What Linux distro do you currently recommend?

[Tony Scharf]

Gentoo lost favor for me when I tried ubuntu.  the current version is
very good on the desktop.  the basic install has everything most
people need, and the rest is an apt-get install away.  Its the linux
I'd put on my grandmothers desktop and not wory about.

Tony

On Nov 14, 2007 6:12 AM, Dave S <sly at mu-sly.co.uk> wrote:
> Hey Shelter Bar,
>
> My brother gave me his "old" laptop (when I say "old", it's actually got a
> 1GHz faster processor than my main desktop machine FFS!) and I'm wondering
> what Linux distro to install on it.
>
> I'm going to dual boot with WinXP for music stuff.
>
> So, my choices (not in any particular order) are:
>
> 1. Gentoo - I've been using it on my desktop for quite a few years now, still
> pretty happy with it, though the compile time and amount of set-up required
> for stuff sometimes pisses me off.  Also seems that the "quality control" of
> things marked "stable" isn't what it used to be... though I'm still very
> happy with it for the most part.  It's quite a lot of work to begin with
> though, and I'm wondering if really it's worth it?
>
> 2. Ubuntu - Seems everybody raves about it, and really, as long as it has most
> of the apps I want, I can manually compile anything else I need, so no
> problem.
>
> 3. Something else / better?  What do you recommend these days?
>
> PCLinuxOS?  Sabayon?  Both seem popular according to distrowatch. I have a
> Sabayon CD here, and have been using it as a live CD recently - seems OK, but
> really, I think I'm missing the point of it in some ways, and would probably
> rather just go with vanilla Gentoo, if I'm going to go that route.
>
> I don't know anyone who uses PCLinuxOS, so don't know much about it, but it
> seems like most of the reason people go for it is as a live CD?  I want to
> install, so awesome live CD isn't particularly high on my list of priorities.
> (Though that's why I have the Sabayon CD, because it's actually pretty good.)
>
> Also, I would prefer a community-driven distro to a company-driven distro such
> as Fedora.
>
> Mostly I'll be doing web work, graphics, a bit of hacking around, maybe some
> sound if I get along with the apps.  (I still find I just don't get along
> with Linux audio apps, which isn't to say I have tried them all, but perhaps
> doing it on Gentoo leaves too much to be desired?)
>
> I'm quite tempted to go with Ubuntu (in fact, I feel like I've pretty much
> talked myself into it and am looking more for reasons NOT to go with it), and
> then set it up with KDE (my window manager of choice).  I know I could use
> Kubuntu, but I think I'd rather start from a default Ubuntu and then just add
> KDE to it... or maybe even give Gnome a spin and see how I get on.
>
> Finally, does anyone have personal experience of using the Fuse NTFS-3G
> drivers? From everything I've read, they seem to be great, but some personal
> endorsements from my mates always bolster confidence.
>
> Cheers,
>
> ~Dave
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