most stable distro??

philstar

Whats the most stable i.e. least prone to crashes distro out there??

PS-why is this furum called unix??...surely it should be linux no??

liamo

Whats the most stable i.e. least prone to crashes distro out there??

That's how you start a "My Distro Is Better Than Your Distro" war

Seriously though, none of the mainstream distros could be described as "prone to crashes". Take your pick.

PS-why is this furum called unix??...surely it should be linux no??

The answer to your question may be found here.



Regards,

Liam

Civilian_Target

Dunno. Run Debian Stable on serveral boxes, and it has only ever crashed due to hardware failures or power cuts. Its fairly well equipped too, lots of functionality. I'd imagine there are harder distros but with substantially less functionality.

Tom Dunne

philstar wrote:

Whats the most stable i.e. least prone to crashes distro out there??

They are all quite stable. A crash in the Windows sense, is a a very unusual thing in the Unix world.

philstar wrote:

PS-why is this furum called unix??...surely it should be linux no??

Linux is a "flavour" of Unix. There are many, many other versions of Unix out there. Why limit our discussion to just Linux?

Cake Fiend

FreeBSD.

philstar wrote:

PS-why is this furum called unix??...surely it should be linux no??

Oops, disregard my invalid suggestion so.

philstar

as a linux virgin:rolleyes: ..would ubuntu be a good one to get into bed with so to speak??

leeroybrown

Ubuntu would be a pretty good suggestion as it is relatively easy to setup and tends to attract a lot of newer users so there should be a lot of good examples/advice/docs out there.

The word 'stable' tends to take on a different connotation in the Linux/Unix world. It tends mean changing slowly or subject to security and bug-fix updates only. For example commercial Linux distributions such as SuSE Linux Enterprise Server or RedHat Advanced Server are designed to have limited changes and long support cycles. Other non-commercial distributions such as Debian Etch (the current Debian Stable) and Ubuntu Long Term Service (LTS) have similar policies.

For a desktop linux user being 'stable' in this sense is not necessarily good as you will want more regular feature/enhancements updates so running a desktop release like Ubuntu or Fedora with regular 6 monthly (approx) tested feature updates tend to be smarter choices.

If I were to define less stable distributions I would point towards the Unstable and Testing (depending on the point in the release cycle) branches of Debian and the development branch of Gentoo but these are specific test/development branches of distributions that provide more stable branches.

Tom Dunne

philstar wrote:

as a linux virgin:rolleyes: ..would ubuntu be a good one to get into bed with so to speak??

Typing this on an IBM laptop running Ubuntu, so I would recommend it.

The installation was utterly painless and the laptop actually runs better under Ubuntu than it did under Windows.

Civilian_Target

OT: Nice sig Tom

Have you heard the song Oh Nine Eff Nine btw?

Tom Dunne

Civilian_Target wrote:

OT: Nice sig Tom

Have you heard the song Oh Nine Eff Nine btw?

Just saw it on YouTube. Excellent, with a bit of ROFL thrown in.

OfflerCrocGod

philstar wrote:

as a linux virgin:rolleyes: ..would ubuntu be a good one to get into bed with so to speak??

Probably it will be OK but make sure you have backup windows disks ESPECIALLY if you have Vista (different booting procedures) else if you loose windows you may end up regretting ever trying Linux Fedora 7 is also nice - has newer software which could be useful if you are using a recent intel lappy. Good luck with it; upgrade to Gentoo as soon as your able too

ethernet

Civilian_Target wrote:

Dunno. Run Debian Stable on serveral boxes, and it has only ever crashed due to hardware failures or power cuts. Its fairly well equipped too, lots of functionality. I'd imagine there are harder distros but with substantially less functionality.

I'd also say Debian or Red Hat Enterprise Linux [if you've money to burn]. You could also try something different, like Solaris.

Naikon

philstar wrote:

Whats the most stable i.e. least prone to crashes distro out there??

PS-why is this furum called unix??...surely it should be linux no??

Firstly, Unix is the original operating system designed at AT&T/Bell labs in the late 60's.
All "Unix like" and "Unix" operating systems nowadays are direct/spiritual successors to the original UNIX system.
System V and BSD seem to be the two main "Unix" operating system tree's whereas Linux is just a kernel and not a full operating system.

I find FreeBSD very stable:

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html

As you can see, BSD systems are very stable, and its not uncommon for BSD systems to have up times measured in years compared to days or hours with Microsoft.

It appears that BSD systems are direct descendants of AT&T UNIX, whereas Linux is merely a clone.
Granted, FreeBSD and the like probably don't contain any AT&T code anymore, but it remains a part of the core UNIX family(correct me if I am wrong), unlike Linux which is a clone written by Linus Torvalds.

Back on topic, I think BSD variants are great, especially with the ports tree and Linux binary support/abstraction layer for running practically any Linux programs on BSD.
I would go with BSD, I am using it as a file server and router on other machines at the mo, and a web server might be in line soon.
Get the best of both worlds I say:)

BSD has a bit of a high learning curve, in comparison to Ubuntu and the likes, but If you keep working at it like me its a great OS.
It does not come with a GUI by default, you have to install a desktop environment to work alongside the X window system.
By the way, BSD is my first non Microsoft based OS, and while I am not an Advanced user at this stage, its not too bad when you use it for a while. some of the commands and tools are a little bit different to Linux which can be a minor letdown. D
BSD is light on resources also.
It is possible to run a command line version on as little as 4mb RAM and a sub 75mhz processor.
To cut to the chase=choose BSD operating systems:)

*I find using the GUI only when needed which is rare works best, but with work it can be made to look like any OS you want.*

tck

OpenVMS - now that's stable

leeroybrown

tck wrote:

OpenVMS - now that's stable

... if you have the requisite VAX, Alpha or Itanium hardware lying around. Emulation doesn't count.

It is possible to get a hobbyists license to run it at no cost but anyone (relatively few people) I know who applied for a license complained that the process took ages.

tck

Used to have a digital alpha in my flat.

To the original poster, as a good solid distro I would recommend Ubuntu.
Its easy to get to grips with and especially good down the line because it's
debian based and the community support is excellent.

If you want something on the server side - maybe Debian etch.