Looking to switch to another distro.

[concentricpuddle]

I'm a Debian guy. I've always been a Debian guy, but not lately. Lately I've been a PCLinuxOS guy.

It's cool, but not for me. Even though it's based on Mandriva it's not that user friendly (for my use case). It didn't configure my PPPoE connection, it doesn't have iotop in the repositories. But the worst offender of all is that in order to install just Kate I had to install kde4sdk-blahblah. So I have a menu littered with apps I'll never use. Oh and the menu system is kinda ****ed, up, but yeah.

So I'm looking for a new distribution. OpenSuse's out since it suffers from the same problems, as is Mandriva.

I'm leaning towards Arch or a BSD, but I'm not in the mood to read a bunch of docs just to set up my system. That's why I'm not using Debian.

Anyway I'm looking for recommendations on what to try next. The distro just has to satisfy a couple of things.

1. Let me set up PPPoE through a GUI. If the GUI doesn't work, but commandline does, have the GUI interact with that configuration.
2. Good package management. I don't wanna install user-desktop just to install pidgin. It needs to be fast and behind a GUI (preferably ncurses). I'm past my apt-get install days.
3. Definitely lots of packages. If not at least have programming libs available so I can compile stuff.
4. KDE4
5. No rolling releases thanks.

Ubuntu seems like the best one, but I've had some bad experiences in the past (and the failed-upgrade threads every 6 months is not something I'd like to participate in). So I'm giving Mint a try. Then Fedora depending on my level of satisfaction.

If it doesn't work out, then I'm trying Arch. Otherwise I'm going give a BSD a try. Does anybody have better recommendations?

 

[Smiley_lauf]

Since you like Debian, try Mepis. 8.5 is nearly out. it is a mean installation sequence and very polished KDE rendition. Debian's apt is the best out there imo. Good luck..you distro-whore...just kiddin'. I have been there, so I am one too!

 

[concentricpuddle]

Since you like Debian, try Mepis. 8.5 is nearly out. it is a mean installation sequence and very polished KDE rendition. Debian's apt is the best out there imo. Good luck..you distro-whore...just kiddin'. I have been there, so I am one too!

If it has KDE4, I'll definitely give it a try. I've actually been a pretty stable Debian guy, for the most part. It's only recently that I've been *looking around*.

2004 -> 2007 Debian
2008 for a couple months OpenSuse (liked it, but my god did the package managment suck)
Rest of 2008 - 2009 Debian.
December 2009 til now - PCLinuxOS.

 

[Smiley_lauf]

I started with Mepis, SimplyMepis to be exact, from 2004; downloaded the CD-ROM version using a dial-up connection. I learnt about apt and linux kernels and DE, partitions and all, on Mepis. it truely is unsung hero of linux. Highly recommended on linuxquestions.org.
I hate almost all RPM based distros' they are totally so untuitive for the newcomer.

 

[Tinuva]

The OP is very contradicting. On the one side your requirement is to not be rolling release, then later you say you had problems with failed upgrades every 6 months. To be honest, its one or the other, and it made me end up loving the rolling releases of Arch/Gentoo ect. But basically Arch is a rolling release, but my favourite distro off all. Need no custom repos and have a HUGE community arch build system so pretty much any package out there is availabe. However I can see it is not for you.

On the other side, OpenSUSE never failed on my when doing a dist-upgrade, though their package management feel really slow to me.

As for pppoe on the gui, any distro can do that with NetworkManager on Gnome or KNetworkManager on KDE. Easiest method IMHO.

Unfortunately I can't really suggest any distro to you, you already checked out all my Favourite distros which are Archlinux and OpenSUSE. OpenSUSE are perfect for people who wanna do EVERYTHING in the GUI, Archlinux on the other hand need lots of Command Line Love, but it is super fast on any system, which is what counts the most on it.

Good luck on your adventure!

 

[JackStone]

I've recently installed Fedora LXDE which is a relatively lightweight distro. I had been using PCLinuxOS for a couple years, I ran into problems after install Thunderbird, I think because the libgcc package was updated and caused programs not to start up.

Fedora LXDE obvious doesn't have KDE4, it uses LXDE and open box as a GUI and window manager. It's very basic but my biggest gripe is the way it handles workspaces, without respecting workplace names making switching a remembrance game.

I'm sure it has adequate packages to suit your needs though you might have to activate and or locate a few more repositories, done by clicking Start->Administration->Software Sources

Fedora (at least this version, based on Fredora 12) used the yum package management system which I grew to love when setting up my first server, using CentOS. It does have a GUI tool called "Add / Remove Software" in the menu. It's also got a great software updating tool and a automatic bug reporting tool which I've had success with.


