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The Best Linux Distros of 2016

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Re: The Best Linux Distros of 2016

#71

Post by atomi »

Aldo_MX wrote: post #43
atomi wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, just like Linux except when it's not. It's useful for folks forced to use Windows because of regulations, but definitely not preferred over a real Linux distribution.

> but definitely not preferred over a real Linux distribution TBH, If I had to choose between "any real Linux distribution" with WINE and Windows with "a real UNIX terminal", I would prefer the latter.

Not me. I'm fortunate in that I don't require WINE or Windows. By the way have you tried Cinnamon?

Re: The Best Linux Distros of 2016

#72

Post by symtos »

nycticorax wrote: post #49
breul99 wrote: post #3

>Linux Mint Only if you don't value any sense of security

Could you elaborate on this? I know many people have security concerns about Mint, but I've never found their arguments entirely convincing. the opinion of the Mint devs seems to be that there's a stability vs. security tradeoff, and that Ubuntu chose one point on the spectrum, while Mint chose another. And that for a typical desktop machine sitting behind a router without a lot of ports open (or behind a corporate f…

stability /or/ security? because a box running code with bugs that may result in a thwarted control flow is the pinnacle of stability?

your firewall won't help against socket re-use; and most configs won't stop connect-backs since they allow unfiltered outbound access to quite a few destination ports

Re: The Best Linux Distros of 2016

#74

Post by edoceo »

tanderson92 wrote: post #25
tbrock wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except not at all because one is all about compiling for speed and tweaking cflags. The other is about a rolling release as better desktop distro model. Sure both distributions let you build your system from scratch but the days upon days of compiling just to slightly optimize a binary is squarely a gentooism.

That isn't what gentoo was "all about" at all -- certainly there were ricers who claimed that as an advantage. The main innovation was the much-improved customizability of each package (USE flags), something I would note Arch still does not have. There were ancillary benefits of being a source distro like interesting cross compiling use cases. full disclosure: used to be a gentoo dev / am currently an Exherbo (rollin…

This is why I have Gentoo on servers, desktops and laptops

Re: The Best Linux Distros of 2016

#75

Post by ake1 »

iammyIP wrote: post #31
ake1 wrote: post #17

i wish there was a distro that worked well with my hardware out of the box, preferably without any applications that i do not explicitly choose to install. i have no interest in setting up pulseaudio/alsa or having to set nomodeset in my grub config for the 20th time.

what distros have you tried? last 2 years have gotten rid of most of the pulseaudio/alsa annoyances, i didnt have to do any configuration on multiple machines (xubuntu 14.04, manjaro). i have one machine with an amd e-2000 that requires the nomodeset, which was annoying to fix, but that's also a pretty niche system. Overall my impression is that most hardware works out of the box pretty nice.

i usually stick to things with aptitude or pacman.

Re: The Best Linux Distros of 2016

#76

Post by blubb-fish »

Any experience with distros on usual Acer Laptops (sample space size - 5 different Acers)?

I always run into tedious issues with Ubuntu and Mint regarding to Atheros Wifi and NVIDIA cards.

Is there a distro with good chances of running out of the box?

Re: The Best Linux Distros of 2016

#77

Post by k__ »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #69
k__ wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does xbps compare to Nix?

Based on the information on the website, xbps has some good features (such as building from source using containers to isolate the build process), but it doesn't have the same type of functional approach as Nix. Void looks like a decent entry in the Arch/Gentoo stable, which means its good for staying on the cutting edge. NixOS is more useful if you're going to be spinning up multiple containers/VMs, which benefits f…

The predictability of Nix environments is good for "one" machine too.

Just download your configuration.nix (and dotfiles) on another machine and you're pretty much safe.

Re: The Best Linux Distros of 2016

#78

Post by ZenoArrow »

k__ wrote: post #77
ZenoArrow wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the information on the website, xbps has some good features (such as building from source using containers to isolate the build process), but it doesn't have the same type of functional approach as Nix. Void looks like a decent entry in the Arch/Gentoo stable, which means its good for staying on the cutting edge. NixOS is more useful if you're going to be spinning up multiple containers/VMs, which benefits f…

The predictability of Nix environments is good for "one" machine too. Just download your configuration.nix (and dotfiles) on another machine and you're pretty much safe.

You've just given me an example with two machines. ;-)

Re: The Best Linux Distros of 2016

#79

Post by k__ »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #78
k__ wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The predictability of Nix environments is good for "one" machine too. Just download your configuration.nix (and dotfiles) on another machine and you're pretty much safe.

You've just given me an example with two machines. ;-)

Haha, true story :D

Maybe, two configurations that can be run on one machine to transform the machine then?

Re: The Best Linux Distros of 2016

#80

Post by Aldo_MX »

atomi wrote: post #71
Aldo_MX wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but definitely not preferred over a real Linux distribution TBH, If I had to choose between "any real Linux distribution" with WINE and Windows with "a real UNIX terminal", I would prefer the latter.

Not me. I'm fortunate in that I don't require WINE or Windows. By the way have you tried Cinnamon?

Yes, unfortunately it didn't allow me to run Windows software (ex. design, video, 3d modelling or audio software, games, office, etc.), because Cinnamon is a Desktop Environment ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Personally I prefer MATE since it's a fork of the good old GNOME 2, but I don't use a DE in my servers, so having SSH (installed by Git for Windows) is enough to connect to them.

I also install GnuWin32[1] to avoid getting the `'%s' is not recognized` error whenever I'm using the console and I type by muscle memory some basic commands like ls, or pwd, or grep, and ConEmu[2] with Clink[3] to remove several annoyances of the Windows Command Line.

Having a "good enough" UNIX terminal like OS X is something I'm waiting to see in the next iterations of Windows.

[1] http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/

[2] https://conemu.github.io/

[3] https://mridgers.github.io/clink/

PS. Don't patronize all the people who prefer Windows like a freshman who drank the Linux cool-aid for the first time, most of us need to exchange files with people from different areas. The need to use Photoshop, Word or Illustrator over GIMP, Writer or Inkscape is not a matter of preference, but a matter of being productive by not troubleshooting issues that arise due to the lack of popularity of FOSS alternatives, to give an example: Try to open a .docx and a .odt attachment in Gmail for Android without an Office app, you'll get really surprised and disappointed at the same time ;)

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