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What Your Choice of Linux Distro Says about You

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the choose-wisely dept.

iter8 writes "NewsForge has an article explaining what your choice of distro says about you. There's no comment on what using Windows or OS X does for your rep. I use Mandrake, so that makes me suave and sophisticated."

16 of 494 comments (clear)

  1. Slackware? by slavemowgli · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No mention of Slackware? What a pity.

    --
    quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
    1. Re:Slackware? by NemoX · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I was surprised about this as well. I started on Slackware, and still find it to be my favorite after taking a dip in many other waters. So, I guess the question should be "what does newsforge's choice of linux distributions say about newsforge?" :p

    2. Re:Slackware? by JWSmythe · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Funny, I saw the story, wanted to whine about Slack not showing up, and the first post is for Slack!

      Maybe it's a bit too .... hardcore?

      Every time I read a list like this, Slackware is marked as the oldest, hardest, and favorite among real administrators, hackers, and geeks who know what they're doing. No sissy graphic installer. No warm fuzzy configuration tools. You want to configure something, you just do it and know it's done right, rather than pointing and clicking, and wondering if what you just pointed & clicked did what you thought it would do.

      Slackware comes with most everything, and what it doesn't have isn't a problem. Slackware users know how to compile their own stuff, beyond trying to 'emerge', 'apt-get', or whatever to let some warm-fuzzy installer script attempt it.

      I use Slackware on just about everything, and those that know me know that's a *LOT* of machines. The only real exception are my AMD64 machines, that I'm still waiting for Slack to have a 64bit version. I know it'll be coming soon enough, I just can't wait. Until then, they're Gentoo. No offense to the Gentoo guys, but I feel warmer and fuzzier knowing I can get my OS installed in minutes. We have a hacked-up version of Slackware that we install on our servers that is done in 5 minutes. That's pretty hard to beat.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    3. Re:Slackware? by cetialphav · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You make it sound like it is hard to stop unneeded services in all other distros but Slackware. It isn't. Everything you're mentioning is stuff you can do with any other distro. But even doing all of that doesn't result in a 50% speed boost.

      My machine is a P4 2.4GHz with 1Gb of RAM. If apache and mysql are running unnecessarily, does that really slow things down? No. They are blocked on a select() call waiting for a request to spring them into action. Unless you are short on RAM, it has no impact at all.

      Note that before I bought this computer I was using a P-Pro 200 with 128 Mb of RAM. The only reason I upgraded was because the current desktops (KDE and Gnome) take up so many resources it just makes everything sluggish. I could have used fvwm2 (or other things) to make things very snappy, but it really isn't worth my time. I like to spend my time using my computer, not configuring/tweaking it.

      But to compare every non-Slackware distro to Microsoft is just silly.

  2. It works...? by DogDude · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What if I use the distro that I use because it's the only one that I could get to actually work?

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
  3. No need for that by CaptainZapp · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Knoppix users are pushy and aggressive. It's not at all unusual for them to hand you a CD and tell you to boot from it.

    What a cincidence and a true story.

    One of the broad minded Windows admins in [insert major logistics company] yelled at me "Linux for President" when I passed his office before yesterday.

    It turns out that one of his laptops was fuxored and no matter what he wasn't able to boot it under Windows.

    Since he is broadminded and a good admin (even though he's an MCSE) he has his tools ready and one of it is Knoppix.

    The laptop booted like a charm, made the partition visible, the files where saved to another laptop and Linux oughta be president.

    There was really no need to push Knoppix on him.

    --
    ich bin der musikant

    mit taschenrechner in der hand

    kraftwerk

    1. Re:No need for that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I once made a few hundred bucks in a day selling knoppix CDs on the street in Vancouver. I even explained to each person that they could download everything on the CD themselves for free if they wanted to... sold them for $10CDN each to almost everyone who came by (I also had a laptop there to demonstrate).

  4. hear hear! by clsc · · Score: 2, Interesting

    sofar i've tried ubuntu, gnoppix, knoppix, suse, morphix, knoppix, slax, elearnix, dynebolic, mepis, dsl, puppy, pc linuxos, gentoo (oh, and one or two of those bsd's as well).

    The moment i find one that recognizes my onboard sound i'll take it, no matter which name it's got. Untill then i'm stuck on windoze for everything that involves sound (and i do like music).

  5. Re:missing option by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Bah All distro users are coddled pussys.

    Linux From Scratch. the real man's linux.

  6. Re:The article is a troll by MooseGuy529 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Repeat after me: Trolls can be funny!

    Sure, it pokes fun at distros, but it's mostly fair, and it's not hateful. Enjoy it. (I run Gentoo, I agree--if it moves, compile it)

    --

    Tired of free iPod sigs? Subscribe to my blacklist

  7. Fun and lighthearted by polyp2000 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Thats a nice fun and lighthearted article for a saturday afternoon. Makes a change from all the serious stuff!

    I wonder though what about people who use multiple different distributions? For example :- I've got a couple of higher spec machines I use for gentoo- but I also run Xandros (Open Circulation Ed.) on this laptop (which is for family use) and I've got my mother running Libranet on her aging K6.

    I suppose technically speaking Xandros and Libranet are Debian based - but so is Linspire - Where does this leave me?

    Im in a twisted state of being neither here nor there help me ... please!!!!

    Nick ...

    --
    Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
  8. Re:debian zealotry *yawn* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    There's this thing....it's sooooo freaking cool....I'm sure you've heard of this thing but just in case you haven't......it's called.....a SENSE OF HUMOR.....you really should go get one simply because they are so damn cool!

  9. Re:Bar pickups got a lot more complex by djcapelis · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You sun sign is probably not what you think it is, the chart that most of the world uses contains only 12 signs and is 3000 years old.

    The actual chart includes all 13 signs and accounts for the slight wobble that causes the chart to shift by about 1 day every 87 years.

    Look up 13th sign on google for more information.

    --
    I touch computers in naughty places
  10. Re:Not a pity... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    true, the people that are too "1337" to go ahead and just adopt gentoo, and type "emerge xxx" instead of hunting down every last tar ball and compiling each one by hand.

    if you wana be different from he "league [of] drooling Linux masses" you would build linux from scratch.

    http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

    afterall the best distribution is your own.

  11. BOOYEAH by Feztaa · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I use Fedora, according to this, that makes me a conformist.

    I never thought I'd live to see the day that using linux makes a person a "conformist". I suppose that makes linux mainstream.

  12. Re:What your distro choice REALLY says about you by Feyr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    i think you nailed it right on the head!

    or at least this list is less biased than the one in the article