What distros are you using?

[simgin]

Hello gentlemen.

Hmm where do I start.... I have been hopping for ages (bare metal installs 90%) tried pretty much every "user friendly / bloated" distro and still do. I failed on Arch proper and Gentoo :) it was a while back and maybe looked at them too early in my linux hobby career.
Now I usually run the different BBQ spins on VM , tyring to find the "perfect" one for me :) My install atm is Antix 13.4 I think, just because I never used it before and I would be in the same stratosphere as here (Sid version). I sometimes use Manjaro as well depending on mood :)) But the conclusion is, that I spend most time on BBQ stuff and some on Manjaro still.
Recently I have been intrigued in Slackware (not tried that either) and some of the BSD's . I think Bones is to blame for that one ;) There is just something mentally blocking me from trying it. ( as mentioned before arround here, I'm not as good at this as pretty much all of you :) But I learn, and have to start somewhere.

+1 to MB for starting this sight, and for him and all you others for being such an inspirational bunch for me and others! +1 to Pidsley for making this thread, so it gives us an insight on each other!

Cheers
Simon

PS: This is the first forum I have ever been in where there is no distrolette/linux vs BSD/ linux vs world bashing, and I am thankful that you are strict on these things.

[bones]

Now I usually run the different BBQ spins on VM , tyring to find the "perfect" one for me :) Recently I have been intrigued in Slackware (not tried that either) and some of the BSD's . I think Bones is to blame for that one ;) There is just something mentally blocking me from trying it. ( as mentioned before arround here, I'm not as good at this as pretty much all of you :) But I learn, and have to start somewhere.

1) Don't wait for the "perfect" BBQ spin, roast your own! Start with Summer 2014, and season to taste! Use Cream to test WMs, find one you like.
2) Slackware is really easy to install, no harder than Debian. And then configuring to your liking is pretty simple after that.

[simgin]

^ 1) Thank you for the words, Bones. Just downloaded Summer, so will be trying some stuff now.
2) I will download Slack now :) Just one thing though, as an intro to that world would Salix be good? (Think they have Base etc.)

Cheers
Simon

[bones]

^ Yes, Salix is a great Slackware distro, a good intro, and it has Gslapt for dependency resolution, and Sourcery for SlackBuilds. "Slackware for the lazy Slacker." ;)

[simgin]

^^ Bones , I'm not that lazy ;) I took a Basic spin hehe, looking forward to this.

^ Zazen, that sounds very interesting +1 . I forgot all about NASA using Debian :D

Simon

[bones]

^ Here's a base Salix, no-X install I did a while back, showing tmux, spi (package manager), and links browser.

[simgin]

^ Again thank you mate, interesting to see. But.... I think we are slowly hijacking Pids' nice thread :) I'll give feedback later.

Cheers
Simon

[pidsley]

^ Not a hijack -- I wanted a thread where we could discusss distros without mixing them all throughut the scrot threads. Carry on.

[rhowaldt]

@simgin: see my post: i've started with a bare Boner (no-X), and added all the shit i wanted myself. of course in truth i have ended up with a slightly less bloated version of #!, but hey, who gives a shit? have fun :)

[GekkoP]

What I liked about my journey through Linux is how simpler everything is now. If I'm stuck with BBQ and Arch, with Gentoo just around the corner, is because I really love having my own setups just like I wanted them to be. Or at least setups where I know what is happening and, in most cases, why it is happening.
This is not to say that I couldn't learn anything with other distros or that they're so bad and stole my toys. I had fun with Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, OpenBSD, Slackware and whatever else I put my hands on. I learn something, I worked on something good with all of them and now I know they aren't what I was looking for. Just like MS Windows and Mac OS X: I know people use them happily, but my cup needs a different kind of tea.
A minimal install that boots right into the command line gives me the fun of exploring, understanding and building the right thing. BBQ, Arch, Gentoo, LFS, killX... These are what work for me. These are the ones that stopped my relentless hopping.

[machinebacon]

Totally agree with you, gekko. Any netinstall/mini ISO will do - kernel, GNUtils (or BSDutils), some package manager, man pages. what else does a man need?

[Alad]

I could go into a lengthy boring discoure on distros I use and why I do so. TL;DR I download a bunch of ISOs and work them until they (or me) fall to dust.

Some of my attempts:

Debian 7 - my mind broke
Debian testing - fglrx broke
Mint 17 - MDM broke
Fedora 20 - installer broke
CentOS - kernel broke
OpenSUSE - everything broke
OpenBSD - kernel broke (and my patience)
Debian sid (Summer) - worked until tax day (windows #$%!)

Right now on Arch, I could rant how it's easier to maintain and stuff but the chief reason is probably having a few months of Linux under the belt. After I break Arch I'm going to try Slackware.

[bones]

After I break Arch I'm going to try Slackware.

Seeing as how you broke both Debian 7 and CentOS, it's conceivable that you can break Slackware. Will be interesting to see how that goes. ;) I haven't been able to... I've made some PEBKAC mistakes early on, but even then did not break it.

[bones]

I guess I could also mention that there are a couple of distros that I keep around as Live CDs/DVDs:

Puppy Slacko
Tails
Liberté
antiX
Jibbed

[Pony]

Crunchbang
BBQ Pony, Camel

Kaos
The last one is a KDE I have installed to be able to help my father. He is interested in all things he can do with photographs on a computer. Buying photoshop was not an option but I felt he will like digikam and he really does. He is 75, he will never become a linux guru anymore so a distro without a DE was not an option. I find it cool that he made the move to use Linux (of course besides Win7).

[Subsentient]

Most desktops: SubLinux2 i586
PowerPC Mac desktops: Debian PPC
Servers: Fedora 20 i686 with Apache.

[hinto]

LinuxBBQ, #!, Mint, elementaryOS, Kubuntu, EvolveOS
-Hinto

[fbt]

Arch (my own spin) on desktops — because it has fresh packages and is pretty easy to mantain even in a very customized state. pacman doesn't get in your way too much if you understand the basics of how arch's package management works.
Debian (stable) on servers — because necrophilia. Err. I meant stability.

[Alad]

After I break Arch I'm going to try Slackware.

Seeing as how you broke both Debian 7 and CentOS, it's conceivable that you can break Slackware. Will be interesting to see how that goes. ;) I haven't been able to... I've made some PEBKAC mistakes early on, but even then did not break it.

Well, I did break it. I changed my user umask to 027, so accidentally created a package with root 750/640 permissions. I.e after installing it all my /usr/* and /lib/* permissions got screwed over. :D Thx tar.

(I've worked around this "feature" by setting umask 0022 in slackman)

[twoion]

Notebook(s): Debian unstable (black, no sugar)
Work server(s): Ubuntu Server (pretty nice as a platform actually)