Which Linux Distro Do You Use?

[Harry Rhodan]

Arch + Xfce, i prefer a not so bloated desktop enviroment

With XDM or some smaller display manager?

[rtxoff]

With XDM or some smaller display manager?

lightdm + lightdm gtk greeter

[DaMichel]

Base system is Ubuntu, and Mint on my laptop. I mix and match components though

Window Manager: i3wm

Login: lightdm

Mosts apps: KDE

The laptop is actually a Mac Book Air, setup with dual boot Linux.

At work we have Gentoo (!) with all sorts of fancy stuff, btrfs, systemd and whatnot ... Our system admin is a big Linux geek obviously

[TythosEternal]

Fedora is my go-to for personal use and situations where I have a say in e matter. Gentoo for when I need to go hard-core (which is less often than it used to be). At work, it's mostly Debian and (somewhat less often) Scientific Linux.

After a certain point, you stop caring about the distro and really only think about the package manager. I prefer yum over apt-get, but mainly because I have to type three keys instead of seven. Yes, I'm a discriminating soul.

On this and aforementioned notes, one of the most interesting info-graphics I've seen is the following illustration of Linux distro evolution. With a little luck, I'll convince our office to plot and frame a full-size version for our lab. It puts all the silly distro arguments in perspective.

Edited July 18, 2015 by TythosEternal
Linking to a better image

[LordFerret]

I love that map, been watching it evolve over the years. Debian FTW. Synaptic anyone?

[Newt]

I use several. I have previously used Opensuse, but then moved to Arch. I also have messed around wth Debian, but not used it that much. Additionally, I have a Gentoo USB flashdrive. Originally, I used xfce, but when I first tried a pure window manager, I could not bring myself to go back. Currentyly running dwm, but I also have i3 and ratpoison, as well as orbment (and tmux, if it counts).More recently I have been looking into other less mainstream distributions, particularly Source Mage.

[colmo]

Just reinstalled OpenSuse after a few months away. Oh joy, couldn't wait to ditch Windows. It's probably not the best distro for the job but it's the one I know best, been using it on and off since 1999.

[Fel]

Honestly, I think "Distro" seems highly overrated as there is often a far greater difference between OSX, Windows, and "Various Desktop Managers" than there is between the distros.

I make this complaint often, but while I have setup and occasionally use an Arch-LDE environment (I tend to prefer it for working than playing though); I think Archers intentionally try to make their setup seem like a nightmare while the majority of it can easily be turned into a bash script. In fact, it quite surprised me how the "No GUI Arch Setup" was blatantly identical to the "GUI Setup" for any given OS install (of course, there were a few commands that could be completely automated that were required to be entered.) Once you know what you're doing with the package manager (especially with command line), installing anything is basically *yawn.*

I do know that distros may often modify code so everything works better together (and hence create their own security issues ;p), but they still seem to simply be a collection of parts that can just as easily be put together in any other way, and that it is the parts that should be talked about rather than the person putting them together.

To make a long story short at this point getting me onto Linux is like retooling and overhauling an old machine that's hard to find parts for. Win7's what I use, and WinXP's what I learned on back in the day.

This tends to be one of my biggest frustrations with the Linux community.

There are a large amount of users that continue to spread FUD about Microsoft and act like "Microsoft Windows" is simply a Window Manager Skin. Stories where kids will force Linux upon their parents and claim that whatever skinning they did makes it equivalent to "Microsoft Windows." There's so much hate at anything proprietary that the classical response to "I'd like X feature that is like-windows" is "Go back to windows you noob" (and this wasn't at me, this was crud that I read directed at hundreds of different people asking simple questions.)

[WinkAllKerb'']

Give me back my CPC so i could code in basic or my 48GX so i could code in external i tend to be bored both with windows or linux that are overated due to the current network main roots process wich are shared anyway whatever you put top of them ...

wysywig over

wysywig over

pseudo proprietary restrictive pseudo coding language over

pseudo proprietary restrictive pseudo coding language over

pseudo proprietary restrictive pseudo coding language over

pseudo proprietary restrictive pseudo coding language over

pseudo proprietary restrictive pseudo coding language over

pseudo proprietary restrictive pseudo coding language over ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language)

it's kinda like a draw repeatdly spammed with copyright sign at different size top of each others ... clearly it's crap ... but the roots is still somewhere ... just sayin'

Edited July 19, 2015 by WinkAllKerb''

[Flymetothemun]

This tends to be one of my biggest frustrations with the Linux community.

