I like Gentoo for the learning experience and Ubuntu when I feel lazy and want my OS to work out of the box.
I like SuSe and RedHat but i vote suse and i left redhat
For my desktop at home I love my Xandros desktop. for my office work, RHEL desktop, as it is company standard. But If I had my choice, I would have either had Novell Desktop or Mandriva 2007.1.
I do not like distros which give too many packages and installs too many unwanted and unused applications. I want to be in control of the apps that goes in on my desktop/server (yup, i am a control freak) I have custom kickstart on my servers.
-GGR
Because it's the most UNIX-like Linux distribution.
No dependency handling by pkgtool, which is wonderful.
Compiling all third-party software is a great way
to optimize the functionality of the applications and to have
a non-bloated system. A full installation gives you all the development
tools you could ever dream of. The fact that it's shipped with vanilla
kernel is another thing that I really love.
If you are a CLI power user, or a sysadmin, this is the distribution to run.
Not a coincidence it's the oldest surviving Linux distribution.
Patrik is doing a superb job!
You better make this poll:
What Linux distro are you using? and what for?
I started on Slackware 1996, and still using it, for my servers.
I use Mandrake for my desktop.
I recommend SuSe for your school district (Novell shop)
I push for RedHat for your corporate environment (have the corporate ideology)
I hold respect for YDL & MK Linux for Mac's, the old Mac's.
I praise apt get family (Ubunto, Debian, etc) for cool desktop offerings.
I like Pink Tie for Sparc hardware(its a Redhat port).
I greet Linspire for the most daring marketing action, by having Wal-Mart sell Linux loaded PC's.
But most important:
I stand attention with salute for embedded Linux, king of the new gadgets, conductor of MP3& DVD players, ruler of the cellphones world, runner of every small router and cable modem in almost every house hold, and the future system of almost any small piece of electronics in the next century.
Someday, I'll have a Dick Tracey's watch, with a penguin logo.
That day is sooner than we think.
I like RedHat,because I just like it!
Do you like a red hat?
Come on!Boys and Grils!
Join Us,RedHat()!
There's something about Ian's partner that you seem to have inside knowledge of. Pun not intended.
I'm not voting because:
a) It's a horses for courses
and
b) I can't make up mind 
What does surprise me that the "shiny-shiny" kid on the block, which is doing very well on HPD on distrowatch, PCLinuxOS isn't an option, nor has it been mentioned.
Gentoo would be my choice of Linux. My perception is Linux is meant for learning and Redhat to some extent suppresses that. Slackware is good too along with Debian but Gentoo is almost like LFS
Also Gentoo gives me a solid O/s with loads of customization and almost all sorts of tuning parameters which other distros do not allow me to without "re"compilation (or maybe am not aware of it). Redhat is good to start with and due to their paid support its good for production servers too but i believe if someone wants to really learn linux he should try LFS
~Sage
SuSE, and now exactly OpenSUSE 10.3
I am trying to install linux Linux on my laptop which already as windows XP.
My choices are Debian (coz I use everyday at work) and Ubuntu (coz I used it once and found attractive). The numbers in the poll are statistically insignificant to infer the best among them. I also understand that ubuntu has Debian underneth.
My specific questions are
- What are the foot prints (in terms of hard disc required) for the two.
- Ease of instlling packages (I had a hard time installing rhythmbox on Debian once)
- Which one is more up to date in terms of updates.
Thanks,
J.
Well I use Fedora Core on my server and Ubuntu on my desktops. I've been using Redhat/Fedora for about 8 years, I really got into Ubuntu about a year ago and never looked back. My mother in law had a Winblows computer which she never got on with and it kept BSoD, gave her Ubuntu and she loves it. She's 65.
The first Linux distro I used was Redhat (7.0 I think). The company I work for use SuSE of which I am now beginning to get used too. In a year or so I will probably change my favourite from RH to SuSE 
haha i chose slackware because i went to all the websites and slackware's look the best
yeah im a newb
I voted "Other" - because the question was about my favorite Linux distro and I, as "simple, ordinary user", like best Arch and sidux. These are flavors present on my desktops, USB-keys and laptop. I like them a lot because of their speed (both), stability (both - if you know what you are doing!) and flexibility (Arch!)...
...and I'm relatively new to Linux (I have used it for 1,5 year only but use it exclusively and install it for whole my family ).
But if you start with Linux on your own (without any family and/or friends support) I would recommend PCLinuxOS or Ubuntu for a start of learning process 
.
Wishing everybody nice day,
tami
I voted slack but I suppose it would have been Debian if I havent started and learned with slackware (in 94)
Aah first love....
Now I would have preferred a poll where you could have chosen 3-5 distrib with preference, it would have been more fair...
In that case my choice would have ebbn:
1) Slack-debian and only those for servers
2) ubuntu (for ease) and knoppix (live cd)
3) mandriva (good french doc) and redhat
and last of all (and I have no other choice...) perhaps suse (why bin=uid 2????)
SuSE since 99. Moved mostly to FreeBSD for servers though. Still use SuSE for desktops. Also used Fedora. Don't particularly care for debian and the apt based distributions.
I was running Fedora Core 6; Now Fedora 7; After March 25 2008, Fedora 8!!
My Favourite Distro is Fedora.
Completely agree. I started on Gentoo and it was great and still use it on most of my systems. I'll use Ubuntu on laptops or on friends computers that want to learn linux but I don't want bugging my with questions every day.
I'm glad Ubuntu is around because as many packages become more user friendly it really opens up linux to a whole new world of users. I just wish that some of those users would learn a bit more about linux and the linux community as I've heard rediculous statements like "I don't use linux, I use Ubuntu".