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1 • Arch and the mountain climbing metaphor (by Microlinux on 2014-10-13 09:36:21 GMT from France)
"Just as a mountain climber becomes one with the raw mountain in order to climb it without technical assistance, and a surfer needs just a carved plank to harness the power of a wave, so a computer user needs just the basic tools that Arch Linux provides to get the most out of their system."
I'm not only a Linux user, but also a hobby climber, and the above statement made me cringe for a few reasons.
1. Climbing usually requires technical assistance in the form of a harness, a rope, carabiners and quickdraws. Leave these out, and your life expectancy decreases drastically.
2. I like it when my raw mountain is not a moving target.
:o)
2 • Arch (by M on 2014-10-13 09:49:43 GMT from Australia)
Just on 8 years now after trying just about everything.
Arch has broken twice.
One XOrg for an ATI card 4 years ago and another time when I failed to read the docs and the keyboard wouldn't work.
Both times were easy fixes.
The best thing is that I have migrated it across many computers.
Pacman -Q gives me the packages I need to reinstall the system and the rest is easy.
Try it with the Wingo window manager for a sublime experience.
3 • Rolling-release testing (by Pierre on 2014-10-13 10:07:11 GMT from Australia)
as well as the Debain Rolling-release testing, the LinuxMint Debian Edition,
- could have also been tested.
4 • Rolling-release testing (by Guilherme on 2014-10-13 11:36:22 GMT from Brazil)
Would it be possible to test Fedora Rawhide too? Thanks!
5 • @3 LMDE (by chemicalfan on 2014-10-13 11:53:29 GMT from United Kingdom)
@3 - LMDE is due to turn into a stable release, as it will track Jessie when it becomes the next Debian Stable release. Currently, LMDE is frozen and has been since the early part of this year (it has always been a "semi-rolling release")
6 • Archlinux + btrfs root (by kleine on 2014-10-13 12:32:29 GMT from Germany)
Is it possible to install Arch to a raw btrfs drive with Grub2 bootloader (no partitions, pure btrfs subvolumes). Just look around in the wiki, it's in the Bootloader/Grub2 section.
7 • Favourite Distribution in 2014 (by SaleemKhanMarwat on 2014-10-13 12:39:44 GMT from Pakistan)
Arch Linux & PCLinuxOS . PCLinuxOS offers rolling release with stability at the same time . Plus the mklivecd tool to remaster an installed PCLinuxOS system into a live bootable ISO is the best feature of this distribution.
Arch Linux is un-beatable , the community and forums are flooded with information. This distribution is bleeding edge and again un-breakable unless you do something on purpose to break it , do not read the Wiki or do not update regularly. Pacman is an amazing and highly flexible package manager . I plan to keep using both of these distributions in coming years as well . Thanks to the team of both these projects.
8 • Favorite Distribution in 2014 (by btroy on 2014-10-13 13:14:57 GMT from United States)
My favorite for 2014 is LinuxMint Debian (Cinnamon). It has proven to be the just works OS.
Right on the heals has been OpenSuse 13.1 KDE - a very nice implementation of KDE.
9 • Boot from Btrfs in Arch Linux (by Spooky on 2014-10-13 13:23:18 GMT from Italy)
It's recommend to use GPT partition table creating a Bios boot partition or an EFI one.
But it works and it's possible to boot from different snapshot or subvolume too.
10 • to test (by greg on 2014-10-13 13:30:10 GMT from Slovenia)
also to test:
Wi-Fi
media playing
sound
webcam
GPU acceleration
Arch is amazing? to use a computer you need to read wiki pages, forums and news? not for me. the little time i have with computer i would like to actually use it rather than doing the system restores and such.
11 • the nano text editor. (by Joe A on 2014-10-13 13:44:51 GMT from United States)
Does anyone else hate nano? The first time I used it, for a simple Open-Edit-Save operation, it was so confusing I had to go online and read help files and manuals.
Why not use mousepad, leafpad, or any one of a dozen other text editors?
"This is all done from the command line, making occasional use of the nano text editor." The command line is a little scary, but nano is worse.
12 • @11 You cannot be serious... (by Martillo on 2014-10-13 13:53:52 GMT from Spain)
If you find nano difficult, try vi or mg. Nano is a mother for ex-Windows users.
13 • Which distribution is your favourite so far in 2014? (by jaws222 on 2014-10-13 13:54:15 GMT from United States)
I've used so many but would have to go with Debian Crunchbang. It's extremely fast and has never broken for me. As far as Arch there are two derivatives I love, Manjaro and Antergos both, like Crunchbang, extremely fast. On the Ubuntu side Linux Lite is also pretty reliable.
