Right, I know this topic has more or less been done to death, however, I'm bringing it up again.
I'm planning on moving to Linux as a full time desktop OS for my home system.
I don't want to run a security distro, or anything that runs as root and just use my Windows OS in a VM when I need to use Word.
I have been looking at Ubuntu, Mint, Sabayon Linux, pretty keen on the last two so far.
Just wondering what experience you guys have of any of the above.
I Gave up on Ubuntu as a desktop when Unity got in my face (caveat: my opinion not trying to start a flame war, if you like it I'm happy for you), tried Sabayon aaages ago and quite liked it, very responsive and suited to a home desktop machine. I haven't tried Mint instead I moved back to Fedora for the domestic desktop, I use RHEL all the time in work so it made sense for me to shift to Fedora on the desktop box.
Thanks for the feedback mate.
Is Fedora easy enough to get stuck into? Not too different from Ubuntu/Debian environments?
They're not the same as Debian/Ubuntu, or they'd be Debian/Ubuntu... If you want Debian/Ubuntu, use Debian/Ubuntu...
Gee whizz, thanks for that unique bit of insight, Debian and Ubuntu are different OS'? Well I never.
I didn't ask if they were the same did I? The question was, if Fedora was not too different from Debian/Ubuntu.
Please take the time to read what's being asked before flaming.
I am not flaming, and did answer your question, though I could have given more context. I apologize for seeming brusque.
Ubuntu particularly is festooned with GUI configuration widgets that other Linux distributions don't have in common. It also tends to have its own "unique" ways of doing things in general, Ubuntu-specific guides are often needed for common configuration and installation tasks.
As an example, you configure Wordpress for Ubuntu in a completely different way. Ubuntu installs slightly-modified PHP files in an odd place, and separates the config files out into /etc/ for you. They even added a special commandline utility to create new Wordpress instances... I can see the utility, but they installed in a nonstandard place, didn't use Wordpress' own features when they could have, and hacked in their own methods instead... If you were following a generic guide you'd be lost.
Ubuntu does have its fans, but it still can be a problem to transition from Ubuntu to anything else and back.
I agree with Skrynesaver - I first used Ubuntu back in '07 with the good old Gnome. When I tried it again about 18 months ago, I didn't like Unity, so I started looking some place else, and that's how I landed with Mint, and IMHO it is the best distro to start with if you're coming from a Windows environment, especially because it has a couple of alternate graphical environments that you can try. Just saying ;). Hope it helps!
PS: About using the Microsoft Suite, have you given LibreOffice a try? It doesn't lack anything that the Office suite has to offer.
I used to be an Ubuntu guy, have heard great things about Mint, but I prefer Debian. No great reason, other than it just seems the most intuitive to me. You might as well just jump into one and go for it, the exploration is half the fun.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop is built for both the administrator and the end user. Built with the robust and secure Red Hat Enterprise Linux foundation and leading end-user applications and features from the open source community, Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop is an attractive and highly productive environment for knowledge workers on desktops or laptops.
Client installations can be finely tailored and locked down for simplicity and security for any task workstation. For those who require performance, visualization, and interactivity for simulation and design, Red Hat provides support for the latest graphics cards and true scalability on multi-core systems.
Desktop
Designed for task workers. Typically requires a limited set of applications. End user has limited administrative control over the system. System administrators need to be able to pre-configure and remotely manage consistent images across a large number of systems.
Primary applications in use are productivity applications like Firefox, Evolution/Thunderbird, OpenOffice, Planner/TaskJuggler. Primary services in use would be network file systems like SMB/CIFS, NFS, printing services, IM.
Workstation
Workstations are designed for advanced Linux users. In addition to the tools provided in the Desktop variant, the Workstation variant supports a stand-alone development environment. End users are expected to have local super-user privileges or select super-user privileges.
New in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
Your productivity, security and flexibility are enhanced with
OpenOffice 3 suite
Email - (openchange MAPI client capability)
NetworkManager - mobile network connection management
Cisco IPSEC client compatibility
Smart Card support
Encrypted disk (luks)
That's great, thanks for all the feedback guys, I think I'll be going for Mint at the moment, running Windows apps with Wine where I need to, thanks a lot!
I just heard yesterday about this great-looking distro named ZorinOS. You may want to take a look at it as well on their website. One of it's cool features is that you get to choose between 3 graphical environments. By the way, it's Ubuntu-based, just like Linux Mint.
