Linux Users - What Desktop Environment Do You Use?

[Mandrake]

Gentoo, but only if you've got good hardware

 

[BohemianChris]

Yuck, Slack? Debian? Are you kidding me?

Well, if you are willing to use *BSD, I would recommend going to FreeBSD-6.0-SECURITY.

If not, use Gentoo. It'll take a few days for everything to compile, but it's worth it.

Kind regards,
Chris

 

[BohemianChris]

Gentoo, but only if you've got good hardware

I've done stage1 from a 800mhz machine. Took a week, but if you have the time, I don't see the problem. Also, you can use Knoppix while installing so you have a full desktop.

Kind regards,
Chris

 

[Swart]

I've done stage1 from a 800mhz machine. Took a week, but if you have the time, I don't see the problem. Also, you can use Knoppix while installing so you have a full desktop.

Gentoo is too much work!

 

[BohemianChris]

Yeah, that's what the n00bs tend to say. ; )

Kind regards,
Chris

 

[BohemianChris]

Addendum:

I honestly do not see the big deal. You type in maybe 50 lines of code to get Gentoo running completely how YOU want it, not how a dependency wants it, and maybe 100 commands for the entire install process, including all the software. The guide is _the best_ guide available in FOSS land. If you follow it, you won't mess up. And, if you mess up, there is one of _THE_ biggest forums of anything in the world (I saw a ranking of biggest forums, forums.gentoo.org [commonly referred to as f.g.o] is in the top 10). And, if you require even more immediate assistance than the typical five minute wait time to a solution to your problem, step onto freenode and enter #gentoo with at the time of writing, has 929 nicks in it.

Kind regards,
Chris

 

[Swart]

Addendum:

I honestly do not see the big deal. You type in maybe 50 lines of code to get Gentoo running completely how YOU want it, not how a dependency wants it, and maybe 100 commands for the entire install process, including all the software. The guide is _the best_ guide available in FOSS land. If you follow it, you won't mess up. And, if you mess up, there is one of _THE_ biggest forums of anything in the world (I saw a ranking of biggest forums, forums.gentoo.org [commonly referred to as f.g.o] is in the top 10). And, if you require even more immediate assistance than the typical five minute wait time to a solution to your problem, step onto freenode and enter #gentoo with at the time of writing, has 929 nicks in it.

Kind regards,
Chris

There's something to be said for OOTB.

 

[StromRider]

There's something to be said for OOTB.

Pclinuxos has proved to be the best distro I've yet used for media playing/viewing ootb.


I've got very good hardware and know the gentoo thing would actually make me learn a lot about linux that I don't have to with other distros but I can't have my machine out of commission for hours(days?) at a time compiling programs.

Telling the wife to use a livecd while our computer is once again compliing stuff would not go over well

OTOH, is there anything in gentoo that makes a good replacement for printshop/ms picture it publishing type apps? That might allow me to push the wife over to the linux side.

 

[BohemianChris]

Is your wife going to really notice she is using Knoppix in a KDE enviorment? If so, more power to her.

You know, you don't always have to compile. It's just recommended. And, once the PC is set, you usually do not have big compiling jobs, and that's the beauty of

emerge sync && emerge -Duva world

Kind regards,
Chris

 

[JacobsDream]

I have some command line experience with linux (from school, can't remember which distro) so which do you guys recommend I install on one of my pcs?

 

[Swart]

I have some command line experience with linux (from school, can't remember which distro) so which do you guys recommend I install on one of my pcs?

Ubuntu. New release due out next month.

 

[StromRider]

I have some command line experience with linux (from school, can't remember which distro) so which do you guys recommend I install on one of my pcs?

Ubuntu is good but you should also try pclinuxos - http://www.pclinuxos.com/

You can run it with the livecd and if you like it/it works with your computer, you can install it from there.

It comes with the ability to run movies/play music, etc out of the box without having to set anything up.

 

[BohemianChris]

Ah, yes, so you might as well just use Windows if you don't want to do any work and get the true *nix experience.

Chris

 

[JacobsDream]

Thats the whole point of me asking I have compiled c# in linux and know basic command line in linux and don't mind the work. I have a tower waiting as I'd rather (somehow) network my xp machine and a linux instead of dual-booting (which is still a possiblity) but I have a kvm switch and would like both running simul.

A have pclinux and suse downloaded but haven't installed (ran suse from dvd and it looks pretty good).
I just don't know, being that there are many distros, which you guys prefer/recommend, ubuntu and pclinux so far...

 

[BohemianChris]

Gentoo if you want to stay with Linux. LFS as a dual boot.

But, if you really wanna take the (right) plunge, go to FreeBSD. ; )

Chris

 

[StromRider]

(ran suse from dvd and it looks pretty good)

suse is a very good looking and feature filled distro I tried it for a bit but didn't like using yast at all. I was too used to using apt/synaptic. So that joined the big pile of now useless cds/dvds...

 

[tamtam92]

what if you don't have a lot of time to spend on it? :s

 

[Qyöt27]

what if you don't have a lot of time to spend on it? :s

It would depend on what sort of work you want/need to do with it. Basic computer usage, server administration, video editing, multimedia, or some other type of work?

I'm very comfortable with Ubuntu (partly because it's the first distro I found that actually worked with my video card and just stuck with it), and the thing I've found is that unless you want to run a lot of video media, it's pretty much ready out of the box. It would only take pulling XMMS from the repositories and then you can play most types of audio just fine. For MP4/AAC or WMA support, you can find RPMs online and convert them with alien to .deb packages that work as if it never was an RPM to begin with. The only real problem I've had with XMMS is that - at least on my setup - it doesn't quite keep the volume within safe levels like Winamp does, and it's possible to hear static come through sometimes when the audio gets a bit louder. It's not enough to stop me from using it, it just gets on my nerves a little.

I hardly use KDE (for the reasons I already mentioned in my first post) so I don't know what a more KDE-centric alternative to XMMS is (and no, I don't think amaroK fits that description), but if worse comes to worse XMMS still works in KDE so it's no big deal. This would be the case if you chose Kubuntu instead of the plain Gnome-based Ubuntu.

For video-based media, I'll be frank about it - Totem sucks, and so does VLC, for the most part. mplayer is nice, but the version in the repositories is slightly out of date, so unless you have a strong computer to handle stuff like H.264/AVC, the only things you can play are limited to possibly DVDs (after installing the necessary dependencies), DivX/XviD AVIs, MPEG-1/2, and some MOVs (that doesn't really sound too bad, but for me I use H.264 quite a bit and while it plays fine in Windows it lags like heck in the version of mplayer I've got installed, on both sides of the computer, but far moreso in Linux). There's always the option of using the CVS of mplayer, but that requires compiling it yourself with all the specific options you want.

For the rest of the basic stuff - e-mail, Internet, word processing, etc. - it's capable straight away.

 

[BohemianChris]

If you don't have a lot of time, get Fedora Core whatever they are up to. You'll have a running desktop one hour from the time you put in the first disk. And, you'll always have the chance to install SELinux on the 'supported' OS.

If you can spare three and read a little documentation: go with FreeBSD.

Chris

 

[Swart]

If you don't have a lot of time, get Fedora Core whatever they are up to. You'll have a running desktop one hour from the time you put in the first disk. And, you'll always have the chance to install SELinux on the 'supported' OS.

If you can spare three and read a little documentation: go with FreeBSD.

Chris

The DVD Torrent for FC5 can be found here. I'm downloading it now - only 1 day 18 hours to go.

The Torrent may be slow, but it works and is reliable. Sure, wget will do the same over FTP but it kills the net connection.