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What Linux distribution do you use as a desktop?

lxer.com — I don't believe the reports from IDC and others on desktop Linux use. I keep fiddling with statistics and I get a higher figure. I think people want to know why you use a specific distribution, if you have any annoyances with it and if you'd like something added.

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  • CovardeAnonimo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3i'm not registering with lxer.com just to post my favorite distro, so i'll post here. i choose debian. it's a nice compromise between desktop-centric easiear-than-windows distros like knopix, lycoris, ubuntu while not being as hardcore as some hacker-centric things like slackware or gentoo.

    debian's policy in what goes and what stays out the main distro also a bonus. i've been using it for several years now, and couldn't be happier.
  • tadelste, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I'll post it for you.
  • CptnObvious, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Lxer is awesome. They always have great content. I liked the interview on TLLTS with them
  • helios, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2LOL...three minutes expended to join the most comprehensive Linux news site available. Heck, I'll do it for you if you want.

    PCLinuxOS. By far the easiest and most complete distro out there. Yeah...disclaimers say its beta and experimental but I've used it for over a year with a three city network business on desktop and server. Couldn't ask for a better or better looking distro. As a Linux advocate, it's a no brainer. Everything works out of the box for 90%+ of new users. No multimedia hacks like in suse and ubuntu or FC-whatever. All fine distro's and I use suse on a daily basis for one machine. PCLinuxOS has been a success for us in getting new users off the MS tit.

    helios
  • CptnObvious, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Heres what I posted:

    "I use Gentoo because it is very fast and customizable while being not that hard to use. I also *LOVE* portage because of its sheer power, the packages are all python scripts which make it easy to do different things than a standard package manager like Debian would let you do like the ability to install Doom 3 and Quake 4 with it (after paying for it of course). It also has the least breakage of anything I've tried (a lot) while still being the most up-to-date. I don't like how long it takes to install but I only have to do it once. Compiling can be a pain but I don't mind it, its a price I'm willing to pay for having a fast, up-to-date distrobution."
  • goggwah, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1gentoo
  • theendlessnow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2At work, most of us choose SUSE. I work for a software ISV, so it's between Red Hat and SUSE. SUSE simply makes for a better desktop experience (I think it's a better server too!).
  • mthode, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1gentoo amd64
  • Skapare, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Slackware

    As an old time unix hack, Slackware keeps things simple and lets me have the power I want. I do such things as rewrite the entire set of rc scripts from scratch in a day and it works fine on Slackware.

    But I am looking at also using Ubuntu

    I judge this as a distribution the average person can use, and I want to know the ins and outs of how it works that way so I won't have to explore what's going on during problem solving, and would just know it sometimes.
  • nightfox, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Proud Ubuntite/Ubuntero!
  • philovivero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Why do you disbelieve the statistics? I run a semi-popular image website (http://faemalia.net, at the risk of being labelled a spammer). About 99% of my traffic is one-visit-only from Google image search. I figure that's a pretty platform-neutral source of visitors.

    Whenever I look at webserver logs, Linux shows up with about 3% of the share of browsers. Does this match up with whatever statistic from IDC you don't believe?

    The good news, though, is IE vs. Firefox. My latest statistic is Firefox has 50%, IE 39%. This is actually slightly better than it seems, because there are a couple more percent of Mozilla.

    I wish Linux desktop use was more common than it is, but we've got to face it, there are a number of things that just need to be fixed and improved. I just recently "upgraded" to Fedora Core 4. Now half the time XMMS switches from one song to another, it pops up a "someone has the soundcard locked" dialog. No clue why. Every app I use is configured to use ESD. ESD sounded horrible for the first couple days until I figured out to edit some obscure file in /etc to set it to 48KHz sample rate. Every time I change my kernel I have to go into a text-only mode to recompile my nVidia drivers so I can get 3D acceleration. The list of problems with Linux goes on and on and on. I put up with it, but I know I'm a very unusual person in that respect.
  • rm999, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0fedora. When I'm not lazy and install a new one i'll probably go with ubuntu. i'm not a big user of linux so i don't know why i choose these. I just heard they are good and easy to install.
  • peace, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Kubuntu
  • solidcube, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't care what distribution I use. The ones I've had around for a while have been:
    SuSE
    Debian
    Slackware
    Redhat
    FC

    Then there were NetBSD and FreeBSD.

    Anyone who ever had to work with any horrible unices like the Unixware packages, AIX, SCO and the like wouldn't be complaining about any modern linux distros. The differences are so small as to be trivial.

    They each have their own ways of managing dependency hell, and some do it better than others, but this question is like "What's your favorite type of screwdriver, torx, flathead or phillips?"
  • PoptartKing, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Fedora Core 4. I've had a slight yearning to switch to Gentoo for the nerd factor, but haven't gotten over my inertia yet.
  • degree, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1windows
  • energyblue, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Debian. might try out slackware because everyone suggests it.
    +digg
  • bsoric, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Gentoo on my desktop, Ubuntu on my laptop.

