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posted by janrinok on Saturday March 24 2018, @06:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the why-change dept.

If you have gained some Linux skills after using Ubuntu for some time, you may try switching to these distributions to explore the world of Linux distributions further.

Ubuntu is one of the best Linux distributions for beginners. It's an excellent platform for people new to Linux. It is easy to install, has tons of free resources available along with a massive list of applications available for it. https://itsfoss.com/distribution-after-ubuntu/


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(1) 2
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @06:32AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @06:32AM (#657396)

    I've been pretty happy with Kde neon lately: https://neon.kde.org/ [kde.org]

    Its easy to use and familiar enough compared to Ubuntu. Its multimonitor support works better than other linux environments I've tried.

    I liked Solus, but I had some stability issues (it started freezing on me occasionally). When parts of kde neon crash, it seems to be non-fatal which is an improvement.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @06:54AM (29 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @06:54AM (#657398)

    It's all trash underneath.

    I'd suggest Linux From Scratch at most; build something that is your own, because other people are Hell.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:35AM (22 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:35AM (#657407)

      Or Gentoo if you don't want brainlessly copy-pasting command line instructions from the LFS manual.

      • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @01:30PM (15 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @01:30PM (#657498)

        I'd recommend gentoo as a first distribution - it exposed the user to the core components of Linux and gives them some idea of what's going on. Ubuntu creates a helpless windows mentality by hiding the system from the user.

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 24 2018, @02:19PM (14 children)

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Saturday March 24 2018, @02:19PM (#657513) Journal

          You're joking, but that's exactly what I did. After reading about several available distros in mid 2004, I decided on Gentoo, printed out the 70+-page install manual, decided to go with a 2.6 kernel rather than 2.4, and sat down on my bed with my old Pentium M laptop, vowing not to get up until I had a booting kernel. It only took 3 hours, amazingly, for me to get it all right and running, this from never having touched Linux before.

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @05:33PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @05:33PM (#657592)

            I wasn't joking at all. I first used debian around 15 years ago, but never really understood anything until I used gentoo.

          • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @06:09PM (6 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @06:09PM (#657607)

            ... of you wee Azuma Hazuki on her bed....

            • (Score: 3, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:31PM (5 children)

              by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:31PM (#657645) Journal

              6' is "wee" these days? I'm taller than most men.

              --
              I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
              • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @10:53PM (4 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @10:53PM (#657694)

                Now I'm thinking of you, tall, slim, lying on a bed wearing camo gear and unlaced army boots, and booting gentoo, with candles all round the room, swedish death metal playing softly in the background, and a bottle of JB and two glasses on the dresser.

                I'm so confused.

                • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday March 25 2018, @12:56AM (2 children)

                  by Gaaark (41) on Sunday March 25 2018, @12:56AM (#657729) Journal

                  MAN, KEEP GOING!!! I'm almost there! SHEEIT!

                  --
                  --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
                  • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday March 25 2018, @01:44AM

                    by RS3 (6367) on Sunday March 25 2018, @01:44AM (#657747)

                    What's wrong, went all Crying Game on you?

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29 2018, @08:03PM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29 2018, @08:03PM (#660174)

                    I put on my robe and wizard hat...

                • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 25 2018, @02:07AM

                  by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday March 25 2018, @02:07AM (#657749) Journal

                  LOL, hate to disappoint you, but at 19 I was pushing 180lb and my usual nighttime clothes were gray sweatpants and an Invader Zim t-shirt. No candles because fire, and no alcohol because underage. I *was* making some rather death-metalish and certainly blasphemous noises at the machine, if that helps =P

                  --
                  I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday March 25 2018, @12:53AM (5 children)

            by Gaaark (41) on Sunday March 25 2018, @12:53AM (#657726) Journal

            1999 was fun with red hat (5.2?ish)...delving into Xorg to feck around and get X going, but sooo much fun! RPM hell!!! :)

            That's the thing about distro hopping: its fun, usually. LFS/BLFS was interesting, but I couldn't see having the time EVER to maintain it.

            Tried Gentoo but jumped when it fell apart for a while.

            --
            --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
            • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday March 25 2018, @01:40AM (4 children)

              by RS3 (6367) on Sunday March 25 2018, @01:40AM (#657746)

              1999 I all but hated RedHat, for many reasons, certainly didn't like rpm. But I've always said one of the most important things for Linux distros is package management.

              Fast forward to 2009+, kind of fell into rpm world (CentOS), the GUI apps are horrible and horribly broken, found yum, yumex, etc., thought I had found nirvana (it's been rock-solid stable), and RedHat goes all systemd on me. Still running 6 and looking for a new distro.

              Lots of great systemd-less distros out there, but I hate learning package management the hard way. As stated elsewhere, Alpine has been awesome but the package manager is lacking. For example, every time I run it (apk), it completes but always with an error, and never tells me exactly what's wrong.

              • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday March 25 2018, @10:14AM (3 children)

                by Gaaark (41) on Sunday March 25 2018, @10:14AM (#657847) Journal

                The ONLY thing I don't like about Manjaro(arch) is the systemd thing.
                Might check out void if I ever get time, but for now.....

                ....I just love Manjaro!

                --
                --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 2) by leftover on Saturday March 24 2018, @05:54PM (5 children)

        by leftover (2448) on Saturday March 24 2018, @05:54PM (#657601)

        Slack '96 for my first time. It was an effort but I learned a lot. Using KDE neon now and finding it to be ... workable. Getting stretched between too-old this's and too-new thats repairing and rebuilding various CAD/CAM tools for my own use. The biggliest problem, IMHO, is the lack of definitive choice. I do not get to pick one initialization system, I am forced to use them all simultaneously. It seems like everything that has ever been in the history of BSD and Linux is still actively used. My most frequent gripes are too few cross-library APIs and too many individual library APIs that change with every minor version. I would like to choose, for example, how I want BLAS operations to be performed -- SMP or GPU or MPI or whatever -- and have that choice dynamically apply to everything that uses BLAS operations. As things are right now, I need to concurrently track all the various libraries that my applications use and rebuild entire application stacks whenever one library makes a significant change. I have no choice, given the list of applications I need to use.

