[silentdrgn]

Reading through one of the welcome threads and talking about trying other Linux distro's it got me thinking. Although I have settled into Bodhi and have no plans to use another distro as a full time OS I do very much enjoy trying some of the new distro's on a Live CD. I know there is a thread about BSD and one about Sabayon but I figured I would start this to talk about our experiences trying some of the distros and how they compare to Bodhi. This is in no way trying to get people to move on from Bodhi. I just think its a blast to try out new things and see how the different flavors out there are progressing. Heck, I even like to see if Unity has become usable just yet lol

Linux Deepin - I tried this out for about 15 minutes and it looked good. Its a heavily modified Gnome 3 and while I could not use it on a full time basis (not a fan of Gnome 3 or Unity) it does seem to be taking it into a solid direction. Worth a look.

PinGuyOS - One of my favorite non-Bodhi distros out there. It comes fully loaded and I think its a good OS for a new user that wants a system that works out of the box. Too bloated for my tastes but its solid nonetheless.

I am a full time Bodhi user and do not see myself changing that anytime soon. I love the community and the direction this OS is heading in. However, I have realized through trying out a few of the Linux distro's that it isn't for everybody. And that's ok. One of the downfalls of Windows is if you get a new PC you are stuck with one flavor of Windows and nothing else. With Linux you can pick and choose which one to use based on what you are looking for. Unity is great for the new Linux user that wants something flashy. PinGuyOS is great for those that want everything pre-installed. Bodhi is outstanding for somebody who wants a minimal, fast OS and knows what they are looking for. There is something for everybody. I love the freedom.

[Timmy]

My all time favorites are Arch and SliTaZ (except for Bodhi of course).
Arch is very educational, and SliTaZ is perfect for that really old hardware - I've got it running on a Toshiba CDS 430 from 1997 with a 120MHz CPU and 32MB of RAM.

[silentdrgn]

Id like to try both Arch and Gentoo at some point but I hear both are difficult to get up and running. Would like the challenge though. BSD is one that I would like to get some experience with as well down the road.

One of my favorite things to do lately is try the different distro's. I don't have them in for long but its a blast lol

[Timmy]

Honestly, Arch requires patience more than skill. As long as you follow the Beginners' Guide (and make sure that you understand what you're doing) you will get it running eventually.
First time it took me like 5 hours, and my first Gentoo install took about 10 hours. I learned a lot though, and nowadays it doesn't take a fragment of that time.

The best tip I can give you if you plan on trying Arch/Gentoo is to don't change too many things at once. Install an application, configure it, start it, if you want it to launch automatically reboot to see that it does. Take everything step by step so that you know what you messed up if you mess something up (odds are you will). I can't count how many times I've messed my Arch install up - last time I did was today, accidentally I forgot to edit /etc/inittab so it threw me to runlevel 3 instead of 5. Having to enter your username and password then "startx" without knowing what you're doing (no prompt, just a black screen) and with a dodgy keyboard at that is no fun .

Dedicate a day/weekend for something like this, oh and lots of coffee!

[mabier]

My overall experience with Arch linux is very positive, comparing to the installation process of gentoo, it is pretty easy for me to install Arch into either desktop computer or laptop pc, and I always prefer to use XFCE environment because it is both light and elegant at the same time. In respect to Gentoo, my experience of installing and using is not so good, I failed at the first attempt and fortunately installed it into my laptop with a gnome environment after five or six days struggle for the 2nd time ! the compilation process for any moderate application will be a painful experience for me,and sadly I didn't notice any performance advantage compared to other Linux distros.So Gentoo in my laptop only lived about 15 days.

[spainach]

Peppermint OS is very stable and fast. I use it for quick booting. Very light too and able without the bloat.

Slax and Puppy allows me to bring my most important documents and troubleshoot some systems. Like Peppermint, it's light and stable as well. It's easy to configure and a good amount of documentation and support is available throughout the net. Small, quick and elegant, it's a personal favorite.

Jolicloud OS is stable with active support and growing no. of users. Usable even without an internet connection though preferably connected upon boot. Clean interface and responsive. It's also non-intrusive. I think it's a good starting point for beginner users.

OpenSUSE is configurable with its OpenSUSE Studio. Light on resources, stable and elegant with good user support.

Ubuntu would have been a nice candidate but it wasn't too stable with a WUBI install. Ended up crashing too much.

PCLinuxOS and PinguyOS are as was mentioned earlier too bloated for me.

[shrinivas]

After following the wiki, I did manage to install Arch Linux, but got tired of it when I was not able to reduce the speed of the fans (the noise of the fans was irritating and I was afraid of burning my M/B or the graphic card!) and the temperature of my CPU remained very high.
The Arch distro takes the idea of installing what we need to ridiculous heights.They wouldn't even admit non-geeks to their forum. Try it !
Even after all the efforts, it remains just "another Linux distro",nothing more, it has problems,it breaks,obviously because it is cutting-edge. Just a bunch of snobs, if you ask me.(please forgive me if there are any Arch-fanatics in this forum.) I had to let it out.

[Timmy]

People that doesn't agree with The Arch Way will probably run into problems either using Arch or asking for support.
That said, I do think that their elitist views are a little over the top. There's nothing in their ethos/manifesto that prevents them from helping newbies out. It's a shame actually, because it's a lovely ditro.