14 • the nano text editor (by Lone_Wolf on 2014-10-13 13:57:14 GMT from Netherlands)
Why not use mousepad, leafpad, or any one of a dozen other text editors?
mousepad and leafpad require gtk , which only works in graphics environment.
Arch base install is console only: systemd multi-user.target / (runlevel 3 in sysv-init systems.
15 • Best Distro for what? (by vw72 on 2014-10-13 14:01:11 GMT from United States)
Before one can answer what is the best distro, they have to answer for what purpose! While Arch is a great linux distribution, it isn't the one I would want to install and support on a 100 workstations in a business or classroom environment, or even my mother's computer. I probably wouldn't use it for a mission critical server role and it's also not one I would use for embed systems work.
There's a saying that learn Ubuntu and you learn Ubuntu, learn Arch and you learn Linux. Well, most users don't want or need to learn Linux (or Ubuntu).
"Best Distro" declarations are worthless. Instead they need to be "Best Distro For..." declarations. Arch is an excellent distribution, but as most people will tell you, it's not for the feint of heart. For general use, particularly in a business setting, openSuse would seem to be a better choice. For general use as a home desktop, one might look at one of the *buntus. For development work, particularly in the US, fedora, RHEL or CENTOS seems a good choice.
The reality is that from the user perspective, one can make any distro look and act like any other. The question as to what is best really comes down to how much work is involved to make it actually do that.
Again, Arch is an excellent distro. But depending on your use case, it might not be the best distro.
16 • Lunar! (by captain pinkeye on 2014-10-13 14:26:21 GMT from Czech Republic)
It's nice to see them alive.
Lunar Linux is pretty interesting distribution. It's source based, but the initial installation is binary that you can recompile later if you want (so you quickly have a working system) and it has its own tools for handling the internals.
If you want to try an advanced source based distro but feel overwhelmed by Gentoo's portage bureaucracy, Lunar might be worth your while.
17 • Arch linux (by hadrons123 on 2014-10-13 14:35:57 GMT from United States)
All distros break, at least with Arch I get most of what I want.
18 • my favourite (by ray carter on 2014-10-13 14:36:13 GMT from United States)
The more I run Debian Stable, the more impressed I am with it - 'problems' are virtually non-existent.
A most impressive feature, for me, is that by doing a net install, all the latest software is installed - there is no long and tedious update process.
19 • Best distro (by linuxista on 2014-10-13 14:46:59 GMT from United States)
"There's a saying that learn Ubuntu and you learn Ubuntu, learn Arch and you learn Linux." That used to be the saying about Slackware. I've never heard it used for Arch before. There is a big difference b/t installing Arch from a base install and installing a respin like Bridge, ArchBang, Antergos (beware their installer), or a close derivative like Manjaro. While I wouldn't recommend Arch to highly unsophisticated users, it's complexity and instability are often highly exaggerated in forums. I wouldn't install it on "100 workstations in a business or classroom environment, or even my mother's computer...or a mission critical server" either, but it can be considered highly stable and usable for a lot of general users. I recently installed Manjaro on a new laptop for someone highly unsophisticated, someone who's understanding of IT borders on the purely magical. I wanted to install Ubuntu or Mint, but I couldn't get around a hang on shutdown they both had. It will be an interesting test to see just how newbie friendly Manjaro is, because this the most extreme case.
20 • @2 (by linuxista on 2014-10-13 14:53:40 GMT from United States)
Approaching 6 years now. Broken two or three times, responded quickly and easily to fixes provided by Arch News/Wiki.
21 • Rolling releases test (by AnklefaceWroughtlandmire on 2014-10-13 15:06:42 GMT from Ecuador)
Thanks a lot Jesse for the fascinating review on rolling distros! I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this one.
I just installed openSUSE Factory, and it has an option at the partitioning proposal to use BtrFS, and at that point there is a checkbox to enable Snapper. That's the option I used, and Snapper was working out of the box on my installation.
As for openSUSE Factory bootloader recovery of snapshots, it actually does seem to be implemented. The last GRUB entry is "Start bootloader from a read-only snapshot". From there, it takes you to a (potentially long) list of snapshots. You can select any one, at which point it takes you back to another GRUB screen, with the first entry "Bootable snapshot #X". That first entry is just a label, but it does give an interesting tidbit when you select the label: "If OK, run 'snapper rollback X' and reboot." At this GRUB screen, the second entry appears to boot into that snapshot. The downside is that Xorg won't work because it's a read-only filesystem. I also had to switch to a different TTY to get to a command line. But from there, the beauty of YaST comes to play, with a ncurses version of YaST, including the Snapper utility.