        To tie this issue back to the topic of distributions: this was what I determined to be my underlying motivator for constantly examining different distributions. It isn't a distribution issue at all since it affects all of them nearly equally. Same with boot and initialization, X itself and all the widget libraries (fixing something in Tkinter right now), sound (how many different and conflicting packages do we really need to make a machine with a dozen Xeon cores play music almost as well as an old MP3 clip-on?) ad infinitum

        I would venture that a goodly percentage of us looking for the next distribution are actually being driven by this issue. No one distribution can possibly fix it for the general case. A distribution based on a desktop environment would appear to have a chance of success for 'normal' office desktop use. This is why I am trying KDE neon and the jury is still out on whether it can overcome the ubuntu base and the increasing fragmentation within KDE/Plasma. Trying to even define an "engineering workstation environment" seems remote.

        --
        Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
        • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 24 2018, @06:07PM (4 children)

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Saturday March 24 2018, @06:07PM (#657605) Journal

          I'd define that as "minimal and stable." And ideally "without bloody SystemD." Devuan Jessie or Slackware might be good, maybe Void if you don't mind rolling release.

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: 2) by leftover on Saturday March 24 2018, @08:53PM

            by leftover (2448) on Saturday March 24 2018, @08:53PM (#657664)

            Agreed, as far as they go. That still leaves all of the application + libraries logjam up to the end user. I am tired of spending more time repairing tools than using them. When I find myself wistfully remembering the productivity of dividers and straightedges I know it is time to take a break.

            --
            Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
          • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday March 25 2018, @06:45PM (2 children)

            by Gaaark (41) on Sunday March 25 2018, @06:45PM (#658012) Journal

            Looking at the slackware site, it looks like slack is all but dead? Released 14.2 in 2016?

            Too bad.

            --
            --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
            • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday March 30 2018, @01:44AM (1 child)

              by RS3 (6367) on Friday March 30 2018, @01:44AM (#660262)

              No no, Slackware doesn't work like that. I don't know how/why they choose version numbers, but you can sort of ignore them.

              I don't know the official policy for how far back they go, but older versions are kept updated, found in "root-name"/patches/packages.

              I just download them to some directory, "upgradepkg *txz", and it figures out what to do. As with many distros, you have to look for "(whatever).new" files, which are usually /etc startup and config stuff. It can be updated daily. (ftp root)/slackware-current/ChangeLog.txt tells you what's been updated, and it can happen daily, several times a day, or every few days- all depending on package source code releases.

              But also, Slackware can be used as a rolling-release. Slackware-current (and Slackware64-current) will have the newest stuff, and simple wget scripts will get the latest, and "upgradepkg" will do the obvious thing.

              My favorite running/working install is a 14.1 (updated). I recently did a 14.2 and had some problems, like xorg.conf, which I fixed, but still have some annoying odd problems with xterm (that I haven't spent much time trying to fix).

              I've been running Slackware since about 1994.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by julian on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:49PM (5 children)

      by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:49PM (#657648)

      It's not so much that it's all trash, but that only the trashiest distros have the resources to put in the polish and quality of life improvements that Microsoft and Apple offer. Linux is technically superior in many ways to what Apple and MS produce, until you get to the real world where software has to run on hardware.

      Regardless of what you say about Windows 10 or macOS from a privacy and freedom point of view (and there's a lot to say), they're solid and reliable user interfaces, with some flaws that are mostly a matter of taste and personal preferences. You will always have drivers for your hardware. The GPU will work correctly and at full speed, will accelerate the desktop, there will be no tearing, there will be no stuttering or glitches. Your laptop will switch between the iGPU and discrete GPU on the fly without rebooting. Every switch and key will do what it was intended to do without hacks or manual remapping. The indicator LEDs will all display their state correctly.

      Most of this is the fault of hardware makers, which has always been the problem with Linux usage in the real world. That's one of the reasons it's so successful on servers, and Android. Servers were already running a Unix-derived OS, so when a free/libre one came around the advantages were obvious and the transition fairly smooth. For Android, a giant company is available to throw money and developers at the problem of supporting new hardware.

      I'm less and less interested in computing like it's 1999. The fact is, the best OS for my W530 Thinkpad is Windows 10. I hate that, but it's true. This isn't even a new computer, and brand new Linux distros from the big boys still can't get everything totally right.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @08:01PM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @08:01PM (#657651)

        Regardless of what you say about Windows 10 or macOS from a privacy and freedom point of view (and there's a lot to say), they're solid and reliable user interfaces, with some flaws that are mostly a matter of taste and personal preferences.

        "This new car is fantastic overall, with only some minor personal-preference flaws if you can overlook the fact that is has no functioning brake system at all."

        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by julian on Saturday March 24 2018, @09:57PM (3 children)

          by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 24 2018, @09:57PM (#657684)

          That's the opposite of what is going on here. Windows 10 is more complete, polished, functional, and supports more hardware fully than Linux. There are some philosophical and ethical concerns that aren't even on the radar for most people as legitimate issues. It's rather a case of asking people to drive a VW Beetle from the 1970s because it's entirely documented (not even a single integrated circuit!) and you can replace literally everything in it yourself and there's a thriving community of hobbyists who keep turning out replacement parts. No thanks, I want a 2018 VW Jetta even though it's running millions of lines of code I am not allowed to read.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @01:23AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @01:23AM (#657740)

            Don't forget spying on you in more detail than ever before. Keep in mind poor hardware support is primarily due yo proprietary lock in.

