Linux users...

[milanuk]

...what flavor or distro are you currently using?

What made you decide to go with distro 'A' vs. distro 'B'? Specific features, the community, some ideological stand, or recommendations from friends, etc.?

What all distros have you tried?

How long have you been using Linux?

Are you 100% 'converted', or do you use it for specific tasks and do your 'general purpose' computing (word processing, games, etc.) with something else?

Just curious

Monte

[dbhost]

I use CentOS, mostly because I support Red Hat at work, and CentOS, being a Red Hat recompile distribution is as they say, close enough for Rock & Roll. I have used Linux since 1997 when I started with Red Hat, I have used Red Hat, Debian, Ubuntu, Mandrake (now Mandriva), Slackware, Corel Linux (now Xandros I think...) and Lindows (now extinct...)

I even played around a bit with SuSe but do not like the management features of it.

If I were just setting up a PC to play with, and didn't need to have setup as close as possible to my work systems, I would use Mandriva.

I am 100% converted, however I do keep a Win XP box that LOML uses, and I have one app I no longer use (Corel Draw) on it. I have started using Xara Xtreme for drawing and REALLY like it. It compares favorably to Draw...

My only real hangup has been Sketchup. Google isn't developing Sketchup for Linux. I had to compile the latest WINE (Windows binary emulator) from source code to get Sketchup to run well (at all actually).

[affyx]

Ubuntu, just upgrade to 9.10 - love it. use it mostly for surfing the web, trying to learn blender and gimp, open office spreadsheet does not have all the function of excel but is close, but to be honest, when I need graphics or a spreadsheet in a hurry, I reboot to Windows and use Corel & Excel.

[thrytis]

I run Ubuntu flavors (kubuntu for my main machine, mythbuntu for the HTPC). I run Linux exclusively on those computers, though i have access to my wife's Windows laptop. I very very rarely have to use that because something doesn't work on Linux though.

I've been running Linux at home since around 1995 and using other people's machines before then. I started with Slackware, and after a couple years switched to Red Hat. I hated Red Hat at the time since it made me install a lot of unnecessary stuff, such as X windows on a server. I switched over to Debian and liked the dependency management, package install system, and availability of software over that of Red Hat. A few years ago when i replaced my computer, i decided to try Ubuntu since it was Debian based. It kept all of the advantages of Debian, but added the nice polish Debian was missing, both in terms of the interface and a regular release schedule. I've also tried a few other distributions briefly over the years, but i didn't find anything worth switching to.

[jziegler]

I have Ubuntu (different flavors though) running on a netbook and an older laptop. I have Debian (stable) running on a server in the basement (primarily a home file server). Debian is about as stable as it gets, with good package management, but it is slow to update. Ubuntu takes the Debian package system, but is much more up to date. Eric is right that the Debain package management it way ahead of Red Hat and the others. I've used Slackware, Red Hat, Mandrake (which started out based on Red Hat), Debain, Ubuntu, gOS (another Debian based distro, have it on my in-laws PC), knoppix (live CD that is Debian based), and have tried a couple of the floppy based small distros for specific things at times.

Boy, I must really sound like a true nerd right now....

Jim

[dbhost]

Ubuntu, just upgrade to 9.10 - love it. use it mostly for surfing the web, trying to learn blender and gimp, open office spreadsheet does not have all the function of excel but is close, but to be honest, when I need graphics or a spreadsheet in a hurry, I reboot to Windows and use Corel & Excel.

Blender is a real S.O.B. to learn, but VERY powerful when you get it down... My Blender manuals are all pretty old now, I need to look into some new ones.

Look for a book called Grokking The GIMP. GIMP is REALLY easy to use, once you get used to it. The book deals with the older versions, the interface changed slightly, but not enough to make the book irrelevant. I believe it is online for free if you's like to read it that way...

If you use Microsoft Office macros, yeah, OpenOffice won't do VB macros. It's a patent / copyright thing... Every single last bit of functionality I need for my spreadsheets is there. But I was using Star Office (Open Office's predecessor) on Solaris before I ever saw Microsoft Office. I guess I am used to it. Since Microsoft "upgraded" to Office 2007, some functionality that I rely on a LOT, specifically importing comma, space, or tab delimited fields from text files is now MUCH harder to use. I actually have OpenOffice installed on my work Windows PC to handle that function...

[crokett]

I have Ubuntu 8.10 on my server at home. The server runs headless and I manage it via Webmin. I had Ubuntu on my work laptop for a while but I've gotten to the point where I'd rather not maintain 2 OSes and there were some things I absolutely needed Windows for. I can't install it on our main machine at home because the printer doesn't have Linux support.

[dbhost]

I have Ubuntu 8.10 on my server at home. The server runs headless and I manage it via Webmin. I had Ubuntu on my work laptop for a while but I've gotten to the point where I'd rather not maintain 2 OSes and there were some things I absolutely needed Windows for. I can't install it on our main machine at home because the printer doesn't have Linux support.

What printer are you trying to access?

[sparkeyjames]

Slackware Linux user here. It's not a system for Linux newbies. It's more like the power users Linux distro. Much more like a BSD Unix than the others. Great for running servers on older hardware. Does pretty well as a desktop
system to. I have been using it since the 8.0 version it is now up to 12.2.

[crokett]

What printer are you trying to access?

