Beginner/moderate Linux experience, need clean and minimal but supported and up to date distro
11 replies, posted
I have been looking at Linux for a long time as my laptop's operating system, because Its not powerful enough to run games like my main PC, so there is no reason not to use Linux on it.
But I need something minimal that will run on intel GMA and a old celeron dual core CPU. But I want the ability to choose what I want in a non-bloated environment like Ubuntu, but have good package management system like RPM or DEB.
Debian perhaps? You can get a pretty minimal install with that, and it uses Deb packages.
I'm not a fan of the Apt/Deb package management though. I prefer RPM. I really like Fedora, but it might be too "bloated" like Ubuntu for your tastes. If you want to customize your Fedora install, your best bet is to use the Install DVD instead of the CD; it lets you select what to install to a certain extent. I don't think your laptop would have any problem running the LiveCD install though.
I think your CPU should be fine to run any distro.
I'd watch out for Gnome 3 though. It's still new, and has a lot of issues. People in this forum will disagree with me, but KDE is really good. I've never been that interested in dicking around with other window managers like Openbox.
One thing I noticed while using Gnome 3 in Ubuntu was the sluggish menus.. sometimes it would take half a second just to render a calendar box or the applications and windows menu. I suppose checking out yum instead of apt for a chance could be refreshing and a nice learning experience. I might check out "Cinnamon", Mint Linux's forked Gnome 3 mod or XFCE(the mouse looks cool in its logo so maybe its a cool desktop environment???) Thanks for your helpful and insightful post.
[editline]5th January 2012[/editline]
Yum is a yummy command, so many features and extensions are a interesting concept, Fedora it is!
You're thinking of Debian stable.
[QUOTE=nos217;34062172]You're thinking of Debian stable.[/QUOTE]
Unstable is beyond Ubuntu in terms of buggy, so it is not really worth using.
[editline]5th January 2012[/editline]
Ugh Fedora hurry up, this 4.7GB DVD image is taking a loong time to extract to my pen drive.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/p25xH.png[/IMG]
[QUOTE=dickpickle;34062277]Unstable is beyond Ubuntu in terms of buggy, so it is not really worth using.
[editline]5th January 2012[/editline]
Ugh Fedora hurry up, this 4.7GB DVD image is taking a loong time to extract to my pen drive.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/p25xH.png[/IMG][/QUOTE]
Debian Unstable is more stable than you think
Welp, just found out Fedora does not support my card reader. Shame.. I was really liking Fedora :( Ubuntu 11.10 it is..
You could check out sabayon.
I use it myself, with the Awesome wm.
Its based off of gentoo, but plays like a binary distro, while still retaining the features of portage and gentoo. The primary package manager is entropy with either the commandline frontend equo or the graphical sulphur.
Just check it out ;-)
[url]www.sabayon.org[/url]
[QUOTE=T3hGamerDK;34075126]You could check out sabayon.
I use it myself, with the Awesome wm.
Its based off of gentoo, but plays like a binary distro, while still retaining the features of portage and gentoo. The primary package manager is entropy with either the commandline frontend equo or the graphical sulphur.
Just check it out ;-)
[url]www.sabayon.org[/url][/QUOTE]
Sabayon shall forever burn in the depths of hell.
[QUOTE=dickpickle;34075700]Sabayon shall forever burn in the depths of hell.[/QUOTE]
I can see you have bad experience with it. How so? Its probably the most bleeding edge and stable system I have ever used.
A few days ago I requested them to add a new package and update some other package, which is now done, so they listen to the community well too.
What went wrong?
[QUOTE=dickpickle;34072949]Welp, just found out Fedora does not support my card reader. Shame.. I was really liking Fedora :( Ubuntu 11.10 it is..[/QUOTE]
One thing that you have to understand with distros is that it's all linux in the end. The drivers are either in the kernel, or they are in modules and loaded by the kernel. Distros often run different kernels, but they usually are recent enough.
You might have to do something special for you card to work. What ever that card is.
I can look it up if you tell me what card is causing problems. It would also be useful if you were to boot any linux liveCD and run the following and posting the results
[code]
lspci -nn[/code]
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