            Damn, you hit the clueless jackpot. The fact that Linux still gains traction in the face of overwhelming corporate pressure should be enough to convinc you. Oh! You conveniently leave out the many issues that new MS systems have, and the poor performance.

            Did you even think this through???

            • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @05:33AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @05:33AM (#657801)

              Most people ain't got time for tinkering. They want something that Just "Works".

          • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 25 2018, @02:37PM

            by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday March 25 2018, @02:37PM (#657910) Journal

            supports more hardware fully than Linux

            Sorry, you have that exactly backward. Windows supports no hardware. Or, more precisely, it supports no more hardware, and possibly less, than Unix-likes do. Windows supports CPU architectures, and that is just about all that it supports. Ditto most Unix-likes.

            The proper way to state what you meant, would be, "More hardware manufacturers support Windows than support Linux."

            Your original statement implies that Microsoft has put time, money, and resources into supporting virtually every piece of hardware in the world.

            What really happened was, Microsoft enjoyed a monopoly for some years. Microsoft offered their Windows OS's to computer vendors, with exclusivity clauses. No one could afford to offer anything else, because they would have lost their Microsoft licensing. Because Windows enjoyed a monopoly, hardware vendors baked Windows support in.

            Windows is losing it's monopoly, slowly, and hardware support for Unix-likes is improving steadily. Herr Bush did the computing world no favors, when his administration decided not to pursue monopoly suits against Microsoft.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @06:55AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @06:55AM (#657399)
    • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday March 24 2018, @01:54PM

      by RS3 (6367) on Saturday March 24 2018, @01:54PM (#657505)

      Without-systemd AND "rolling-release".

      I've got servers I need to "upgrade" and it will be a bit of work that I won't have to do in the future when I switch to a rolling-release system.

      I've been liking Alpine Linux for several years, including using Xen, not yet Internet-facing production, but definitely on development systems and for a few people's NAS and it's been working for years. Likely will be my next (soon) OS for live servers.

    • (Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:11PM (1 child)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:11PM (#657539) Journal

      I'm not sure why all the systmed hate.

      It seems to work. You can trust it. Trust me. I promise. It gives you the assurance that you can safely expect the kind of robustness, quality, stability and security that you've come to expect from any Microsoft product. So install systemd today!

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:52PM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:52PM (#657558) Journal

        You got me. I'm reading, and thinking, "Is he nucking PHUTTS???" Then, the punchline. Nice job, DannyB.

  • (Score: 2, Funny) by aristarchus on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:05AM (12 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:05AM (#657402) Journal

    I agree with the Minority Report of the Eds: this is shill clickbait and never should have made it to the frontpage. Wouldn't you prefer a nice aristarchus submission instead?

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by aristarchus on Saturday March 24 2018, @08:00AM (5 children)

      by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday March 24 2018, @08:00AM (#657411) Journal

      Wow, some people seem not to follow the IRC, to which I referred. Or is it, that once it is out and all front-pagified, we do not speak of the disagreements behind the scenes? OK, I got it, move along, nothing to see here, but check out aristarchus's journal on censorship on the SoylentNews! A good time will be had by all, with happy endings! But seriously, this F. Article is not worthy of SN. Not my opinion. Lots of Eds opinion. Or, at least one ed. Who was not TMB, who is not an ed, BTW. Seriously.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Saturday March 24 2018, @08:49AM (3 children)

        by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 24 2018, @08:49AM (#657422) Journal

        Why do you think that all the editors should agree with one another? - the strength of the team that we have is that every editor has his own opinions and interests. That is why each editor has the chance to pick up any submission and prepare it for the front page, it makes sure that we provide stories that are varied and of interest to as many of our community as possible.

        And we have the potential now for over 6000 different opinions to be heard regarding how best to learn about Linux.

        • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday March 24 2018, @09:02AM (2 children)

          by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday March 24 2018, @09:02AM (#657426) Journal

          Oh, sorry, did not mean to touch a sore spot. Carry on. But this article is still pure shill.

          • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday March 24 2018, @10:09AM

            by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 24 2018, @10:09AM (#657441) Journal

            You haven't touched a sore spot - I was just wondering why you were surprised that 'at least one' (I'll assume that you mean 'one') editor wouldn't have published this story.

            And how can it be a shill when TFS is arguing the case for moving away from Ubuntu to another distro? I think that the article is still flawed, but that is why it is up for discussion.

          • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:39PM

            by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:39PM (#657482) Journal

            Maybe, but in this case What's Your Favorite Distro? is a perennial favorite in the /. -- Soylent universe.

            I'm no distro-hopper, because sucking the marrow out of them is not my thing. But I do appreciate the cyclical return to the question because distros are moving targets. They evolve, improve, or worsen over time. Also, as my own tastes shift, I occasionally learn that other combos will suit me better. It happened early on when I switched from Red Hat to Ubuntu (for APT), and it happened more recently with desktops when the Gnome I had been using for years and years screwed the pooch with Gnome3, and I moved to XFCE and LXDE.

            These days I'm pretty happy with the software. Backbones occupy my mind more. Control of the software was wrested away from the corps and govs, control of the hardware is in the process of getting there, but what about the pipes?

            --
            Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:54PM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:54PM (#657560) Journal

        If you aspired to doing sick humor, you should have joined the military. We've got it - you don't.

    • (Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @09:46AM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @09:46AM (#657436)

      Wouldn't you prefer a nice aristarchus submission instead?

      No. No to an aristarchus submission. No to an aristarchus comment. And no to an aristarchus compliant.

      • (Score: 4, Touché) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 24 2018, @09:49AM (3 children)

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday March 24 2018, @09:49AM (#657437) Journal

        And no to an aristarchus compliant.