Some programs compiled with the distro:

Midori - fast web browsing (great for research, no flashy stuff)
Gnumeric Spreadsheet - self explanatory.
Abiword - word processor.
gFTP - FTP client.


Extras I've installed:

Thunderbird - for mail of course.
Firefox - web browsing.
Filezilla - FTP client.
Bluefish - editor for multiple programming language (syntax support).
K3B - CD burner.
Kaffeine - coffee machine.
Tomboy - great notes program!
View Your Mind - mind mapping tool.
Amarok - music player.


You may also have to install video codecs which aren't in the standard repositories. They aren't all that hard to find if I remember correctly. I still haven't got smb4k working but have successfully mounted network drives in /etc/fstab

On the whole it seems a great distro, been using it for about 16 days with an uptime of 16 days, 7 hours and 40 minutes. Have never had to restart the GUI... though since the most recent updates it is asking to restart but that's easy enough to ignore for now.

 

[Drake2007]

1. Let me set up PPPoE through a GUI. If the GUI doesn't work, but commandline does, have the GUI interact with that configuration.
2. Good package management. I don't wanna install user-desktop just to install pidgin. It needs to be fast and behind a GUI (preferably ncurses). I'm past my apt-get install days.
3. Definitely lots of packages. If not at least have programming libs available so I can compile stuff.
4. KDE4
5. No rolling releases thanks.

Those criteria barring point 4 you've just described Windows

/runs

 

[concentricpuddle]

Those criteria barring point 4 you've just described Windows

/runs

Fortunately, #4 is the most important. I don't hate Windows. It's just...unusable.

Edit: I should probably change #3 to easily available packages.

 

[concentricpuddle]

The OP is very contradicting. On the one side your requirement is to not be rolling release, then later you say you had problems with failed upgrades every 6 months. To be honest, its one or the other, and it made me end up loving the rolling releases of Arch/Gentoo ect. But basically Arch is a rolling release, but my favourite distro off all. Need no custom repos and have a HUGE community arch build system so pretty much any package out there is availabe. However I can see it is not for you.

On the other side, OpenSUSE never failed on my when doing a dist-upgrade, though their package management feel really slow to me.

As for pppoe on the gui, any distro can do that with NetworkManager on Gnome or KNetworkManager on KDE. Easiest method IMHO.

Unfortunately I can't really suggest any distro to you, you already checked out all my Favourite distros which are Archlinux and OpenSUSE. OpenSUSE are perfect for people who wanna do EVERYTHING in the GUI, Archlinux on the other hand need lots of Command Line Love, but it is super fast on any system, which is what counts the most on it.

Good luck on your adventure!

Thanks man. As you say, Arch is not for me. I'm still gonna give it a try though. It may be fun to spend a day setting it up. Here's hoping it's not an adventure .

Fedora (at least this version, based on Fredora 12) used the yum package management system which I grew to love when setting up my first server, using CentOS. It does have a GUI tool called "Add / Remove Software" in the menu. It's also got a great software updating tool and a automatic bug reporting tool which I've had success with.

I don't know man. For some reason RPM-based distros' package managment tools have nothing on apt(itude).

Maybe a lot's changed since FC7 (the last time I tried it). I'll have to check it out.

 

[ponder]

But the worst offender of all is that in order to install just Kate I had to install kde4sdk-blahblah. So I have a menu littered with apps I'll never use.

The only distro I know of that will give you access to a modular kde4 is Arch but it does not meet any of your other requirements. kde4 in Arch is modular and offers two varieties as well, the one in the Arch repos and the kdemod one from the Chakra team. So instead of installing the whole kdenetwork meta package you can choose to only install one of it's components like kdenetwork-kget for example.

 

[milomak]

I'm leaning towards Arch or a BSD,

but I'm not in the mood to read a bunch of docs just to set up my system

No rolling releases thanks.

I think the above disqualifies arch.

as to your dependencies issue, the problem is whether a package is gtk or qt4 dependant. so you will find that the popular packages 9which either come with gnome or kde) will pull a host of dependencies with them (if you do not have the base De installed). The only way to run away from this is to use packages that are not specifically linked to kde or gnome.

 

[Yucca]

LFX @ non exclusive books price in cape town?

I am addicted to this little gem of a magazine that I found a month ago and would like to find a place that is cheaper than R170 for it in Cape Town CBD any auggeations?

 

[kingrob]

My work pc has got CentOS 5.4 (RHEL minus the branding) running and I just love it because of the fonts. Very stable & always give me a smile when it boots up and it says ''Red Hat Nash" loading.

 

[I am Penguin]

Hell hat a mixture of distros, makes me wonder why I prefer windows. Linux just seem to much like a hit and miss digging for a green one in a smarties box.

 

[tolk]

what about pcbsd