Linux Decisions + Linux Operating System on Laptop

[Teletubbie]

My Vote goes to Debian Sarge. I use that and it is so stable that I think  it is a mechanicaly working Operating system with steel gears etc.  The packages are new enough for me.
Cheers
Sam  

[Merardon]

If you are interested in Computer Security, then I would highly recommend Knoppix STD or P.H.L.A.K. It also depends on what kind of Linux you want. Personally, I dislike Fedora Core and Suse, because I don't see the point in using Linux if it reminds me of a Windows clone. If I wanted user-friendly, I'd stick with either Windows or Macintosh. If you wish a very user-friendly Linux, choose one of those two, or Mandrake. If you desire a more Unix-ish OS, then I would recommend Slackware. Just my opinion.

[dz]

Hey guys.  I've been using Slackware for I don't know how many years.  Probably a good 7 or 8 now?  I've had it running on my laptop (Dell Inspiron 5150, 3.2ghz) for a while now and while it does run decent, updating isn't fun.  I'm thinking of switching over to Gentoo or Debian mostly because of their package management.

I've tried Swaret before and really I wasn't too impressed.

Now don't get me wrong, my servers shall always run Slackware.  My personal server that sits right beside me here has ran Slackware since day 1 and forever will.  I think for my laptop though I need something a little different.

Anyways, my questions.. any of you guys had experience with Gentoo at all, or Debian?  Or maybe both, and could give some insight?  I've had many longtime linux friends recommend Gentoo, so I'm kinda aiming towards that.

By the way, the setup is a 3.2 ghz P4 with 256 megs ram and a 40 gig hd.  The current Slackware runs great, but not up to par with a 3.2 ghz processor.

[Pyrates]

Yep, I have quite some experience with both. They're both great  Here's a list of the differences that are really relevant for me:

*Compiling stuff on gentoo. You don't have to do it, especially not for the really big packages, but I don't know if everything works fine if you go binary only. With somewhat recent hardware (I have an Athlon 1800 with 512 RAM) it's not that much of a deal, so I guess you could be ok with that as well. One can also let the computer run over night when there's a bit more to compile

*Configuring things. Gentoo usually doesn't help much, you have to do it yourself. That's the idea, and I like that. Debian helps you more through configuring things (and does pretty well with that). The solutions in detail are very nice and slick in both.

*Package management. Since you mentioned it, Debian's apt still is king of the hill. Portage from gentoo is pretty nice, but it still lacks some desirable capabilities. But that doesn't hurt too much. Automatic updating is a one-liner for both and works just fine (of course, takes longer in gentoo, see above)

*Forums. I can't really tell you about Debian here, but it's very popular and you should find enough help on the web. Anyway, just wanted to mention that the gentoo forums are crowded with skilled people who'll help you out.

*Up-to-dateness. This is where gentoo shines, you can really have the most up to date software, because the package management is somewhat ports like. You can even mix some unstable software with a stable system very easily, which occasionally saved my ass. You can do that with Debian as well, but still software will eventually be a bit outdated (or more), and in my experience, mixing stable and unstable parts often results in broken things.

So, for me it's gentoo on my desktop, having the most recent software is just too cool  I'd have Debian on my servers, occasionally something breaks in gentoo, but never in Debian stable.

One thing I can't tell you is about laptops, dunno if you'd be better of with another distro or so...

Hope that helps, cheers
Philipp

[amrein]

Open your mind. Try the top 5 Linux distributions at least.

http://www.distrowatch.com/

[Stubear]

I used to use slackware (aftre trying RedHat, Suse, Mandrake, and Vine). Slackware gave me a lot more control over what went onto my system than the others (Rpm hell is almost as bad as dll hell) but as you mentioned upgrading was always a pain.

Found Gentoo while browsing through a Japanese linux magazine (back at version 1.0 - when the had simple version numbers). Installed it on my machine and have never looked back.

Took me about 3 weeks to get the machine how I liked it, and then broke it in the great gcc/glib mess up and ended recompiling everything. Since then Gentoo has matured quite a lot, but it's a hands on distro. Almost too easy to stay on the bleeding edge, but has a more stable version if you prefer not to tinker too much.

I've probably learnt more about linux in the first 6 months of using Gentoo than I did in the 4 years or so before that.

Never tried debian - not sure why, but it was never a distro thay jumped out at me and said "try me" although some linux gurus I have great respect for use nothing else.

Give them both a try, hell why not try 4 or 5. It's so much easier to set linux up to multiboot than any version of windows.

Stu

[kopsis]

I've been using Debian since about '98 on most of my Linux boxes. The old Debian installer used to leave a lot to be desired (for a while I resorted to Knoppix to do Debian installs), but the new installer (for the "testing" distro) works quite well.

The secret to being happy with Debian is understanding the relationship between the three distros (stable, testing, unstable) and knowing which one to use. For servers I recommend "stable" with a few select backports of newer apps. Backports are new apps built against the relatively old libraries in "stable". Mixing "stable" with the other distros is generally not a good idea. It's not a big deal right after a new "stable" is released, but as "testing" marches forward, the differences can get pretty significant. The packages in "stable" are often a long way from being current, but they're usually rock solid reliable.