    @degree: Shut up. :P
  • gunnmjk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ubuntu seems realistic
  • barbobot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0debian uber alles!
  • appdx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ubuntu
  • Coffee33, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1xp baby!
  • peekj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Definitely Ubuntu
  • stimpack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Kubuntu oh yeah
  • fbfb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2FreeBSD and it's UNIX! *BSD rulez!
  • macewan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0ubuntu
  • enovakrss, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0openSuSE. While package management can be better in gentoo, or maybe debian/ubuntu (my previous, still-in-use, but used on a server distro), it's a great desktop and 'it just works'.
    If this would be my first distro, it'd be frustrating that I can't see the changes behind the scenes, but fter learning linux with debian, it's not a big deal if everything can be done with YaST.
    Being an excellent, polished desktop, I'd bet on SLES on the server-side, too.
  • yourowndisaster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Im a Gentoo ricer..

    XD
  • saon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Slackware 10.2 (with ion as the wm) on the main, same on the secondary (though that one stays in commandline most of the time for xmame.svgalib and mplayer -vo svga). It just gets out of the way and lets me get work done.
  • geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1So you /don't/ believe a study done without a major bias, but you WILL believe your own "study" done completely on the internet, where certain websites hold certain biases... BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!!

    Study done like a true Republicrat.

    And um, Ubuntu's on the desktops, RHEL on a server, and straight Gentoo on the "experiments" server (also my music production box when I'm working with linux). But, I've got more Macs than Linux boxen.
  • mikeod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ubuntu on my notebook. Debian or Freebsd for servers.
  • mdew, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ubuntu!
  • tal24, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Puppy at the moment. The fact that a 60mb distro works sraight away including encrypted wireless is something special. Especially when you get less unknown plugin errors that suse or ubuntu (the only other 2 I have recent experience of).

    Bootup is also much faster (20 seconds to two minutes plus!)
  • wanderingidea, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Archlinux
  • iamsjn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'll be honest here.
    I run slackware. I've never run any Linux distro as a desktop. My Linux box is currently headless and is only accessable via telnet or Samba.

    Maybe it's just me but I've never really believed that Linux should be run as a desktop. Guess I'm just old school.

    SjN
  • network23, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0MacOS X/Darwin/FreeBSD
  • TheWilson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Gentoo
    Compiling everything can be a bit time consuming, and installs are a mammoth venture, but once its up its virtually bespoke and gives me far fewer problems than any other distro I have used in the past.
  • postaldave, on 10/12/2007, -0/+04 computers in the house
    1. PClinuxOS- the only working linux out there. this os is perfect.
    2.PC-BSD- love the pre-built software
    3.2 XP units. one for the wife and one to run GB-PVR

    all running Opera. truely the best browser ever built.

  • humblemagii, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Reported this as spam who cares about your blog and your attempt at traffic.

    Honestly does it even matter if 15 or 20 percent of the world or USA use Linux? No it doesn't because it's useless to anyone that doesn't run a business online of sorts because there is ZERO good games or applications for it.

    Please drive through >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
  • StealthTomato, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Though I'm on Windows XP at the moment, I generally use SuSE 10.0 OSS as my distro of choice.

    I despise Mandrake (which I guess is now called Mandriva.) Everything's set up in the MOST non-standard way; nothing will EVER compile! It's like dependency hell, only you have all the dependencies.

    Thusly, I use SuSE. Never had trouble with it so far.
  • jjtechno, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ubuntu 5..10 and Slackware on another machine.
    Ubuntu rules!
  • Recrofne, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I use Suse 10 as my primary OS. It has alot of options to make things easy for people who aren't very tech minded, but everything is there for the experienced Linux user. It's overall pretty painless. I also run Debain on my secondary PC.
  • Bonzodog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I use Ubuntu Dapper Drake 6.04 Development release, x86_64 edition running the xubuntu desktop (xfce). I came out of slackware as I wanted a 64 bit distro, and found ubuntu to be very amiable. I am in the staff on the forums (http://www.ubuntuforums.org), and I am happy with my choice. I also admin the Ubuntu Document Storage Facility (http://doc.gwos.org) where we archive how-to's from the forums.
  • noamsml, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Archlinux. It doesn't "just work" like Ubuntu or Mandriva, but when it works, it works DAMN WELL! Not to mention the fact that that pacman is the neatest and yet simplest package manager that I have ever used.
  • ghostwalker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I personally use arch linux. Yet, I don't care what version other use as long as they give linux a chance. I will try and help others with their distro's if I can.
  • Lobster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Puppy. Faster, simpler. Works.
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