[BenF]

Hey Linux'ers!

So, after a lot of research and reading the Linux threads, I've decided to switch to a Linux system for general daily use. I know Linux distros aren't great on the gaming side of things, which is why I'm going to keep Win7 for gaming purposes and a Linux distro for other things.
To be honest, I only ever play either League of Legends or Steam games, and not much else, and seeing Steam is going Linux-style for some of it's games, It leaves just LoL.

Anyway, just wanted to ask, what would you guys recommend for an OS for general use, something that has nice UI customization, not to hard to fiddle with, and most of all, fun to play around with. I like to enjoy playing around with the features and learn something from it at the same time.
Any personal views on a specific distro is welcome.

Oh, I did the Linux distro test, and both OpenSUSE and Mint peeked my interest, from the UI perspective anyway.

Note: Not sure if this is the appropriate place for this, as it's not a problem, but at the time, I couldn't find the "General discussion" area.

 

[sobeit]

your profile shows you are using ubuntu12.04 - it is a good linux distro for daily use. Also both opensus and mint are great too. You would not go wrong with any of them.

 

[BenF]

Yeah I am, kinda forgot about mentioning that. I have found Ubuntu (from 9.10 up to 12.04) to be a real nice OS, and very simple to use. It's just that I've got bored with it, and I never really used it much since installing it, which was more for college purposes than home use.
Also, I would like to explore other Linux distros before sticking with a specific one, and so far, Ubuntu is the only Linux system I have really used.

 

[hal8000]

Have a look at PCLinuxOS. It is the only linux with a control centre similar to windows
that you can configure just about all hardware.

PCLinux also produce a free magazine, sample page below with control centre screenshots. Control centre is still similar in current version

PCLinuxOS Magazine - HTML

Distrowatch shows the top 100 distros:

DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.

You can search google image to see how they look.

 

[BenF]

Just had a look at PCLinuxOS, and it seems to come with most of the apps I usually use, among other very handy tools (like the Control centre you mentioned). Also noticed that you don't need to reinstall it again to get the latest release on your system. Which is a change from Ubuntu, where I had to reinstall everything because the updater didn't work, for some reason.

Also, it's nice to see that it has a strong and helpful community at it's back. But I guess a lot of Linux distros have that anyway. Oh, and the Nvidia and ATI graphic support is perfect.

I'll give it a go. Thanks!

 

[hal8000]

I think you will like PCLOS. It is perhaps the easiest distribution and originally a fork from
Mandrake, uses some of the best features of other distros, synaptic (from Debian and older Ubuntu's) to install software and of course perhaps the most comprehensive control center of any distro.
Its a rolling release so you dont have to re-install just reload the repositories and kepp your system up to date. The only package that wont update is the kernel, you can choose 2.6.38 or 3.2.18 Both work well without problems and should work with all your hardware.
Hope that helps

 

[BenF]

Yeah, I'm going to test it first with various other distros on VirtualBox before making my decision.

There was one question that came up when I was roaming the Internet for some info on PCLOS. I noticed in a review that the support for 64-bit systems is quite new, or hasn't come out yet, but still works perfectly (unless I read it wrong, which is probably the case...).

Also, since you mentioned the kernel version, is there any difference between them or does it not matter?, I assume the latest .iso release has the 3.2.18.

Thanks for the extra info.

 

[hal8000]

I think latest ISO still uses kernel 2.6.38 but the later kernel 3.2.18 includes support for more hardware, however 2.6.38 will still support a great deal. I cant remember how many kernel modules (drivers) a 2.6. kernel supports but think its over 5,000.

64bit support is new for PClinux, but like all 64bit OS can also run 32bit applications. 64bit will not nececcarily run faster unless the app has been wrote specificly for 64 bit.

Test it on virtualbox but you wont see full speed or power until its installed on native linux
partitions on same hardware.