[kwlug-disc] Which distribution should I use?

[Khalid Baheyeldin]

Doug Moen wrote in the other thread:

I used to run OpenBSD and then FreeBSD in the mid nineties. (Linux was junk
back then.)

I ultimately switched to Linux because it is more popular. Far more open
source packages are tested and run on Linux than on BSD.

For the same reason I switched to Linux, I also want to use the most
popular Linux distro, for maximum compatibility, and so that I'll have
access to the largest number of free software packages.

According to John's diagram, Debian is the most important/influential
distro. More distros are descended from Debian than anything else. Ubuntu
is the most important/influential direct descendent of Debian.

I use Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, for the same reasons that Khalid posted. For me,
one of the killer features of Ubuntu is that it supports ZFS, which is the
most reliable file system. I don't know any other distro that supports ZFS
as a core package, other than FreeBSD.


I agree with the reasoning: you want the distro that has the most packages
in their repositories. Debian is that distro. Ubuntu is just an easier to
install/configure descendant of that vast ecosystem. Their schedule for LTS
versions is about the right pace.

The same goes for Raspberry Pi: there are faster and cheaper boards out
there, and I have seen people rush to buy them, only to find out quickly
that there is no community to go for help as often needed, no updates to
things they are using, no packages that they need ....etc.

The other thing is the Debian's dependency management is arguably the
oldest and most proven in Linuxland. I remember the days of searching for
rpms and then dependency hell when I was using  Mandrake/Mandriva. All that
is behind us now. No more searching the internet for .debs. It is all in
the repositories.

As for Fedora, it experimental bleeding edge in nature: a testing ground
for RedHat.  I would not use it as my main desktop.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://kwlug.org/pipermail/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org/attachments/20180126/24ad3ff2/attachment.htm>