        How do you test for aristarchus compliance? ;-)

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
        • (Score: 4, Funny) by Gaaark on Saturday March 24 2018, @10:27AM

          by Gaaark (41) on Saturday March 24 2018, @10:27AM (#657447) Journal

          Spoon him and see if he screams?
          :0

          --
          --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
        • (Score: 4, Informative) by aristarchus on Saturday March 24 2018, @10:38AM

          by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday March 24 2018, @10:38AM (#657455) Journal

          Logical consistency will usually suffice. I can put up with dissonance, and disagreement, but the total self-contradiction of conservatives just is not in compliance with any standard. Oh, and the conflict of interest, whether actual or just apparent. Deal killer and argument loser.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @02:12PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @02:12PM (#657511)

          Izod test?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:00PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:00PM (#657563)

        No. I don't think I've ever seen or heard Aristiarchus complain. He generally whines and cries. Complaining takes effort, crying takes no effort.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:16AM (15 children)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:16AM (#657403) Homepage Journal

    Fiddling with distros is kinda fun, and I've installed a couple of different ones just for fun. But I don't work with them. For work, it's Xubuntu, has been for years, and will be as long as it continues to exist in a relatively unchanged form.

    Why? Because "it's easy to install" and "a massive list of applications available". More to the point: it's the OS I use to get work done. Which means it needs to fade into the background - I don't need to think about how to use it, anymore than I think about how to use my keyboard.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:55AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:55AM (#657409)

      Your comment is one giant tautology. You're a master of saying the exact same thing in many different ways. Your comment proves there's more than one way to skin a cat. If it's worth saying once, it's probably worth saying twice, according to your comment. I repeat myself: You repeat yourself.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Ingar on Saturday March 24 2018, @09:41AM (12 children)

      by Ingar (801) on Saturday March 24 2018, @09:41AM (#657434) Homepage

      Fiddling with distros used to be kinda fun, but at some point I decided I'd rather be using my computer than to be tinkering with the operating system.

      I've settled on Arch Linux, it's fast and lean, and breaks just enough to keep you on your toes. The Debian-side of the linux spectrum suffers
      from a holier-than-thou syndrome where things are done the Debian-way rather than the Linux-way. Gentoo is mostly a waste of time:
      the performance gains are negligible and I don't have the time to grow coffee beans while it is installing the latest version of the gimp.
      If you want to learn about linux system building, you're better off running Linux From Scratch. You'll end up with the most awesome
      system ever, but it is an utter bitch to maintain.

      Fedora you say? Poettering works for Red Hat.

      Distro wars are so much fun.
      (Please verify your sarcasm-detector has been properly configured)

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 24 2018, @09:43AM (1 child)

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday March 24 2018, @09:43AM (#657435) Journal

        (Please verify your sarcasm-detector has been properly configured)

        Which Linux distro has the best sarcasm detector?

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
        • (Score: 5, Touché) by Ingar on Saturday March 24 2018, @10:31AM

          by Ingar (801) on Saturday March 24 2018, @10:31AM (#657449) Homepage

          I'd guess Android, all your sarcasm would be carefully analysed by Google.

      • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday March 24 2018, @01:38PM (6 children)

        by bzipitidoo (4388) on Saturday March 24 2018, @01:38PM (#657502) Journal

        This is how I feel. Been using Lubuntu and that remains my goto distro, but I don't like systemd. So I'm still exploring.

        Most recently, I've been trying PCLinuxOS. Some minor differences is that man wasn't installed by default, one vim setting, paste/nopaste, was the opposite of the default in Lubuntu, and ls puts quote marks around file names with spaces. Of course the window manager is a little different. PCLinuxOS simply doesn't have the depth of software packages available. Sure, can still download source code and install whatever you want that way, and I have. It's not as convenient, but on the other hand, you don't have to worry about the distro's package management system screwing it up. I locked Lubuntu to an older version of a meta package (mono, if you want to know) and it worked for a while but at some point, Lubuntu upgraded the package anyway which broke the software that depends on it.

        Tried Gentoo, and yeah, too much time sunk into compiling. Was using Arch, but they moved to systemd.

        • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 24 2018, @02:22PM (3 children)

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Saturday March 24 2018, @02:22PM (#657514) Journal

          Try Void? The install is basically painless, even compared to Arch, and the package manager XBPS looks and acts a lot like Pacman. I was using Arch for a long time too, and then tried Void on a friend's suggestion. It's awesome, almost like FreeBSD and Arch had a baby.

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @07:56AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @07:56AM (#657823)

            while FreeBSD and Arch Linux fuck.

          • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday March 25 2018, @01:31PM

            by bzipitidoo (4388) on Sunday March 25 2018, @01:31PM (#657884) Journal

            Never heard of Void before. I checked on Distrowatch and saw it's just outside the top 100. If it's free of systemd, maybe I will give it a shot.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @09:29AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 26 2018, @09:29AM (#658321)

            while FreeBSD and Arch Linux fuck.

        • (Score: 2, Informative) by DECbot on Saturday March 24 2018, @02:47PM

          by DECbot (832) on Saturday March 24 2018, @02:47PM (#657525) Journal

          If you like the debian feel, you can give Devuan a try. It's Debian without systemd and what I jumped to for my desktop machines after Xubuntu.

          --
          cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
        • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday March 25 2018, @03:36AM

          by Reziac (2489) on Sunday March 25 2018, @03:36AM (#657778) Homepage

          After 20 years of poking at distros and finding them wanting as desktops... PCLinuxOS (Trinity and KDE) is the only one I've kept, and so far it's behaving itself, and hasn't annoyed me too much. Still not used for everyday but at least it doesn't give me hives, like Ubuntu, or fall over, like Mint.

          --
          And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
      • (Score: 2) by tonyPick on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:16PM

        by tonyPick (1237) on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:16PM (#657569) Homepage Journal

        Fiddling with distros used to be kinda fun, but at some point I decided I'd rather be using my computer than to be tinkering with the operating system.

