Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[broadstairs]

Just wondered if any of the Linux afficionados here have tried either of these new flavours of Linux? I have tried and gave up on Ubuntu and Kubuntu and gone back to Mandriva (which I used to use a while ago). The ubuntu flavours I find now are too much towards people who dont want/need to mess with things. I found that neither *buntus installed GRUB correctly, both gave problems with my graphics card (which is not that old) and I had real problems finding a way to reconfigure the gfx card since these distros seem to me to actively try to prevent folks from altering settings where needed, also the Kubuntu kept on freezing with Kernel panics.

Mandriva on the other had has been very straight forward, initially with 2009.1 and now with 2010.0. I think I could almost move from Windows now to Linux using this, just a few things I'd need to sort out to find replacement programs as I'd rather not use Wine unless absolutely necessary because there are no replacements.

What are others views?

Stuart

[roseway]

Very difficult to answer because there are so many variables. Of the two you mention, I would definitely favour Mandriva, but two others worth mentioning are PCLinuxOS (based on Mandriva with some improvements) and Mepis (based on Debian with some extra user-friendliness features). If I had to opt for one, it would be Mepis, but that's purely my opinion at this point in time.

[tickmike]

I have tried a lot of distro's but my main favorite is PCLinuxos (works right out of the box ), second Mepis, then mint.

[tonyappuk]

I triple boot with XP, Debian and Mint but a recent update to Debian corrupted my Grub Menu.lst and I haven't resolved that yet and I'm not looking forward to getting to grips with Grub2 which will/has percolated into Mint from Ubuntu. Is it possible that Grub2 may be the reason why Broadstairs *buntus had problems.
Tony

[roseway]

You have a point, Tony. Grub2 is a bit of a pain in the neck at present, although my Debian systems upgraded with no problems. The current versions of PCLinuxOS and Mepis still use Grub1 as far as I know.

[broadstairs]

I think the *buntus still use GRUB and not GRUB2, Mandriva still certainly uses GRUB.

[silversurfer44]

The big thing about Linux is choice! I prefer Mandriva especially now we are at 2010.0 but that is purely personal choice. I have tried other distros but possibly because I have been with this flavour from 9.1 I have got to know it quite well. Ubuntu never impressed me, even when it was launched. Tried PCLinos but it was just like a stripped down version of Mandriva, too many bits missing.
Debian is what got me into Linux, but at that time most of the applications had to be compiled, even the kernels had to be done that way. Enjoyed the challenge though.
Multi-boot seems the way to try these things out. Keep your favorite and put a second OS on the system to try. If you don't like it, dump it and put another in its place.
All about choice.

[geep]

Hi,
Slackware is my Linux preference. Have used it several years now. I'm running 12.2 at present with KDE4.
And playing with Slack Current in VirtualBox.
My PC is multi-boot - Win XP or Slackware 10, 11 or 12. With Win 7 on order.
The default boot for Slackware is good old LILO! grub is available, but you have to think a bit about configuring it.
I use grub 0.97 to control the booting. Easy to change. Hopefully straightforward to extend to Win 7.
Will treat myself to additional disk for Win 7 (avoids repartitioning and should be 100% safe).

I find VirtualBox and VMWare Player to be really magic to allow to experiment safely with other OS.
At one time or another have tried (with greater or lesser successes) Solaris, all flavours of Windows and various Linuxes.

Have played with Ubuntu and Mandriva in VirtualBox or VMPlayer, but still prefer Slackware.
I see the appeal of Ubuntu - very automated. Fine until something goes wrong - just like WIndows in that respect.

With Slackware there is total control. You decide what to install, or not.
It doesn't automagically manage dependencies, but automatic dependency managers are available.
Initial installation gives a reasonable selection of packages, but does require a smidge more thinking than a Ubuntu installation.

And I've never been happy at the idea of Ubuntu in a multi-boot situation. The installer feels too automated
to be able to stop it trampling over existing installations. With Slackware you don't need to install any
boot mechanism; you can simply reboot off the installation DVD.

Cheers,
Peter