For desktops I recommend "testing" or "unstable". I actually run a mix of the two (mixing "testing" and "unstable" is generally pretty safe) though I've been contemplating just switching completely to "unstable". My experience has been that Debian "unstable" is more stable than the stable versions of some other distros. If you are going to mix "testing" and "unstable" make sure you understand the concept of "apt pinning" before you start adding packages from "unstable".

I've tried Gentoo and though it's quite good, it can be mighty painful (i.e. slow) to install on anything other than high end hardware since it has to build everything from source. Sure, you can get binaries of Gentoo packages, but that kind of defeates the purpose of Gentoo (having everything built optimally for your exact hardware). If you're going to install pre-built binaries, you might as well just stick with Debain.

[amrein]

Well, I'm using Mandrakelinux since 2000. Between 1997 and 2000 I was using Redhat AND Debian but not as my main desktop. I was still using Windows in the first partition for many reasons.

There is no hell in rpm based distro. This is the beautiful propaganda I can see all over the Internet. If you don't want something easy to use and easy to manage then try something else. There is nothing to say. The users are the judges:

http://www.distrowatch.com/

And the distrowatch.com main page classifying looks like this for years!

Saying something like "this distro is bad because it is too easy to use" is the excuse of people who just want to be the only ones to use GNU/Linux. My girlfriend runs Linux. My mother runs Linux. My friends run Linux. None use Slackware. None use Debian. And as you, they have been free to choose what they prefer.

If you want to be a poweruser, test the top five GNU/Linux distribution. And I'm not saying to install the CDs than to remove it but to install and try to read the great free electronic documentations included and ask questions on newsgroups. All your Slackware tools have a corresponding tools in other distro. For your "rpm hell", try "man urpmi" "man urpmq" "man urpmf".

Something like this could help if you don't like to read the default doc in KDE/Gnome/IceWM:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

If that doesn't change your mind then... well... here is the power of freedom. And if you still use Slackware or anything else with GNU toolset, Linux kernel and Open Source / Free software then I'm happy.

[webslngr]

This is one of those topics that never really gets resolved. Like a lot of things, it all comes to personal preference.

I started out with Mandrake and I am currently running Gentoo on all of my home linux pc's / servers (4 total). I like Gentoo for the fact that it doen't try to hide anything from the users unless you tell it to. I moved away from the "user" linux flavors (Mandrake, SuSE, and RedHat/ Fedora) because as I was using it, I found that "Web Browser" wasn't necessarly the web browser I wanted (one of several things that I found irritating).  

Besides, I like being a little compulsive about my setups (professional hazard). I think that is one of the strengths of the different distributions; everyone can find at least one that suits them. The only way to find out whether you like it or not is to try it.  If your timetable doesn't allow for playing around, then sticking with what you know is probably the best bet (although that might apply to more than just linux).

Now on to answering the question at hand. Gentoo's portage is great. I think I read that Open Embedded was inspired by Portage. Very rarley do I want to install something that isn't in portage and even then it isn't a big deal.  It may be a good idea to look at Gentoo's support forums to get a feel for it.


Just my $.02

--webslngr

[dz]

Hey

Thanks for all the responses; this thread is a very interesting read.

I've actually decided to try out Gentoo.  I decided to do a stage 1 install as well.  It seems to do the job pretty well and seems to be pretty up to date, so I'll try that out and if I'm not satisfied I'll try out Debian.  If all else fails, there's always Slackware.

By the way, I didn't mean to come off as shunning all other distros.  It's just I've used the others like Redhat (or Fedora or whatever they call it now), Mandrake and such and I was not liking them at all.  That's why I've stuck with Slackware all these years; it's always been strong and stable and didn't include all the fluff.  It has done more than I have asked for in the many years I've used it and so I stick with what works, and Slackware works very good.

[dougeeebear]

If you have any problem downloading the images or can't burn your own CDs BudgetLinuxCDs are worth a look.

I just ordered Slackware from them. It is a lot cheaper than 39.99 on the Slackware website.
The comments by dz, in another thread regarding Slackware, sort of helped me decide what to try.
Thanks for the info.

Doug

[bluedevils]

dz,

Good choice.  The ease of portage to install software is only limited by the CPUs speed to compile.  It can be addicting.  The real trick is how to emerge the world and not break things.  So far so good.  I update my desktop and laptop at least once a week.

I also use slackware on one of my servers.  I'm very happy with it.

Enjoy!

[dz]

I don't know how I missed the original thread.  They're both on the same topic for the most part, so I merged the two.

[dz]

It should be noted that my laptop has been compiling for the past 8 hours or so.

KDE is HUGE.

I haven't used KDE or Gnome in a long time.  I've been a good fan of Xfce.  I figured I'd give the new versions a try.  At this rate, Gnome should be finished compiling before the end of this year.

[bluedevils]

gnome is big, but kde and openoffice are the killers