I've probably tried any distro you could name that has an available English locale. I've been using linux for several years, and have been using it as a desktop exclusively for about two years, though I have both Mac and Windows at my house (Windows sees the light of day about once every three months).
I've settled on Arch linux after a long, very hard road of trying several distros that were "almost right" but still had too many irritations for me to continue using. Arch is more in the Slackware and Gentoo camp than the Ubuntu or Fedora camp. I've discovered that I enjoy doing a certain amount of stuff myself, though managing packages isn't one of them. Arch features what I believe is the best package manager available - pacman. Arch is a "bleeding edge" i686 optimized distro that features a "rolling release system" which means you are always running the latest version, assuming you are fully up to date. It also negates the need to reinstall, well, *ever* unless you blow up your box. I've certainly had my ups and downs with it, but after all's said and done, it's home. I've also really, really been enjoying playing with a new distro called Frugalware. It's a very well put together mixture of Slackware and Arch that has a surprising amount of polish for such a young and relatively small distro. It's a pleasure to use, and the devs are a pleasure to work with - questions are answered quickly and with enthusiasm. Many if not most of the devs are not native English speakers, though, if that's an issue for anyone. It's not for me, and I can't see why it would be. Using linux as your primary, and basically only OS can certainly be a challenge, but I'm fairly dedicated to not running software encumbered by DRM, etc. Sometimes it takes some digging to find software that replaces what you're used to, but often I'm actually happier with the new software I've replaced my old faves with. On the other hand, sometimes devs change, and a project you really loved becomes a nearly unusable mess - kaffeine is this way for me. A year ago I'd have told you it was hands down the finest video player available. Today, I can barely stand to use it - technically it still great, but the UI has become seriously horrible. Freedom in both its senses is never the easiest road to follow, though, and tradeoffs are always part of the game. IMO it's worth the effort, though. On Friday 20 October 2006 22:27, Owen Densmore wrote: > OK, Doug has brought up a point I've wondered about. > > Friamers .. another question .. well three actually .. for you all: > - Which Linux desktop distros have you used? > - Which distro do/did you like best? > - What hardware did you run it on? > > Years ago at Sun I was a RedHat + Gnome user .. indeed in 2000-2002, > it, on the Thinkpad hardware, had taken over SunLabs. We even put it > in our JavaCar and found it worked with most of the weird drivers we > needed. > > It was a bit hard to get going on laptops, however. Audio was quite > difficult, requiring rebuilding the kernel with new drivers, and > getting the Sleep function to work correctly was tough. But all in > all, RedHat + Gnome + Thinkpad was quite successful. Gnome was even > available on Solaris, so the interoperability was great between the > Sun servers and the laptops. > > So anyone else out there taken on the Linux desktop challenge? > > -- Owen > > Owen Densmore http://backspaces.net > > Begin forwarded message: > > From: "Douglas Roberts" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Date: October 20, 2006 6:26:33 AM MDT > > To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" > > <friam@redfish.com> > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Leopard vs. Vista > > Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > <friam@redfish.com> > > > > Mandriva 2007 'la Ora' with KDE 3.5.4 (and a slew of whatever other > > packages you prefer).. > > http://www.mandriva.com/en/linux/2007 > > > > On 10/20/06, fromm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > What do you think is more impressive, > > advanced and useful, the new.. > > > > ..Mac OS X Leopard with "Time Machine", > > "Spotlight" and "Ruby on Rails".. > > http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/index.html > > > > ..or the new Windows Vista > > with Aero, WPF and WCF ? > > http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/ > > > > -J. > > > > > > ============================================================ > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > > > > > > -- > > Doug Roberts, RTI International > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > 505-455-7333 - Office > > 505-670-8195 - Cell > > ============================================================ > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
