Linux Distro of Choice
May 10, 2004
After a long search for just the right linux distribution to run on my smaller, 6gb hard drive, I'm confident that I've settled on Slackware.
I've installed too many distributions of linux just for the hell of it. By no means does this mean I've got a great deal of experience with linux in general - usually I install it and a day or two later or decide I don't like it. I've learned quite a few of the things not to do. Things that I should do are getting more and more numerous as well. Slackware has not only stood up to my ability to break an installation of linux but they gave me some pretty good advice on putting /home and /usr/local on two other partitions so even if I end up breaking it, I can reinstall without loosing anything. I've also had trouble with support for my video card for x or kde. I'm not talking about a crappy resolution or anything - the vesa drivers don't work with the FX5200 so I have to download and install that which was utterly painless. I kinda prefer to work at the full screen command line anyway.
I think my first experience was installing FreeBSD on an extra PC during work a few summers ago. After that (in no specific order) I've installed RedHat too many times, Debian once, Gentoo once, QNX a few times, Darwin once, Fedora once and FreeBSD more than once more on various machines. Gentoo was the 'hardest' by far but even so, following the instructions was the key to a successful installation.
Comments
FreeBSD is going to be, by far, the most stable and probably fastest because you'll only have wha tyou need to have installed.
Imho, Mandrake is one of the best distros for noobs - it sets up most hardware for you so it is more or less plug and play if 9.2. It even gets my sound card's optical output working.
I've not tried slackware, but I've heard that it's quite decent. How fast is it?
Posted by: Edward | May 12, 2004 6:36 PM
I wish I could do more things so I could actually get a feel for just how fast it's running - I honestly don't know. I plan on getting a 1U server soon and running something on that all the time rather than just playing when I feel like booting in to a different OS. I'll tell you when I know.
Posted by: authgeek | May 12, 2004 6:42 PM
Hello, well, you see all linux distros are almost the same other than package managment, and what you decide to do to it, never use a distro out of the box, config your own kernel, set up nptl, get ccache (if you have a source distro) prelink, set up hdparm (important). Leave your cflags alone, to many people break things by using them, hell one thing you can change (if you are using gentoo) is change it to i686 instead of i386 and make sure you are running gcc-3.4.3, and do a stage-1. guarentee arch, gentoo, and LFS are going to be the fastest distros out because they are source based, allows you to match the packages you install to your system and cpu specs.(i have never tried freebsd and dont want to if i want stability i use debian woody, sarge or sid), also if you plan to run a server, dont install a gui, i mean x and gnome..etc, just leave it terminal, will go alot faster and you will be more secure, also use iptables and setup ssh config.
Posted by: Magus | February 9, 2005 9:07 PM