As for Debian Sid, is it true that it will no longer freeze? In past releases, they actually froze Sid too as they got closer to the release of the Stable branch.
22 • Debian Sid (by Teresa e Junior on 2014-10-13 15:34:35 GMT from Paraguay)
My experience with Debian Sid is that the more packages you have installed, and the more customized your desktop is, the more prone to break your system will be. Debian Sid was my choice back in the day when I had a minimalist desktop, but even so, something would eventually get broken (around once a month). Also, I noticed that newer versions of most applications hardly bring anything interesting.
Today I like to have many packages installed and my desktop is heavily customized, and I tell you, there is nothing more comfortable than using Debian Stable and knowing that nothing will break for the next few years. The only bleeding edge stuff people generally need are the web browser and office suite, because of compatibility, and these are provided in the backports repository. Security updates are constant, but they never ever break anything.
BTW, that's something I'm really interested in reading, so keep it up!
23 • Debian Sid (by Teresa e Junior on 2014-10-13 15:58:42 GMT from Paraguay)
When I said "something would eventually get broken (around once a month)", I was talking about any kind of annoyance, like a small application that doesn't open anymore, or it stops working as expected and then you do some Google search and find that the developers have changed their goals, etc.
While it is possible that from these 5 distros one may be more stable than the other (like one becomes unbootable and the other not), I don't believe it is possible to avoid those minor annoyances in any of them.
The problem is that, after a few years, minor annoyances became major ones, as I figured I had been spending many unneeded hours in front of the computer for little gain...
24 • PCLOS snapshot (by Wildbill on 2014-10-13 17:18:29 GMT from United States)
Jesse, If you will look in Menu -> applications-> more applications -> configuration -> PCLinuxOS Live USB creator will make a snapshot of the system or any part of the system you want. You can make the snapshot bootable.
Also since you did not mention this in the article, in order to update Libreoffice, Calibre or VM you need to use their respective update programs. You can find the Libreoffice and Calibre in the configuration section and the VM on under emulators. Looking forward to your test results.
25 • Rolling release experiment (by anticapitalista on 2014-10-13 17:21:29 GMT from Greece)
I think it would be useful if Jessie could let us know what version the *main* packages are at for each distro.
eg kernel, xorg, udev, kde, firefox, libreoffice.
26 • Best Distro of 2014 (by Ron on 2014-10-13 17:42:52 GMT from United States)
@10 • to test (by greg on 2014-10-13 13:30:10 GMT from Slovenia)
"Arch is amazing? to use a computer you need to read wiki pages, forums and news? not for me. the little time i have with computer i would like to actually use it rather than doing the system restores and such."
@7 Favourite Distribution in 2014
"un-breakable unless you do something on purpose to break it , do not read the Wiki or do not update regularly"
Translated by me: Plan to spend lots of your time at the computer holding your breath, pulling your hair, and scratching your head as you read the Wiki, hope to correctly decipher some obscure instructions, and cross your fingers.
My favorite for 2014 is..... Xubuntu 12.04! No, not 14.04!
Rant on:
Why, oh why would I be pleased to see changes for changes sake?
Let me explain with concrete examples. First lets start with the shutdown procedure.
In 12.04, so easy upper right click, select shutdown, click, and its done.
In 14.04 not so easy. Suddenly no longer upper right! Why? Does someone have anxt for upper right?
Or, take Gparted after installation, for example. In 12.04 its right there in the menu like its supposed to be, In 14.04, look, look, and find it buried and difficult to find.
Please don't get me wrong, I fully appreciate all the hard work and care put into these distributions, but wouldn't the effort be better spent improving or creating applications that really do something usefull?
If my monitor has megapixels, is it really necessary for the developers to try and re-arrange each and every pixel!!!!!!!!!
Rant off.
27 • Best distro (by Copper on 2014-10-13 17:43:36 GMT from Finland)
I have used PCLOS since the "dot" versions (pre-2007) and it has everything I need. Well, it contains a Windows7 virtual machine with some programs I need for work.
I have used the command line maybe twice. One of the times was to check the MAC address of my network card for firewall setup and once during a major update few years ago when KDE 4 came up. I have used Windows terminal more often on the virtual machine.