Lexmark X2580 All-In-One. No native linux driver. I did find a reference to a driver for another Lexmark that is supposed to work at least for printing, but I coudn't get it to work when I tried plus you lose the scanner function. Copy worked since that is just scan then print.

[sparkeyjames]

I have Ubuntu 8.10 on my server at home. The server runs headless and I manage it via Webmin. I had Ubuntu on my work laptop for a while but I've gotten to the point where I'd rather not maintain 2 OSes and there were some things I absolutely needed Windows for. I can't install it on our main machine at home because the printer doesn't have Linux support.

The simple solution to the Linux printer problem is to always get a printer that has Postscript. That also solves a lot of problems with Mac systems as well. I work in a commercial print shop we have what amounts to 6 different printers. Some are copy machines that to a computer system look just like a printer. I have lost more than a few hairs on my head making them all function correctly. The ones with postscript processors are the easiest to setup. Printers that have Windows only drivers are the ones that cause the most headaches.

[thrytis]

Why slackware? Have they added some package management functionality, or is it just that you feel other systems force you to do some things in a certain way and you want full control? I haven't used slackware since probably version 3.x so maybe things have changed significantly, but i've wondered why it still exists given what else is out there now. I'm not trying to be critical, just curious where slackware fits in these days.

[crokett]

The simple solution to the Linux printer problem is to always get a printer that has Postscript. That also solves a lot of problems with Mac systems as well. I work in a commercial print shop we have what amounts to 6 different printers. Some are copy machines that to a computer system look just like a printer. I have lost more than a few hairs on my head making them all function correctly. The ones with postscript processors are the easiest to setup. Printers that have Windows only drivers are the ones that cause the most headaches.

I didn't buy the printer, my wife did. She needs the scan/copy functions for her business. I suspect the real problem is this printer is a Win printer and as such all the intelligence is in the drivers and not the printer.

[milanuk]

...what flavor or distro are you currently using?

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS

What made you decide to go with distro 'A' vs. distro 'B'? Specific features, the community, some ideological stand, or recommendations from friends, etc.?

While I'm certainly not fanatical about the issue like some folks, the Debian package management system always made a lot of sense to me. Unfortunately, the whole Debian setup is just a little too spartan and some parts of the community just a little too terse for my liking. Nowadays with yum and other similar package management systems for RPM based distros that gap is nearly a moot point anymore. I like having gui tools, but not ones that almost dictate that I *must* make any changes through those tools, or else learn special non-standard syntax to edit things by hand (like SuSE). Fedora is nice, but a little too close to the razors edge for me. CentOS... works great, but I just get a feeling of too small of a group working on too big of a project for the time being. With Ubuntu... both the forums and the mailing list are very active, most of the documentation is pretty good (most), and so far it hasn't done me wrong on any of the test installs I've done of various machines... with the exception of 9.10 and the switch to GRUB 2 causing me some headaches Guess I shoulda read up more on that bit.

What all distros have you tried?

Most of the main stream ones - started out with Slackware 2.something, then Redhat back in the early days, then TurboLinux, Debian, Corel, SuSE from ~5.0-7.x, then again more recently around 11.0, Free/Net/OpenBSD, FreeSCO, eBox, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Fedora, CentOS

How long have you been using Linux?

Dear lord... now that I think about it I believe I got led into the darkness about 1996 or so. I was interested in learning programming, but the cost of M$ Visual C was beyond my means at the time (Petty Officer 3rd class, making about $20k a year). The Engine Room Supervisor on my watch suggested trying either Slackware Linux or NetBSD (OpenBSD didn't even exist yet). One thing lead to another, and I've tinkered with various versions of Linux off and on for years. Most of that time was spent 'confined' behind a dial-up modem, and there wasn't much I could do in terms of networking or all the other cool stuff Linux or the BSDs were supposed to excel at. Finally, I got tired of banging my head on the wall with video cards or sound cards and just got an eMac with Mac OS X 1.5 and sold all the old 'beaters' I'd been hanging onto. Now... here I am again, with full wifi in the house, several networked computers (my Macbook, the wife's Macbook from the school district, the desktop PC, the daughter's laptop when she comes home, my iPod Touch, my networked printer...) and a need for a small network server.

Are you 100% 'converted', or do you use it for specific tasks and do your 'general purpose' computing (word processing, games, etc.) with something else?

Right now... mainly just using for experimenting, and working on getting a file/backup server running, and I'm also working on getting Linux running on an older laptop to breath some life into it. Still keep the PC around for the few specialty apps I 'need' that have no equivalent in the *nix world (and I haven't messed with WINE for about 10 years).

One thing I am kind of planning on, with the new gi-normous hard drives and copious amounts of memory in modern pcs... is running various installs of all kinds of distros in Virtual Box. Gone (and good riddance!) are the days of havng GRUB (or LILO) with umpteen different distros loaded, of which you can only use one at a time! Now I can have umpteen different distros loaded up and *running* simultaneously inside their own little virtual network! Now I just have to find some something productive for them to do once I get them all working

[dbhost]

Can't help with Lexmark devices unfortunately. I have a few work arounds for HP PSC devices, and Epson combo machines though... Actually the PSC devices usually just have to be called something else and they work... I think my PSC1315 comes up as an OfficeJet G85 or similar... Scanning, copying, and printing all work flawlessly though. Better than in Windows. (The driver kept crashing XP before SP2...)