[wap32]

Fedora is my personal favourite, but it sometimes does tend to cause trouble.

So, I'd say Foresight linux, gOS, mint(ubuntu based) or just plain old ubuntu.
I think most have live versions so you can try them out and see if you like them.

 

[Jigglybootch]

Yeah, LiveCDs are very nice.

 

[SonicArmada]

It seems that you give-up too easily, at least that is what it seems like when reading about your Fedora tray problem. One tip I give to new Linux users is to try your best to work through every problem. You'll learn along the way, and feel satisfied when you are done. I know that sounds hard to a beginner, but joining a good forum such as LinuxQuestions.org will help a ton.

That being said, I'm currently running Debian (Testing) and loving it. You might want to check out Debian if you're ever "distro shopping" again. Good luck.

 

[yuckymucky]

I am currently running Ubuntu on my laptop and I am getting along with it quite nicely. There are some things that I don't like but over all it is pretty nice.

Before Ubuntu I was a Gentoo only person and I used to love it but the waiting for compiling has started to get old. I just ordered a new work laptop with a 2.5Ghz C2D so it might be time to go back to Gentoo...

 

[theapp]

Slackware is my favorite Linux distro

Mainly because of nostalgia, since I grew up using it. It is, however, not the most friendly of distros. FreeBSD is another option, or one of it's variants, DesktopBSD or PC-BSD. FreeBSD is my current main OS and makes a surprisingly good desktop OS.

 

[FalconP]

I don't think OpenSUSE is bloated. After my default installation I looked for softwares and system services I don't need. The software I uninstalled were all part of KDE4 package (instant messanger, remote desktop, etc), and I could not see any system services that wasn't there for a good reason.

 

[Fitz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by theapp /img/forum/go_quote.gif Slackware is my favorite Linux distro Mainly because of nostalgia, since I grew up using it. It is, however, not the most friendly of distros. FreeBSD is another option, or one of it's variants, DesktopBSD or PC-BSD. FreeBSD is my current main OS and makes a surprisingly good desktop OS.

I've been a Slack user for years, but recently moved to Arch Linux. It's surprisingly similar to Slackware, but adds a little bit more refinement to make life easier.

 

[ericj]

I suggest finding a legal license of XP Pro.

I say that as a man who's been using linux since 1994.

What your first post says to me is that if you have one issue with a linux distribution, you'll drop it.

What your third post says to me is that you see linux, to some extent, as a fashion accessory.

 

[Jigglybootch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SonicArmada /img/forum/go_quote.gif It seems that you give-up too easily, at least that is what it seems like when reading about your Fedora tray problem.

I'll readily admit that I gave up too easy with Fedora. Of course, when I installed Fedora a second time the problem wasn't there. In any case, I was much more content troubleshooting my sound card issues than I was trying to figure out why my optical drive went crazy on me.

 

[Jigglybootch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericj /img/forum/go_quote.gif I suggest finding a legal license of XP Pro. I say that as a man who's been using linux since 1994. What your first post says to me is that if you have one issue with a linux distribution, you'll drop it. What your third post says to me is that you see linux, to some extent, as a fashion accessory.

It depends on how big the issue is. Having to restart every time I want to eject a CD...kind of a big issue for me. Properly functioning sound is also a big deal for me. I spent a great deal of time ripping all of my CDs and if my sound output doesn't work like it should, then all bets are off. I don't have the time to sit around and dig through forums looking for answers. I wish I had more time to play around with Linux, but unfortunately that's not the case. Don't get me wrong. I'll try and work through a problem if it comes up (even if it's a big one). But at this point I'm limited to weekends (sometimes 3 day weekends) to really sit and work through such issues. If it can't be fixed on the weekend, it's not getting fixed until at least the next weekend, and in some cases that's not acceptable for me.

 

[wap32]

Quote:

Originally Posted by yuckymucky /img/forum/go_quote.gif I am currently running Ubuntu on my laptop and I am getting along with it quite nicely. There are some things that I don't like but over all it is pretty nice. Before Ubuntu I was a Gentoo only person and I used to love it but the waiting for compiling has started to get old. I just ordered a new work laptop with a 2.5Ghz C2D so it might be time to go back to Gentoo...

I too used to be a Gentoo only guy, and I must say I did learn a lot about linux from all those installs.
For me what what made me change wasn't really the enormous amounts of time for the compiles but the fact that it's not really that up-to-date, they still have firefox 3 and gnome-2.22 ebuilds marked unstable

@Jigglybootch: I think regardless of having issues or not you should try as many distros as you want, get a feel of what is out there, see your choices. But what you shouldn't do is put aside a distribution you're liking because you're having some trouble at first.
Despite vast progress, installing linux still has it's quirks and sometimes requires some work and time to get it running smoothly.

 

[Jigglybootch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wap32 /img/forum/go_quote.gif @Jigglybootch: I think regardless of having issues or not you should try as many distros as you want, get a feel of what is out there, see your choices. But what you shouldn't do is put aside a distribution you're liking because you're having some trouble at first. Despite vast progress, installing linux still has it's quirks and sometimes requires some work and time to get it running smoothly.

Oh, believe me, I've tried plenty of distros. And I've had my ups and downs with all of them. But your last sentence sticks out the most. I know Linux requires varying amounts of time and work to work through its quirks. But free time is something I don't have that much of anymore. Take the sound issues. I managed to get sound output, but it's distorted to all hell and I have no idea why. As much as I would like to devote the time and effort to finding a fix for the problem, I just don't have that time and effort to devote. Usually I have weekends, but these next three weeks are basically non-stop work for me. I'm not willing to not listen to music for three weeks.

Even if I did have the weekend to work on it, I'm still not willing to wait until the weekend and not have music. I do have a Windows system to fall back on in the meantime, but if I didn't I'd be really angry right now.

 

[wap32]

Well, if you really don't have time to spend on solving those problems, then maybe you should install windows as a temporary solution, or just choose the distro with less issues and "stick with it" for a while.
What is your soundcard btw?

 

[Jigglybootch]

My Windows box has an Echo Gina3G, which I once attempted to get to work on Ubuntu but I could never get it to work properly. I don't quite have the patience to try that again. My Linux box has an Audigy 2 ZS, which doesn't seem to play nice with either Fedora or OpenSUSE. I suspect PulseAudio has a hand in that, at least on Fedora. Does OpenSUSE 11 have PulseAudio?

 

[yuckymucky]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wap32 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I too used to be a Gentoo only guy, and I must say I did learn a lot about linux from all those installs. For me what what made me change wasn't really the enormous amounts of time for the compiles but the fact that it's not really that up-to-date, they still have firefox 3 and gnome-2.22 ebuilds marked unstable

Gentoo was awesome for learning, and trying weird different things that usually caused some major crashes, but it was fun. I am sure the fact that almost everything I was installing near the end was masked also was a big issue.

I am sure that I will be back to it again someday soon, even if I have to just find an old machine to run it on.