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Which Linux should I install?

1 points by jkush ↗ HN
Hi everyone:

I've decided to install Linux on a hand-me-down laptop I just got. I'm debating which one to install and since everyone here is pretty smart I thought I'd see what you all recommend. The only requirement I have is that it's free.

What do you use?

6 comments

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mig
I would recommend ubuntu dapper.
jkush
Thanks for the suggestion!
sspencer
Any flavor of ubuntu ought to work well for a beginner. I would get the latest stable version, but be ready to have some possible driver issues. It's become better over time, but the laptop driver scene is still kind of dicey for Linux. What kind of laptop is it?
jkush
Thanks, I've been living in Windows land and need to branch out. It's a 2 year old Dell. Nothing jumped out at me on the incompatibility list so I think I'll take my chances.
corentin
I've used FreeBSD or OpenBSD on my laptops for years but I've recently given up; while they're both nice operating systems (including on the desktop, especially if you use DesktopBSD) they lack some things I need (mostly embedded software development tools and easy support for things such as flash video). So I'm now a Kubuntu user (it's like Ubuntu but with the K Desktop Environment instead of Gnome). I like the way all KDE applications interoperate with each other (well, this works if you use KDE applications; fortunately there are a lot of great KDE applications including a full office suite, an IDE, the wonderful Amarok audio player, etc.) It may not be as good as Mac OS X but I think it's a decent alternative. And KDE is very configurable and overall well designed.

Now, the bad thing about Kubuntu is that the out-of-the-box experience could be better. You actually have to install support for proprietary codecs and things like that yourself (but it's easy).

A final thing: I've experienced the FreeBSD ports system, the NetBSD pkgsrc system, the OpenBSD ports system and, while they're all good systems, I have to say that the apt system shipped with (k)Ubuntu is by far the best. It just works.