With PCLOS I don't have to "learn Linux" ... I'm a _user_.
28 • Best Distro (by Dave Brown on 2014-10-13 18:22:57 GMT from United States)
The best distro for me has been Linux Mint, for a very long time. It runs very well, highly customizable and just looks good. I can't recall a time in the last two or three years that my Linux Mint has broke.
29 • Best Distro (by Corbin Rune on 2014-10-13 18:23:30 GMT from United States)
I'd agree with previous posts stating that the "best" distro is subject to your own use case. Hell, I started with 'buntu back in '07, but honestly can't screw with anything other than Arch or Manjaro anymore. I feel a bit ... hobbled if I do.
(Although, I should probably look into Sorcerer again. I always found their commands interesting and kinda funny.)
30 • Minix (by bison on 2014-10-13 18:57:57 GMT from United States)
> While the current version of MINIX does not support running graphical software
Are you sure about that?
31 • Installing Arch and Best distro (by snowdust on 2014-10-13 19:17:58 GMT from United States)
I recently read an interesting article on how to install Arch the easy way. For those interested see: http://xmodulo.com/install-arch-linux-easy-way-evolution.html
Home page: http://www.evolutionlinux.com/
@29: I agree with your statement: the best distro is a matter of personal taste and use case. Mine are: (1) KaOS and (2) SolydK. To each his/her own.
32 • @31 (by jaws222 on 2014-10-13 19:23:45 GMT from United States)
"I recently read an interesting article on how to install Arch the easy way. For those interested see: http://xmodulo.com/install-arch-linux-easy-way-evolution.html"
Is there any easy way? I'll check this out. I have tried twice, once a few years back and just a few months ago without success. Manjaro and Antergos are awesome, but very easy installs.
33 • favorite distr (by Harold on 2014-10-13 19:35:24 GMT from )
PCLOS KDE
34 • PCLinuxOS (by exploder on 2014-10-13 19:51:48 GMT from United States)
PCLinuxOS comes stock with the MyLiveCD app to backup the system. One of my favorite tools of all time!
35 • Netflix works on ALL Linux distros, not just Ubuntu... (by Chris on 2014-10-13 21:30:12 GMT from United States)
Netflix works on ANY Linux distribution with nss => 3.16.2 and Google Chrome browser (not Chromium) => 36.
36 • Favorite distro (by Hombre-Loco on 2014-10-13 21:56:22 GMT from Nicaragua)
I have a selection of Favorite distros depending on what machine I am using
I have Manjaro on 3 of my Business machines 2 have Openbox and 1 has PekWM
On my personal Laptop i have Calculate Linux (gentoo)
On My Gfs old lappy I have Antix (debian)
37 • @32 installing_arch (by gee7 on 2014-10-13 22:16:11 GMT from United Kingdom)
I would recommend looking at the good tutorial at:
http://www.themukt.com/2014/06/07/arch-linux-tutorial/
which gives clear step-by-step instructions for an Arch installation.
You may find it easier to prepare your partitions first, then you can follow above tutorial from Step #4 Installing the base system.
Six weeks ago, I installed Arch with Xfce, as part of my multi-boot system. On rolling systems, I also have Netrunner Roller and PCLinux.
My favourite distro is currently Debian Jessie with Xfce which will soon be the new stable but I have a feeling that I may learn to love Arch as time goes by.
It is a pity that the Debian team chose Gnome 3 as the default Debian desktop environment, as most new users will be likely to just install the default and there miss out on experiencing the flexibility and subdued beauty of Xfce4.
Cheers.
38 • Arch evolution (by linuxista on 2014-10-13 23:21:56 GMT from United States)
@31 Thanks for that link. That's the first thing I'll try when I get a new machine.
39 • comment (by pclos on 2014-10-14 00:29:03 GMT from France)
I have been using Arch for 4 years but want to switch to something that doesn’t use systemd, which is both a pain to use and dangerous for the Linux ecosystem. PCLinuxOS seems like it could do the trick… If not I guess I’ll have to try Funtoo.
40 • @3,5,8,28 LMDE (by Kubelik on 2014-10-14 03:00:29 GMT from Denmark)
LMDE's end of line as a more or less (NB. UPs) rolling distro is when Debian Testing/Jessie goes into freeze, i.e. 2014/11/5. After that there will come a LMDE edition following the testing/freeze period continuing into the Stable one.
