i've been looking into linux alot lately; its becoming incresingly appealing to me. i haven't decided what distro i want to try yet though. generally, i prefer a rather spartan interface. in windows, i have xp theming turned off, as well as the other "visual effects." similarly, the user interface is one of my favorite things about foobar2000. i'm generally not a fan off "frilly" pointless visuals or skins, rather i like my system just to run fast and correctly.

in linux though, otoh, i have no previous experience, so i would like to have something user-friendly, and easy to use. therefore, i'm thinking a good gui would be nice, at least to start off with. i would like the distro i choose to be "smart" in its design; autodetecting my hardware, and having components well integrated and such.

so basically, i'm curious what distro's you guys prefer for regular, desktop use. also, any recommendations for me personally, would be welcome. thanks.

edit: i will be using it on a pentium m laptop, about a year and a half old.

hi,

i've tried a lot of distributions, and i must say i really like ubuntu.
certainly id it's desktop use u are interested in, try this distro!

i've not spent nearly enogh time with different distros to give a good answer
although, from what i've tried, i like ubuntu

have you taken this test?
http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/index.php
it's pretty helpfull in terms of choosing a distor

I prefer Gentoo, though I haven't really tried the all of the other distros. I don't think Gentoo would be a good Linux for a beginner necessarily. That said, I had a pretty good experience with my first true beginner Linux, Linux From Scratch (http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/).

I null voted, because the only recent release I've worked with lately is from Ubuntu.

It is very useable for the desktop (well, laptop in my case) because it supports lots of things out of the box and was designed to suit users with no previous linux experience. But that can be said for other distro's too - I came across Ubuntu first when I was looking for a laptop OS, and it was fine so I stuck with it.

If you like a very sober desktop environment, this certainly suits you.

Some things I don't like: a few relatively standard desktop tools like the included pdf-reader evince crash regularly (and I'm using the release version - that specific bug is fixed though in the upcoming release). Hibernate and suspend are unreliable on my machine. CPU fan control is completely borked on my laptop, but that seems to be HP's fault (not sure yet). Little things like that...

Most of the time I only use three things: Firefox, gedit (basic text editor), and the X terminal. So, I'm not a very demanding user...

(A few weeks ago someone sent me a video file, and it felt like I had to stand on my head before I got it up playing - it's not hard to do, rather it's so easy to install the rest that doing anything manually suddenly seems hard )

What laptop model do you have?

Ubuntu.

Simply because it was the first one that fullfilled whole list of my expectations when it comes to Linux distro:
- totally free
- based on Debian
- centered around Gnome
- with strong/friendly community

i downloaded a live cd of ubuntu, and so far i'm loving it. its alot of fun to play with, and highly intuitive. keep in mind this is the first linux distro i've ever tried, so i have nothing to compare it to (except windows), but i like it alot. also, worth noting, i have yet to run into any stability problems.

@Patsoe, i've got an IBM T41, Pentium M, w/ 512 RAM. good enough for me.

edit: now that i've been playing with it alittle longer, i have had 2 crashes, and difficulties w/ entering hibernation/standby modes. i wonder if an an actual instal of the os (not running from a live disc).

Another vote for Ubuntu, especially if you're new to Linux.

Thinkpads are probably the best supported linux laptops, so you're very lucky (and they're fine laptops in every other way too - my mom has one, and it's a wonderful thing; makes me unsure about my HP choice sometimes...).

Crashes - full OS freezing (I never managed that yet)? Or just program crashes?

Hibernation/suspend seem to need tweaking for individual models. There are a lot of helpful thinkpad users on ubuntuforums.org who can tell you more hands-on experience.

For me, suspend works very well in the (unstable) upcoming release. I can't switch to the unstable branch of ubuntu because I need to be sure of a basically working system (I'm talking about my main working environment). There's a lot of improvement coming up, anyway.

