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83 Comments
- lowtolerance, on 01/02/2009, -2/+36Dugg for mentioning every distro I've ever used.
- KAMiKAZOW, on 01/04/2009, -0/+17The article has some errors. About Slackware the author writes:
"This reputation is based on its use of a command-line installer and utilities and an avoidance of anything that could be considered bloated software -- including GNOME and OpenOffice.org."
OK, I don't know about OOo, but Slackware dows not contain GNOME by default because the maintainer once said that packaging GNOME is too much work for one person. It has nothing to do with "bloat".
"While still prominent, SUSE has fallen under some criticism lately. Many long-time users have never forgiven Novell's purchase of the distribution, nor the change from KDE to GNOME as the default desktop."
Lately? Novell made GNOME default in its Enterprise Linux versions in November 2005 (for Novell/SUSE Linux Enterprise 9). openSUSE does not have a default.
"If a single feature defines both versions of SUSE, that feature is YaST2, its centralized distribution tool that resembles the KDE Control Center on steroids. In fact, in openSUSE's version of KDE, YaST2 replaces the Control Center."
The author confuses KDE with GNOME. YaST and KDE's System Settings are neither integrated nor does one replace the other. This is due the fact that the Qt version of YaST is still partially written in Qt 3. A rewrite in Qt 4 for the remaining components is on its way, but it'll take until openSUSE 11.2.
"It may be that, with Novell's strong support and certification programs, that the company will manage to weather the controversy [the deal with MS], especially if it makes some effort at reconciliation with the free software community."
I'm not a fan of the MS deal, but it's well known among the FOSS community that despite the deal with MS, Novell is still one of the largest FOSS contributors. Especially within the KDE camp does Novell have a good reputation to deliver a well polished KDE in openSUSE. If DistroWatch is a somewhat serious source, then openSUSE is the number 2 on the popularity charts.
There are a few other glitches in that article, like the confusion about the difference between copyright and trademark rights in the Mandriva section, but the remaining glitches seem minor to me.
The article is still good, though. - stox, on 01/04/2009, -4/+15All Hail Slackware!
- JedicodeWarrior, on 01/04/2009, -0/+10You mean the distro called Hunter that fires off a kill -9 for every parent process of Bambi?
- inactive, on 01/04/2009, -0/+10I think you mean to be commenting on that cracked article from yesterday?
http://digg.com/comedy/7_Classic_Disney_Movies_Tha ...
Either that or you're insane. - Neiby, on 01/04/2009, -0/+10Slackware? Did you even read the article?
- csshyamsundar, on 01/04/2009, -1/+111 page printer friendly --- http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/print/6628/
- inactive, on 01/04/2009, -0/+9Whoops, now I feel silly. I had the wrong tab opened...
- jbhannah, on 01/04/2009, -2/+11Really the "Big Three" of Linux distros are Debian, Slackware, and classic Red Hat. By the number of installations, most deployments of modern distros can trace their origins—package manager, config structure, philosophy, whatever—to Debian or Red Hat. From there you get Fedora/RHEL, which are the current incarnations of classic Red Hat, and Ubuntu, pretty much a direct descendant of Debian; and besides being the oldest distro, using and mastering Slackware still is somewhat of a rite of passage and carries a certain prestige about it. The article got those three right, plus Ubuntu; SUSE and Mandriva as examples of commercial success I suppose could be called influential, but they still fall below RHEL (and both are derived from classic Red Hat).
Surprising to me was the inclusion of Gentoo and exclusion of KNOPPIX as influential. Gentoo has unfortunately fallen out of serious contention, and like the article says has lost all direction. KNOPPIX on the other hand has become an invaluable tool for computer repair; at least one live CD or DVD is a staple of any techie's tool kit. - identityxcrysis, on 01/04/2009, -0/+8"Since the departure of Daniel Robbins in 2004 to work at Microsoft, Gentoo seems to have lost direction."
err.... - ricksite, on 01/04/2009, -0/+7Both were/are basically RedHat ported to the PowerPC platform.
