distro suggestions

[jiggolo182]

im still sort of a newbie to linux though ive been using it off and on for a few years (more "on" lately). i am currently running fedora core 3 but im thinking about switching to something else... one thing i dont like about fedora 3 is that when i install it.. i have to go back and reinstall some programs and some modules so that i can get mp3s to play. also, im curious as to what some of the other distros look like and how what the learning curve is on them. i consider myself fairly computer literate since i do have a degree in CS. so which distro(s) seem to be the most popular and which ones are fairly easy to use and learn for a newbie. im thinking about going to mandrake, debian, or slackware, maybe gentoo, but i dont know much about any of them. can anyone give me suggestions?

brandon

[dkeav]

you might want to checkout the threads within this forum on this subject, its covered in great depth, they are all going to look the same inherently since the same WM/DE's are available, basically only the package managment system makes the difference

[eskaypey]

Take a look at Arch Linux. It uses pacman package manager, which is really easy to operate and update your system is a breeze. At the same time Arch is targeted towards the users who arent afraid of the commandline. Which I like, because it lets you to tweak and understand the system you work on. Arch has got very helpfull IRC channel and you can find additional help at user forums. You have to run Arch Linux on PII proc. or higher, though. It is i686 optimized which improves its performace and flexablility. Good luck!

[mrrangerman43]

Hello

It's like dkeav said, "basically only the package managment system makes the difference" Debian uses apt-get synaptic Ubuntu uses sudo apt-get synaptic Gentoo I think use emerge. I myself am trying to setup Gentoo for testing on my amd64 system, but am running Debian on all my other systems.

Have fun
Dan

[stumbles]

Take a look at PClinuxOS

http://www.pclinuxonline.com/pclos/index.html

The forums;

http://www.pclinuxonline.com/modules.php?name=Splatt_Forums

[dkeav]

the reason why that is a bad question to ask is this thread will rapidly fill up with the previous, "try this, look at this, check out this one, use that one" you will have to find the distro yourself, users are going to put their biased oppinion in based on what they use and what their needs are, yours are different and only you know what you want and need, so grab a few iso's and see what you like