I am grateful that RedHat decided to go 100% commercial. Until that time I was playing with RedHat and a Mandrake (which was some kind of a derivative). Sortly after that RedHat policy change I naturally started to use Fedora. I never had the latest PC-s, but I never got everything working. In addition these distros install a lot of rubbish and not flexible at all.

Finally I tried Gentoo and boy what a change. I never look back. It is a source based distro so you need some experience. So I do not recommend it if you are newbie. However I got working everything on all my PC-s. I have a stripped down system. For example I do not even use Gnome. I like fwvm2 window manager. I have this setup for 1.5 years. I have total control and in the last 1.5 years I did not use Windows at home except my media center, which is just my off-line Hifi system.

I will never go back to binary distros. Gentoo finally gave me a stable system, where I do not need to reinstall every year and I can spend my time on meaninful things.

Almost forgot: Gentoo has an excellent community forum. With a little research you will be able to make everything working just by researching there. I never even had to ask a question.

Again! if you are total newbie start with a binary distro and try Gentoo, say, after a year.

Triza

I prefer Fedora since it still has that RedHat feel to it (my first linux distro was RedHat 5). Fedora is pretty easy to use and I've had minimal problems (they didn't support the XFS filesystem, so a little bit of tweaking was required there). When you have yum setup with all the repositories, then updating or grabbing new packages (and their dependencies) becomes a piece of cake. Suspend to RAM worked out of the box on my laptop (Dell Inspiron 5100).

Kubuntu.

kubuntu eh? i read about that. from what i understand, it is like ubuntu, but runs off a different desktop environment... kde instead of gnome. what is the difference? is it just aesthetics, or are there performance and functionality differences?

Well, just like what you already said, Kubuntu is Ubuntu with KDE instead of GNOME.

You may want to check out the differences between Ubuntu and Kubuntu (DE-wise)...

Ubuntu Screenshots
Kubuntu Screenshots

I personally prefer Fedora and Ubuntu/Kubuntu on desktop, for its ease-of-use and installation, package management, and relatively recent software packages. Fedora gets a thumbs-up because of its better internationalization and localization.

what does "DE" mean? i'm still wondering if the differences are mainly aesthetic or functional/performance effecting.

regardless, i'm really excited about getting into linux, and i truly appreciate all of the advice and help you guys are giving.

edit: duh. i just hit me, DE = Desktop Environment... lol. sorry, its late here, and my thinking isn't the sharpest generally anyway. my latter question still stands though.

It usually boils down to personal preferences. You probably don't know that there have been endless times about KDE vs GNOME discussions

I tried and used them both, and they can both get your jobs done.

You may try them both and see which one better suits your taste.

is gnome simpler/smaller than kde or not? (they both look like some sort of win/mac combo clones to me)

Both can be light and fast.

For example, I have used systems with very slow KDE (SUSE) and very fast KDE (Slackware, Kubuntu)

I cannot say they are clones, as these UIes are very different actually. But they follow HCI theory after all.

I use Gentoo exclusively for all my needs. In fact, my Windows machine has a hardware problem and right now I don't have the money, will, or time to diagnose and solve the issue. It's been like this for the last 2 months, and I suppose this could be considered a test to determine how dependent on Windows I am. The conclusion is that apart from gaming, Microsoft could be dismissed from my daily computing needs (and I must admit I have some exotic needs).
The most interesting thing, perhaps, is that this box is actually multi-user, so it's not only me who uses linux intensivelly, but my father and girlfriend as well. My father isn't really demanding, and only uses his account to surf and read some news, pdfs, and ocasinally write a letter/spreadsheet. My gf, on the other hand, loves the customization possibilities KDE offers, and turned her account into something as colored as the rainbow, and there're purples, pinks, blues and reds everywhere. In fact, now that she discovered KDE, she has been asking me to install it on her own computer for a while, and I'm about to give OpenSuSe a spin to see how it behaves once it is considered stable (currently is beta). It looks really promising, and it'd probably be the ideal distro for a new linux user. Good defaults, easy way to tweak system settings, simple and good looking, awesome hardware detection, an all the goodies a newbie expects. I'd recommend it over Ubuntu anytime. I've actually given Ubuntu a try for more than 1 month, and it didn't impress me at all. It also failed to start Xorg after an automated kernel upgrade, which isn't acceptable. I had to solve the problem by hand, based on my experience. A newbie would find it confusing and difficult, and would probably wipe the partition and reinstall Windows.

i would be very curious to hear why you prefer kubuntu over ubuntu, latexxx.