This was already predicted here: http://linuxg.net/the-next-linux-mint-debian-edition-lmde-versions-may-be-built-only-on-the-stable-versions-of-debian/.
You could also see the discussion here (If you are not a master of the the Danish tongue you might use some kind of translation device): http://www.linuxnyheder.dk/content/mint-17-nye-perspektiver.
41 • (by sam on 2014-10-14 08:03:48 GMT from Switzerland)
I use centos, not because other distros are not good. I just chose one of of the many out there that i am able to install, setup and and that happened to be centos. personally when it comes to linux the DE is more important than what is behind that DE.
42 • Best distro (by Simon on 2014-10-14 09:08:29 GMT from New Zealand)
Given that so many GNU/Linux users are hobby users ("enthusiasts") rather than serious users (people whose focus is on the results rather than the tools themselves) it's not surprising that Arch can win a "best distro" award. Gentoo used to win similar competitions for similar reasons and, for the same reasons, would never win a serious competition that weighed up real-world considerations for a "best" general purpose OS.
Doing serious ("mission critical") work on a rolling-release OS is a joke. Everything from reliability to user workflows to support efficiency is ruined by an unstable OS that doesn't sit still in a stable form for the months that it takes to properly bug-test, let alone document and develop training for software. Both Arch and Gentoo make it *easier* to customize a system to a power user's liking: it's perfectly *possible* on any GNU/Linux distro, so it makes far more sense to start from a stable base like Debian or CentOS and build or backport custom packages than to deal with the seething mass of roaming bugs that an Arch or Gentoo system will always be. Those bugs may not be visible to the individual hobby user, but they're there, and there are only a handful of serious real-world applications that can justify this instability for the sake of easier customization.
"Best distro" for hobbyists, sure. As a general purpose OS? Please.
43 • Debian Sid freeze (by Pierre on 2014-10-14 09:25:17 GMT from Germany)
@21
Debian Sid never freezes, never ever had and never will. Nevertheless I have to admit that development slows down a lot as soon as testing goes into freeze and stabilization / finalization.
So maybe it looks to most people as if Sid would freeze as well, but it doesn't.
44 • Sid, MINIX (by :wq on 2014-10-14 10:17:48 GMT from United States)
"...Debian does not supply ISO images for Unstable. If I wanted to run Debian Unstable (often referred to as Sid) then I would first need to install Debian Stable or Debian Testing and switch to the Unstable branch."
You can install Debian Sid directly with netboot images. This can be hit or miss (such as a kernel mismatch between the installer and the archive), but the current image tested okay for me. I prefer this method to upgrading from Testing.
From InstallFAQ: "Use netboot 'mini.iso' image. You will find it on any of the Debian mirrors under debian/dists/unstable/main/installer-*/current/images/netboot/mini.iso. During the installation choose 'Advanced options' -> 'Expert install'. In the step 'Choose a mirror of the Debian archive' choose version 'sid - unstable."
@30 From the 3.3.0 release notes: "X11 is not available currently. Our old version, which was still based off of a monolithic XFree86 Server, broke. We are in the process of importing a current release of Xorg. New X11 packages will be provided as soon as the port will be completed."
When I installed 3.3.0 a couple of weeks ago this was still the case.
45 • Arch Linux <3 (by msx on 2014-10-14 11:10:17 GMT from )
"Whenever the subject of rolling-release distributions comes up, some people report having poor experiences where their systems broke after a short time."
It is called Layer 8 problem.
46 • Lunar Linux (by GreginNC on 2014-10-14 11:18:59 GMT from United States)
Good to see Lunar active again. I ran it for a couple of years back around 2009-2010. I'm disappointed they chose to go with SystemD on their new release though as I won't bother using it for that reason alone.
I can say it was always an interesting distro that I had a lot of fun learning with and I would still recommend it to anyone who wanted a source based distro and didn't mind SystemD.
47 • Rolling-release testing (by Fitzcarraldo on 2014-10-14 13:08:29 GMT from United Kingdom)
It would have been good to include Sabayon Linux and Gentoo Linux in your testing of rolling-release distributions.
48 • My favorite distribution with no contesters --> Arch (by Chris on 2014-10-14 14:29:01 GMT from Germany)
I'm an Arch user with Openbox WM and I always look at other distributions but on my main laptop I have for the past 4 years Arch with OB. Only 1 time reinstall because of a faulty hard drive. Unbreakable (almost), when you read the Wiki and messages on the homepage before an update of course.
