Curious of who uses what Distro wand why

[deanjo]

Most distro's aren't rolling releases though. (and making a build script script in arch is really easy compared to some of the others I've tried.)

That's the beautiful thing about the build service, usually the latest and greatest packages can be found there. There has been also heavy consideration lately in the opensuse-project mailing list to start making the upgraded packages part of the supported packages for the major items such as KDE, Gnome, the kernel, alsa, etc etc. So in that effect it would be more of a rolling release.

[superppl]

That's true, a person can always find the latest version for pretty much any package in the build service.
Also, some people just don't have the time for the "better" distros. It would take hours and hours to learn to how to install, configure, and maintain gentoo, and I simply don't have that time.

[yotambien]

[..]now I ant to go back to Linux but I havn't made up my Mind which distro to try this time so I decided to make a post here to see what most people are using

Hi.

First, I wouldn't base my choice on what most people are using; and even less, on what most people over here (who bother to post) are using. I don't think it's a secret for anyone which distributions are the most popular, you don't really have to ask here to know the answer.

Second, you didn't mention what you are really looking for. How do you want your OS system to be? What are the main things you plan to do with your computer? What did you like/dislike of OpenSuse and Ubuntu? Do you want to get things done quickly or enjoy fiddling around? Etc...

Cheers.

PS. For your statistics, I use Debian Sid (which is always up to date, Gentoo guys).

[DanL]

well, there is gentoo and slackware - and then there is crap.
I don't bother with crap.

Wow. Someone's a pretentious, l33tist, l-user. Don't worry - I don't hold it against you. In fact, I myself oscillate between being an Ubuntu freetard and an Arch @sshole. (Yeah, there's Gentoo, but I don't want to put THAT much time into learning Linux).

I often use Ubuntu, because it meets my computing needs and I like to help the "common joe" break his Microsoft shackles by doing lots of technical support for it (on ubuntuforums.org and Ubuntu docs). I've also played with Debian/GNU and Sidux. No, I haven't become a Debian policy snob (yet), but that's only because I'm on drugs to prevent that sort of thing.

The free ".rpm distros" (Fedora/openSuSE) are thinly-veiled corporate crap and I wish they would die.

Those are my thoughts. Bottom line - use whatever works for you.

[jonnycat26]

The free ".rpm distros" (Fedora/openSuSE) are thinly-veiled corporate crap and I wish they would die.

Wow... considering that those corporations (RedHat, Novell, IBM, and Intel) provide about 1/3 of the code that goes into the Kernel, clearly you're not a Linux supporter.

But then again, I'm sure a lot of people wish Ubuntu would die, as they provide nothing to the Kernel. Parasites!

[deanjo]

Wow... considering that those corporations (RedHat, Novell, IBM, and Intel) provide about 1/3 of the code that goes into the Kernel, clearly you're not a Linux supporter.

But then again, I'm sure a lot of people wish Ubuntu would die, as they provide nothing to the Kernel. Parasites!

