Package conflict was known as “RPM Hell” for a reason.
Any Suggestions for a Linux distro?
- Thread starter Swirling Snow
- Start date
loopfinding
Poster Extraordinaire
The thing I would caution with Ubuntu is that the LTS isn’t “stable” in the Debian sense of the word (kernel/official repositories fixed for the 2 years of the release). They turned the HWE stack on by default after version 20. So updates may break things like drivers.
I don’t know how user friendly gnome or xfce Debian is for a novice (I don’t use a DE) but in general Debian is the safest bet as far as things not breaking. If you successfully installed it and all you do is run apt updates it will pretty much work forever.
I don’t know how user friendly gnome or xfce Debian is for a novice (I don’t use a DE) but in general Debian is the safest bet as far as things not breaking. If you successfully installed it and all you do is run apt updates it will pretty much work forever.
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archetype
Fiend of Leo's
Sometime around 1995-1996 my boss and I negotiated with Bob Young on a contract for the first physical CD distribution of Redhat. Macmillan Software distributed it for a year, which was the contract lifespan we'd assumed. Redhat figured out how to finance and distribute it themselves, after that.
Bob was a fun guy. Yes, he wore a red fedora, but I think it was mainly a prop. I ran across his business card while sorting some a couple of weeks back.
Got my start with RedHat in the 90s, I had Cobalt Raq servers collocated with what was then Valueweb in Ft Lauderdale. The Raq servers ran a customized version of Red Hat. As I expanded, I moved on to an AT&T facility with a full cabinet of Dell servers and a lone VA Linux box running Red Hat Enterprise Linux and their Stronghold Web Server. I did some ecommerce and hosting. Those were the days. Lived in Orlando and commuted to Miami when I needed to. I could manage most of it remotely.
metalicaster
Friend of Leo's
I'm also a Linux to macOS convert. It's crazy, I can just use the thing and it works! Uptime is as long as Apple leaves it between major updates, never shorter. I can even use most of the same tools.
archetype
Fiend of Leo's
I didn't run Linux or Unix for my personal machines, but I had a dedicated box that I'd wipe and install RedHat, Debian, FreeBSD, or whatever. I was a Technical Editor for QUE Corp for years and was always installing some kind of unstable beta version of OS or application software, whatever a given book was being written about.
My personal favorite is still FreeBSD. That's a rock solid OS. I'm a command line guy, generally.
IowaTeleGuy
TDPRI Member
Favorite terminal emulators?
Yeah, straight out of Berkeley, not via Finland.
I used to allow myself the luxury of buying premade distribution sets on CDs from Cheapbytes.com. I think they're history now.
Dadzmad
Tele-Meister
I was a Fedora user for a number of years but have moved to a debian stable with an XFCE desktop instaled with the SolydX distro. This was started by a Linux Mint Debian user group when they dropped XFCE. The difference is that graphic, sound, and other things missing in plain Debian is included. It's basically an easy install for a lightweight XFCE desktop running on Debian stable with much of the stuff you always add pre installed. Not a large community but a nice nitche if you like XFCE.
Swirling Snow
Tele-Afflicted
Thanks, everyone, for all the suggestions.
I think I've settled on Ardour for a DAW. Now I just have to decide if the pride of running something like Drauger is worth the "Oh, no, I want to record and it won't boot!" moments. Never mind cancer warnings, why doesn't California make everyone announce the possible danger of high blood pressure?
I think I've settled on Ardour for a DAW. Now I just have to decide if the pride of running something like Drauger is worth the "Oh, no, I want to record and it won't boot!" moments. Never mind cancer warnings, why doesn't California make everyone announce the possible danger of high blood pressure?
joe.attaboy
Tele-Meister
I'm a big fan of Kubuntu, the KDE version. I used to love the Mint distro wit KDE, but the main Mint group dropped it and it's getting less support. The interface is infinitely configurable and includes a lot of excellent tools built specifically for KDE.
I'm like you...I first downloaded Linus's images from his server at Funet, when Linux was just a shell and some tools. Slackware was the first real distro I used, and it had KDE pretty early, which is why it's still my fave.
Len058
Tele-Meister
I'd go for Ubuntu Studio if you want the easy way to do recording and other multimedia stuff. I didn't like Ardour but Reaper works on Linux. It's not in the package manager/repository system but you're experienced enough to figure it out, I gues.
Ubuntu Studio installs with all the creative tools that will get you started. It also has some optimized kernel features for multimedia.
I started with Suse, went to Kubuntu and later Gentoo. I really needed some windows programs for Video-editing so I switched. I tried Ubuntu Studio a few times, liked it but some stuff will not work or have serious limitations.
Ubuntu Studio installs with all the creative tools that will get you started. It also has some optimized kernel features for multimedia.
I started with Suse, went to Kubuntu and later Gentoo. I really needed some windows programs for Video-editing so I switched. I tried Ubuntu Studio a few times, liked it but some stuff will not work or have serious limitations.
edvard
Friend of Leo's
One thing to look out for that I forgot to mention is that many distros have gone to Pipewire for their audio stack, and some programs now have a hard dependency on it. Like pulseaudio before it, isn't quite ready for prime time quite yet, at least the Jack implementation isn't. If your distro lets you stick with vanilla Alsa/Pulse/Jack, great. If not, at least try to stick with regular ol' Jack2. It works so much better than Pipewire's attempt at it.
Ardour is a good choice for a DAW, as it just works, despite being a bit memory-heavy. Qtractor is a distant second, as much as I'd like to like it, it keeps crashing at inopportune times and its routing is a bit screwy. I keep trying every so often, and it has improved, but every time I find myself mumbling under my breath "Aaaalmost... Maybe next time..."
Oh well ...... these things tend to happen when not following my recommendations.
DAW? ... Ardour: complex and fully spec'd. Audacity: simple and usable within its limits.
I prefer simple.
I started with Linux Mint Mate and I like it a lot. Mate reminds me of Windows XP. My current machine is running Majaro KDE Plasma, and to tell the truth, I like Mint better. Manjaro is a rolling release based on Arch and sometimes the updates break things. I started using it because my stepson built me a cutting edge machine and at the time I was afraid that Mint wasn't up to date enough to run the hardware. Now I could probably switch back to Mint.
Most of these distros can be live installed from a CD or a thumb drive. You can boot from the portable media and try it out to see if you like it and if it works on your machine. If you like it and it works, click on "Install." It is also possible to dual boot Windows and Linux so that you choose the OS at startup. That kind of install is complicated, but it can be done. I did it for a while, but I finally gave up on Windows entirely.
Also, Reaper now runs native in Linux. When that happened, I blew away Win 7.
So I vote Mint.
Most of these distros can be live installed from a CD or a thumb drive. You can boot from the portable media and try it out to see if you like it and if it works on your machine. If you like it and it works, click on "Install." It is also possible to dual boot Windows and Linux so that you choose the OS at startup. That kind of install is complicated, but it can be done. I did it for a while, but I finally gave up on Windows entirely.
Also, Reaper now runs native in Linux. When that happened, I blew away Win 7.
So I vote Mint.
Or older Fedora
That's why I run Ubuntu Mate, it combines better "everything" compatibility of Ubuntu with good user interface.
