Is there a better distro than Kubuntu?

[incinerator]

Re: Is there a better distro than Kubuntu?

It is a Targa Traveller 826.
I have written a test report for, as well.

Basic specs:
- Mobile Athlon64 3000+
- ATI Mobility X200 chipset
- ATI Mobility Radeon X700 gpu (PCIe)
- MSI motherboard
- card reader, USB2.0, pcmcia, multinorm DVD-Writer (Pioneer something)
- Cisco Airconn IPN2220 WLAN card (mini-pci), only supported by ndiswrapper though.

With SUSE things like standby/hibernate, cpu throttling, usb mouse, and other things would not work.
With Kubuntu breeyy hibernate works as long as you don't install the ATI non-free drivers, cpu-throttling needs "noapic nolapic" kernel options (didn't try this on SUSE, though). USB mouse works out-of-the-box with Kubuntu.
All in all, better user experience with kubuntu and slightly quicker installation as well.

[pest]

Re: Is there a better distro than Kubuntu?

I would have to say that SuSE 10 would be the best to try, followed by Mandriva 2006.

[axel_2078]

Re: Is there a better distro than Kubuntu?

I would say that Mepis 3.3.1 is a good distro. It's what I'm running as my primary OS now and I love it. My first linux distro was Mandrake 10.0, but its hardware detection was horrible and it wasn't as "newbie friendly" as everyone made it out to be. I also never got the hang of the urpmi thing. Then I tried Mepis and I've been hooked since. I love debian's apt-get system and it would be really hard for me to go back to any rpm distro.....although PCLinuxOS looks pretty nice.

[eMuNiX]

Re: Is there a better distro than Kubuntu?

I like YaST for SuSE but at the end of it all apt-get with any Deb based distro is the killer app, better than Portage for Gentoo/Vidalinux by a long mile (kilometre). I thought that portage was excellent but the plethora of packages that debian has can't be beaten. SuSE is great for its GUI, loves everything and is user friendly but (k)Ubuntu takes that and gives it more, on the command line. Just a shame that it isn't as n00b friendly as SuSE as that is where it excels. I have used most distros and personally will give a thumbs up for either SuSE or (k)Ubuntu dependent on whether you prefer GNOME or KDE but as a n0ob you won't yet know. I don't think that there is a best but SuSE and (k)Ubuntu stand head and shoulders above the rest. Both myself and Bandit have used or still use both and I think that we are in agreement (waves to Joe)

[joe.attaboy]

Re: Is there a better distro than Kubuntu?

Man, you guys must be a bunch of kids out here...

Let's see, my first Linux "distro" was a floppy disk download of Linux 0.12 from Linus' ftp server in Helsinki in 1992 (?). No dual boot. No GUI. Had to pull it down on my university's lab systems because dialup ftp was too slow. Especially between Florida and Helsinki.

All kidding aside, one the earliest serious distros I used was one I still use in some situations, and was one of the first ones avaialble: Slackware. It's now on version 10.3, and Patrick, the distro maintainer, has kept plugging along in spite of little profit and recent health issues.

Slackware is old school: the installation scripts run in ASCII/text mode. You can install everything or just the select packages you like. The Slackware packaging method is the old tar-gzip (tgz) format around which Patrick and others have developed some simple, yet effective package management tools. You really have to know what you have on your system and what you want to effectively install Slackware. In fact, even if you install a GUI like KDE or GNOME during the install, you arrive at a command line when you first boot. Starting X and a GUI is something you have to set manually, which would probably freak some people out.

I use it extensively at my job...for server installations. This is a perfect distro for this because the install routine allows you to select the packages you want up front via "groups". Then it installs only what you want. The boxes I install it on are usually running Apache, mySQL, and other services, with PHP and Perl for development. I don't need a GUI for them, since I access them remotely from my desk and I can edit files across the network using a Linux client or Windows.

Now, would I say Slackware is a better distro that Kubuntu (or any other, for that matter)? Nope. For the purposes I use it on the job, it's great. I've used it on my home system as well, and as a client on other machines at work. The big difference for me is that Slackware makes you work on your system, and forces you to have a better understanding of how Linux works under the hood. If you love to hack and like to know the nuts-and-bolts of things, this can be a good experience.

But, when I use my home or client machines at work, I want to install something that will give me more up front, such as a GIU, along with decent hardware detection. This is why the modern distros have improved so much. Right now, my favorite is Kubuntu (I have tried many others, including some of the ones mentioned here). Frankly, after sitting in front of computers at work all day, I really don't want to have to fight with my home system to make it do the stuff I do. These modern distros make that so much easier. When you reach my age (51), you want things to start getting easier.

We have it so much better now than back when I first used Linux 0.12. Boy, I never imgained we'd arrive where we are today.

[filterpunk]

Re: Is there a better distro than Kubuntu?

Honestly, i've found that you've really gotta try a distro for yourself to make any determinations about it.  Reviews from critics or other users will often vary wildly from your own impressions.

My detailed impressions are on my blog here on the forums, but I just shot through several other distros, just to see how they'd suit me.  Thus far, i've checked out Fedora Core, SuSE, Frugalware, Zenwalk, Red Hat, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Gentoo, and Kubuntu.  Out of that entire bunch, the only ones i'd consider using for a desktop turned out to be FreeBSD, Gentoo, and Kubuntu.  Given the time it takes to setup a regular desktop on FreeBSD and Gentoo, Kubuntu turned out to be the absolute best choice for me - especially after I discovered the joys of the Ubuntu Server install.

Read reviews out there, though, and you'll see countless people who've had a vastly different experience with all of the above.  Some people adore the distros that I felt were pure crap...some people (y'know, crazy ones ) thought Kubuntu was horrendous. Me, i'm happy, so who really cares what anyone else says about it?

As they say, YMMV.

[itsik]

Re: Is there a better distro than Kubuntu?

Filterpunk i think he found an answer, after all it is almost a year after,
what made you replay that just now?

[beast2k]

Re: Is there a better distro than Kubuntu?

In a word, no, there is nothing that works as well. However define "better". Ubuntu seems a bit more stable and a bit less buggy but Kubuntu has better graphics, eye candy and just seems a lot less boring than Ubuntu. Basicly Ubuntu comes close but it depends if you like KDE better than Gnome.

[kevmille]

Re: Is there a better distro than Kubuntu?

No questions asked, I consider Gentoo as one of my favorite distro for Linux. Unfortunately for me, work constraints means I no longer have time to manage a Gentoo box. I tested Kubuntu last year on a desktop and as a server and loved it. I am amazed at how far Kubuntu since I have tried it.

Last Saturday, I said goodbye to Gentoo and my AMD64 box and installed Kubuntu. I am not looking back.

[riot]

Re: Is there a better distro than Kubuntu?

For a server FreeBSD is the way to go, or Solaris if you have a SPARC machine -- runs on x86 too but not as well.

For a desktop any Debian-derived distro will do.

[kit89]

Re: Is there a better distro than Kubuntu?

Kubuntu is an excellent distro.

To answer your question which distro is better than Kubuntu, is all up to what you like & want. There is no specific better distro out there.