What is your favorite Linux distro?

linux from scratch (as I am building it now....):smiley:

I like Debian. I use Lenny and it has been 95% stable (the 5% unstable I love because then I learn what to do when something goes wrong, experience is worth more than training you take) I want to try Slackware (see how the time honored distro treats me) and Gentoo (learn how to do everything myself like compile)
BTW: from what I saw in this forum, the no-flaming is going really well:D

Hi

I use PCLinuxOS as distro 1 and Puppy Linux as 2.

OW

I love SuSE mainly because of the ease of use.

I started with Redhat. Tried Fedora, SuSE and Ubunto.

Finally I reloaded SuSE because I loved it the most.

Now I just installed OpenSUSE 11 few days ago and it is incredible.

It gave me the choice to easily install either KDE (3 & 4) or GNOME or both and dynamically switch between them.

I am using UBUNTU, just best

I voted RedHat, but the actual Distro I use consitantly is CentOS, which it RedHat Enterprise basically. For any video applications I use Debian though.

ive never been a huge fan of linux... after discovering freebsd a few years ago, but over the weekend i installed ubuntu 8.04 and i love it for the everyday tasks. so ubuntu gets my vote.

I still have the install discs for 3.1. Sweet OS, and well supported (until SCO/Darl came along).
I had cool KDE panel apps that still haven't been brought up and used (gnome has em all, now. go figger).
SCO should be squashed just for ruining this. Just like MSN should be for wrecking BeOS,
another really delightful concept for its time.

my .067 shekels worth.
-O.

I've used Fedora 3 in the beginning. It got me really interested in Linux. Then some time later some friend told me to install Ubuntu, because it is easy to use and has everything you need. I have also installed Debian on some computers and I learned a lot doing that.

So my first choice is ubuntu. On a machine with less speed and performance I use Debian (with or without GUI).

Greetz,
Javi

Great choice! I would have to agree with you that among binary distributions, Arch has to be the fastest one out there because you configure exactly what you want. Based originally on Slackware and spun off from there, with the creation of pacman and a number of other tools, Arch is a very fast bleeding edge binary distribution. I have it in my collection.

For every day use, though, while I appreciate bleeding edge and I do experiment with many of them, I have found sidux, a cutting edge, Debian Sid based binary distribution, to be the ground that suits my needs best. I call it Debian Sid on steroids and mood stabilizers. The sidux team has come up with ways to tame Debian Sid so that it consistently works, yet have software that is about as up to date as anything you can get other than nightly builds of the code that you are interested in.

There are numerous great distributions out there, and I would not for a second try to criticize anyone else's choices. So many of them are excellent and they are all, of course, based on great free and open software (though some versions, particularly commercial versions, have a lot of non free software in order to meet their own needs and expectations, and that is fine, too, because it represents another choice).

So for me, sidux gets the nod!

Oops, I am surprised that my personal choice corresponds with the majority
(viz. RH Family, CentOS, Fedora).
I really would have expected Ubuntu or Debian or some other "cool" distro to be the top runner.
But maybe we have a little US bias in the forum here?
For me the reason to stick with CentOS or Fedora is because for all the linux boxes at my workplace are RHEL based.
Therefore it reduces possible searches for locations of configuration files drastically for me if I stay within the same distro family with my private Linux stuff likewise.

Red Hat, because it woorks well with my Hp Pavilion a6320n and the Fedora channel on irc.freenode.net is always full of the most helpful people,

I voted for Ubuntu, that's the best one

Hi,

I am new here and I really am surprised tht Debian would rate so low. As far as I can see Debian is the 'god of operating systems'.

but then again these are my views. though I would encourage u to try debain once a while.

Thanks and regards,
Vaibhav

I prefer Redhat, it's my all time favourite distro.

I like something that is customizable, that can boot quick and run demanding applications fast. More recently I 've been using slackware 12.1 on the machine I use for graphical cpu intensive apps, rendering 3d vector, etc.

I use ArchLinux (Arch Linux) for desktop and cpu intensive stuff (media file reformating mainly) and Debian for my web/mail server for it's stability.

Good choices- I have only recently started using Arch Linux, It does seem to perform well with cpu intensive applications. And Deb does run alot of applications well.

wow, i was expecting ubuntu to top it, but redhat takes the cake eh?

i think Debian got a respectable enough score, just what I was expecting. Go Debian. :smiley:

Over at DistroWatch, Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS have dominated polls over the past few years. In business, Red Hat has dominated, and the Red Hat company has done well for several years. Debian is not commercial at all, but is free, both in licensing and in cost.

All three of them are good, solid systems, have a good, solid following. Each has plenty to offer. Which one is best for you or for me, of course, depends on our needs and preferences. At the office, I would indeed tend to favor the lines of a Red Hat Enterprise Linux server. Personally, at home, I favor Debian-derived systems. Two of them, sidux and antiX, happen to be my current favorites, but there are a great many really good Debian based distributions, both free and non free and also commercial and non commercial.