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#1 Re: The Best Linux Distribution? Posted by wouter (195.162.xx.xx) on Sat 11 Jun 2005 at 03:43 The purpose might be important too. If you want to install Linux and expect a full MS-like desktop with office applications that maintains itself without much interactions, you might pick a different distribution than when you really want to learn the nuts and bolts of unix/posix based systems. Distributions such as Slackware and FreeBSD are excellent to really learn unix-like systems on, because they provide enough to get you started without too much graphical stuff, too difficult dependencies or too complex packaging and integration. They stay out of your way when you experiment with compiling, installing and updating software, and allow basic system setup without too fancy tools. If you want to drill down to the basic level, you could continue with LFS, Rock Linux, Gentoo, and other source distributions, which require a lot of work for both you and your processor(s)... If you rather care about getting your non-os desktop work done, SuSE, (ex-)Redhat, and perhaps Ubuntu -- which I haven't tried yet -- might be among the most popular desktop distributions that don't require too much knowledge and interaction. And if you need a general purpose distribution, well, you probably know what you are looking for and don't need to be told. All the distributions I mention are just examples really, there are many other options for each purpose, nor do these distributions limit themselves to one audience. Choosing a distribution is probably like choosing a car or even a partner, there's nobody who can make the choice for you -- just as ajt already said in the article. PS: I think Debian itself is not so easy to categorise, as it plays on many fronts and attracts many different kinds of people, both users and developers. Guessing based on Debian users I know, Debian seems to attract quite a lot of advanced users and admins who grew tired of over-fiddling and compiling, and who want to have a stable, reliable and secure OS to develop software or run services on without having to spend too much time on the system itself (but obviously having that option open).

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