Just wouldn't recommend it for everybody. In a production environment I would use Debian (not Ubuntu! but Debian). On the laptop from my father is, since it came out, Debian 6 with Gnome 3 WM installed and I wouldn't change this for everything in the world. Debian is really rock solid, unbreakable and monkey proof but not so much fun as Arch and like Distrowatch says : "Put the fun back in computing"
49 • Layer 8 problem (by linuxista on 2014-10-14 14:53:51 GMT from United States)
@45 This is a more likely explanation than some portion of users experience aberrational good luck with their systems drawing on exactly the same pools of binaries.
50 • Arch Linux Installer (by Reed on 2014-10-14 16:22:43 GMT from United States)
I've recently installed Arch Linux on two different systems, and it went very smoothly, and I'm loving the experience. I tried Antegros first, and liked it, but desired a more custom built setup, so I tried the Evolution installer, and was very impressed. I highly recommend it.
The Evolution Arch Linux installer is basically a simple script that walks you through the install process. At each step it explains to you what is needed, and recommends a good default, but gives you plenty of flexibility to design your system the way you want. Honestly, it took just about as long as an Ubuntu install, and resulted in exactly the setup I wanted, rather than the setup that someone else things I should have.
Both systems are very stable and fast. One is on an old 1st gen Core 2 Duo, and the other is on a new Haswell system.
51 • Best Distro (by Oldken68 on 2014-10-14 19:41:57 GMT from United States)
A big thank you to all above for your comments. I enjoyed reading your remarks. I can understand [even sympathize with] many of your remarks. I've even learned from you :) thanks
Running an older machine AMD64 Dual core with 4G ram. Point Linux is my main. PClinux is my recently installed backup OS. And I'm never without Puppy on a USB stick. Puppy has saved me sooo many times.
I was very surprised at Arch being selected as best distro. The reason being that from way back whenever I tried Arch, I was never able to get it to work. So I've pretty much avoided it as I try out new distros. But because of your comments above I'm trying out Manjaro and enjoying it. Thanks again
52 • Debian and packagekit (by mikef on 2014-10-14 20:55:54 GMT from United States)
At least for a desktop distro, I'd have to go with Debian since it also the base for the well evolved versions of Ubuntu and Mint. The Debian packaging system is fast and pretty near bulletproof. Even though they are moving away from 'rolling', LMDE and SolydX have been stable for me.
OTOH I was disappointed to see that OpenSUSE uses the packagekit daemon. The issue reported by Jesse has long existed in Fedora, where the devs have never succeeded in configuring the daemon default settings to stay out of your way. Most distros do just fine without a clumsy background process locking the package cache. Just say No to PackageSH**!
53 • "Best Distro" .. lol (by Jerry on 2014-10-14 22:09:20 GMT from United States)
Sorry. No such thing, unless you're willing to append the term, "..for me on my machine(s)" to the term, "best distro."
Zorin and a close second to PCLinuxOS... for me on my machines. ;)
54 • Best distro (by JonatanKazmierczak on 2014-10-14 22:53:21 GMT from Switzerland)
I've tried the following systems on my work laptop (Dell with nVidia chip): Arch, Debian testing, Ubuntu 14.04 - all with KDE and nVidia proprietary driver.
Results:
Arch - always hangs after closing and opening the lid, many apps stop to work after every update
Debian testing - always hangs after closing the lid, Skype can't be used anymore
Ubuntu - the only distro suspending after closing the lid and unsuspending after opening it; Oracle Java is updated automatically, in opposition to Arch
My conclusion: The best distro for laptops (at least for Dell) is Ubuntu.
55 • Best Distro? (by BoomShakaLaka on 2014-10-15 01:38:35 GMT from United States)
Like stated above. Best distro for me/my machine.
Dell Studio 1735 Upgraded the cpu from 2.16 core2duo to a 2.5 core2duo.
4 gig ram and an ATI 3650 vid card/chip.
PclinuxOS either KDE or LXDE runs great.
56 • Arch wins Best Distro of 2014 (by G. Savage on 2014-10-15 01:51:29 GMT from Canada)
Really?
Congrats I guess.
I expect Zorin saved a lot more old XP machines, than Arch even got installed on. Or not.
57 • BOSSMOOL aka. Linux kernel in C++ (by Explorer09 on 2014-10-15 12:36:37 GMT from Taiwan)
Seriously the BOSSMOOL team is just reinventing a square wheel, picking up the idea that Linus Torvalds have abandoned years ago.