- Loornadune, on 01/03/2009, -3/+10Fedora/RHEL! Naturally :P
- lowtolerance, on 01/04/2009, -0/+6Influential, not infuriating.
- inactive, on 01/04/2009, -0/+6arch linux has influenced absolutely nothing.
- daPhoenix, on 01/04/2009, -0/+6Poor troll is poor.
- lowtolerance, on 01/04/2009, -0/+6Wow...what an original thing to say! Especially the part at the end.
- yacks, on 01/04/2009, -0/+6Gentoo is a fun experience though :) But I currently am using Sabayon.
- ScottyMcBaggs, on 01/04/2009, -1/+6Due to your burying, I suspect that at least a couple of the people quoted on that site hang out on digg.
- Leehro, on 01/04/2009, -2/+7Good article. I agree with the choices and it gives a succinct explanation of the philosophies and challenges behind each distro.
- yacks, on 01/04/2009, -0/+5I think he only read the first page.. and can't count beyond 2.
- pentiumii, on 01/04/2009, -0/+5Well considering Ubuntu is Debian based like half of the linux distro out there
and it kinda depends on Debian to you know stay active
one could say Ubuntu is Debian bitch but the same could be said of Fedora as it depends on Redhat
Ubuntu is the most popular distro and i actually run it on to my computer at home but to be honest if Debian closed up shop today like 60 percent of the linux distro out there would be gone
although i prefer Slackware Debian deserve the number 1 slot
Ubuntu is nothing more then a popular branch of this massive tree - ScottyMcBaggs, on 01/04/2009, -0/+4PROTIP: Avoiding something because it's mainstream automatically makes you retarded.
Ubuntu is perfectly fine for a general desktop, and it's alright for my admin workstation(s). I'd rather use Fedora, but there are a few reasons I only use it on one machine, main being the prod environment I recently inherited is running Ubuntu LTS. For servers, not exactly too awesome. - spikeb, on 01/04/2009, -2/+6half of these distros have no influence whatsoever..gentoo? come on!
- nerdzero, on 01/05/2009, -0/+4SuSE 9 was the first Linux distribution I ever tried. It was my gateway distro. I had fun with it for a good while but after trying Debian and later Ubuntu, I will never go back to an RPM-based distribution. APT is just too sweet.
- Kabloink, on 01/04/2009, -0/+4With massive unification and the lost of innovative influence, you end up with something like Vista.
- bytor4232, on 01/04/2009, -0/+3Well, at least its a couple per page.
- inactive, on 01/04/2009, -0/+3It happens.
- bytor4232, on 01/04/2009, -0/+3I've used all but Gentoo. I did LFS once and have no desire to re-compile my entire OS again.
- daPhoenix, on 01/04/2009, -2/+5Don't write if you don't know what you're talking about - SuSE is a derivate of Slackware, not Redhat.
- tux11, on 01/05/2009, -0/+3i think ubuntu is the best choicve if going from mac or windows. i don't think its good choice for ppl who get tire dor red hat or another more advanced os.
- sej7278, on 01/04/2009, -3/+6although the ubuntu fanboys won't like it, redhat is #1 linux distro. its *the* distro that any company will use above the rest, and therefore sysadmins and developers use it too - hell most of the kernel devs, gnome devs etc. are employed by redhat.
debian probably comes second due to its reputation for stability and longevity. then novell (suse - yuk) next, mainly due to the phb's who like to stick to microsoft-ish companies.
ubuntu definitely has its place - on the desktop - without ubuntu i fear that the server distros like rhel and debian would have become bloated and directionally lost, a bit like what's happening with opensolaris - ffs who wants to use solaris as a desktop (especially now its a glorified gnu-ripoff).
personally i use fedora (most bleeding edge) and centos (most commercially supported as its effectively rhel). ubuntu is too mainstream for me - too much like owning an ipod or shopping at the gap.
i've got to say slackware has no place on that list - well maybe low down, but apart from the fact that the distro went static for about three years, its one of those "i've tried it for the experience, now i'll move on" distros, bit like gentoo.
and frankly who uses mandriva?!
i can't even think of a top 5 list, anything else is largely just "good for competition":
1 redhat/fedora/centos
2 debian
3 novell/suse
4 ubuntu - Nate_LapT, on 01/04/2009, -0/+3only took me 10 hours to compile Xorg few years ago.
