Over the years, I tried quite a few Linux distros. So far, I tried: RH 6.0 and 8.0 RH is OK, but I got hax0red TWICE using the out of the box options. The RPM system also sucks, never managed to get it to work really well (problem with dependencies, inability to autodownload the required dependencies, etc.) Then I tried SuSe 7.0 which was REALLY REALLY buggy. Kde was not saving it's stuff at exit, for example. The Yast thingy was totally useless. Some libraries were installed in the unstandard paths so various ./configure programs couldn't find them. X managed to crash in such a way that I couldn't use my system, since it was set to load kdm at boot time. GCC had a bug in it that caused bugs in the compiled programs. My applications had problems compiling OpenGL, and sometimes they were using Mesa rather than the Nvidia drivers. A week or so ago I tried to install Knoppix on a laptop (not mine). It booted fine and stuff, but when I told it to install itself on the HDD, it bitched about not having at least 2GB free on any partition. WTF??? The whole god damn HDD was empty, so it has 20GB of space (I was even nice enough to create a 10 GB Linux partition, and a 1GB swap partition). I even went a step farther and formated it as ext3. Eventually I had to toy with the install script to make the god damn thing work. A few days ago I tried to install Gentoo. I got so frustrated by step 3 that I gave up. I mean, WTF, not even a MINIMAL install script? I understand that installing it manually is very fun for some people, but most of the users will never be able to install it. Even those with the technical skills to do it might not have the patience to do it. Then I tried Debian. It installed improperly, and KDE was NOT working (X crashed). Then I was about to install XP on it, when I went to distrowatch.com to see if there is anything new. There I found Mepis. Mepis is based on Debian, using the unstable branch. So it has TONS of Linux applications tailored for it, so goodbye dependencies hell. Then it isntalled flawlesly on my laptop (I read some bad reviews about my type of laptop regarding Linux. Things such as devices not working, crashes, etc.). Even my CF drive was working and mounted properly. A lot of applicatiosn came preinstalled, and getting other applications off the net is extremely trivial. Even easier than for windows! USBs mouse are supported natively. Was able to download pictures from my digital camera without any problems. Network, sound, videocard all detected properly. The only device I can't use is the wirless NIC, but then again, I don't have a wireless access point, so this might be why. The only problems it has are: 1. For some reason, KDE starts with the the headphones and speaker muted, and unmuting them is session only, they are muted again when restarting the computer. I guess I have to toy with alsa in init.d 2. Can't use the printer on another computer (everything seems to be ok, printer is found, drivers are there, but it won't print anything. And yes, the printer is on, and works from my desktop) 3. Samba doesn't work properly in konqueror (when browsing the network it sees only the Laptop, but using smb:// in konqueror works). 4. Sometimes when it boots doesn't see the CF, I have to take it out and put it back in. 5. Lacks the ability to set video modes for Xwindows. If you want anything but 1024x768 you have to edit Xconfig manually. 6. Not really a problem, but it would be nice if when you add applications with the graphical package manager (Synaptical Package Manager) would also add them in the KDE menus. 7. Lacks a LOT of applications from the KDE menu. Not a problem (but an annoyance) for the advanced users, but the newbies will not even know they have an application installed. If they solve those problems, I am sure that it will be even better than Windows for anything but games and some very professional stuff. And given the fact that this is a young distribution, I think/hope they will fix them in the near future.

Debian is a strange monster.

I've always though Topologilinux was a pretty cool distro. It's *nix running inside a window.

Sounds like fun, I'll have to try it out!

Edit: What about Drivers for my ATI radeon 9600? I could never get any video drivers working in the past on linux. Last I heard ATI didnt have drivers for the latest relaese of X.org.

Quote: Original post by Raduprv
A few days ago I tried to install Gentoo. I got so frustrated by step 3 that I gave up. I mean, WTF, not even a MINIMAL install script? I understand that installing it manually is very fun for some people, but most of the users will never be able to install it. Even those with the technical skills to do it might not have the patience to do it.

*sigh*

A monkey can install Gentoo.

Alright, maybe not a monkey unless he has some basic reading skills, but "technical skills" are certainly not required. That's all it really takes to install Gentoo. The handbook guides you through every step. It amazes me that someone who can figure out how to develop a MMORPG from the ground up can't follow a simple set of very clear instructions. You might want to reconsider Gentoo because it's, by far, the best distro I've ever used.

I never said I don't have the ability to install it, HOWEVER I don't feel like spending about two hours following 10 steps, then another few hours while it compiles, only to find out that some hardware of mine is not supported (some reviews showed that my Gentoo has some problems with my laptop).
It was more about motivation (why would I spend my time installing gentoo, when I can try other distros that are more user friendly).

Quote: Original post by lethalhamster
Edit: What about Drivers for my ATI radeon 9600? I could never get any video drivers working in the past on linux. Last I heard ATI didnt have drivers for the latest relaese of X.org.

The ATI drivers work fine, but no 3D hardware acceleration.

Quote: Original post by Ra
A monkey can install Gentoo.

A money can count to one million, too. But the question is why you'd want to bother.

Quote: Original post by Ra
Alright, maybe not a monkey unless he has some basic reading skills, but "technical skills" are certainly not required. That's all it really takes to install Gentoo. The handbook guides you through every step. It amazes me that someone who can figure out how to develop a MMORPG from the ground up can't follow a simple set of very clear instructions. You might want to reconsider Gentoo, because it's by far the best distro I've ever used.

It's also unnecessarily long. I do not have enough time, patience, or interest for a manual, command-line installation process.

... And it seems this is a consistent argument among those who have tried Gentoo.

fedora core, the new red hat, rocks now...

You will pretty much never get h4x0red...

Firstly, it comes firewalled by default,
secondly even if someone gets by your firewall, you got a no-exec stack,
thirdly, if someone returns into libc,
you got address randomization of each process,
virtually unhackable.

Quote: Original post by cowsarenotevil

Quote: Original post by Ra
A monkey can install Gentoo.

A money can count to one million, too. But the question is why you'd want to bother.

Because youll waste a couple of hours of your time, and will get a nice, stable working linux distro before you, specially for you broadband users, with the emerge aka "update from internet" package manager. Besides, thats the whole point of "linuxing"; things will not be so "next, next, next, ok, thanks" like on any win32.

Quote: Original post by Binomine
I've always though Topologilinux was a pretty cool distro. It's *nix running inside a window.

I just wonder how the hell that guy figured out to make a VM... gotta give it a try aswell.

Quote: Original post by Raduprv
The ATI drivers work fine, but no 3D hardware acceleration.

Well, i think thats what you want (3d hardware acceleration) when youre talking about support in Linux, IMHO though