[silentdrgn]

Timmy, on 12 March 2012 - 01:26 AM, said:

Honestly, Arch requires patience more than skill. As long as you follow the Beginners' Guide (and make sure that you understand what you're doing) you will get it running eventually.
First time it took me like 5 hours, and my first Gentoo install took about 10 hours. I learned a lot though, and nowadays it doesn't take a fragment of that time.

The best tip I can give you if you plan on trying Arch/Gentoo is to don't change too many things at once. Install an application, configure it, start it, if you want it to launch automatically reboot to see that it does. Take everything step by step so that you know what you messed up if you mess something up (odds are you will). I can't count how many times I've messed my Arch install up - last time I did was today, accidentally I forgot to edit /etc/inittab so it threw me to runlevel 3 instead of 5. Having to enter your username and password then "startx" without knowing what you're doing (no prompt, just a black screen) and with a dodgy keyboard at that is no fun .

Dedicate a day/weekend for something like this, oh and lots of coffee!

I just might do this one of the the weekends my wife has things to do. She is more social than I am so I will come up with some excuse to stay home and lock myself in my office lol

[cc_INC]

Slitaz kicks ass on older machines!

[Vaidotas]

cc_INC, on 12 March 2012 - 10:41 PM, said:

Slitaz kicks ass on older machines!

slitaz 3.0 yes, Slitaz 4 RC2 no.
It can not longer boot, when system has only 256 MB.

[cc_INC]

Vaidotas, on 12 March 2012 - 11:38 PM, said:

slitaz 3.0 yes, Slitaz 4 RC2 no.
It can not longer boot, when system has only 256 MB.

Really?!
That's too bad!!

[Timmy]

Vaidotas, on 12 March 2012 - 11:38 PM, said:

slitaz 3.0 yes, Slitaz 4 RC2 no.
It can not longer boot, when system has only 256 MB.

Are you sure about that?
Have they stoppeed providing loram versions etc?

[Vaidotas]

Timmy, on 13 March 2012 - 10:10 PM, said:

Are you sure about that?
Have they stoppeed providing loram versions etc?

It still can boot into command line, but old command which was posted in forum for launching setup, no longer works.
While running it in normal boot, it gives error, that there are no more memory left, because it boots straight in to RAM.

[silentdrgn]

I am about to try WattOS and possibly Chrome OS after that. I have a second HD on my desktop computer that I am going to dedicate to trying out different distros.

[silentdrgn]

Forget it. I am installing Bodhi Linux along side Windows on my desktop Couldn't be happier. Nothing else seems to be able to get the job done as well as I would like.

[Mother's Little Helper]

So far tried,

Open Suse, horrible font rendering and I could not live with all that green.
Ubuntu, actually ok to use, but a real slug on the netbook, and Unity, well.......
Fedora, no matter what you try to do Fedora tries to stop you.
PCLinux, is a fine distro but development is sloooow.
Kubuntu, installed on the desktop and works fine.
CentOs, like stepping back in time.
Mint, I quite liked Mint and it ran fine, but I do not like cinnamon and that seems to be Mint's future.
Bodhi, installed on the netbook, nice!

[silentdrgn]

Mother, on 24 March 2012 - 09:49 AM, said:

So far tried,

Open Suse, horrible font rendering and I could not live with all that green.
Ubuntu, actually ok to use, but a real slug on the netbook, and Unity, well.......
Fedora, no matter what you try to do Fedora tries to stop you.
PCLinux, is a fine distro but development is sloooow.
Kubuntu, installed on the desktop and works fine.
CentOs, like stepping back in time.
Mint, I quite liked Mint and it ran fine, but I do not like cinnamon and that seems to be Mint's future.
Bodhi, installed on the netbook, nice!

I really like what Linux Mint is doing. Their community is great and I like the direction. I went searching for something else after Cinnamon would not work well with the game I play constantly. Then I found Bodhi. That search was over.

I've started trying a few new distro's out though. Right now I am using the live version of Sabayon. I really want to get some experience using a gentoo based OS and I think I might use this on the desktop for a bit.

[shrinivas]

Recently I installed SolusOs in my computer along with Bodhi.
It is base on Debian-Gnome,is quite fast, and very pleasing fonts etc.,with all codecs, libre-office etc installed for a complete desktop experience.
Regards

Shrinivas

P.S. I also tried Toorox (Gentoo without the hassles ) but it proved to be an awful experience.Installing Firefox took almost an hour (downloading,compiling,installing etc., all done by the system,of course, yet it was not a pleasant experience.Getting updates proved awful, with so many unresolved dependency issues, I being a newby beat a hasty retreat and removed it from my system.

[Vaidotas]

Currently searching for very, very light OS for old computer so searching one which are for netbooks, so have .iso/.img files for testing:
EasyPeasy - gnome with normal main menu, which shows all apps on desktop
LegacyOS - puppy based, small and trashed with small software, but still fast
LinpusLite - do not know why so far, haven't tested,
Meego
Tinyme

Also while waiting for Bodhi 2.0 testing these:
Comice OS 4
Deepin
Fedora gnome
BackTrack5 R2 - gnome

Waiting for releases of these:
Comice Os 4 Netbook
EasyPeasy based on 12.04

And some for just fooling around, also on laptop/virtual box:
android-x86 4.0 RC1 - yes, on normal laptop
ArchLinuxArm