Recommended Linux Distribution for Current Mandriva 2011.0 User

[Thomas Milne]

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 9:32 PM, Brad Fonseca <linuxbrad-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I'm hoping the folks on this list might be able to help me with a
> suggestion. I'm looking to move to a new Linux distribution.
>
> I have been using the Mandriva distribution for a number years since it
> was called Mandrake and it was in version 8.0. Recently, I have been
> happily using Mandriva 2011.0 ("Hydrogen"). I just discovered that the home
> user version of Mandriva (Mandriva Powerpack 20xx) is no longer being
> supported or updated (my update manager is no longer receiving updates) as
> it has reached its end of life. In addition, Mandriva has taken the
> decision to focus on their corporate products and are no longer producing a
> home version.
>
> I have determined that there are a couple forks that have started since
> the Open Mandriva (http://www.openmandriva.org), which just got started
> earlier this year, and Mageia (http://www.mageia.org), which started in
> September 2010 and has had two major releases.
>
> Now that you have the background, I have a few questions that I'm hoping
> to have answered:
>
> 1. What is this group's opinion of either Open Mandriva or Mageia? Would
> it make sense to move to one of these distributions seeing as they are
> forks of a distribution I am very familiar with?
>
> 2. If I wanted to try a new distribution what is the recommendation of
> this group? I would like a distribution that will be the least troublesome
> (e.g. stable) and will support the most peripherals. I use Chrome as my
> browser so I don't expect too much issue there. I'm a hobby coder so having
> access to a decent set of IDEs would be nice, especially ones supporting
> Python. I currently use Dr. Python as I like the interface and I'm really
> just trying to practise things I'm learning in Python currently. Having an
> IDE that would support other programming languages would be nice too. I'm
> used to using a "Package Manager" to both update my system and add new
> applications so I would prefer to use a distribution that provides this
> feature
>
> Any suggestions would be very much appreciated. I know the discussion can
> get quite heated when it comes to favoured distributions. I hoping that the
> suggestions put forward will take into account my few requirements.
>
> Thanks,
>
>
I used to use Mandriva, many eons ago it seems now.

I tried Ubuntu, but didn't like it. The whole 'release' thing was exactly
what I hated about Mandriva. I wanted something, as you describe it, 'least
troublesome'. There is only one that really exemplifies that description:
Debian. In particular, Debian Unstable is really really great. Unstable, it
really needs to be mentioned, does NOT refer to it's behaviour. Unstable
means that the packages can change a lot, ie. there will sometimes be a lot
of updates. Anyone who runs Debian can tell you, they literally never have
the slightest problem with updates. I ran a Debian Unstable on my desktop
for years and years and never had an issue (excluding the ones I caused
myself of course, I am not an expert or anything).

Debian. Seriously. It's the best. Not a fanboy, have nothing against any
other distro or what they might want to achieve, but if you want zero
trouble, Debian is the one.

-- 
Thomas Milne
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