        Same here - at the moment I've wound up using Devuan as the main machine (I'd used Debian for years, and sort of got used to it), and for when I absolutely *had* to use something with the very-latest-rebuild-everything dependency I've been dropping Mint "18.the.latest.xfce.version" onto virtual machines and running that as an isolated slave "Build, Run, Test and Nuke" environment, where the various systemd-esque & cutting edge "can't start up"/"can't shut down"/"wacky networking changes"/security problems etc. etc.are not so much of an issue when I can freeze, wipe and restore to defaults from clean trivially...

        Tried a couple of moves over to BSD, and it's OK to play with, but I never seem to have the time to get comfortable with it the way I do with Linux & apt, and the systems I use in the day job are solidly Linux-centric.

      • (Score: 2) by chromas on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:50PM (1 child)

        by chromas (34) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:50PM (#657579) Journal

        breaks just enough to keep you on your toes

        I don't know if it's an Arch thing or a Vim thing, but lately Vim defaults to something called VIsual mode that tries to integrate mouse and totally CoC-blocks mouse selections and middle-click paste for its own internal buffer.

        The Debian-side of the linux spectrum suffers from a holier-than-thou syndrome

        That's probably why they let the D in. Awhile back, I was watching a talk where one of the systemd devs was fellating himself over how much better systemd-nspawn was than other container solutions (repeating something like "docker wishes they were nspawn").

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @08:09PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @08:09PM (#657655)

          Like you, I haven't been arsed yet to track down who is at fault for Vi/Vim's recent stupid mouse-click behavior.

          However, holding down SHIFT (possibly just right-shift) before starting a mouse action in Vi/Vim will produce the expected results for both copying and pasting.

    • (Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Saturday March 24 2018, @02:41PM

      by bobthecimmerian (6834) on Saturday March 24 2018, @02:41PM (#657520)

      I would add that we all benefit as more people adopt Linux. Some tiny portion of the adopters will become contributors, and they make Linux better for everyone.

      That means I stick with Ubuntu MATE, because I can recommend it to people. I know exactly how it works because I use it all of the time, so if they ask "What about..." I can give an accurate answer.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:28AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:28AM (#657405)

    Assuming you have the CPU firepower, its the most flexible.
    In fact, too flexible for newbies, in which case, you should admit your shortcomings and go back to Ubuntu, why torture yourself?

  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:50AM (4 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:50AM (#657408) Homepage Journal

    -ox, so he downloaded twelve different distros.

    Kids These Days.

    When I installed Linux, all I had was Yggdrasil and 386.

    My best guess as to why Rod can't get Linux to work on his new box is that it has a broken Windows-only BIOS.

    I have to say that Rod is into learning things thoroughly: if he can somehow come up with a working Linux install, he's going to build Linux From Scratch.

    And so this post can argue to be on-topic, I use Linux Mint Cinnamon.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:44PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:44PM (#657483)

      Piker.
      145 operating systems on one PC [archive.org]

      ...and if they weren't different, why would you need the number "twelve"?

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:05PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:05PM (#657534)

        > ...and if they weren't different, why would you need the number "twelve"?

        "I downloaded Gentoo, [... 7 other distros...], Debian, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 17.10."

      • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday March 25 2018, @03:40AM

        by Reziac (2489) on Sunday March 25 2018, @03:40AM (#657779) Homepage

        Woah... And here I thought I was being ridiculous when I had a chained triple DOS boot.

        --
        And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @11:39PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @11:39PM (#657700)

      Only twelve? Get off my lawn! For the fuller experience you need to test at least the top 100 distros currently on Distrowatch. You may skip over ReactOS which will never be ready to replace Windows 95, but is listed, somehow.
      I also got to a point where fiddling with OSes gets old and you just want things to work and keep working. At this point, Linux Mint Cinnamon (maybe MATE), Manjaro MATE (based on Arch, but minus the PhD in Computer Science Incantations). Second tier choices: Ubuntu MATE, Solus, Debian, Linux Lite - you may experience adventures with multimedia. If you want to warm your house from the CPU, install any distro that uses KDE.

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:56AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:56AM (#657410)

    Plain ol' Debian. I like a few other distros but the ones I like are for specific use cases (ex. Tails, Subgraph, Qubes) and if you just need something for general use there's no real point in going and looking for something super diffrent or unique. Debian will give you more then enough to get going.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @08:58AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @08:58AM (#657423)

      This is the obvious choice. It's quite similar but gives you a more leeway and perspective.

      I think Ubuntu has good marketing but it's not much of a distro, really. It's still not easy or polished enough. Also the Ubuntu forums are a sorry sight where blind lead blind. Their advice should be taken with a mountain of salt. Never run commands you don't understand.

      I've been running GNU/Linux exclusively since 2006 or so and my only regret is not doing so earlier.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @08:00AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @08:00AM (#657412)

    Since all the cool kids are mentioning Gentoo. Might as well go see what inspired Drobbins.

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Saturday March 24 2018, @08:27AM (3 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Saturday March 24 2018, @08:27AM (#657417) Journal

    Took maybe 12 minutes, and like always, everything worked perfectly, two monitors, 4K, sound, wifi, bluetooth, all of it. What reason is there to run anything else? You know, besides SCO?

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:36PM (2 children)

      by toddestan (4982) on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:36PM (#657574)

      Slackware is awesome. I pretty much started with Ubuntu also a long time ago. After getting annoyed a bit with some of Ubuntu's changes, I moved to Debian. With the whole systemd thing and a general urge to try something different after using Debian for years I tried Slackware. With Slackware, I learned a lot digging through the internals of the system to customize it the way I wanted. And one of the great things about Slackware is that really is one of the "purest" distros out there in the since Slackware contains only a minimum of distro-specific utilities and customizations to the Linux kernel and included software - with most things completely "bone stock". That way the knowledge you gain applies everywhere instead of just how Debian, Redhat, SuSe, etc. does things. It also gives you some insight on how the different distributions customize their packages - a very visible example is most XFCE-based distros have customized the default settings for XFCE pretty heavily - which isn't a bad thing, but is interesting nevertheless.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @05:36AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 25 2018, @05:36AM (#657803)

        You'll update Firefox one day, and you'll find out that the essential extension you've been using for a decade is no longer compatible, and nobody has updated that extension in 2 years.

