Linux. Which Flavor Is Your Flavor?

[majorawsome]

So this thread is to share which distro you like best and why. Put the pros and cons of each one, and why not some screen shots as well?

 

The reason why I am starting this thread is because I want to know what some people think on the distro their using and hopefully get other people to try them out. So go on, shout it out loud. Which flavor of cake do you eat?

 

Template (based off of alpenwasser's post)

 

Linux Distro: experience and feelings

 

Likes:

    LIST ALL THE LIKES

 

Dislikes:

    LIST ALL THE DISLIKES

 

SCREEN SHOTS:

[orangecat]

Windows 7 can't stand Linux it dose not do anything. I know there are some people who will disagree big time with me but i tried it before and used a few different distributions and none of them where easy to use just doing simple tasks like installing java to play Minecraft where very difficult. I was not ever able to get my video drivers to work correctly.

[Billy]

Ubuntu and Mint are my favourites. 

 

I dual boot W8 and Ubuntu. I use Ubuntu for everything but gaming. As the poster before me said, there is a serious problem getting drivers for video cards to work properly.

[Lyons]

Crunchbang. Every time I try something else, I last a few days and go back. It's so awesome.

[Alcatraz]

I hear that Zorin is good for a first timer. Ubuntu is quite popular. 

[fishymamba]

Not really a fan of Ubuntu, I use Linux Mint 14 right now and I like it.

[Blade of Grass]

I used Ubuntu in a VM.

A little while ago i updated my VM software and now Ubuntu is laggy as fuck, so I don't use it, lol.

[cyberlocc]

Backtrack

[James_McKeane]

Kali Linux (Debian Wheezy):  Dead simple to use (kind of the point), fast and resource friendly.

[Conelton]

Always used Ubuntu myself. Tried Debian and Mint a while ago but they didn't stick.

[AMICLG]

Mint (cinnamon desktop) and Backtrack 

[t0wer]

Currently use xubuntu,

 

I've been too lazy to go back to crunchbang or arch.

I remember loving crunchbang the last time I used it, but left it when it took forever to switch over to being debian based.

[majorawsome]

Currently use xubuntu,

 

I've been too lazy to go back to crunchbang or arch.

I remember loving crunchbang the last time I used it, but left it when it took forever to switch over to being debian based.

I've actually want to try out Arch, Is it good?

[t0wer]

If I found a different install guide it might have been better for me.

 

I think when I did it my video card was too new so I just gave up and went back to xubuntu.

and I had problems creating user accounts. I only had root and no non admin account.

[zoltan]

I use mainly Fedora/CentOS. My main machines run Fedora 18 with Gnome3, latest kernel with a fair bit of packages from updates, rawhide and F19, and it looks great. The fonts are so smooth, everything on the screen looks incredible, it's definitely a serious step up from Windows 8 as far as the user experience goes, and it's still fast as fuck and very secure. I have a ton of apps installed, and still everything fits in less than 20 GB of storage. Steam runs like a dream, the nVidia drivers are good, everything works out of the box, secure boot actually protects the computer instead of endangering it like Windows, I'm very satisfied with it for the moment. I've been using Fedora for years as main distro, it's always been a good experience for me.

I also use Arch Linux and Slackware. I really like Arch, it's just so fast and logical and there is so much software readily available, with Arch really everything is possible. I also like Slackware, it's just super lightweight and fast, you can run GIMP on a PIII with 384 MB RAM and a Rage3D, and use less than 100 MB of RAM, and watch youtube videos without  stuttering, just great. Slackware really shows how over the top the required hardware specs for Windoze really are for daily computing.

In terms of new distros, I really like Manjaro Linux, it's Arch based but very easy to use, and comes preinstalled with Steam and great automatic hardware detection. I think it's agreat distro to start with for anyone that's new to GNU/Linux and wants immediate benefit in performance and still wants to learn something about GNU/Linux in the long run.

There are other distros that I really like, but don't use that often personally, I like OpenSuSE with KDE, I like Debian, I also like Gentoo, although I'm not that proficient in Gentoo to be honest, but I'd like to learn it better. I don't like Ubuntu and derivatives thereof that much anymore, I used to use Ubuntu until 12.04, but the experience was declining in my opinion, to the point of being frustrating, even more than Windows as far as my personal experience goes, but then my Windows installs are very lean, I only use it for games and Adobe Lightroom.

The nice thing about GNU/Linux is that there are so many choices. If a community or company fucks up a release, that's ok, use another distro with the same DE and everything's cool. There is a constant friendly and relaxed competition and a huge and fast evolution. It really is a good time for GNU/Linux.

[Simmytu]

I'm currently begun with the stock Ubuntu so I can learn the OS.

And till now I do like it. It's easy to use, everything works (besides couple bugs), user friendly interface. Easy to configure some settings and such.

And I'm using it as my backup OS in case that Windows doesn't start (happened to my last week :()

 

It's unfortunately that many companies forget that there are Ubuntu users and so there are not that much programs to run on it.

Also a downside because you are a bit limited with the software choice, you need to find alternatives to many things. 

