarok player. Also, KPPP is great for it has the many modem type options. With my new motherboard, there is no serial port, so I had to use a serial to usb converter cable. KPPP has ttyusb0 as one of its selections, which works for my setup. So, I'd say Mint is my favourite. I tried to use Fedora9 KDE 64-bit version, but for some odd reason, I could dial up, but couldn't get the browser to browse. It was like the way they had KPPP connection set up was different some how. Not even there package searcher would find a server. I only tried the live disc version. It looked too different for me to get used to, as I'm not used to Yum and RPMs. I also tried Kubuntu -64 bit version, but I didn't like how it looked compared to Mint, and it also had default respoisoties set to 'source' and I didn't know this when I first did a suggested update. I ended up losing sound.

I have tried many distributions, started with SUSE and after that tried Radhat, Mandrake, Debian, Ubuntu and some more. I have the feeling, that most of them (exspecially SuSE) are patching the programs heavily and there were always distribution-specific problems because of this patching. I thought about what I need. There weren't so many diferences between the distributions, tha packages were nearly the same everywhere. What was I looking for?
- actively maintained
- easy updating
- lots/enough packages
- without too many patching

I tried and used gentoo for a long time and it is a great distribution! But there were 2 problems: Updating (=compiling) takes quite a bit time and you can easily get into trouble because some packages don't work together anymore. I don't have the time to care about things like that, so I switched to archlinux and it is just great! If you are no beginner it is VERY easy and fast(!) to maintain and update, there are lots of packages and you can very easy build your own packages. The packages are quite clean (=unpatched) and if there is a new packge everybody can inform the maintainer. And there is one big user-repository for all the user made packages - just great!

Cheers,

Thomas

Short answer:

If I could only have one computer, give me Ubuntu with KDE installed. I actually install Ubuntu with Gnome, then install KDE, because the resulting version of Konqueror is more complete than I get with Kubuntu. Then I run KDE apps with Fluxbox.

More complete answer:

I have two old computers, which I purchased for a total of 130 dollars, and recently I have set them up to have a debian-based distro running on one, and a slackware-based distro running on the other. Debian-based distros provide easy access to a huge amount of software. The deep-down simplicity of Slackware makes a great desktop system for getting real work done. I can't even explain it, but when I'm running Slackware on my main desktop, I'm a lot more productive, but with Slack, there's always some essential software that I can't get without a lot of compiling. Compiling is easy when it work, but when it doesn't work... ...it's not easy. So I need that Debian system to cover those gaps.

Lately, one of my computers seems to have developed a problem with reading hard drives from IDE. But it reads the CD ROM fine, ditto for a USB harddrive. So I've got a debian-based live CD distro running on this computer, and I'm using it to process avi files into DVDs. It's an all day job, and this where it's nice to have a second computer, so I can have a clear desktop to use. It's reading from and writing to an external USB-connected harddrive.

My other computer (this one) is running Vector Linux SOHO 5.8, not the latest version, but the latest version to not cost any money. I'm considering the 20 dollar investment in an upgrade, but Vector SoHo 5.8 is pretty sweet as it is. Gslapt provides easy access to nearly everything I really need for my desktop, and it's fastfastfast!

Debian Sid (sidux) of course!
But... if a distro have KDE... is very good for me!
But I love to administrate debian distributions!

1. Sabayon -Based on Gentoo plus great looks and features.
2. Mandriva - stable, feature rich, but not so open (hides things)
3. Fedora - Bleeding edge, rocking...

Quoted from "speedyx"

Debian Sid (sidux) of course!
But... if a distro have KDE... is very good for me!
But I love to administrate debian distributions!

I try a short list of my favorites:
1. sidux
2. Kubuntu
3. Mepis
4. Pardus

I used to use SuSE but i could'nt get it to work with my wireless. i like RPM based distros, debian seems a little over complicated and i couldn't care less about security so ubuntu is out. i installed ubuntu once and the first thing i did was hack it
so i could log in as root, and use kde as root, i like messing around with my system and it seemed everything i did had some kind of security barrier in place -- sudo (annoying).
now i use Mandriva (2009) + KDE4 which worked straight away with my wireless, i just recompiled a new kernel and got that
going with no problems. the software updating is good. everything works (just a few minor kde4 panel annoyances which everyone seems to be experiencing.)
1. Mandriva
2. SuSE
3. RedHat
4...anything debian