[Gllug] Which Linux Desktop to go for?

[Benedikt Heinen]

> Don't forget SuSE/Novell. SuSE is based on KDE and is a very nice distribution
> imho. It also has gnome if that's your thing (boo, hiss). SuSE 9.1 Pro is on
> the cover DVD for the current issue of Linux Mag.
>
> Debian is quite good if you want superior package management (dpkg and apt-get
> are brilliant), and Mandrake is excellent for newcomers.

Personally, I can only support a move to Debian - I have used Slackware at 
my very early linux days (before RedHat or Debian even were around - when 
Slackware was the "up and coming" distribution and linux kernels had 
version numbers starting with 0.99), and later switched to Debian (with 
two little side episodes on RedHat and Suse.

RedHat and SuSe might be easier for a first-time installation, but 
sometimes, with their own package managers in place, it's kind of hard to 
do anything without them...

Debian has the stigma of just having a text-mode install, and of pestering 
users with all kinds of questions during setup (a good deal more, than 
Suse/RedHat ask you). On the plus side, asking you more at installation 
time, saves you a lot of time fine-tuning packages.


If you want to get around the basic system installations, you might want 
to follow up the Linux live-CD idea earlier - the Knoppix live CD *IS* a 
Debian distribution, and there are descriptions on how to cross-install 
Knoppix from the CD to your hard disk - after which you might just 
continue to use Debian's own setup to continue and install or deinstall 
software you do or don't like.

Using Knoppix also has the advantage, that you won't need to bother much 
about telling your system what kind of hardware you have - Knoppix does an 
excellent job of finding these kinds of things out itself - even on 
Notebooks which, for a long time, were usually quite tricky to set up 
Linux on.

Basically, nowadays you have three main choices if you want to go for a 
distribution on Linux:

- Red-Hat and its "descendants"  (including SuSe and Mandrake; all of
   which use the same package management tools).

- Debian and its "descendants"  (including Knoppix and ubuntulinux)

- Gentoo  (which I really wouldn't suggest to a linux newcomer; but
   which certainly has a lot speaking for it for the "power users", since
   Gentoo doesn't come with a lot of pre-compiled binary packages, but just
   with a pre-compiled installer, and then Gentoo will start downloading
   the sources of whatever you need and automatically compile and install
   it with settings optimised for your machine -- but, that's a looong
   and tedious process, not for the technically "faint-hearted").


Personally, as mentioned above, my choice is to go with Debian, and if 
you're new to Linux, to start off playing a little with a Knoppix CD/DVD 
first, and then install it to your hard disk, once you feel comfortable 
with it.


> I don't think IBM make a Linux distribution.

You're right there - IIRC they're just going with RedHat...


> I personally prefer KDE.

Yep, that's one of the things about Linux - it's almost always a matter of 
choice - at first you might be battling over using Linux, MacOS, or 
Windows... ...then, when you go for Linux, it's time to choose whether to 
go with KDE/Gnome/XFce/... for your desktop , then whether to go with 
Mozilla/Firefox/Konqueror/Opera/Galeon/lynx/... for your internet 
browsing, then whether to use Thunderbird/KMail/Evolution/Balsa/pine/... 
for reading your email, ...




> Almost everything can be customised and made to look any way you want 
> it. Because of this, KDE can look like Windows, Mac OS X, Mac OS Classic 
> etc.

The same going for Gnome, ...




   Benedikt

 	ABRUPT, adj.  Sudden, without ceremony, like the arrival of a
 	cannon-shot and the departure of the soldier whose interests
 	are most affected by it.
 			(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary)

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