(Which I don't have time to do the required research)

 

But I hope that many people start to realize that Linux/Ubuntu being a good alternative OS to Windows or Mac and its secure, completely free and entirely opensource OS. 

But dreams a side, we still stuck with this situation. :unsure:  

[mybeat]

Have used RedHat (was still called redhat back then), Suse, Slackawre and Ubuntu for a while. 

Now all of my PCs are running Debian, excluding gaming rig.

 

[Profquast]

I like Linux mint, but i can't use it since there is no driver support for the xonar dsx.

[Oisin Maguire]

GNU mainly but i use windows 7 for game/hardware compatibility 

[VxDoomxV]

I'm using Mint 14 with XFCE atm. Switching out the install on my netbook to build from Arch when I get a moment to read the documentation on it.

[Cr0ft]

OpenSuSe, Mint Cinnamon or Backtrack. Ubuntu is way to simplified for my taste and is hardly customisable compared to most linux distros

[Dragonflare]

I'm currently running Win7 on my gaming desktop, but might pick up another HDD to install it on and run Linux from my SSD.

 

I have a few favorite distros but Arch is definitively at the top of the list. It's great for running desktops, servers, media boxes, or whatever else you want to use it for. I have a couple servers sitting in my closet with Arch on them, and have messed with Arch builds on my desktop in the past, but haven't made the full switch because I own hundreds of games that still don't have Linux support, and don't perform very well under wine. That and I am running Crossfire 6950s, which is just asking for trouble, even under Windows. The official catalyst driver for Linux is terrible, and as far as I know, the open source one still doesn't support hardware acceleration, and I don't have the time to write it in myself. Maybe I'll just balls up and take the dive, who knows.

 

Some of my other favorite distros include Ubuntu for its ease of use, but it can be a little bloated on a fresh install. Lubuntu is a nice derivative that takes out a bit of the bloat and uses LXDE. I've toyed with Mint 12 for a little while, but nothing too intense.

 

If I were to be using Linux on my desktop which has PLENTY of computing power to spare, I would probably run with KDE (I love the plasma desktop even if it is a resource hog), on top of Arch.

[asdfghjkl]

Elementary os

[alpenwasser]

Been using Arch Linux for about two years now and so far very happy with it.

Likes (somewhat subjective, of course ;)):

• great documentation
• the AUR
• the philosophical focus on the system designer/programmer instead of the user
• basic enough to allow some good insights into the system while having a good

  enough package manager so that it's not a complete pain to configure and use

• In two years, I've had only one case of serious breakage (cause was Gnome).

  Other than that, it's been pretty much smooth sailing; even the transition to

  systemd went down without problems by just following the wiki guide.

• very flexible
• The rolling release model: I much prefer frequent small-ish updates to not so

  frequent large changes.

Dislike: ZFS is not native to the Linux kernel, and is unlikely to ever be.

But that's not an issue specific to Arch, of course.

I have been experimenting around with FreeBSD since last fall, and dear god is ZFS

ever the awesomeness! I know it's possible to use ZFS in Linux, but those solutions

are not yet really mature enough for me to entrust my precious data to them.

Also, here's a fake-busy screenshot of what can be called my home screen, for the

predecessor of my currently ongoing build (it's disassembled now).

I'm using a tiling window manager called i3, and it's really nice. Quite easy to

configure, and if you're familiar with Vim keyboard shortcuts, you can get around

your system with a very high degree of ease and comfort. :)

Although it's probably also configurable to behave like Emacs, for those who prefer

that editor.

The shell is ZFS, with a custom prompt.

(click for full res version)

[majorawsome]

Been using Arch Linux for about two years now and so far very happy with it.

Likes (somewhat subjective, of course ;)):

• great documentation
• the AUR
• the philosophical focus on the system designer/programmer instead of the user
• basic enough to allow some good insights into the system while having a good

  enough package manager so that it's not a complete pain to configure and use

• In two years, I've had only one case of serious breakage (cause was Gnome).

  Other than that, it's been pretty much smooth sailing; even the transition to

  systemd went down without problems by just following the wiki guide.

• very flexible
• The rolling release model: I much prefer frequent small-ish updates to not so

  frequent large changes.

Dislike: ZFS is not native to the Linux kernel, and is unlikely to ever be.

But that's not an issue specific to Arch, of course.

I have been experimenting around with FreeBSD since last fall, and dear god is ZFS

ever the awesomeness! I know it's possible to use ZFS in Linux, but those solutions

are not yet really mature enough for me to entrust my precious data to them.

Also, here's a fake-busy screenshot of what can be called my home screen, for the

predecessor of my currently ongoing build (it's disassembled now).

I'm using a tiling window manager called i3, and it's really nice. Quite easy to

configure, and if you're familiar with Vim keyboard shortcuts, you can get around

your system with a very high degree of ease and comfort. :)

Although it's probably also configurable to behave like Emacs, for those who prefer

that editor.

The shell is ZFS, with a custom prompt.

(click for full res version)

 

THIS. THIS IS AN AMAZING REVIEW!

*EDIT: Creating template after this on main post.