Favourite Distros

[entropie]

I am always on the lookout for some unique distros. So what are your favourite builds ?

Ranked #1 and #2 for me atm are:

Arch + a window manager called 'awesome'

A quick and dirty arch out of the box called 'Manjaro'

 

[KDude]

I haven't used Linux or BSD in ages. I've wasted a lot of time doing so though. My favorite was Gentoo. I don't know if it's been improved upon since. It was right up my obsessive-compulsive alley, allowing me to tweak and build a distro from scratch.

You would think a guy named "KDude" liked KDE, but I'm a Gnome man.

 

[entropie]

I haven't used Linux or BSD in ages. I've wasted a lot of time doing so though. My favorite was Gentoo. I don't know if it's been improved upon since. It was right up my obsessive-compulsive alley, allowing me to tweak and build a distro from scratch.

You would think a guy named "KDude" liked KDE, but I'm a Gnome man.

Hehe, yeah now that you say it. Arch is my favourite, it comes completly clean and shiny and you can build your distro from scratch just like gentoo. Its pretty good for small server projects on ARM-boards, I have like interfaced every media center in my home with each other by now.

 

[KDude]

Hehe, yeah now that you say it. Arch is my favourite, it comes completly clean and shiny and you can build your distro from scratch just like gentoo. Its pretty good for small server projects on ARM-boards, I have like interfaced every media center in my home with each other by now.

Oh, I didn't realize Arch did that too. Maybe if I get a spare computer, I'll try it out.

 

[garbage]

Any Debian derivative.

Give me tiled window managers, too.

wmii

 

[Qlip]

Arch + fluxbox. Or xmonad. But, I'm a damned dirty, sexy, OSX user now.

 

[entropie]

Arch + fluxbox. Or xmonad. But, I'm a damned dirty, sexy, OSX user now.

eeek, you perp ! Tho if its not running on an apple product, you are set free

 

[Qlip]

eeek, you perp ! Tho if its not running on an apple product, you are set free

Linux is shit with retina.

 

[KDude]

OS X is the best implementation of UNIX out there. My 2c. It's sad that Linux never accomplished what Apple did in the desktop area, despite getting a headstart.

That said, I'm dirtier, rotating these days between Win 7 and Win RT.

 

[sprinkles]

I like Mint for desktop use.

Other builds don't matter so much to me because if I'm being picky about a build, as for a server for example, it's going to be a stripped and custom install to begin with. I'd just pick something that has what I want easily available. I've built from scratch before, and while that lets me get things exactly how I want them with the kernel configs, patches, and toolchains, it's a pain in the ass so if it ain't busted I don't fix it.

 

[KDude]

]I've built from scratch before, and while that lets me get things exactly how I want them with the kernel configs, patches, and toolchains, it's a pain in the ass so if it ain't busted I don't fix it.

There's something cool about your software getting close to the "metal", so to speak. It doesn't provide much performance improvement though, except a little space.

 

[sprinkles]

There's something cool about your software getting close to the "metal", so to speak. It doesn't provide much performance improvement though, except a little space.

Yeah. I'd mainly do it because there's less likely to be any conflicts if I know exactly what's going in, what it does, and how it works together.

 

[KDude]

Yeah. I'd mainly do it because there's less likely to be any conflicts if I know exactly what's going in, what it does, and how it works together.

That too. Haha.. I meant it in some wonky mystical way though. Like how our brains and our minds are so entertwined that they are one and the same. I like the idea of software compiled specifically for the hardware it runs on (same idea behind low level/high level languages).

 

[sprinkles]

That too. Haha.. I meant it in some wonky mystical way though. Like how our brains and our minds are so entertwined that they are one and the same. I like the idea of software compiled specifically for the hardware it runs on (same idea behind low level/high level languages).

Yup, I was a big fan of Gentoo for a while since it kind of does that in a way on its own since it uses Portage, which is pretty cool in itself. But since I don't really do servers or anything anymore I just kind of like something that you can slap in and it works.

But yeah there is some kind of mystical quality in being able to talk the language of the machine itself.

 

[entropie]

Yes, getting close to the 'metal' is what I like too. I set up my ARM board the raspberry with the state of the art distro raspmbc to have a media center xbmc; but upon starting it I found out that its pre-configured to be connectable to almost all devices. So it has a samba server running, several pnp, ftp or ssh ports open; it's a bit of a mess. Since its behind a router at my home it's ok, cause I can have it blocked and still mess around with it in the home network.

A few months ago tho I set up a home webserver for a friend and there you already are good with a distro close to the metal. Cause you can basically decide whats on it and whats not and dont have to investigate after the install which ports need closing.

I am currently trieing ArchBang, which is Arch+openbox. Looks nice so far, guess I'll become a great fan of openbox and window managers in general. They spike my battery live on the Acer AO-722 to about 12 hours with screen on lowest brightness and the system idling. And they are somewhat alien to the classic desktop environments, with which you could achieve similiar battery life (like xfce or lxde). That makes the computer experience a new one .

 

[entropie]

Got it working like a breeze. That Arch distro is pretty easy to handle, never seen something like it before.
Got Eagle and Dropbox from the inofficial repositories and they installed with no problems (just were a little work cause you have to get all packages manually).



This was taken with my Acer One 722 connected to a VGA@full HD. It has a battery life of roughly 6 hours, either with the internal monitor or connected to a VGA. On win7 I got it to 4 hours only.
Now I'll test it connected to a HDMI. On win7 I got over 10 hours then, gonna see what Linux can do.

 

[entropie]

I love Arch that was easy, 64-bit in Netherstorm: