Based on this discussion, I gave CrunchBang, Arch, Fedora, and Linux
Mint a go.
CrunchBang looks interesting, but the install failed even booting up
from the USB. (using either the DD or unetbootin method to create a
bootable USB Stick.) One of my goals is a quick install and low
maintenance - I had to have the laptop rebuilt between the end of
business and the start of work the next day. I do intend to come back
to CrunchBang one day though - I like the potentials.
I next tried Arch and ran into similar problems. Again I'll come back
to this when I have more time.
It took a bit to get Fedora booting from the USB, but that was partly my
fault for not properly resetting the USB stick after CrunchBang. I
eventually got it installed and was immediately faced with a slightly
different approach for setting up my servers. This was expected, but at
midnight, I was fearing the time it would take to learn the ins and outs
before having to crash. So I passed on Fedora for that reason alone -
from what I can see though, I'll have to come back to Fedora too as it
seems to have a fair amount of polish on it.
Finally I tried Mint. It worked well enough that I have stuck with it
for now. The apt package system is familiar and all my previous
configurations apply so after a relatively quick file transfer session
from the old drive to the new, and about an hour of installing the base
and copying over configs, I was operational again (from a work
perspective). There are still some quirks as I learn my way around
'cinnamon', but I have brought in the KDE plasma package so that I have
access to the more familiar KDE tools - like Dolphin and Ocular. As
time permits, I'll try some of the lighter desktop environments too and
see if I can make things even snappier than they already are (dang Mint
boots fast!)
My thoughts.
Shawn
On 13-08-23 01:55 PM, Alastair Preston wrote:
On August 22, 2013 10:28:27 PM Shawn wrote:
I know we've all heard the question many times, but it has been a while
since I have changed distros and am looking for opinions on what
distro's are working well for people.
I'm about to rebuild my laptop with a new (larger) SSD. The laptop is
currently running Ubuntu with the KDE desktop, and has some problems
with my hardware. (occasional graphics glitches, sound issues, external
video issues, etc.) The laptop has become a primary workstation for me,
rather than an occasional use box like it was in the past. So these
issues are becoming frustrating. I think it is time to try another
distro. Something that works well for PHP based web development, and
still supports daily desktop use well.
Other than Debian, what are other decent options at the moment? I might
try out Fedora/Red Hat, but Arch looks interesting, as do some others.
I can easily do the trial and error thing, but I'm wondering what others
are using these days (other than Ubuntu), and why.
Thanks for any input.
Shawn
I can't speak to it's useability for web development, but you might check out
Mint. While I, like you, have been using Kubuntu on my main desktop and
Ubuntu/Kubuntu on my laptop (with the same issues as you have), I've been
trying Mint on my backup machine, and have discovered that while it is Ubuntu-
based, the sound issues are much reduced, and the external video issue I was
seeing is absent.
As to the video issue: I had downloaded a video from Google Play, which
crashed on starting on my Ubuntu boxes with an error message telling me to
reset the protected content files setting in Adobe Flash Player. Following
Adobe's instructions didn't work, which Adobe indicates is due to a problem
Flash player has with the HAL implementation in Ubuntu. Although Mint is
ubuntu-based, they seem to have fixed that problem in their HAL implementation
- the protected content video from Google Play DOES play in Mint. Whether this
is the same issue you've been getting, I don't know, but it may be an
indication why external videos from other sources may have issues with Ubuntu.
Al Preston
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