I've kinda been putting off with reinstalling gentoo after my HD died.
Thinking debian is going to take its place for a bit. - dubkat, on 01/04/2009, -2/+5dugg for Gentoo :)
- T8erT0T, on 01/04/2009, -0/+2I just got forbse'd all in my face.
- bhalo05, on 01/05/2009, -0/+2The same can be said for Linux, no matter how much their fans insist on pushing it as a desktop system.
- jbhannah, on 01/11/2009, -0/+2I've used Gentoo before too, and it's a good distro, and despite the learning curve if you take the time you can make a Gentoo box into the most stable, secure, and just plain fast Linux machine you can find. Like I said though, it's just not the same anymore; someone needs to really step up and get its development and community bases into shape and get it moving again.
And yes, I feel your pain: I have done stage1 Gentoo installations. It is kinda hypnotizing watching thousands of compiler commands scroll by for hours at a time… - xspinkickx, on 01/07/2009, -0/+2Your list should read 2. Debian/Ubuntu, Ubuntu is Debian with a different release cycle. I dunno why people feel or need to feel that some how both distros are disconnected both share and exchange packages, bug fixes etc.
- jbhannah, on 01/11/2009, -0/+2It was originally derived from Slackware, but it uses Red Hat's RPM and /etc/sysconfig among other things—it's a hybrid of the two. Pure Slackware is not for the faint of heart and basically impossible to make into a commercial success. SUSE has come into its own somewhat with YaST and its unique package manager, but since those have stayed pretty exclusive to SUSE I'd hesitate to call it influential just for those.
- luckless, on 01/04/2009, -0/+2http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reviews/662 ...
page 2, 3rd one down - tux11, on 01/09/2009, -0/+2its lighter and faster.
- jbhannah, on 01/11/2009, -0/+2Ubuntu is separated with a semicolon from SUSE and Mandriva in my comment. SUSE and Mandriva are commercially influential; Ubuntu is influential in its popularity and how far it has brought Linux almost single-handedly toward the level of usability of Windows and Mac OS X. It's so easy to use that my 12 year old brother can figure it out, yet so thoroughly customizable and easy to dig into that a poweruser like me can have endless fun working with it.
- mudpuddle, on 01/04/2009, -1/+3"I think 10 minutes server downtime once a couple of months (or even less frequently) due to compiling updates, is not much of an issue. Other packages can compile while the server is up and running, it reduces performance, but not for too long as to call it important. At least this has been my experience."
- Sokkratez, on 01/05/2009, -1/+3Not seeing your point. I'm pretty happy with Vista. Things like non-interoperable package files between Linux distros is something that needs addressing, though.
I didn't use extremes as you did, though. Didn't say anything about "massive" unification or "lost" innovation. Less of one, more of the other. Linux and most of its users (not to mention non-users, which I think is who developers need to worry about right now) would benefit. - xspinkickx, on 01/07/2009, -0/+2How is ubuntu less or more advanced os?? You can do everything 'advanced' as the others.
- V1ncent, on 01/05/2009, -0/+2None.
- oobuntu, on 01/04/2009, -2/+4agreed. might as well skip page 2 - it has all the distros that you will never see in a coffee shop, train or server room.
- ricksite, on 01/04/2009, -1/+3Ubuntu is the direction of linux today. To say their influence is second to their commercial success is to discount all they have done. They have done a lot of polishing of the linux experience at a time when linux needed some polishing.
- johnnyzero, on 01/04/2009, -6/+8How about MkLinux or Yellowdog, which were unique to the powerpc platform.
- ileftfark, on 01/04/2009, -1/+3wat
- heystoopid, on 01/03/2009, -2/+4Prepare to get "Forbes'd " and turn the page yecch !
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