Reccomend a distro based on these requirements

Giacomo McGubbin

Hi folks,

As there are so many options out there, just looking for the latest opinions on what distro might suit the following :

1) I want a fast, reliable, secure, distro for home/work use, that isn't too bloated with software and is relatively easy to maintain and update, and one that I can stick with for the next few years without fear of it being dropped.

2) Visual appearance isn't important at all. I'm quite comfortable with the command line and I'm happy using it a lot (in fact I prefer it), but I don't have time to set up a system from scratch i.e. Arch etc.

3) I want something that will be easily compatible with dual monitors and other hardware. I've found in the past some distro's aren't.

Thanks.

L.Jenkins

Giacomo McGubbin wrote: »

Hi folks,

As there are so many options out there, just looking for the latest opinions on what distro might suit the following :

1) I want a fast, reliable, secure, distro for home/work use, that isn't too bloated with software and is relatively easy to maintain and update, and one that I can stick with for the next few years without fear of it being dropped.

2) Visual appearance isn't important at all. I'm quite comfortable with the command line and I'm happy using it a lot (in fact I prefer it), but I don't have time to set up a system from scratch i.e. Arch etc.

3) I want something that will be easily compatible with dual monitors and other hardware. I've found in the past some distro's aren't.

Thanks.

Linux Mint, Fedora, Debian.

Johnboy1951

L.Jenkins wrote: »

Linux Mint, Fedora, Debian.

+
PCLinuxOS, Suse

alta stare

+1 for Mint. I replaced Windows 8 with it on the young lads slowish laptop. It works a treat.

human 19

If you are worried about bloat, then you will probably want to consider whic desktop environment to choose. If you go for the new mint 18 (good timing, its a long term supported version which is currently being rolled out) , there are various versions to choose from.


Have a look here

I believe XFCE has the lowest overhead , but am not an expert as I always use KDE anyway. Mint 18 XFCE is still in beta, so you may want to try the cinnamon or mate flavours for more immediate stability

excollier

The final finished release of Mint 18 XFCE is now available

Keplar240B

I'd stick with Ubuntu directly, not a derivative of Ubuntu (like Mint).
You mentioned "secure" if that's big requirement I would stay away from "mint"

Lubuntu or Xubuntu Looks like a good fit for your requirements.

Lubuntu is a fast, lightweight and energy-saving variant of Ubuntu using the LXDE (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) desktop
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=lubuntu

Xubuntu is a community-developed operating system based on Ubuntu. It comes with Xfce, which is a stable, light and configurable desktop environment.
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=xubuntu

Johnboy1951

Keplar240B wrote: »

I'd stick with Ubuntu directly, not a derivative of Ubuntu (like Mint).
You mentioned "secure" if that's big requirement I would stay away from "mint"

Why? What makes Mint insecure?

L.Jenkins

Keplar240B wrote: »

I'd stick with Ubuntu directly, not a derivative of Ubuntu (like Mint).
You mentioned "secure" if that's big requirement I would stay away from "mint"

If this is in relation to the hack during the year, with malicious ISO files posted to the site, you can be sure the Mint Community patched all of the up since. It would be foolish of them not to take security more seriously.

PropJoe10

If you want something that you can customize to exactly how you want it, then Arch Linux is your friend. Installation can be a chore, though.

Debian is about the most stable distro out there, although you won't get the latest packages with Debian Jessie, the current stable release. Not sure if that's an issue for you or not.

Keplar240B

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Why? What makes Mint insecure?

The OP mentioned he wanted a secure distro
Ubuntu is more secure than Mint
Ubuntu is backed by the Canonical company
Mint while based off Ubuntu is backed by a small software team of mainly volunteers

MInt by default keep back important security updates (for "stability" reasons, although Ubuntu,
not keeping back the same updates is really stable (depends on h/w)).
It's a distro what's modified Ubuntu that's modified Debian,
thus slowing down updating packages and creating some rare incompatibilities with software meant for Ubuntu.
Also, their website was hacked, compromised .iso-s were uploaded, people downloaded malware .iso's,
they (Mint team) responded by fixing the download links, then they got hacked again (because the original flaw was not fixed),
the same bad iso thing repeated itself, then they fixed it,
it was later revealed their forum database (with IP addresses,
usernames, passwords
(hashed with MD5 that's really insecure, might as well been plaintext) and a few more things) were stolen.

mass_debater

Fedora would be my choice

L.Jenkins

mass_debater wrote: »

Fedora would be my choice

Linux Mint is a good starting point. Fedora would be great for the intermediate to more advanced user though. I use Fedora and I'm a bit smug about it, as I run PhpMyAdmin, Mariadb, Bugzilla, Monit, Ansible, Jenkins and a few other tools in my day to day dealing.

croo

The reason I don't use Fedora myself is that it has a very short life cycle and then you have to upgrade. But upgrades were always problematic for me (maybe today they're smoother) so I usually did a clean install and that was a lot more work.

