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Ask HN: why do you run this Linux distribution?

7 points by old-gregg ↗ HN
Howdy fellow Linux fans.

I'll be brief: what is the point of linux distros other than Debian-derived ones, Arch and Gentoo? Those 3 all have very distinct characteristics are are very different from each other, so...

I have a computer I can play with and I was thinking about tinkering with a new Linux distro just for fun. I've used Ubuntu, Gentoo and Arch in the past (settled on Arch and love it), so why would I want to try out SUSE, Fedora or Mandriva? Their descriptions on distrowatch are quite vague.

16 comments

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Mithrandir
Fedora, unlike Ubuntu, has zero proprietary software in its repositories. It, however, has firmware included with it which is why it's not on the FSF's list of approved distros.

I have not tried SUSE or Mandriva, but both have different features other distros don't.

I like Trisquel, as it's 100% free-as-in-freedom and it looks really cool. :)

madhouse
The reason you shouldn't really compare Fedora and Ubuntu, is that Ubuntu is a commercial distribution, while Fedora is not. If you want to compare, compare Ubuntu with RHLES or Fedora with Debian.

Like Fedora, Debian has no proprietary software in it (yes, there is non-free, but that one is not part of the distribution).

hasenj
Ubuntu is no more commercial than Fedora.

1. You don't pay money for it. 2. The company behind it uses it to make money.

In Fedora's case, it's kind of a public beta of RHEL. In Ubuntu's case, Canonical provides support and professional services, although it's not profitable yet.

Also, Ubuntu comes by default with no non-free software. Although now I think there's an option in the installer to install MP3 and stuff that's restricted by patents. (not sure if it also installs non-free stuff like Flash).

madhouse
Ubuntu comes with proprietary NVidia & ATI drivers, last I checked, along with a bunch of other things in restricted, which is part of the default install.

So yeah, Ubuntu DOES come with non-free software by default, and the restricted repo is part of the default sources.list, to allow you to install even more non-free software easily.

By commercial, I meant they're (trying) to make money off of it, which they certainly do. There's a whole lot of things built around the distribution (Ubuntu One, support, etc) that in my reading, make the distribution commercial, or at least heavily commercially backed (as opposed to being community driven).

LInuxFedora
Fedora is not a public beta. Jesus Christ.!
Mithrandir
If you had meant "commercial" in the sense of recommending non-free software, you'd be correct in some sense. However, as I said, Fedora contains non-free firmware, like Ubuntu. So, in that sense, Fedora is the same category as Ubuntu, but is different in its repository policies.

Of course, you have said that you meant commercial in that they're trying to make money off of it. Thanks for clarifying!

nailer
commercial doesn't mean proprietary, though a lot of people use the terms interchangeably. Whether something is commercial or not is irrelevant from a proprietary / free point of view.

if you meant to say 'ubuntu is a proprietary distribution' then yes, that would be correct.

eccp
I use Ubuntu on a daily basis, but I've tried Gentoo, Linux from Scratch and FreeBSD on VirtualBox.

In those, I was looking for the experience of building all these layers of software, one on top of the other, like a set of dominoes falling backwards in time. After a few hours, you get a giant, baroque, colorful picture of software tools which built itself, and it's for you to use. I can't think of any other professional discipline which allows you to do so.

karthikm
CentOS is a good choice if you want to run a server for commercial purposes. I use Fedora (its almost the same as centOS) for my development desktop as it mimicks my server setup. I tried Ubuntu for my server and it didn't work out to be that stable. However a couple of my friends in other startups found Ubuntu to be working fine for them on their production servers. Another distro I use a lot is Backtrack ;)
tygorius
Just a thought. You might want to consider one of the BSD variants, just to explore a somewhat different system architecture.

For everyday use, I find Ubuntu good enough, although I do wish they'd break fewer things every six months. I suspect I'll eventually migrate my Arch usage from "tinkering" to everyday usage.

Another thought: Tiny Core Linux - a minimalist distribution that runs out of RAM. The ISO image is only 10 MB, and the design is based on only loading those applications you need when you're using them. There are tons of applications already packaged online, so many people find it sufficient as their everyday OS. Personally, I put it in the tinkering category like Arch because the design is based on a specific design attitude that's different from the mainline distributions.

[dead] ItarPeyo
Suse has a system configuration utility called YAST which is user friendly for people who are afraid of the command line and also works across a text terminal like ssh. You can configure the network, manage packages, configure the firewall etc. all from within YAST. In the previous place I worked at the only reason for using SUSE was YAST, because the guy who was in charge of the servers was afraid of the Linux command line.

Mandriva comes with a lot of proprietary drivers that just work. Plus it is very friendly for people coming from Windows. For example I've used Mandriva a lot on my Nokia booklet 3G because it works with GMA 500.

mvip
It really depends on what you're looking for and looking to do. I personally prefer Ubuntu's LTS releases for day-to-day use, but for the production servers, I prefer stepping out of Linux and into FreeBSD. I've found it to be much more robust, while at the same time not holding you back to ancient software versions (like CentOS/RHEL).

Yet, it really comes down to your preference.

peelle
As the others say have said. Depending on what your looking for will determine what is right for you.

I use Mandriva. I use it because it feels right for me.

Things I really like about it. 1. Broke from Red Hat. 2. KDE. 3. It has a centralized and useful tool set for managing the system. 4. It's packaging system is nice. 5. http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/ 6. Power Pack has lots of goodies in it. 7. etc,....

tzs
Well, for one thing, RPM-based distributions are the leaders in the enterprise market. They are also the only ones, I believe, that actually make money. If you look at where the contributions to Linux come from, especially in the kernel, the employees of those distributions are contributing much more than those of the other distributions.

For instance, in 2009, the top Linux contributors were Red Hat (12%), Intel (8%), IBM and Novell (6% each), and Oracle (3%).

IBM offers, I believe, Red Hat and SUSE on its mainframes. Oracle offers their own version of Red Hat. So that's 27% of contributions to the kernel coming from companies focused on RPM-based distributions.