There are a large amount of users that continue to spread FUD about Microsoft and act like "Microsoft Windows" is simply a Window Manager Skin. Stories where kids will force Linux upon their parents and claim that whatever skinning they did makes it equivalent to "Microsoft Windows." There's so much hate at anything proprietary that the classical response to "I'd like X feature that is like-windows" is "Go back to windows you noob" (and this wasn't at me, this was crud that I read directed at hundreds of different people asking simple questions.)

Yes! Yes! You've managed to put into words what I've thought for a long time! I did think that Linux would be like Windows, but I couldn't get past home plate for it. All of the "help guides" Always assumed that you knew stuff and commands that I couldn't understand. The Windows Commands are, for me, simple and easy to remember, they're almost like acronyms or mnemonics, but Linux commands seem to be oriented specifically to Linux and have barely any basis in plain language. They made me think "What were they thinking!?" And with Windows, I have an official website with official information and support on it. If something weird happens, I can go look it up and find a list of solutions. All the distributions I've seen HAVE had official websites but barely any official documentation, the bulk of which was jargon-laden and, once again, assumed that you knew your general way around Linux. Any support was via forums that had people who didn't have any sort of certification or at least any proof that they know what they were talking about.

And from my limited experience, I also saw the attitude towards proprietary stuff as you did. I usually download open source things just because they fit my needs exactly, but other things that I use that fit my needs are proprietary. From what I've seen, "Proprietary" and "open source" aren't necessarily markers of quality or a lack thereof, but also in my experience I've noticed that proprietary software tends to be higher quality and more "complete" than OS software.

And don't get me started on the "Linux Is THE BEST" phenomena I've seen present in almost the entire community. Just don't.

Please don't smite me Linux users. I'll never use Linux, I simply don't like it, that's all. Good day to you and your families.

[WinkAllKerb'']

yup in the end both only result in complicating and attempting to mask simple command and opperand in the prorietary / open source mess ... welcome to 2015 coding standard ...

i m out too but have fun ; ) oh and i know another guy out too ... snowden ... i don't understand why at all ; )

Edited July 19, 2015 by WinkAllKerb''

[Old Boar]

The Windows Commands are, for me, simple and easy to remember, they're almost like acronyms or mnemonics, but Linux commands seem to be oriented specifically to Linux and have barely any basis in plain language. They made me think "What were they thinking!?"

Many Linux Commands are the same as UNIX commands (which go back to the early 1970s) or an evolution or successors of those.

Edit: Some command names (such as "ls" to list the files in a directory) even seem older, being inherited from the mid-to-late 1960s Multics -> Unics -> Unix -> Linux.

Edited July 20, 2015 by Old Boar

[pxi]

"What were they thinking!?"

I think the mindset was something along the lines of "what's the least amount of keystrokes we need to achieve functionality".

It took a little bit of adjustment, but I transitioned to the Linux command line with very little issues. Most of the commands seem about as self-explanatory as their windows counterparts to me, but I will concede this is very much a YMMV thing.

As to support - this is probably the biggest failing of open-source projects in general. When there's documentation it's often very good, on the other hand you'll find projects that will happily tell you to go look at the source code if you're trying to figure out why you're having problems (hellooo ntop). My general rule of thumb has been to check multiple support sites. When you find multiple people advocating the same solution, you can be relatively sure the advice is sound, and of course the man pages are your best friend. Do also bear in mind that certain distros also offer paid support models as their primary method of generating revenue.

At the end of the day both proprietary and open source have their place IMO. If I'm setting up a server for a business, I'm going to go down the MS route. If I want a decent routing solution, or want to figure out why the network is going screwy, I'm going to break out a linux box.

(And if you think the Linux community is bad, fear the BSD people, those guys are cray-cray )

[Flymetothemun]

(And if you think the Linux community is bad, fear the BSD people, those guys are cray-cray )

I remember visiting a BSD forum. I was outta there before I was in.

[steve_v]

As far as the BSD folks are concerned, Linux is the new kid on the block and most Linux users are not nearly bearded enough They also get a fair bit of "Why isn't it just like GNU/Linux, this is too hard" etc. etc.

Sound familiar?

In reality, they're not too different. Just don't directly compare BSD to Linux in certain company... red rag and all that.

Edited July 22, 2015 by steve_v