Which Linux Distribution?

Yeah.. tried ubuntu 13.04 on a vm last night. unity not that bad, but still not convinced. But with all the ubuntu server machines I have (trying to stay with one distro) I'm gonna dive and just use it till I like it :)
 
Am I the only one who doesn't hate Unity? Quite like it to be honest...

Freedom of choice is what Linux is all about.

I don't think any true Linux user "hates" Ubuntu or Unity it's just that they prefer another distro/UI. I'll happily use whatever rocks the clients boat - including Windows XP, 7 & 8 (I draw the line at Vista though :D).
 
Let me plus one on Ubuntu. Once you've used unity for a while you cant go back. There are just so many nice touches that you miss when you move on- things that aren't immediately obvious.
I decided to install the ubuntu gnome remix and had it on my pc for a week before tossing it out completely and installing ubuntu again.
 
Let me plus one on Ubuntu. Once you've used unity for a while you cant go back. There are just so many nice touches that you miss when you move on- things that aren't immediately obvious.
I decided to install the ubuntu gnome remix and had it on my pc for a week before tossing it out completely and installing ubuntu again.

cant wait to install my ubuntu tonight :love:
 
I don't mean to derail the thread but any recommendations for a version of Linux to run off a portable hard drive? I'm currently running windows off the SSD in my Laptop, I want to run Linux too but I'm not sure it would be possible to run smoothly with the limited bandwidth to the hard drive, USB3 laptop but USB2 hard drive casing with the old 5400RPM drive that came with the laptop. Are there any distros that make little use of the hard drive and utilize Ram more so I can have an acceptable experience?
 
I think you should be able to run virtually any distro, IMHO the bottlenecks on a laptop is far greater than just the USB 2.0 drive enclosure.

The fastest Linux is the one you build yourself, you have control over what libs and extras gets installed.
Example, I tried Xubuntu in the past (last year) on my netbook and it was a frustrating experience, SLUGGISH!

Last week, after Cinnarch went over to Gnome, I installed pure Arch Linux on the netbook with XFCE and it flies! I cannot believe how smooth everything is, and composit with a couple desktop effects is enabled!

For that reason I would suggest something like Arch Linux, Debian, Slackware, and their kin. Don't throw away Bodi Linux! I have it installed on a P3 laptop and it works quite well.
You can Google for "lightweight linux distro" and pick the one that looks promising. Maybe Mint with mate desktop? Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, etc. I THINK will be a bit much.

But that is the beauty of Linux, try Ubuntu, if you don't like it, try something else.
 
I think you should be able to run virtually any distro, IMHO the bottlenecks on a laptop is far greater than just the USB 2.0 drive enclosure.

The fastest Linux is the one you build yourself, you have control over what libs and extras gets installed.
Example, I tried Xubuntu in the past (last year) on my netbook and it was a frustrating experience, SLUGGISH!

Last week, after Cinnarch went over to Gnome, I installed pure Arch Linux on the netbook with XFCE and it flies! I cannot believe how smooth everything is, and composit with a couple desktop effects is enabled!

For that reason I would suggest something like Arch Linux, Debian, Slackware, and their kin. Don't throw away Bodi Linux! I have it installed on a P3 laptop and it works quite well.
You can Google for "lightweight linux distro" and pick the one that looks promising. Maybe Mint with mate desktop? Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, etc. I THINK will be a bit much.

But that is the beauty of Linux, try Ubuntu, if you don't like it, try something else.

Thanks man, I don't think the rest of my laptop would be holding back Linux fortunately, Asus N56VZ, pretty decent all round, just my SSD is to small for windows plus Linux. I'll give a few distros a pop though, thanks.
 
Thanks man, I don't think the rest of my laptop would be holding back Linux fortunately, Asus N56VZ, pretty decent all round, just my SSD is to small for windows plus Linux. I'll give a few distros a pop though, thanks.
How big is your SSD?
 
How big is your SSD?

120GB, thinking about getting one of those caddies for the disk drive that would allow me to put the hard drive in there but still need to do a bit of reading regarding that.
 
120GB, thinking about getting one of those caddies for the disk drive that would allow me to put the hard drive in there but still need to do a bit of reading regarding that.
That's more than enough, you can partition off 15 or 20GB for the Linux OS, share the swap space between Windows and Linux with SwapFs and keep all your data files in NTFS so they are accessible from both.
 
Just as some feedback. I installed Ubuntu 13.04 over the weekend. I have now been running it for 4 days, and all seems cool. Its only fricken MS SQL that I need to run a virtual box for. So all good :D
 
My 2cents :) I've been using Linux from 1997 (Both desktop and for development). I've been using Ubuntu since the 4.10 (Warty) release, and really loving it. Since Unity, I've ditched Ubuntu, and gone with linux Mint (still ubuntu goodness, but with a more user friendly desktop experience). Still awesome distro. Loads of people in two camps on unity, and I'm on the negative camp, especially if you have a ATI card, and need to get the drivers to work properly with Unity (underlying compiz issues causing instabilities). Now, as a poweruser, and a software developer, I would recommend openSuse / suse enterprise. I use this in my work / professional environment as most of the development tools I work with is certified to run on Suse. Also a really awesome distro, especially when you start using KIWI to build custom linux images from source.

DaBump
 
I just tried Xubuntu and it's actually pretty slick. I needed something a little more lightweight than Unity or Gnome 3 (netbook) and Xubuntu provides a nice default skin and integration with XFCE.
 
If you want even more speed then consider Arch Linux with XFCE, it is totally worth the effort and it flies on a netbook.
 
Also more a Fedora person. Tried Ubuntu 13.04 for a week or so but Fedora was more to my liking. Found Ubuntu to be a bit on the bloated side.Might be completely wrong as I'm still pretty new to Linux but loving Fedora...
 
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