        You cannot escape the decisions of other people. Ever.

      • (Score: 2) by Lester on Sunday March 25 2018, @08:29AM

        by Lester (6231) on Sunday March 25 2018, @08:29AM (#657833) Journal

        Fiddling with distros used to be kinda fun, but at some point I decided I'd rather be using my computer than to be tinkering with the operating system

  • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday March 24 2018, @08:39AM (3 children)

    by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 24 2018, @08:39AM (#657421) Journal

    It is easy to install, has tons of free resources available along with a massive list of applications available for it.

    So does the submitter want a distro that is not easy to install, has few resources available and a restricted list of applications available for it? Just because a distro has all these attributes doesn't mean that you have to use them all. If you don't like the vanilla installation start by installing a basic no-frills server, and then add the bits that you want rather than add all the components that someone else has chosen.

    All distros start out essentially the same, with a kernel and the software necessary to run it. Whether you choose, systemd, sysinit or another piece of software is simply a matter of personal choice. I decided that I would give systemd a try. I was amazed. The sky didn't collapse, my world continued with a sunrise each morning and a sunset each evening. OK, it took a few days to get used to it but now it just does the job and I have not experienced any downsides to my choice. It might not work for you, but it does what I want and stays out of my way. So please don't base your arguments on systemd versus sysinit - I can choose either of those and my system keeps on working. And if you wish to repeat that discussion then you can do so without me.

    However, by starting with a minimum system and then adding the rest based on my choices, I learned a great deal. I could probably have learned even more had I used LFS, but I wanted my system to be usable in a matter of hours rather than days. I could have used any number of distros as my starting point but, as I enjoy using the MATE desktop environment (but with a much slimmed down list of apps installed upon it) I decided to use a distro that supports that desktop rather than having to compile my own each time there is an update. I have no desire for bling, whizz-bang graphics or the ability to play games that are realistic. I simply want a computer that lets me compute. I edit stories for SN, I write some software, I still use email, I don't stream media, The heaviest workload for my computer is compiling C/C++ and any distro can provide the wherewithal to do that.

    Package management is not something that I lose sleep over - debs or rpms are just as easy to use as each other. And while I can see the benefits of compiling your kernel or entire system from scratch, I've never found a reason that justifies me doing that in terms that convince me of the need to do so. My needs are obviously different from those of the writer because he seems to think that whatever he wants to do, he cannot do it with the software that he already has. If his desire is simply to learn, then there is plenty under the hood of any distro to provide sufficient food for thought.

    So I am back to my original question - what does the writer want to get from changing distros? Because the chances are he can learn just as much staying with whatever distro takes his fancy. Unless he wants to experiment with a specific piece of code that is not supported by his current distro, then he is probably just as well off sticking with what he has.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @11:54AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @11:54AM (#657470)

      What you learn from re-spinning your distro can teach you as much or more than just moving to another distro.

      Whether it's changing the init system, stripping out bloat or using a different compiler, it's a test of the flexibility of the tools available and the quality of the packaging effort. In large distros it shows who is breaking the "minimal dependency rule" in order to force an agenda, the tools they are using and therefore the mechanisms you can use to undo them.

      Find your damage and route around it, work with others that think the same. It's our way.

      • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:17PM (1 child)

        by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:17PM (#657477) Journal

        I agree entirely with the point you make. He could learn more by re-spinning his current distro, or changing the init system etc.

        My argument is with the suggestion that changing distros is necessary or even desirable to increase one's understanding of how Linux works. Unless there is something that his current distro will not allow him to do then the change is unnecessary. He would learn more, perhaps, by trying LFS or whatever, but the the statement "I am assuming that you are at least an intermediate level Linux user who is comfortable using the command line. Probably you want to test your Linux skills by using a different distribution." from TFS is misleading. Simply switching to another distro will actually teach someone relatively little.

        It is also wise to learn about those parts of the system that you do not like. If you are seeking a job down at the system management level, you need to know how all the different systems work in case that is the one that you are required to work with. At home, ignore systemd as much as you want, but not knowing how it works and being able to use it effectively does reduce your ability to work with those computers that do use it. I'm not suggesting that one is better than another, simply that sometimes you have to work with what you are given and not what you would like.

        The major flaw in TFS is that it does not explain what it means by 'increasing one's understanding of how Linux works'. Without knowing what level of knowledge is desired as the end state, it is pointless to suggest a handful of different distros as being able to help reach that state.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:09PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:09PM (#657537)

          the statement "[...] Probably you want to test your Linux skills by using a different distribution." from TFS is misleading.

          Oooh, I know, I'll test my Windows skills by switching from Windows 7 to Windows 10!

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by cocaine overdose on Saturday March 24 2018, @09:01AM (15 children)

    If this isn't a shill thread, which I highly doubt considering:

    > If you have gained some Linux skills after using Ubuntu for some time

    You would have gained absolutely no Linux skills using a bloated GUI and a hand-holding, spoon-feeding forum

    > Ubuntu is one of the best Linux distributions for beginners.  It's an excellent platform for people new to Linux.

    No. Ubuntu is one of the best Linux-like OSes that cater to people who like Macs, but not the terminal-using kind of Macs. The best platform for learning Linux is Linux From Scratch. Anything else and you won't have a fucking clue what's going on. Install Debian and tell what every single file does. You can't, because it's bloated, obscure, and a fucking mess. Atleast with LFS you can see what's actually going into your system and know "hey, this exists."

    > It is easy to install, has tons of free resources available along with a massive list of applications available for it.

    Janrinok, how much were you paid to put this through?

    > you may try switching to these distributions to explore the world of Linux distributions further.