Because Kubuntu has KDE which is something like ten times faster than Gnome on my old Pentium 3 machine. And anyways, KDE is better

Ubuntu:
- Based on debian.
- They will even ship you free cds.
- Uses gnome.

Debian. With KDE.

As an ubuntu user, I must say I see a point in emtee's comments on ubuntu.

Many of the configuration sores I've come across stem from the ideological choice to keep any non-free and closed-source code from the main distribution. It's a very noble idea, but right now it is sort of biting the ambition of being a newbie-distro.

As said, it works for well enough for me though.



That's not really an important choice; you can select to install the "kubuntu-desktop" package in the ubuntu package manager, and vice versa - this will give a choice of both desktop environments at the login prompt.

With some effort (quite some ), you might even manage to turn your ubuntu installation into a debian installation later on, without clean installing.

Slightly offtopic: lately I feel tempted to try out FreeBSD. Although generally not considered a newb's OS, and probably for good reason, the orderly looking documentation appeals to me very much - I don't mind having to read a bit before getting things done, but I hate it if this reading is scattered over all kinds of sites; I want to be reading, not browsing. This is my greatest problem when working with ubuntu actually.

i took the plunge this morning. i removed windows, and installed ubuntu. i'm really excited about it. i'm feeling pretty clueless at the moment, but i'm working things out. my overall impression of ubuntu is great. its fast and smoothe, and the wireless worked great out-of-the-box. after i find some more time to sort things out on my own, and figure stuff out, ill post more on my likes/dislikes, and i'm sure i'll come back with some questions. for the moment, back to my schoolwork. thanks for the recommendations everyone.

Something for you:

http://ubuntuforums.org/

Wow all this Ubuntu praise makes me want to try it out. I've played with Red Hat and Mandrake/Mandriva in the past, but I found both less than appealing.

Wow, I didn't realise you were thinking of such a radical move... pretty brave move. If you need any help, you can find me at ubuntuforums under the same nick (just don't expect me to know any real answers ).

FreeBSD

That's not a linux distro though

Just a note that Fedora Core 5 is out!!

Hey, I'm thinking about switching to linux these days but I'm not sure which one will fit my needs best.
It would be nice if the distro would support a lot of audio applications, players as well as trackers and everything else would be nice.
It would be nice if it was quite easy to handle since I'm new to Linux.
Well I tried Ubuntu about a year ago (either warty warthog or hoary hedgehog, whichever was earlier) and I had to mess around quite a bit..
I think that Ubuntu or Kubuntu could be fine, but maybe something else would suite better, maybe Mandriva?

Well, it would be nice if someone could recommend something, focus on audio.
Thanks in advance

Freespire cames with a bunch of codecs. It is meant to be ready for multimedia, however the installer might not work for you. MEPIS also comes with more stuff and it works quite well (I haven't used it thou).


Both are debian based, which is good.

I think he got converted by TrN :B

Been using many distros like ubuntu, slack, gentoo etc etc but now im stuck at archlinux.
Its awesome.



The package manager "pacman" is really nice.

Arch sounds like the next one for me to try.