Exactly, just look at all those evil doers

Processed 7075 csets from 992 developers
126 employers found

Top changeset contributors by employer
(Unknown) 1116 (15.8%)
(None) 843 (11.9%)
Red Hat 827 (11.7%)
IBM 557 (7.9%)
Linux Foundation 528 (7.5%)
Novell 449 (6.3%)
Intel 242 (3.4%)
Oracle 158 (2.2%)
MIPS Technologies 143 (2.0%)
Nokia 133 (1.9%)
NetApp 119 (1.7%)
NTT 99 (1.4%)
Astaro 97 (1.4%)
MontaVista 90 (1.3%)
(Consultant) 86 (1.2%)
SGI 84 (1.2%)
Qumranet 74 (1.0%)
QLogic 70 (1.0%)
(Academia) 70 (1.0%)
SWsoft 64 (0.9%)
Analog Devices 61 (0.9%)
HP 60 (0.8%)
Sony 59 (0.8%)
rPath 56 (0.8%)
XenSource 53 (0.7%)
CERN 49 (0.7%)
CC Computer Consultants 48 (0.7%)
Freescale 47 (0.7%)
Fujitsu 47 (0.7%)
Tripeaks 46 (0.7%)
linutronix 44 (0.6%)
Snapgear 39 (0.6%)
Simtec 34 (0.5%)
Atmel 28 (0.4%)
Google 28 (0.4%)
Cisco 27 (0.4%)
Toshiba 25 (0.4%)
Broadcom 25 (0.4%)
SteelEye 24 (0.3%)
Renesas Technology 23 (0.3%)
Mellanox 21 (0.3%)
LSI Logic 17 (0.2%)
Adaptec 16 (0.2%)
Wipro 15 (0.2%)
Marvell 14 (0.2%)
Miracle Linux 14 (0.2%)
Solid Boot Ltd. 14 (0.2%)
AMD 12 (0.2%)
Hitachi 11 (0.2%)
ARM 11 (0.2%)
Canonical 10 (0.1%)
XIV Information Systems 9 (0.1%)
OpenedHand 9 (0.1%)
Open Grid Computing 9 (0.1%)
Veritas 8 (0.1%)
Secretlab 7 (0.1%)
Neterion 7 (0.1%)
Katalix Systems 7 (0.1%)
SANPeople 7 (0.1%)
Digi International 7 (0.1%)
Znyx Networks 6 (0.1%)
Wind River 6 (0.1%)
NEC 6 (0.1%)
Wolfson Microelectronics 6 (0.1%)
SUNY Computer Science 6 (0.1%)
NetXen 6 (0.1%)
NVidia 6 (0.1%)
Myricom 6 (0.1%)
Chelsio 5 (0.1%)
Realtek 5 (0.1%)
IPUnity-Glenayre 5 (0.1%)
Linux Networx 5 (0.1%)
Barco 4 (0.1%)
SIOS Technology 4 (0.1%)
MIPS 4 (0.1%)
University of Aberdeen 4 (0.1%)
PiKRON s.r.o 4 (0.1%)
Pardus 4 (0.1%)
Crash Barrier 4 (0.1%)
Tresys 4 (0.1%)
......

Not to mention the many other projects they fund and contribute to.

The list goes on... I do chuckle that Sony contributes more then
Canonical.

[jonnycat26]

Not to mention the many other projects they fund and contribute to.

Exactly.. Redhat has given us NetworkManager and other gnome related projects, and Novell is probably one of the biggest contributors to both KDE and Gnome.

Damn those corporations!

[Blue Beard]

Need for Team Work

I still use Microsoft because it is the easiest way to make things work. Many of my work place's applications such as Cisco VPN only work on Microsoft.

Microsoft still represents 90+% of the market.

I am trying to make Linux my OS of choice and it's getting closer.

Fighting between distro's is not going to increase market share. This has to stop!

Some of the previous posts clearly indicated the bountiful choice and freedom Linux provides.

I suggest each of us work to improve our area of interest to enhance Linux.

[deanjo]

I still use Microsoft because it is the easiest way to make things work. Many of my work place's applications such as Cisco VPN only work on Microsoft.

Microsoft still represents 90+% of the market.

I am trying to make Linux my OS of choice and it's getting closer.

Fighting between distro's is not going to increase market share. This has to stop!

Some of the previous posts clearly indicated the bountiful choice and freedom Linux provides.

I suggest each of us work to improve our area of interest to enhance Linux.

It's not so much "fighting between distro's". It's more fighting among devels in the same project that causes much of the turmoil.

[BlackStar]

crap. That isn't 'versioning' that is crap. No easy way to tell what version that kernel is and no way to have several kernels around.
crap.

You are surprisingly ignorant for a Gentoo user.

Many people find that Arch provides the perfect blend between rolling releases, flexibility, usability and ease of maintenance. Gentoo is nice, but fails in the usability department (build OpenOffice or Mozilla from source? No thanks, there are better ways to spend my CPU time). There's a reason why Arch has roughly twice the users of Gentoo (according to distrowatch).

Comparing Arch to other distros, it lags behind Ubuntu in usability, but fares better in the maintenance and flexibility departments (Ubuntu is not a rolling release distro, either). Debian is great, but you can forget up-to-date software unless you use unsupported or unstable packages. OpenSUSE is interesting, mainly due to the build service, but a) its package manager is still awful as of version 11 and b) it still manages to lag behind pretty much everything else in performance. Fedora fails pretty much everywhere (sorry).