Which Linux?

[Kyuuketsuki]

If you want usability, you need Ubuntu. The fact that the company behind it are funded by a millionaire means they are dedicated to providing a great OS that is easy to use. It's perfect for beginners so maybe you'd like to expand on your 5/10 score? What did you find wrong with it / what confused you about it?

Off hand I don't know, can't remember ... I just didn't like it much (not saying for one moment this about a rational evaluation).

Not really confused, I just didn't get it ... how can I explain that? I get KDE because it appears to have been designed (at least superficially) to grab the attention of Windows users. I don't like Gnome much even though (ironically) I'll configure my Windows desktop to have many characteristics of the Gnome on. In the end it was just one of those distro's I looked at and went, "Meh!"

I also prefer the Gnome desktop over KDE, simply because KDE is such a resource hog, and I find it tries too hard. Gnome + Compiz makes any system shiny! Also, a lot of people have been complaining about KDE4 because the devs rewrote the core and it is full of bugs. My friend was once a hardcore KDE user who kept on pressuring me to try KDE 4.1, and a few days ago we met up and he's temporarily "downgraded" to the stable Gnome. Same goes for Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, who used to be a KDE fan and who spoke you against Gnome.

Compiz (esp. Fusion) looks shiny. Might install it on SuSE if I ever build one of those again (not easy as my cellar is such a mess and I'm migrating to virtual machines). I like KDE 4, I was stopped from investigating it in depth because my hardware would constantly lockup ... I assumed that was a Linux specific distro flaw (OpenSuSE).

So I started out on Ubuntu, then I tried out Linux Mint (an Ubuntu based system), then Fedora. I have a love/hate relationship with Fedora. I installed version 7 and found it ok to use, but then all versions since then have just been so much more confusing. The package management system is by far the worst since you are bombarded with a ton of information in no sensible format. It also seems to lack pretty much any of the configuration options that has made Ubuntu so popular. After a year with Ubuntu, I decided I knew enough about the GNU/Linux OS that I would install Gentoo, and I wouldn't use anything else.

Uggh! I hate Red Hat/Fedora, have done ever since they did that BlueCurve desktop thing. Don't like RPM based installs either ... what package management system do the Unbuntu series use?

If you know what you are doing, Gentoo is worth the 24 hour install It's pretty much compiling the system from scratch to your specific needs. You choose the kernel options, which modules to build, which types of programs, etc. The Gentoo documentation install guide is very useful, and it goes through everything you need to do to get a good install. Since the install is text based, I prefer to boot into an Ubuntu live cd and install Gentoo through a terminal there.

I know a lot of Linux bits, but none of it makes sense to me in a *whole* fashion ... this may be because Linux is "designed" by many different individuals or it may be I'm a brain-damaged Windows techy. Dunno.

GRUB:10/10 - Awesome boot manager. No bugs that I've ever found, and very easy to configure.

Never really screwed around with boot managers under Linux.

Kyu