Which Distro is Best

[dwainsworld]

I know that asking which distro is best is like asking how long is a piece of string, but due to a catastrophic hard drive failure I am at the stage of having to get my Linux back up and running from scratch again.

I was running redhat 9, and as I had gone quite some way toward becoming acquainted with it, I am tending toward re-installing it. On the other hand, RH9 is obviously going to be pase rather soon as RHN stops supporting it in April - so I am considering Fedora - but am wondering whether it is up to speed bug wise yet? Also, last night a mate mentioned that Debian was what the hard core linux heads use, so now I am really unsure which way to go.

Any comments are appreciated.

Regards,

Dwain.

[countach44]

My personal favorite is Slackware, I've found it to be fastest and most functional.

[GhostDawg]

I would suggest to try Debian. It can be a little tricky getting it setup but once you do, it will be a good distro to have. Plus it's not as hard as most people make it seem to install.

It also has a good package management system ( apt-get)!

[BurntAsh]

i vote for slackware, easy to install and easy to maintain. it is also fast and stable.

[Schotty]

Debian and slackware are a tad different than Red Hat, but if you are willing to learn the differences or had a pretty smooth ride with Red Hat, go for it.

[Compunuts]

Vote for 8)Debian 8) here. ;D

[cga]

Really it depends on what you want to do. If you want to really dig in and learn Linux/Unix then probably Debian. If you want a solid desktop system that "just works", I'd say SuSE. Of course even with SuSE you can fire up the CLI and learn the insides anyway.

[Compunuts]

[quote author=cga link=board=2;threadid=8571;start=0#msg77478 date=1075053013]
Of course even with SuSE you can fire up the CLI and learn the insides anyway.
[/quote]
I think this is true.

Even with Mac OSX, you could learn to use CLI. But then again, Debian will FORCE you to learn the Linux way right from the beginning starting with Installer. ;D

[vvx]

[quote author=Compunuts link=board=2;threadid=8571;start=0#msg77535 date=1075108725]
[quote author=cga link=board=2;threadid=8571;start=0#msg77478 date=1075053013]
Of course even with SuSE you can fire up the CLI and learn the insides anyway.
[/quote]
I think this is true.

Even with Mac OSX, you could learn to use CLI. But then again, Debian will FORCE you to learn the Linux way right from the beginning starting with Installer. ;D
[/quote]

So, after you learn the Linux way, which is better?

[cga]

[quote author=vvx link=board=2;threadid=8571;start=0#msg77541 date=1075117749]
[quote author=Compunuts link=board=2;threadid=8571;start=0#msg77535 date=1075108725]
[quote author=cga link=board=2;threadid=8571;start=0#msg77478 date=1075053013]
Of course even with SuSE you can fire up the CLI and learn the insides anyway.
[/quote]
I think this is true.

Even with Mac OSX, you could learn to use CLI. But then again, Debian will FORCE you to learn the Linux way right from the beginning starting with Installer. ;D
[/quote]

So, after you learn the Linux way, which is better?
[/quote]

Not really a question as to which is better. I tend to use my nice SuSE/KDE GUI most of the time pretty much as if I were running my Win2k laptop. Heck, I can do everything in KDE better than in Win2k.

But, from time to time, I need to do a few things that work best with custom shell scripts or CLI tools. That's what a terminal emulator is for.

So the answer is they are both better; just depends on the circumstance.