Help me choose, pls

[zietsh]

Hi,
I like to make the best decisions for me, but i can't seem to choose a Linux distribution with which I'd like to stay.
I'd like to choose between Debian, Mint and Fedora(never used these) (I kinda don't get why i should use Ubuntu(used it before but more like trying it out) if there is Mint?).

Maybe you guys know a solution. I have used Linux before, but opensuse which did not make me happy.....

And I'll probably install it onto an eee-pc. And/Or onto a USB drive. Don't worry about system requirements they will be accounted for.


I'd be happy for any help by more experienced users than me.

[natirips]

For USB stick, try Puppy linux, Damn small linux (SDL) or Slitaz.

AFAIK, the main difference between Debian and Mint is the default set of applications installed. Mint is oriented slightly more towards multimedia, while Debian is oriented at serious work. However, both have a LOT in common.

Fedora is much different though (has a different packaging system: rpm rather than deb).

Also, try unetbootin for USB (it's a tool designed to make it easy to install a linux distro onto USB drive).

[eXtr33m]

Well you should choose your distro on your personality.

Ubuntu and Mint are like a house where everything is nicely madeup, sometimes something doesn't work.

Debian is pragmatic, you get things that work. But trying to experiment is not really recommended you can easily fk up whole system.

I don't know Fedora.

I use Archlinux. It's like empty house. You install what you want.

[AimMe]

I soo no reason why to use Debian if you have Mint Debian, unless you know exactly what you want. It's almost same, but doesn't have that problems with instalation (like GPU drivers and so). So i'd pearsonally recommend Mint Debian, but sill you can suit yourself.

[havoc]

zietsh: things are kinda like that, to give you some details:

debian - the biggest distro ever, with the biggest community. has 2 usable versions - the stable and the testing.

stable is made of older versions of everything, is rock-stable, defacto the industry standard linux distro. some may say its not suitable for desktop because of the older stuff, but i myself use it for many years already and im quite happy with it. security and other updates/fixes are always on time.

testing is made of newer versions, expect some bugs, missing packages and stuff, but in general its quite usable and many people prefer it over stable for desktop.

mint - has 2 flavors - the ubuntu based and the debian based. community is kinda small tho, but the distro getting more and more popular.
ubuntu mint i wont comment, enough to say id pick it anytime over the normal ubuntu.
the debian mint is based on testing, but they have their own buffer repository for fixed/missing packages and its mostly ok, havent had troubles with it, but judging by their forums stuff pops up every now and then. they stated in the past they will move all mint to debian, but this havent happened yet and im not certain about the future of the debian mint.

fedora - the redhat "testing". again big distro, with big community, has its own way on certain things tho. uses the redhat packages system - rpm. pretty much ok for desktop, even if a bit sluggish here and there.

overall as a user, you will make more difference between window managers than different distros. debian and fedora have live versions you can try, not sure about mint. also consider arch, im not a big fan of it, but its a good and popular distro with nice community. if you ask yourself why im talking about communities - thats where you go to cry for help where the shit hits the fan :) so kinda important parameter.

nati: puppy? you want him to use puppy for desktop? and dsl? m8, usb sticks are big enough these days to contain normal distro :) and eee-pc can take pretty much any distro these days, at worst with some tuning.

[natirips]

nati: puppy? you want him to use puppy for desktop? and dsl? m8, usb sticks are big enough these days to contain normal distro :) and eee-pc can take pretty much any distro these days, at worst with some tuning.

Slitaz, for example, runs completely from memory with only 32MiB of RAM. That also means it loads fast. And USB drives can be slow.
The other two are just alternatives to it.

Although, I prefer Debian usually.

[Crusher]

+1 for Debian stable.

[Unclefragger]

Never could get the hang nor the fascination of Ubuntu .. Debian testing served me well for years and stable is the number one for servers, if you want to go DSL maybe give Gentoo a try. Takes forever and the first few installations might not live very long before you discover that you made a major mistake at some point, but in the end you will have the exact system you want ;)

[natirips]

Last time I tried Gentoo, I caused global warming. The air temperature outside was around 20°C (on Christmas). Don't say I didn't warn you.

[AimMe]

Well Debain is very good distro, but has that one problem i experienced few times: i mixed repositories, resulting in fatal crashes (first time i did it when Mumble 1.2 came out) so i tried stable, testing and unstabile versions, all ended up in same fatal crash... But they did last for some times, year or two. Good thing is that most of problems are laready fixed (you can finde them on forums) so you don't have to wait for replies.

However, I find that Mint Debian is almost as stabile as Debian, but is easier for instalation: i always did it right from first try, unlike with Debian (maybe it was because of experience, who knows), and yes it has live DVD. Good thing with it as well is taht i comes with most things you will need: good multimedia support, easier to install GPU drivers, and basiaclly all you need (at least what i, average user needed). Debian comes with much less things. But sill, unlike Ubuntu (or even Mint Ubuntu) it doesn't have 1000 "fancy" things you'll never use. Only thing that you might not like is MintMenu, which can be disabled easily.

Anyway, if you go on Debian or Mint Debian, folow this rule: "Don't update if everything works." I usually don't update them at all, sometimes i update when there is like 1GB or updates.

And note that if you go on Linux, you might need to install it few times, because youre bound to fail first time . At least they install fast when you know what you're doing.