In my opinion, Gentoo Linux is the perfect balance between versatility and ease of use. A Gentoo machine starts as a blank slate from which it is customized towards its desired purpose. For example, I have one Gentoo machine configured as a desktop for personal use with the GNOME desktop environment and OpenOffice. Another of my Gentoo machines is a console-only NAT firewall, DHCP server, and TFTP server offering diskless boot services for diskless machines on my LAN. Yet another machine has no disk and boots Gentoo remotely over the LAN.
The package manager has a wide variety of software in its package tree and updates are tracked on a daily basis. Packages are compiled from source with only the options you specify by setting compile-time flags that affect package selection either for individual packages or globally for the whole system.
The downside of Gentoo is that compiling packages from source takes time and as such updates and original installation take much longer than any other distribution. Also, most configuration must be done through the console as GUI configuration tools do not exist for many tasks because including such tools forces you to use one desktop environment or window manager over another. Any shortcut or helper that limits the freedom of choice allowed to the user is omitted.
I couldn't recommend Gentoo as a first Linux distribution for these reasons, but it is a great tool where extreme versatility is required.
Just loaded up Ubuntu as it was highly rated at Distro Watch. Seems to be working fine with my new ASRock CONROE945G-DVI motherboard with onboard video.
I'm looking for an easily managed desktop/workstation version of Linux to load on my kids computers for school.
Ubuntu or Kubuntu are both good choices for that. I have a machine running Kubuntu that does well for desktop work and has a fairly full-featured software library for development and scientific computing though you have to jump through a couple of hoops to access it.
I'd also check out Edubuntu if it's for the kids. It's basically Ubuntu with some kid-friendly games and learning apps bundled in.
I did check into that one a bit. It looked a little to "early learning" for my kids. Both of my kids are about to turn 14 and they're wanting a little more cool look. I also checked into, but did not load, Knoppix, MEPIS, OpenSUSE, and Kbuntu.
I've tried several distros, and the one I really ended up liking was Slackware, even back when it was on version 9. It's on 11 now. I found it a nice mix between ease and power, but it is a little bit vanilla as far as distros go.
I'd probably still be fiddling with it if ATI had ever released solid video drivers for my 9700 Pro.
apt-get is king, and with the debian installer you can install your system as bare-bones as you'd like and install individual packages as you go. i'm not sure, but i dont think ubuntu will leave you with a 50 mb or less install...
Yeah, but I don't think he's going to be operating a tiny little router with his system, is he? So, I don't think it'll really matter to him if he has a 48mb install.
I personally prefer Fedora and SuSE as RPM based systems. On the apt-get side of things, I prefer Kubuntu.
Gentoo for a long term system with a decent processor (it compiles everything, so unless I have a team of distcc machines then installing it on a lower powered machine would be painful) and Ubuntu on low end machines or anything that I need to use ASAP.
Gentoo for it's complete customisability of everything and tailoring to your exact system meaning it can be used on anything from say a 486 to the highest end server as well as it being versionless, so never any worries about being outdated. Ubuntu for its large package library (useful as binary things install almost instantly) and large user base (more users, more likely to find a solution to something or have support for something).
I have Gentoo on my desktop, laptop and server and I have Ubuntu on my moms laptop (hidden, it's for me to fix something if it Windows breaks very badly) and Ubuntu on this laptop I've been given from a friend while I'm in Florida (the screen is broken, it's a 500Mhz P3 and it's got a 4MB Lynx3DM graphics chip).
Comments
In my opinion, Gentoo Linux is the perfect balance between versatility and ease of use. A Gentoo machine starts as a blank slate from which it is customized towards its desired purpose. For example, I have one Gentoo machine configured as a desktop for personal use with the GNOME desktop environment and OpenOffice. Another of my Gentoo machines is a console-only NAT firewall, DHCP server, and TFTP server offering diskless boot services for diskless machines on my LAN. Yet another machine has no disk and boots Gentoo remotely over the LAN.
The package manager has a wide variety of software in its package tree and updates are tracked on a daily basis. Packages are compiled from source with only the options you specify by setting compile-time flags that affect package selection either for individual packages or globally for the whole system.
The downside of Gentoo is that compiling packages from source takes time and as such updates and original installation take much longer than any other distribution. Also, most configuration must be done through the console as GUI configuration tools do not exist for many tasks because including such tools forces you to use one desktop environment or window manager over another. Any shortcut or helper that limits the freedom of choice allowed to the user is omitted.
I couldn't recommend Gentoo as a first Linux distribution for these reasons, but it is a great tool where extreme versatility is required.
-drasnor
I'm looking for an easily managed desktop/workstation version of Linux to load on my kids computers for school.
-drasnor
I'd probably still be fiddling with it if ATI had ever released solid video drivers for my 9700 Pro.
apt-get is king, and with the debian installer you can install your system as bare-bones as you'd like and install individual packages as you go. i'm not sure, but i dont think ubuntu will leave you with a 50 mb or less install...
I personally prefer Fedora and SuSE as RPM based systems. On the apt-get side of things, I prefer Kubuntu.
Gentoo for it's complete customisability of everything and tailoring to your exact system meaning it can be used on anything from say a 486 to the highest end server as well as it being versionless, so never any worries about being outdated. Ubuntu for its large package library (useful as binary things install almost instantly) and large user base (more users, more likely to find a solution to something or have support for something).
I have Gentoo on my desktop, laptop and server and I have Ubuntu on my moms laptop (hidden, it's for me to fix something if it Windows breaks very badly) and Ubuntu on this laptop I've been given from a friend while I'm in Florida (the screen is broken, it's a 500Mhz P3 and it's got a 4MB Lynx3DM graphics chip).