    Don't. Linux is dying. *BSD is holding its own niche, but Linux is definitely dying. In twenty years, everything's gonna be mobile. Personal desktops have proven themselves to not be what your average consumer needs. Mobile platforms, with their simplicity, portability, and "just werks" factor mesh well with those who are technologically illiterate and won't have it any other way. Lunix? That'll be left to the few hobbyists, FOSS/GNU survivors, and developers who grew with Lunix and changing would mean a drastic hit in productivity for them. BSD will continue to be used by corps who actually give a shit. RHEL/Red Hat will become another, smaller IBM.

    Go with Plan9 if you want to be away from the madness. Go with BSD if you want to be employed. Go with a phone if you're not a developer. But don't ever go with Lunix. The only reason I use Lunix, is because LFS makes it trivial to rip out everything and only have the very minimum I need to do what I have to. That means emacs, a de-bloated firefox, and xterm. There are a lot of other, secondary utils, but they're not dependent on anything unreasonable. I do this because I don't need 200 fucking worker processes for SystemD, poettering. And you can't use any newer Firefox, because Poettering's ruined it with his pulseaudio. If LFS didn't exist, I'd just custom compile OpenBSD.

    And after you don't choose Linux, remember not to choose Gentoo or Arch either. Both are needlessly shitty in everyway but their main attractions: their package managers. There's a lot of dumb shit that the communities do to their distros, but they have a huge amount of slack, because people don't give a shit as long as what they're there for works. Ports/Pacman are the only things that make Linux bearable at all. If I were relegated to using the dumbshit yum/apt/rpm, or worse, compiling everything from source, I would unironically stick to windows and program in Notepad++.
    • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday March 24 2018, @09:06AM (4 children)

      by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday March 24 2018, @09:06AM (#657428) Journal

      No. Ubuntu is one of the best Linux-like OSes that cater to people who like Macs,

      Ow, ow, oh ow! And we have not even gotten to the vi vs. emacs debate yet! Never have so many argued so much about things they are basically in agreement about. Linux: it's not just for nerds anymore.

      • (Score: 1) by cocaine overdose on Saturday March 24 2018, @09:10AM (1 child)

        You're a simpleton, Ari. Macs have their uses, Vi/Vim has its use, and so does Emacs. But Lunix does not have any use.
        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Chromium_One on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:30PM

          by Chromium_One (4574) on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:30PM (#657548)
          Well, Lunix [wikipedia.org] doesn't have much use at this point, sure, as there's fairly little point in messing with c64/c128 hardware anymore. Gotta give you that one.
          --
          When you live in a sick society, everything you do is wrong.
      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:11PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:11PM (#657476)

        I think what people are saying is "Linux, it's not even for nerds anymore."

        • (Score: 2) by chromas on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:37PM

          by chromas (34) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:37PM (#657575) Journal

          I was leaving Linux before it was cool, man! I use TempleOS—64KB ought to be enough for anybody. It's really obscure; you've probably never heard of it. Oh, you have? Ugh, TempleOS is too mainstream now!

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Saturday March 24 2018, @10:34AM (8 children)

      by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 24 2018, @10:34AM (#657453) Journal

      Unfortunately, I was paid nothing for putting this story through - but what piqued my interest was the suggestion that you can learn more just by installing a different distro. That is plain wrong. And without knowing what the writer was hoping to 'learn', suggesting any distro at all is pointless.

      But let's look at this from another side. How should we encourage and assist those who are just getting into Linux on how to learn more about it. LFS is good if you want to build every package, but is unnecessary if you simply want to learn how the boot process works. Your response that BSD is the way to go is also wrong - you can't learn Linux by running a BSD. I thought that the title gave it away a little, but obviously you are so overjoyed with your LFS minimum system and BSD that you missed that little point. You do know that you can compile any package under any distro if you so choose you know? If you want a 'de-bloated' Firefox, you can do that even with Ubuntu, or Debian, or Fedora.

      But if the writer is looking ahead to a longer term career, perhaps in industry, then buying a smart phone and a BSD system might not be what he needs. It wouldn't be any use to me either. I don't have a smart phone. I don't need one, it would provide me with nothing that I need. But I do need my own server, which runs 24 hours a day. I use a desktop. How would your smart phone meet that need? I don't use the cloud because the only way I can secure my data is if I control it. So you are simply answering a different question because you have nothing useful to add to this discussion.

      Now your love of BSD is valid for your use case. I hope that you are very happy with it, or with your LFS lite installation. Good for you. But I bet it is useless for learning Linux - which is what the question is about. But I look forward to your submission on how best to learn BSD....

      • (Score: 1) by cocaine overdose on Saturday March 24 2018, @01:56PM (5 children)

        You can learn more by switching distros, only because each distro evnironment forces you to use certain tools if you don't go the extra mile not to use them. Like Arch, forces you to use the CLI, whereas with Fedora, you have big buttons and everything's installed for you. You could probably go years without touching the terminal.

        Now, encouraging and assisting people to get into Linux? I was clear with my stance, don't. Building packages from source is Linux. Installing everything from binaries is not "lunix." LFS is necessary if you want to learn how the boot process works. It's not necessary if you define that by staying on the higher level "BIOS -> BOOT -> KERN." You CAN learn Lunix from BSD. That's how I got better at Lunix. There's virtually little difference between a BSD and a Lunix distro, besides the differences you get between distros. Boot up OpenBSD and tell me how it's different from Lunix.

        If I wanted a de-bloated Firefox on Ubuntu, Debian, or Fedora, I'd have to re-learn how the systems setup their filesystem hierarchy. Then I'd have to track down build tools and dependencies. Dependencies will likely be where everything falls apart, because you can't just build/install the same dependencies across all three. There are usually a bunch of stupid conventions on libraries and headers, where across all three you would find things merged, moved, and malfunctioning. Take Apache. You would need to be very vigiliant on build flags, otherwise you'll run into linking and dep failures. Even then, I wouldn't do it on any of those, because they have things that I don't need. A lot of things that I don't need nor want.

