Can anyone help me find a good distro ?

[Calum]

Make sure you are extremely clear here - unless I'm mistaken, they're not buggy, they just don't support your shitty hardware very well.  There's a difference.

i am sorry, but this comment is mindless.

you appear to be saying that FC and Ubuntu work perfectly unless the user has "shitty" hardware.

I am sure you are aware that Slackware is not well known for working easily with "shitty" hardware, and so your point that people with shitty hardware would prefer slackware to FC or Ubuntu is patently ridiculous.

Further, i would say that FC and Ubuntu are both buggy in my experience, on more than one PC, however both would obviously be excellent if they actually worked. Same with Mandriva.

Slack on the other hand allows you to configure the system how you want it. I don't see this (as many no doubt do) as a pointless bashing session between the config happy distros and the windoid distros but i do think it's important to realise that whatever computing background users are from, some will prefer to config easily and some will prefer the it-just-(allegedly)-works ethos instead. If a person is one type, then they will probably prefer the corresponding type of distro.

This is why "what's the best distro?" is a meaningless question, and more importantly all the possible answers are meaningless, including the "FC6 is buggy as hell" and "Slackware is solid as a rock" type replies, because for a new user, they have no yardstick to test these comments against.

The people who are so eager to promote their favourite distro of the moment should think for a second about what sort of system the new user in question actually wants before just telling them ubuntu's the best and that's it.

[Calum]

ha! and all you people saying how easy windows is to customise make me laugh!

customising windows is simply a case of getting some shitty nagware from tucows or download.com (probably with a name like TweakPC or XPConfigPro or some shit) and hoping it doesn't screw your PC up too much when you try it.

With open source software you get software that has been tested and bugfixed by a number of independent respondents, doesn't contain nagware or malware (for the above reason, generally speaking) and i also find that *ix software is easier to configure, like in rc files and with CLI switches et cetera. also, i have yet to see a windows package with a decent man page.

Also, there are many applications of windows (in a corporate or small business environment) where something could be done a lot easier except that a certain option isn't available in some closed source software they're using. often the equivalent open source software (and historically linux software is mostly open source while windows software is mostly closed nag/payware) is perfect for them and doesn't have the annoying restrictions, let alone the cost. of course this is all very general, but i am just saying that there's no correct answer for which is more configurable, windows or linux, but you can see that a lot of people could have experiences which convince them that one is more "configurable" than the other.

[pofnlice]

Did I mention I did say more robust? (Wadup tex!)

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Great posts Calum :thumbup:, now people are gonna call me a "yes man" for agreeing fully with you.

Anyway, there is one comment I would like to make. That is how can we recommend distros to people and take into account what they might want ?

I realize there are tests to supposedly suggest to you the best distro. Somehow they haven't managed to suggest to me a distro that I really liked. (not one of them said Slackware).

Maybe the best thing for those new to Linux to do is try all the damn distros ! Go to http://distrowatch.com/ , get the top 10 - 20 distros, burn the fuckers, and try em out (that's what I did ... but skipped a few). But make sure you try every single one before settling, and even after you settle you should still keep an eye out for newer or better distros. I suppose it'll waste a lot of CDs/DVDs so get some re-writables.

[worker201]

i am sorry, but this comment is mindless.

you appear to be saying that FC and Ubuntu work perfectly unless the user has "shitty" hardware.

I consider "buggyness" to be internal stuff, like kernel panics, memory leaks, IRQ conflicts, "blue screens", freezes, etc.  This sort of stuff doesn't happen much in Fedora or Ubuntu - there are literally millions of satisfied users out there.  So according to my definitions, Fedora and Ubuntu are not buggy.  Neither are Slackware or Debian.  Of course all distros could use better hardware support, both for older and newer configurations.

I am sure you are aware that Slackware is not well known for working easily with "shitty" hardware, and so your point that people with shitty hardware would prefer slackware to FC or Ubuntu is patently ridiculous.

As it turned out, Slackware's older kernel worked well with Tex's hardware.  And my definition of "shitty" here kinda includes stuff that is so old that support for it has been taken out of 2.6.x kernels.  I'm not sure why Slackware doesn't use the 2.6 kernel yet, nor what the implications would be of backing FC6 out to a 2.4 kernel.  So installing Slackware just to get the 2.4 kernel that's compatible with your hardware might be the quickest way to get things moving.
(I suspect that if the 2.4 kernel from Slackware worked, it's because some particular module was included, and thus building a 2.6 kernel with that particular module installed would solve the problem - however, that doesn't always work)

[worker201]

ha! and all you people saying how easy windows is to customise make me laugh!

customising windows is simply a case of getting some shitty nagware from tucows or download.com (probably with a name like TweakPC or XPConfigPro or some shit) and hoping it doesn't screw your PC up too much when you try it.

With open source software you get software that has been tested and bugfixed by a number of independent respondents, doesn't contain nagware or malware (for the above reason, generally speaking) and i also find that *ix software is easier to configure, like in rc files and with CLI switches et cetera. also, i have yet to see a windows package with a decent man page.

I was more referring to graphical customization.  There's not much that Gnome/Metacity can do that unmodified Windows XP cannot do.  Probably a couple little things, but nothing major.

Then again, I haven't downloaded little shareware programs to extend Windows in a long long time.  Actually, that's not true - I put EditPadLite on every Windows computer I use - cuz Notepad is so useless.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

As it turned out, Slackware's older kernel worked well with Tex's hardware.  And my definition of "shitty" here kinda includes stuff that is so old that support for it has been taken out of 2.6.x kernels.  I'm not sure why Slackware doesn't use the 2.6 kernel yet, nor what the implications would be of backing FC6 out to a 2.4 kernel.  So installing Slackware just to get the 2.4 kernel that's compatible with your hardware might be the quickest way to get things moving.
(I suspect that if the 2.4 kernel from Slackware worked, it's because some particular module was included, and thus building a 2.6 kernel with that particular module installed would solve the problem - however, that doesn't always work)

But, I'm running the 2.6.x kernel. I tried the 2.4.x, but it wouldn't support my Logitech mouse. BTW, my hardware is only 3 years old, and is probably better than that of most people here.

Code: [Select]

$ uname -r
2.6.17.13

[yahurd]

got that *cough*11 years old*ahem* right

[worker201]

Okay then, why did Slackware work for you where others did not?  If it's not the kernel, what is it?  X11 version?  Drivers available on the installation media?  A kernel module not being installed?  It seems strange to me that Slackware would just magically work for you where nothing else did.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

It's probably the kernel I'm betting ... at least from what I got from this post:

http://www.microsuck.com/forums/showpost.php?p=120046&postcount=26

[Calum]

it'll be the kernel and how it's configured.

when i say configured, i mean which modules are loaded by default. different distros choose different modules to load by default in their system's kernel, and some have clever autodetection things that load modules or don't, based on what they think you have attached. Slack isn't too hot on autodetecting things, but it is excellent for recompiling a kernel with only the hardware support you need. This is something i have never had to do in FC however if i did have to do it, because of some shitty hardware, i suspect it would be a lot harder than in slack, based on true testimonials from the faithful.

worker, i thought we were talking about shitty hardware like USB printers, proprietary graphics cards and winmodems, but maybe i am behind the times a bit (haven't seen a proper winmodem bitch on this board for years now actually!)