The Many Flavors of Linux

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

I've been messing around with Linux recently, and I was wondering if anyone on here was as well, or if anyone has.  I'm curious about opinions, stories, or technical bones to pick.  I'm still a noob, but I've been able to figure most of the things out after a while.   One thing I have to say, I absolutely love the command line.

Also, I stuck this in here because it doesn't really fit into Video Games.

[Eerongal]

Personally, I like SuSe linux, mostly because it comes bundles with some nice software out of the box.

I used to dual boot with windows/linux, but I kinda stopped doing that when I got lazy.

[Miyabi]

SuSe is good if you're doing more industrial things.

If you just want an easy interface home use, use either Ubuntu or Kubuntu.  They are both very user friendly.

Also, learn to use WINE.  It is your BEST friend if there is a program you want to run if you can't find a clone or just don't want to use a clone.

I'm currently running Ubuntu on my laptop.  It is nice. 

I've ran Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Fedora, FreeBSD, and a few others that I can't remember off the top of my head. 

[Eerongal]

yeah, but WINE only goes so far, i've found. I havent messed with it in years, but I ran into compatibility problems all the time (i.e. programs not working with wine), like if it needs native windows drivers, which WINE can't emulate. Also, how well does it perform nowadays? I know back when I tried it, i noticed a serious performance differences between this and running it in windows (though, not as bad as just plain emulating windows through an emulation box). In college they made us work with redhat linux, that always seemed like a rather good "beginner" linux to me.

i've heard good things about ubuntu, but i've never messed with it.

[Miyabi]

Ubuntu is very well supported and has very extensive forums.

I've never had problems with WINE and been able to make basically everything work.  I even at one point had it set up to run things as if they were in a .NET framework.  Granted WINE can get tricky at times, but it is possible if you try hard enough.

[Eerongal]

That's good that WINE is improving. Like I said, i haven't messed with it in years (probably since late 90's and early 2000's) and back then I did have issues with this and that not working properly, or just plain not working at all.

Though, honestly, I hope the "cloud" architecture that's starting to get really big helps to fix some compatibility issues between OS's, since the web is universal.

For those who don't know, cloud computing is where things are stored/synced/distributed via the internet to all the electronics you use to keep them all automatically in sync and up to date, so moving from one place to another is nothing.

Steam (the online distribution service) has started implementing some of this with settings and such being attached to your account instead of to the PC.

[Miyabi]

Have you ever used Apple's MobileME?  It's kinda nice.

I've actually had some things work better on WINE.  Like WoW. . . I get better fps running it in WINE than I did when I had my system running Windows.  That was last year though, when I still played WoW.

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

Right now I mainly use Debian.  I've messed around with Ubuntu, and I put it on my little brother's box, but I don't like it myself.  Too many choices are made for you, in my opinion.  Its definitely a good starter distro, especially for someone coming from Windows.  I'll probably will end up running it on one of my other systems, because it does have some nice features.  I'm also going to try out Fedora, but I've been holding out on that until Fedora 11 comes out, which I think is in a couple days.

As far as Wine goes, I've had no complaints myself.  A couple games I've tried haven't worked, but they're years old and were never popular.  Everything else I've tried works well.

After using Linux though, I'm beginning to see how ludicrous it is to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars for an operating system.  It just doesn't make sense, personally.  Besides that, its just annoying that Windows and Mac don't have the multiple workspaces like Linux does.

What about desktop environments?  What do you like to use?  Personally I like Xfce over Gnome or KDE, but I've been thinking about trying out some others soon. 

[Miyabi]

Ubuntu is quite customizable if you do it right, but that takes some know how.

I like KDE, it seems to have more of the "glittery" things that just look nice. 

Gnome is good for stability and functionality though. 

I've never used Xfce so I don't know about that one.

Have you ever tried Kubuntu?  I think you might like it more than Ubuntu. 

Also, I really like Mac, but that's mainly because they are stable, have support, people actually make software for it.  (I realize they do that for Linux too, but it's not as extensive.)  Plus Mac is just a lot better than Windows.

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

Well no, I know that its customizable, but too many things are automatic settings for my taste.  I realize that those things are why Ubuntu is so popular, but still.  I've never tried Kubuntu, but I have thought about it.  I was actually on their website a day or so ago.  Why would you recommend it?

Xfce is sort of the bare bones one.  It looks similar to XP in a way, and can run on much older hardware than Gnome and KDE.  I'll post a screen of my setup when I get on later.

Before Linux, I was a Windows fanboy, but now I can definitely see how Mac is much more elegantly coded.

[Miyabi]

It just has a nicer layout IMO, plus (as I remember it) you can pass most of those automatic settings with one download for each thing you want changed.

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

I'll probably check it out.  How much do you use SuSe?

[Miyabi]

I only had it on a box once and I didn't like it that much.  It just wasn't my thing.

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

Why come?

[Miyabi]

I just didn't like it.  *shrugs*  I just didn't give it a chance really, saw it and was like, meh, and changed it.