        Janrinok, get your head on straight, lad. Take a nap, because you're either half-awakingly misreading my entire post or the affiliate payouts are starting to ramp up. If the writer is looking for a long-term career... where? What is he doing? You can't drop that shit and start making a case on this general statement. If he's going into tech, but not a software dev, there is absolutely no reason to not use a Mac/Windows machine. None at all. If he's going to be a developer, then BSD is the way to go. If he's not in a technical role, he should get a phone. There is no reason to use a computer, when your job does not demand it. Your needs are not the average needs. If you want to say something, be specific and don't leave me with generalized drivel that goes on in circles. Use your words to explain why you think such and such. Without evidence, you're just doing the equivalent of shouting into the air "LUNIX #1! YOU CAN'T LEARN LUNIX FROM BSD!" which is absolutely false.
        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:04PM (2 children)

          by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:04PM (#657533) Journal

          If he's going to be a developer, then BSD is the way to go

          How many of the world's supercomputers run on BSD?. How many of the servers keeping the web going today are BSD? How many IOT boards are running BSD. How many smart phones are running on BSD? Answer: very few. Linux is far more popular than BSD and I do not see any signs of that changing significantly, but apparently you do. I suspect that it is just wishful thinking.

          You CAN learn Lunix from BSD.

          and

          There's virtually little difference between a BSD and a Lunix distro

          The reason that I have problems understanding your arguments is you keep using the term 'Lunix'. You do know what Lunix [wikipedia.org] is, don't you? I think you mean to type Linux but you use the term so frequently I am not sure if it is intentional or not. So perhaps if you start using the correct terminology your arguments will make more sense. But to put your mind at rest, I do run both Linux and BSD so I know how similar or different they are from each other. But saying the best way of learning Linux is to install BSD is like saying the best way to learn how to drive a stick-shift car is to buy an automatic. Utter rubbish.

          If I wanted a de-bloated Firefox on Ubuntu, Debian, or Fedora, I'd have to re-learn how the systems setup their filesystem hierarchy. Then I'd have to track down build tools and dependencies.

          Which is why I have repeated several times in this thread that, if you want to help somebody learn more about Linux then you need to identify what exactly they want to learn rather than suggesting a random list of distros that one could install. This is why the original story is flawed and why it is here for discussion. But if somebody wants to learn how to build a de-bloated Firefox then yes, they will have to know the file hierarchy and how to use the build tools provided.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @11:42PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @11:42PM (#657701)

            Beserkley Standard Deviation - this thing gave birth to MacOS with the Nexxt bolt-on. Ruuuuunn!

          • (Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Monday March 26 2018, @07:47PM

            by Osamabobama (5842) on Monday March 26 2018, @07:47PM (#658615)

            Three reasons to use the term "Lunix" that I could come up with:

            1. Standard typographical error
            2. Disparaging misspelling in the style of "Windoze"
            3. Actually talking about Lunix [wikipedia.org]
            --
            Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:24PM

          by fyngyrz (6567) on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:24PM (#657546) Journal

          whereas with Fedora, you have big buttons and everything's installed for you. You could probably go years without touching the terminal

          I have Ubuntu installed on several servers. Why? Because it was supposed to be painless to install. And you know what? It was.

          Once installed, however, I only SSL/shell into the servers, and do everything from the shell. Everything.

          There's a lot to be said for starting from a working system, IMHO. I have work to do. Lots of it. I'd rather not spend my time doing things I don't actually need to do. It's not like I'm short of things to learn.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:33PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:33PM (#657551)

          Boot up OpenBSD and tell me how it's different from Lunix.

          No /proc, no /sys, good man pages, the base system isn't a hacked together collection, it is a designed set of tools with consistent functionality (and the file hierarchy actually makes sense and is adhered to), no kernel modules, etc.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:09PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:09PM (#657536)

        The best way to learn BSD is to read the man pages and handbooks. The best way to learn Linux is to read the man pages and probably to at least look through the build process for any distro to get a good feel for how it all fits together. The REALLY best easy to learn any OS is to actually use it to do stuff.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:14PM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:14PM (#657568) Journal

        But I bet it is useless for learning Linux -

        You may want to rethink that before someone takes your bet. The more you learn about any Unix-like, the more you know and/or the more confident you will be in Linux. Let us remember that Linus intentionally built a Unix-like operating system, so it is very much like Unix. No matter how deep, or how shallow, you dive into any Unix-like, a Linux user won't be in alien territory. Granted, things can get a little strange sometimes, but it's not alien.

    • (Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:44PM

      by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:44PM (#657554) Journal

      The best platform for learning Linux is Linux From Scratch.

      I'll second this. If the goal is to learn Linux, LFS is the way to go.

      After that, Gentoo will make sense. As far as non-systemd distros, Slackware is a good choice, and while I haven't used it extensively, Void Linux seems another good choice. Void has a bootable Raspberry Pi [voidlinux.eu] image, and the rpi3 images are aarch64. Boots damned fast, too, and did I mention no systemd? Wound up with Gentoo with distcc on my Pi though.

      Pulseaudio has come a long way. I've removed it from my “# lennart” section in my package.mask on Gentoo and now sits as a globally enabled use flag. It adds sensible capabilities like switching audio output sink on the fly while otherwise being pretty much transparent. No perceptible lag either. Big improvement now that Lennart's moved on to fucking up init systems.

  • (Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday March 24 2018, @10:13AM

    by Arik (4543) on Saturday March 24 2018, @10:13AM (#657442) Journal
    Virtually any $random_distro will be an improvement. I usually use Slackware, because my time has value and it just works. But if you have more than basic entry-level hardware then gentoo or lfs shouldn't take very long, should you prefer to tinker.
    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
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