"Debian is No. 1? Why am I not surprised," said Roberto Lim, a lawyer and blogger on Mobile Raptor. "Sometimes I really feel like the Linux community, which used to be about innovation and building the best next thing, has lost touch with society and are in danger of becoming irrelevant." The real No. 1 distro is Ubuntu, Lim asserted: "It is the only one with a shot at becoming more than a niche in a niche market."Between Googlerola, the tempestuous software patent storm, HP's (NYSE: HPQ) shenanigans and the one-two punch delivered by CmdrTaco and Steve Jobs, we've surely displayed all the stamina any group of completely overwhelmed souls could reasonably be expected to have.
Time now for a little fun.
And how do Linux bloggers have fun? That's right, by engaging in a little high-spirited debate -- not of some weighty, industry-changing subject this time, though, but of a matter very close to all of our hearts. It's time, in other words, to ask the question once again: Which distro is best?
'The Best Linux Distro of 2011!'
It is with deepest gratitude to the ever-awesome geeks over at TuxRadar that Linux Girl calls your attention, dear readers, to a wonderfully thorough side-by-side comparison they recently performed on six of today's most popular Linux distributions: Fedora, Mint, Arch, Ubuntu, Debian and OpenSUSE.
"There are a lot of things to weigh up, and a lot of distros to plop on the scales, so if you wanted to compare them yourself, you would have to spend at least two weeks of little sleep and mind-poundingly painful headaches to draw up some kind of summary of how they measure up," the TuxRadar team wrote. "But don't bother, because here's one we prepared earlier. With diagrams and charts."
Installation, hardware support, desktop, customization, community, performance, package management and security were all among the features considered and compared in the six Linux distros. The results are summed up in a post from last month entitled, "The best Linux distro of 2011!"
Debian Is Crowned
Think it's all just another glorified ad for Ubuntu? Think again, because Ubuntu didn't win the No. 1 spot overall -- Debian did.
The result? More than 100 comments from Linux fans eager to agree with or dispute some or all of TuxRadar's results.
Linux Girl couldn't resist collecting her own small sampling of opinions.
'The Universal Operating System'
"Best distro? Of course, it's Debian GNU/Linux, the universal operating system," opined blogger and educator Robert Pogson.
"I stayed away from it for years because people told me it was 'hard' to install," Pogson recounted. "Last year, I gave all my high school students a quick demonstration, and they were all able to install Debian GNU/Linux and brought new life to the old PCs of the school. They even replaced XP on some hot, brand-new units. They loved it."
Besides its ease of installation and use, "Debian GNU/Linux has a great package manager with powerful tools to help find software in the huge repository and to install it easily to one or many PCs," Pogson noted. "Our school had a tiny pipe to the Internet, so we used APT's caching to make a server for the school so we could install at 10 MB/s. It was awesome.
"Bug tracking, dependency based booting, strict adherence to reasonable policies, releasing when it's ready... it goes on and on," Pogson concluded. "Debian GNU/Linux is a great distro. Try it. You'll like it."
'In Danger of Becoming Irrelevant'
Of course, here on the Linux blogs, there's always room for debate.
"Debian is No. 1? Why am I not surprised," retorted Roberto Lim, a lawyer and blogger on Mobile Raptor. "Sometimes I really feel like the Linux community, which used to be about innovation and building the best next thing, has lost touch with society and are in danger of becoming irrelevant."
The real No. 1 distro is Ubuntu, Lim asserted: "It is the only one with a shot at becoming more than a niche in a niche market."
'They Will Get Pushed Aside'
Then again: "Ubuntu has stumbled lately," opined consultant and Slashdot blogger Gerhard Mack.
"With its emphasis on tablets, they have forgotten about the desktops," Mack explained. "Now the competitors are building on the lessons learned from Ubuntu's rise and leapfrogging them now that they are fading. If they don't correct themselves they will get pushed aside."
Of course, "the fact that this happens so easily is what makes Linux great," Mack added.
'You'd Have to Be a Nut'
Hyperlogos blogger Martin Espinoza took issue with TuxRadar's inclusion of Fedora.
"Putting Fedora at the top of a 'best distributions' list is like putting a prototype car at the top of a list of cars to buy this year," Espinoza told Linux Girl.
"Fedora is the alpha test version for RHEL," he explained. "They break things there first. You'd have to be a nut to run it on a production system (though apparently, many people do) because the entire purpose of Fedora is to permit Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) to try new things and break stuff."
'A Good Distro That Deserves Mention'
Slashdot blogger hairyfeet recommended Vector Linux.
"They have SEVEN different versions, from SOHO to mini live, and with the exception of being a PITB to set up wireless, it is actually pretty nice," hairyfeet said.
The software is laptop-friendly, "only takes up 3GB, uses a nice XFCE, gives you plenty of software, all in all a good distro that deserves mention," hairyfeet concluded. "Oh and it is based on Slax so it isn't just another Debian ripoff."
'People Want Choice'
For Barbara Hudson, a blogger on Slashdot who goes by "Tom" on the site, it's all good.
"I keep hearing these calls for 'Linux unification' and 'one distribution to rule them all' and 'unifying the desktop,' but this survey reinforces the 'choice is good' mantra -- people *want* choice," Hudson told Linux Girl.
"It also shows the benefits of open competition," she added. "When every distro is free to use their competitors' code, the way to acquire and keep users is to be best at giving people what they want, instead of locking them in with proprietary data formats or programs.
"Large markets (like *the whole world*) are going to have enough of a variety of different market segments that even 1 percent is enough to support a healthy Linux ecology," Hudson pointed out. "Movement in 'who's the top 5' is confirmation that linux distros are nowhere near stagnating."
'Better Than Pulling an HP'
Hudson's vote? "With all the good points for each distro, I'm going to pretend I'm in Chicago and 'vote early, vote often' so I can say I voted for the winner, no matter what," she asserted. "If you read the comments, even the BSDs got a few mentions as well; just like old-style elections, even the dead count!"
So, even the distros that are "making what I think are questionable choices, such as Ubuntu with the Unity interface, get part of my vote," Hudson concluded. "Trying different things, exploring different ideas, taking risks -- it's better than pulling an HP and just giving up. After all, there was a time not so long ago when using Linux was seen as 'different' and 'risky.'"
0 comments:
Post a Comment