After saying that not many would choose ubuntu gnome for their laptop like I did
On a server I would be a lot more likely to be scripting so prefer Centos (a Redhat ELS clone) mostly because Redhat uses Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) which mirrors old unix boxes I used so I have less to learn With systemd taking over nearly all linux distros I guess I need to find something else if I want to continue to use my old unix skills

Anyway, my point was since the OP requested

one that I can stick with for the next few years

perhaps something with a LTS [Long Term Support for the OP] would be more appropriate than Fedora.

PropJoe10

Ubuntu MATE is also a great option. Using it at the moment on a college laptop I have. Really lovely distro.

L.Jenkins

croo wrote: »

The reason I don't use Fedora myself is that it has a very short life cycle and then you have to upgrade. But upgrades were always problematic for me (maybe today they're smoother) so I usually did a clean install and that was a lot more work.

After saying that not many would choose ubuntu gnome for their laptop like I did
On a server I would be a lot more likely to be scripting so prefer Centos (a Redhat ELS clone) mostly because Redhat uses Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) which mirrors old unix boxes I used so I have less to learn With systemd taking over nearly all linux distros I guess I need to find something else if I want to continue to use my old unix skills

Anyway, my point was since the OP requestedperhaps something with a LTS [Long Term Support for the OP] would be more appropriate than Fedora.

You might try Devuan then. https://devuan.org/ It split from Debian after Systemd debacle and I still remember all the bitching that went on, which is why I never contributed to the project.

Giacomo McGubbin

What do people think of running centOS as a desktop to assist with becoming familiar with RHEL ? Or would you be better with Fedora ?
I'm also now tempted to go with Arch as well for the learning experience, which would be the best option in that case ?

Robert ninja

I use Manjaro for an Arch variant. Here's a full overview of it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcbHylIXevs

Not sure if it's the best for 'learning' as in wanting to do absolutely everything yourself. I use dual monitors with this but I've had problems in the past but I'm not so sure it's Manjaro or even Arch. Something to do with xrandr perhaps. It's working fine for dual screens with open source intel drivers other than that I can't set the secondary's desktop background which isn't too big a deal I suppose. I'll be trying AMD drivers for dual monitors later. Nvidia's weren't great.

Best thing about any arch flavour is access to the AUR. Nice thing about this variant is Yakuake is in it by default for KDE. Press F12 and the terminal just drops right down like a blackboard. Lovely.

me_irl

+1 for Mint (it's Irish!) Running Mint 18 XFCE 64bit on my Toshiba Satellite (4GB RAM, Intel Core i3 2.53GHz) and it's performing grand.

limnam

Giacomo McGubbin wrote: »

What do people think of running centOS as a desktop to assist with becoming familiar with RHEL ? Or would you be better with Fedora ?
I'm also now tempted to go with Arch as well for the learning experience, which would be the best option in that case ?

Considering CentOS is RHEL without any RH trademarks, it's binary like for like.

Fedora is basically upstream for RH so if your goal is to become familiar with RHEL Fedora is not the way to go and Arch is definitely not the way to go.

What do you want to achieve exactly?

mass_debater

Giacomo McGubbin wrote: »

What do people think of running centOS as a desktop to assist with becoming familiar with RHEL ? Or would you be better with Fedora ?
I'm also now tempted to go with Arch as well for the learning experience, which would be the best option in that case ?

CentOS comes with no desktop manager at all, cli only

limnam

mass_debater wrote: »

CentOS comes with no desktop manager at all, cli only

Huh?
It comes with gnome.

mass_debater

limnam wrote: »

Huh?
It comes with gnome.

The minimal install doesn't, that's all I've ever used

croo

mass_debater wrote: »

CentOS comes with no desktop manager at all, cli only

limnam wrote: »

Huh?
It comes with gnome.

As limnam says there is a gnome desktop just like RHEL. On install you get to choose but on a server I'd never install it (the desktop that is).

L.Jenkins

The mind boggles as to why you'd run CentOS or RHEL with a DE in the first place. They both make for great Servers and if anyone is interested in using both, both can be run in a VM.

Giacomo McGubbin

L.Jenkins wrote: »

The mind boggles as to why you'd run CentOS or RHEL with a DE in the first place. They both make for great Servers and if anyone is interested in using both, both can be run in a VM.

The information I was given was that it could be and has been, even though it's designed for a server application. I didn't know how accurate that was, that's why I asked. That's why I also asked would I be better running fedora or arch ? So which one would you advise ? Because if we all knew everything, then we wouldn't need any forum.

L.Jenkins

Both can be used with a DE, but I don't see the sense in it. If you're looking to learn or make a move to Linux, I'd suggest Fedora, but if you're looking for a challenge, then I'd go for Arch.

fig_roll

me_irl wrote: »

+1 for Mint (it's Irish!)

Name a single member of the core team that's Irish?

Johnboy1951

me_irl wrote: »

+1 for Mint (it's Irish!) Running Mint 18 XFCE 64bit on my Toshiba Satellite (4GB RAM, Intel Core i3 2.53GHz) and it's performing grand.