Here's an interesting graphic.

http://730x.up.md/wp-content/44218-1.png

Fedora Core, because I have to use it for PlanetCCRMA and I don't have any problem with it. I find it a bit nicer than Ubuntu, anyhow. On the other hand I don't think you can really go wrong with Ubuntu either.

just as an update, i'm still on Ubuntu, and have been consistantly windows-free since i removed it a couple months ago, as stated on this thread. i am very happy with Ubuntu. i've played around with the project's xfce and kde versions a bit (xubuntu and kubuntu, respectively), and they are very nice as well.

i highly recommend anyone intersted in giving it a shot. if nothing less, just download the cd and run the live session to see how it looks and feels. if you do install, look in to Automatix or Easy Ubuntu to quickly and easily install the codecs, and whatever else you need to get everything running beautifully.

i'm still working out what audio apps i should be using, but there are plenty of good options. there is no solution quite as suave as fb2k is for windows, but with all of the options available, i'm confident that you will find one suitable to your needs. i'm currently looking into a little command line (but still easy) app called abcde for ripping, easytag for tagging and organizing, and then there are plenty of suitable options for playback; i most often use rhythmbox.

i may someday give a more l337 distro a shot, like archlinux or gentoo, but for the time-being, i'm very happy. Ubuntu is a wonderful balance of power, convienence, and ease.

in the meantime, i'm telling everyone i can about it, and passing out disks left and right.

Gentoo. The range of being able to customize almost every aspect of the distro was nice.

However, packages on Portage being updated is severly lacking.

Well, they say the bad thing about configurable software is that you have to configure it.

I use Debian Sid.

I use BLAG... Currently "only" in dual boot with Windows XP Pro.

http://www.blagblagblag.org/

The zealotry displayed by the Debian developers makes me sick. I'll probably migrate out of it soon, to Kubuntu most probably.

http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=16009

let us know when you do, and what you think of it.

Are there reasons concerning audio to use kubuntu instead of ubuntu (or the other way round)?

Actually, based on my experience, getting proprietary formats (which means nearly every single format except for flac, vorbis and theora) to properly playback on Kubuntu is, at least at the moment, easier than in Ubuntu. Here's an entry at the official Ubuntu wiki that sums it up.

i would not base my DE choice on the necessity to install a couple packages. packages are exceptionally easy to install in debian based distros.

instead you might want to consider if you would prefer to use amarok (KDE-native, ie. Kubuntu) or rhythmbox (Gnome-native, ie. Ubuntu). even still, you can always install amarok in Ubuntu if you wanted, IIRC it just wouldn't run quite as fast as it would in KDE.

keep in mind, one of the great things i'm learning about linux is that there are many, many options. while you may not be able to find any one application that will do everything for you that foobar2000 does, with all of the options you have, i'm confident you will be able to find an application or a set of applications that will get the job done satisfactorily, and you'll likely learn something new in the process, and likely even find some nice advantages to your new methods.

good luck!

Hey HO!
Ubuntu 6.0.6.1 is up and running

It was a long way tough, but mainly because of dualboot and a damn usb-modem.
I somehow managed to mess up XP during the ubuntu installation which forced me to install XP a second time and to reinstall grub.
The modem was the harder part, because those guides out there don't really fit, so I had to follow them and/or combine them.
I'm seriously surprised that it works and have no idea what I did wrong before or what I did to make it working.
Well, anyway, it works now, that's a nice feeling

Edit: All the basics (external hd etc.) are working in the meantime and I think I'm starting to like it.
Now I should decide between Gnome and KDE, but I like 'em both, so I guess I'm going to keep both
KDE on thursday, Gnome on friday, KDE on Saturday, ...

Ubuntu Edgy Eft (6.10) final should be out by the end of the month. I've been using the beta version for a couple weeks now and its nice. You've got some nice updates to look forward to Hollunder, and all you other Ubuntuians.

I recently managed to more or less mess up Xp and ubuntu at the same time so I gave ubuntu 6.10 another chance yesterday.
This time I will follow my brand-new golden rule: One programm after another

Oh, and I wish the linux forum would still be there, that would make it much easier to find linux related stuff, I mean, it's the second most used OS here, quite many use it as the last poll shows, it's not a windows world out there.

...and I'm on Ubuntu now, awaiting Ubuntu Studio to dual boot with (well, quad boot...)