Just look at these:
http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/c++/linus
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2405387
58 • Cool MOOL (by Kragle von Schnitzelbank on 2014-10-15 14:15:34 GMT from United States)
One could, perhaps, hope that in 7-3/4 years C++ (and, say, the Monotone Version Control System) and its programming community have matured and stabilized, with at least a visible intermediate C-level layer, possibly via strict macro-processor. (And that this isn't simply a Gnome plot to migrate to GObject?)
Or this may be be a fine tool for teaching valuable lessons to bright students ...
Perhaps localisation at (the) Console level will be its first useful contribution?
59 • Best Distro & Rolling Checks (by M.Z. on 2014-10-15 21:08:00 GMT from United States)
I think I have two best Distros based on my hardware needs. PCLinuxOS is perfect form my main desktop & has been fairly easy to keep going for the past 3+ years, & it works well with my built in nVidia graphics while others tend to fail. On my laptop it's Linux Mint all the way, which for some reasons works with the wifi while PCLOS doesn't. I'd give the overall edge for best desktop Distro to Mint, but there are lots of other uses where you want a firewall distro like pfSense, (which is great, but a BSD rather than Linux), or a server or something else that is specialized. In short there can really only be a best distro for each task, and even that all comes down to preference. I'd pick Debian for a general purpose Distro over Arch because of ease of use, though I respect putting the work in to learn Arch.
I'd also point out that the version of Chrome in the PCLOS repos works with Netfilx with no problems, although chrome isn't in the Mint repos & requires a separate download. The install was point & click easy though, & now I can watch Lost on Netflix, starting from where I was at before it was pulled from Hulu. Also all the episodes of Star Trek ever made are available commercial free :) Now if Netfilx only worked as well on the Linux version of Firefox it would be perfect.
----
On the subject of testing rolling distros, I think the thing most likely to go wrong with a rolling distro is the edge case of a relatively big & complex piece of software that isn't used that commonly. The only thing I can think of that might fit is GIS software like QGIS, which I've had a few minor issues with on PCLOS.There can be a lot of moving parts when dealing with Geographic Information Systems & making available all the parts that help you manipulate data in maps, so I guess the occasional breakage on a rolling distro is to be expected, but it can be a pain. It would be interesting if we could come up with another big complex & obscure piece of software to check out, just to see how well all the rolling distros work with such types of software. If no one comes up with a better idea I think it would be interesting to load as many QGIS related packages as you can like the GRASS & python plugins & see if you ever get an error like 'python failed to load' after updating you various systems & opening QGIS.
60 • safer experience with debian sid (by sebas on 2014-10-16 14:45:02 GMT from Brazil)
The "safe" debian rolling-release edition is more testing than sid. I have "debian testing" running for years with no major problem, the system never broke, some packages did sometime, but very rarely.
Obviously, your choice of sid for this experience is correct since, as you said, testing is going to freeze. ButI guess that comparing an unstable system by conception with other systems much more stable doesn't give an equal experience. Have you think about siduction, that is based on sid but stabilizes the repository ? With siduction, you should have a debian sid system but with few chances of getting broken packages in it.
Another possibility to avoid broken packages in sid or testing is to install apt-listbugs, then you will be warned if some packages are marked as having serious bugs, and then you can choose to either install them or hold them or postpone the upgrade.
Thanks for this very interesting testdrive.
61 • Rolling release test, best distro (by Kazlu on 2014-10-16 16:07:44 GMT from France)
Rolling release test:
I will join #10 greg and #25 anticapitalista. I would like to see some multimedia tests on the various rolling release distros (playing a video, maybe running a game...). That covers sound, graphics, codecs and may even concern GPU acceleration. Besides it would be good to know the version of a set of packages at fixed dates in each distro, in order to tell who has the most recent and who gets them first, and what are the consequences (do they crash?). Firefox and LibreOffice are good ideas, since you have them in your test. The kernel is also a good idea, but for the kernel maybe more than for other packages, having an older version is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as it is still maintained. Maybe other key packages could be interesting if monitored. Finally, if a known security flaw arises, like Shellshock recently, it would be great to know when the patch gets to each distro.
Best distro:
I agree with many of you who say that there is no best distro, but there is a best distro for someone/for this use case/for that machine. In my opinion, Arch Linux way is ideal: nobody makes a choice in your place and you have always the latest version of softwares, bugs corrected, security flaws patched. But ideal does not make it best for everyone. Personnally, I stopped distro-hopping when I installed Debian Wheezy with Xfce. It works great, is fast, is much less time consuming than a rolling release distro (I often don't have time to read news/forums to apply more or less large updates, sadly...)... I fell like I'm at rest now :)
If I have more time someday, I will try again rolling release distros, so Jesse's test is very interesting to me.