Clem was living and working in Ireland when development started.
I believe that is the connection with Ireland.

L.Jenkins

Yes, development began in Ireland, but has since moved.

limnam

L.Jenkins wrote: »

The mind boggles as to why you'd run CentOS or RHEL with a DE in the first place. They both make for great Servers and if anyone is interested in using both, both can be run in a VM.

Because it makes one of the most professional/stable desktop experience's you're likely to find. So as far as Enterprise it's RHEL or SuSE. The mind boggles why you wouldn't.

If it's for a home desktop and you want the latest and greatest then yes it doesn't make much sense. It would still be rock solid though if that's what your need is then it's the perfect desktop environment and has been for years in places like IBM/ARM/Intel/RH obviously.

limnam

Giacomo McGubbin wrote: »

The information I was given was that it could be and has been, even though it's designed for a server application. I didn't know how accurate that was, that's why I asked. That's why I also asked would I be better running fedora or arch ? So which one would you advise ? Because if we all knew everything, then we wouldn't need any forum.

It can be and is very popular as a professional desktop in enterprise.

As mentioned all ready it really depends on what your goal is. If it's a personal desktop but you want a RHEL "like" experience you might prefer Fedora, if you want to just mess around it doesn't really matter too much.

Arch can have a steep learning curve and put people off. It might be an idea to run Fedora as a DE and have arch in a vm if you want to learn more.

L.Jenkins

limnam wrote: »

Because it makes one of the most professional/stable desktop experience's you're likely to find. So as far as Enterprise it's RHEL or SuSE. The mind boggles why you wouldn't.

If it's for a home desktop and you want the latest and greatest then yes it doesn't make much sense. It would still be rock solid though if that's what your need is then it's the perfect desktop environment and has been for years in places like IBM/ARM/Intel/RH obviously.

For the purposes of a Server only, I'll never use a DE. Why add the extra resource when you can do everything from the CLI.

limnam

L.Jenkins wrote: »

For the purposes of a Server only, I'll never use a DE. Why add the extra resource when you can do everything from the CLI.

The point I want to make very clear as the OP didn't specifically ask for a server only.
Is that RHEL/CentOS is an extremely good choice especially to hit the won't vanish next year box.

You're making it sound like RHEL is an awful choice for a desktop machine when it couldn't be further from the truth.

croo

About 10 years ago I was working on an open source project that required linux & an oracle db (yeah I know open source with oracle!?). Anyway, installing oracle on linux was a pain then, and while I tended towards debian for servers trying to install it there was a real bitch. But it installed easily enough (well easily enough after I did it 10-20 times) on RHEL but I'm pretty sure (though not certain) that the oracle install required a graphical desktop be installed. I have a vague memory of installing the database then using sysinit to switch the runlevel to 3 for future use, so they DE wasn't using my meagre resources.

L.Jenkins

limnam wrote: »

The point I want to make very clear as the OP didn't specifically ask for a server only.
Is that RHEL/CentOS is an extremely good choice especially to hit the won't vanish next year box.

You're making it sound like RHEL is an awful choice for a desktop machine when it couldn't be further from the truth.

I understand if the OP wants to use is a Desktop Distro. If that's what the OP wants, then I'd say go for it.

croo wrote: »

About 10 years ago I was working on an open source project that required linux & an oracle db (yeah I know open source with oracle!?). Anyway, installing oracle on linux was a pain then, and while I tended towards debian for servers trying to install it there was a real bitch. But it installed easily enough (well easily enough after I did it 10-20 times) on RHEL but I'm pretty sure (though not certain) that the oracle install required a graphical desktop be installed. I have a vague memory of installing the database then using sysinit to switch the runlevel to 3 for future use, so they DE wasn't using my meagre resources.

Only ever installed it on Windows and for Development purposes. Otherwise I install command line tools on linux.

Krusader

Was using Mint now moved on to Ubuntu MATE.
It seems a bit faster. I really like it

syklops

limnam wrote: »

The point I want to make very clear as the OP didn't specifically ask for a server only.
Is that RHEL/CentOS is an extremely good choice especially to hit the won't vanish next year box.

You're making it sound like RHEL is an awful choice for a desktop machine when it couldn't be further from the truth.

Well all(or most at least) Red Hat employees use RHEL as their Desktop environment.

Dero

syklops wrote: »

Well all(or most at least) Red Hat employees use RHEL as their Desktop environment.

And it was the standard supported desktop in IBM when I was there too (RHEL 6 at that time).

h57xiucj2z946q

Dero wrote: »

And it was the standard supported desktop in IBM when I was there too (RHEL 6 at that time).

Years ago in Ericsson I was working with Solaris on the Sun Blade 1500 workstations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Blade_(workstation) with the beautifuil CDE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Desktop_Environment

Its not uncommon to use the same OS with a DE when you are compiling/building for that OS as a sever.

Worztron

Debian 8 Stable. Note that Debian 9 may be released next March.