Thread overview
Which Linux distro?
Apr 25, 2007
Dave
Apr 25, 2007
John Demme
Apr 26, 2007
Jesse Phillips
Apr 27, 2007
Thomas Kuehne
April 25, 2007
I've been using RH or Fedora for years, but I'd like to hear what others have to say about some of the other distros. Have been hearing a lot about Ubuntu lately. Any trustworthy rating sites or articles out there?

And time for a new machine w/ Vista (because I need to keep current in that world). I'm sick of dual-booting, so am also wondering which VM / linux distro. will work well w/ Vista. Free (as in beer) would be nice, but, being a programmer, I'd rather spend my time on that rather than on setting up VM's and linux <g>

Thanks,

- Dave
April 25, 2007
Dave wrote:

> I've been using RH or Fedora for years, but I'd like to hear what others have to say about some of the other distros. Have been hearing a lot about Ubuntu lately. Any trustworthy rating sites or articles out there?

If you're used to RedHat, then you could just stick with Fedora.
Or if you like Debian or don't care, then Ubuntu is great too...
It doesn't really matter, GNU is GNU. And so is GNOME, KDE, etc.

For details, see http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

--anders
April 25, 2007
Dave wrote:

> 
> I've been using RH or Fedora for years, but I'd like to hear what others have to say about some of the other distros. Have been hearing a lot about Ubuntu lately. Any trustworthy rating sites or articles out there?
> 
> And time for a new machine w/ Vista (because I need to keep current in that world). I'm sick of dual-booting, so am also wondering which VM / linux distro. will work well w/ Vista. Free (as in beer) would be nice, but, being a programmer, I'd rather spend my time on that rather than on setting up VM's and linux <g>
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> - Dave

IMO, there are only two distributions of note these days: Ubuntu and Gentoo. Ubuntu if you want something quick, easy, and self-maintaining.  Gentoo if you wanna get a lot of control and do everything yourself.

-- 
~John Demme
me@teqdruid.com
http://www.teqdruid.com/
April 26, 2007
On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 05:42:42 -0500, Dave wrote:

> I've been using RH or Fedora for years, but I'd like to hear what others have to say about some of the other distros. Have been hearing a lot about Ubuntu lately. Any trustworthy rating sites or articles out there?
> 
> And time for a new machine w/ Vista (because I need to keep current in that world). I'm sick of dual-booting, so am also wondering which VM / linux distro. will work well w/ Vista. Free (as in beer) would be nice, but, being a programmer, I'd rather spend my time on that rather than on setting up VM's and linux <g>
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> - Dave

I haven't tried to vm vista, but the vmware server works fine for xp. I personally use Debian testing, the only thing I have seen Ubuntu offer is a bunch of pre-installed graphical front end programs. Suse was the only one I could get Compiz working with my ati card. Other than that it really is up to you.
April 26, 2007
Jesse Phillips wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 05:42:42 -0500, Dave wrote:
> 
>> I've been using RH or Fedora for years, but I'd like to hear what others have to say about some of the other distros. Have been hearing a lot about Ubuntu lately. Any trustworthy rating sites or articles out there?
>>
>> And time for a new machine w/ Vista (because I need to keep current in that world). I'm sick of dual-booting, so am also wondering which VM / linux distro. will work well w/ Vista. Free (as in beer) would be nice, but, being a programmer, I'd rather spend my time on that rather than on setting up VM's and linux <g>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> - Dave
> 
> I haven't tried to vm vista, but the vmware server works fine for xp. I personally use Debian testing, the only thing I have seen Ubuntu offer is a bunch of pre-installed graphical front end programs. Suse was the only one I could get Compiz working with my ati card. Other than that it really is up to you.

IIRC, the licenses of the cheaper versions of Vista do not allow running it in a VM. This is probably done to improve the rich user experience :P
April 27, 2007
Jari-Matti Mäkelä schrieb am 2007-04-26:
> Jesse Phillips wrote:
>> On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 05:42:42 -0500, Dave wrote:
>> 
>>> I've been using RH or Fedora for years, but I'd like to hear what others have to say about some of the other distros. Have been hearing a lot about Ubuntu lately. Any trustworthy rating sites or articles out there?
>>>
>>> And time for a new machine w/ Vista (because I need to keep current in that world). I'm sick of dual-booting, so am also wondering which VM / linux distro. will work well w/ Vista. Free (as in beer) would be nice, but, being a programmer, I'd rather spend my time on that rather than on setting up VM's and linux <g>
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> - Dave
>> 
>> I haven't tried to vm vista, but the vmware server works fine for xp. I personally use Debian testing, the only thing I have seen Ubuntu offer is a bunch of pre-installed graphical front end programs. Suse was the only one I could get Compiz working with my ati card. Other than that it really is up to you.
>
> IIRC, the licenses of the cheaper versions of Vista do not allow running it in a VM. This is probably done to improve the rich user experience :P

Yeah, I've looked around a bit for a single seat Vista license with VM rights
(for porting) but those are prohibitive expensive. Guess I'll have to
stick to Wine and a VMed Windows95.

Thomas