62 • Linux Compromised... (by Jim Knybel on 2014-10-17 19:35:00 GMT from United States)
Looks like Linux is a problem: (I use it and like the various distributions I try out, but I am very concerned about this...)
From: SANS NewsBites Vol. 16 Num. 83
--Bash/Shellshock Patches May Not be Enough to Protect Systems
(October 15, 2014)
Simply patching systems against the Bash/Shellshock vulnerability may
not be adequate. Attacks exploiting the flaw appeared within a day of
its disclosure. Those attacks may have made changes to systems that
would not be remedied by the application of a patch. The problem is due
in part to the incomplete patches that were issued initially. Attackers
reportedly exploited Bash/Shellshock to create a botnet for a phishing
campaign against Spanish-speaking Citibank customers. Many of the
compromised machines are running Linux. The command-and-control server
for the botnet has been taken offline.
http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/10/ghost-in-the-bourne-again-shell-fallout-of-shellshock-far-from-over/
http://www.scmagazine.com/bash-bug-used-to-assemble-botnet/article/377504/
63 • Linux Compromised Continued... (by Jim Knybel on 2014-10-17 19:48:32 GMT from United States)
To be fare to Linux, fixes from Microsoft, Adobe, and Oracle as well as an update for Google's Chrome browser and Chrome OS, and for Apple's OS X, which addresses issues resulting from the Bash/Shellshock vulnerability, are available. (SANS NewsBites Vol. 16 Num. 83)
64 • shellshock (by linuxista on 2014-10-18 01:26:52 GMT from )
If you're not running a public server you've got nothing to worry about.
65 • Firewall fixes it (by M.Z. on 2014-10-18 07:35:50 GMT from United States)
@62/63
It isn't really an issue for the desktop users that this site is generally focused at, as #64 indicated. Just make sure to turn a firewall on for your desktop & you are fairly safe from bash bugs, see here:
http://www.engadget.com/2014/09/25/what-is-the-shellshock/
That being said, it is always good to be proactive about security & take additional measures if you can. I set up MSEC on my copy of PCLOS & set up an old PC as a firewall using the pfSense distro with snort blocking attacks, which was all in addition to turning on firewalls on my computers. I may not be invulnerable but I feel fairly secure.
66 • Elive (by linuxista on 2014-10-18 14:21:34 GMT from United States)
I noticed that Elive came out with a new release. A number of posters here have voiced concerns about the ethics involved in the Elive project. Apparently, some think it's a con job in that not until after you have it installed to your hdd do you find out, if you want Libreoffice or codecs, you have PAY the the project to install them. So it's not just that it's commercial, but that it is to some degree deceptive. And this on top of a Debian base. I wonder if Jesse would consider attaching some sort of caveat for new users when making announcements for this project.
67 • Rolling-release testing - opensuse tumbleweed (by ernstfree on 2014-10-18 20:52:36 GMT from Italy)
Opensuse Tumbleweed: why not?
https://it.opensuse.org/Portal:Tumbleweed
" ... The difference to Factory is that Factory is bleeding edge, often experimental, not yet stabilized software that needs more work to become useful. Tumbleweed contains the latest stable applications and is ready for daily use ..."
I use opensuse tumbleweed for several years without any major problems.
PS: PCLinuxOS is a real rock!
PS 2: do not forget Sabayon ...
68 • Jesse Smith's Rolling Release Testing (by Don Baun on 2014-10-18 23:20:58 GMT from United States)
Am curious to watch your testing progress for those rolling distros you are testing, so will try to keep checking back each week for your observations. Used Manjaro for nearly a year and felt it was really developing and solid and generally dependable. Rolling is not without its issues at times, but usually a read of the release guidelines is very helpful PRIOR to upgrading. Never had a break, but had a few rocky moments. Finally just got tired of my need to stay current with all the latest developments and so went back to my trusty Linux Mint. Cutting edge is fine, but my age makes that less important now. Stability and refinements are important too and nice to see LM is making adjustments to its release goals, so makes it more attractive to me again. Like that they will be staying with LTS base for further development. Some other good ideas there too.
So will be sure to read each week's rolling comments. Kudos to the good work of the Manjaro team, but while solid it is still a beta release. Watch lots of You Tube videos on various systems too.
Number of Comments: 68
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